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1 | -- Gifts for Children -- |
2 | ||
3 | This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, | |
4 | because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months | |
5 | and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- | |
6 | morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children | |
7 | exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If | |
8 | your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You | |
9 | Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it | |
10 | might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe | |
11 | me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child | |
12 | who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. | |
13 | -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
14 | %% | |
15 | -- Gifts for Men -- | |
16 | ||
17 | Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professional | |
18 | ice hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But you | |
19 | should never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the | |
20 | clothes they will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For | |
21 | example, your average man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only | |
22 | three of them. He has learned, through humiliating trial and error, | |
23 | that if he wears any of the other 81 ties, his wife will probably laugh | |
24 | at him ("You're not going to wear THAT tie with that suit, are you?"). | |
25 | So he has narrowed it down to three safe ties, and has gone several | |
26 | years without being laughed at. If you give him a new tie, he will | |
27 | pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you. | |
28 | ||
29 | If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More | |
30 | than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set | |
31 | of tires. | |
32 | -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
33 | %% | |
34 | *** NEWSFLASH *** | |
35 | Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven! | |
36 | %% | |
37 | DELETE A FORTUNE! | |
38 | ||
39 | Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like | |
40 | to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to | |
41 | "fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure it | |
42 | gets expunged. | |
43 | %% | |
44 | Pittsburgh Driver's Test | |
45 | ||
46 | 7: The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail | |
47 | light but a steady left tail light. This means | |
48 | ||
49 | (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn | |
50 | to call the problem to the driver's attention. | |
51 | (b) the driver is signaling a right turn. | |
52 | (c) the driver is signaling a left turn. | |
53 | (d) the driver is from out of town. | |
54 | ||
55 | The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign | |
56 | countries to signal turns. | |
57 | %% | |
58 | Pittsburgh Driver's Test | |
59 | ||
60 | 8: Pedestrians are | |
61 | ||
62 | (a) irrelevant. | |
63 | (b) communists. | |
64 | (c) a nuisance. | |
65 | (d) difficult to clean off the front grille. | |
66 | ||
67 | The correct answer is (a). Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are | |
68 | totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely. | |
69 | %% | |
70 | Has your family tried 'em? | |
71 | ||
72 | POWDERMILK BISCUITS | |
73 | ||
74 | Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious! | |
75 | ||
76 | They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons | |
77 | the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. | |
78 | ||
79 | POWDERMILK BISCUITS | |
80 | ||
81 | Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of | |
82 | the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark | |
83 | stains that indicate freshness. | |
84 | %% | |
85 | THE STORY OF CREATION | |
86 | or | |
87 | THE MYTH OF URK | |
88 | ||
89 | In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, | |
90 | and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM | |
91 | was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be | |
92 | registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; | |
93 | and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data | |
94 | Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening | |
95 | and there was morning, one interrupt ... | |
96 | -- Rico Tudor | |
97 | %% | |
98 | JACK AND THE BEANSTACK | |
99 | by Mark Isaak | |
100 | ||
101 | Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL | |
102 | character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their | |
103 | hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices | |
104 | are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some | |
105 | BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it | |
106 | to him. | |
107 | So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path, | |
108 | he met the traveling salesman. | |
109 | "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman | |
110 | in high-level language. | |
111 | "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips | |
112 | and Apples," commented Jack. | |
113 | "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue | |
114 | there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." | |
115 | Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when | |
116 | he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she | |
117 | started thrashing. | |
118 | "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these | |
119 | kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the | |
120 | window ... | |
121 | %% | |
122 | A Severe Strain on the Credulity | |
123 | ||
124 | As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest | |
125 | parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket | |
126 | is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one | |
127 | considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one | |
128 | begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really | |
129 | starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor | |
130 | maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. | |
131 | Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing | |
132 | of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to | |
133 | re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum | |
134 | against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the | |
135 | knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. | |
136 | -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 | |
137 | %% | |
138 | AMAZING BUT TRUE ... | |
139 | ||
140 | If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end | |
141 | across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. | |
142 | %% | |
143 | AMAZING BUT TRUE ... | |
144 | ||
145 | There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it | |
146 | would completely cover the Sahara Desert. | |
147 | %% | |
148 | Another Glitch in the Call | |
149 | ------- ------ -- --- ---- | |
150 | (Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.) | |
151 | ||
152 | We don't need no indirection | |
153 | We don't need no flow control | |
154 | No data typing or declarations | |
155 | Did you leave the lists alone? | |
156 | ||
157 | Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone! | |
158 | ||
159 | Chorus: | |
160 | All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. | |
161 | All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. | |
162 | %% | |
163 | Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: | |
164 | ||
165 | 1. None. (Moses didn't have an ark). | |
166 | 2. Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. | |
167 | 3. I don't know. | |
168 | 4. Who cares? | |
169 | 5. 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, | |
170 | Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. | |
171 | 6. There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my | |
172 | book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and | |
173 | bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of | |
174 | Papyrus Books). | |
175 | %% | |
176 | DETERIORATA | |
177 | ||
178 | Go placidly amid the noise and waste, | |
179 | And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. | |
180 | Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. | |
181 | Rotate your tires. | |
182 | Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, | |
183 | And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. | |
184 | Know what to kiss -- and when. | |
185 | Remember that two wrongs never make a right, | |
186 | But that three do. | |
187 | Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD". | |
188 | Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, | |
189 | And despite the changing fortunes of time, | |
190 | There is always a big future in computer maintenance. | |
191 | ||
192 | You are a fluke of the universe ... | |
193 | You have no right to be here. | |
194 | Whether you can hear it or not, the universe | |
195 | Is laughing behind your back. | |
196 | -- National Lampoon | |
197 | %% | |
198 | Gimmie That Old Time Religion | |
199 | We will follow Zarathustra, We will worship like the Druids, | |
200 | Zarathustra like we use to, Dancing naked in the woods, | |
201 | I'm a Zarathustra booster, Drinking strange fermented fluids, | |
202 | And he's good enough for me! And it's good enough for me! | |
203 | (chorus) (chorus) | |
204 | ||
205 | In the church of Aphrodite, | |
206 | The priestess wears a see through nightie, | |
207 | She's a mighty righteous sightie, | |
208 | And she's good enough for me! | |
209 | (chorus) | |
210 | ||
211 | CHORUS: Give me that old time religion, | |
212 | Give me that old time religion, | |
213 | Give me that old time religion, | |
214 | 'Cause it's good enough for me! | |
215 | %% | |
216 | MORE SPORTS RESULTS: | |
217 | The Beverly Hills Freudians tied the Chicago Rogerians 0-0 last | |
218 | Saturday night. The match started with a long period of silence while | |
219 | the Freudians waited for the Rogerians to free associate and the | |
220 | Rogerians waited for the Freudians to say something they could | |
221 | paraphrase. The stalemate was broken when the Freudians' best player | |
222 | took the offensive and interpreted the Rogerians' silence as reflecting | |
223 | their anal-retentive personalities. At this the Rogerians' star player | |
224 | said "I hear you saying you think we're full of ka-ka." This started a | |
225 | fight and the match was called by officials. | |
226 | %% | |
227 | Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence | |
228 | 1. Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear | |
229 | bomb; use the stairs. | |
230 | 2. When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit | |
231 | the ground. | |
232 | 3. If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials. | |
233 | 4. Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to | |
234 | psychological problems. | |
235 | 5. Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to recognize | |
236 | foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed potatoes, | |
237 | shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc. | |
238 | 6. Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs will | |
239 | be scarce in the post-nuclear age. | |
240 | 7. Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles. | |
241 | 8. Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be | |
242 | staggering illegally. | |
243 | 9. Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more | |
244 | sanitary due to limited circulation. | |
245 | 10. Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on | |
246 | D-Day. | |
247 | %% | |
248 | The STAR WARS Song | |
249 | Sung to the tune of "Lola", by the Kinks: | |
250 | ||
251 | I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah | |
252 | Where it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda | |
253 | S-O-D-A soda | |
254 | I saw the little runt sitting there on a log | |
255 | I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda | |
256 | Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda | |
257 | ||
258 | Well I've been around but I ain't never seen | |
259 | A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green | |
260 | Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda | |
261 | Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand | |
262 | How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand | |
263 | Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda | |
264 | %% | |
265 | 'Twas the Night before Crisis | |
266 | ||
267 | 'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house, | |
268 | Not a program was working not even a browse. | |
269 | The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care, | |
270 | Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer. | |
271 | The users were nestled all snug in their beds, | |
272 | While visions of inquiries danced in their heads. | |
273 | When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter, | |
274 | I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter. | |
275 | And what to my wondering eyes should appear, | |
276 | But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear. | |
277 | More rapid than eagles, his programs they came, | |
278 | And he whistled and shouted and called them by name; | |
279 | On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete! | |
280 | On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete! | |
281 | His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean, | |
282 | From Weekends and nights in front of a screen. | |
283 | A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, | |
284 | Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread... | |
285 | %% | |
286 | William Safire's Rules for Writers: | |
287 | ||
288 | Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never | |
289 | be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to | |
290 | agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words | |
291 | out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal | |
292 | of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must | |
293 | not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a | |
294 | conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a | |
295 | sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as | |
296 | close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more | |
297 | words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles | |
298 | must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a | |
299 | linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing | |
300 | metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should | |
301 | be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their | |
302 | writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows | |
303 | the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek | |
304 | viable alternatives. | |
305 | %% | |
306 | (to "The Caissons Go Rolling Along") | |
307 | Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug | |
308 | Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug | |
309 | And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. | |
310 | Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all, | |
311 | Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall | |
312 | And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. | |
313 | And we've also found Just flip one switch | |
314 | When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch | |
315 | You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble | |
316 | in a flash. | |
317 | Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU | |
318 | Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo," | |
319 | And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash. | |
320 | %% | |
321 | A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling | |
322 | by Mark Twain | |
323 | ||
324 | For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped | |
325 | to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer | |
326 | be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained | |
327 | would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 | |
328 | might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the | |
329 | same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with | |
330 | "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. | |
331 | Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear | |
332 | with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 | |
333 | or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. | |
334 | Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi | |
335 | ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz | |
336 | ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. | |
337 | Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud | |
338 | hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. | |
339 | %% | |
340 | ... This striving for excellence extends into people's | |
341 | personal lives as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the | |
342 | best one, as determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. | |
343 | Eighties people buy imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking | |
344 | soda. If an '80s couple goes to a restaurant where they have made a | |
345 | reservation three weeks in advance, and they are informed that their | |
346 | table is available, they stalk out immediately, because they know it is | |
347 | not an excellent restaurant. If it were, it would have an enormous | |
348 | crowd of excellence-oriented people like themselves waiting, their | |
349 | beepers going off like crickets in the night. An excellent restaurant | |
350 | wouldn't have a table ready immediately for anybody below the rank of | |
351 | Liza Minnelli. | |
352 | -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" | |
353 | %% | |
354 | A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was | |
355 | eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality | |
356 | test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." | |
357 | Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into | |
358 | the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". | |
359 | %% | |
360 | A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing | |
361 | about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their | |
362 | arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon | |
363 | the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because | |
364 | Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply | |
365 | incredible surgical feat." | |
366 | The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the | |
367 | Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of | |
368 | that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an | |
369 | architect." | |
370 | The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said, | |
371 | "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" | |
372 | %% | |
373 | A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The | |
374 | first thing he notices is that the arms are too long. | |
375 | "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow | |
376 | and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine." | |
377 | "But the collar is up around my ears!" | |
378 | "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a | |
379 | little more ... that's it." | |
380 | "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation. | |
381 | "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you | |
382 | go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly." | |
383 | So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the | |
384 | street. Reba and Florence see him go by. | |
385 | "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!" | |
386 | "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit." | |
387 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
388 | %% | |
389 | A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at | |
390 | the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the | |
391 | pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite | |
392 | nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if ..." | |
393 | "If what?" asked the composer. | |
394 | "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?" | |
395 | %% | |
396 | A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came | |
397 | upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. | |
398 | "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow | |
399 | man". | |
400 | As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well, | |
401 | he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing." | |
402 | %% | |
403 | AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18) | |
404 | You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie | |
405 | a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and | |
406 | impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over | |
407 | again. People think you are stupid. | |
408 | %% | |
409 | ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19) | |
410 | You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You are | |
411 | quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are not very | |
412 | nice. | |
413 | %% | |
414 | After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from | |
415 | Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, | |
416 | and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon | |
417 | to be created." | |
418 | "This is true," He replied. | |
419 | "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. | |
420 | "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the | |
421 | right to make his laws?" | |
422 | "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make | |
423 | his own." | |
424 | It was so granted. | |
425 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
426 | %% | |
427 | An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity | |
428 | in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. | |
429 | "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if | |
430 | you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like | |
431 | an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an | |
432 | hour seems like a minute." | |
433 | The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a | |
434 | moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?" | |
435 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
436 | %% | |
437 | "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" | |
438 | asked the father of his little son. | |
439 | "Diet." | |
440 | %% | |
441 | CANCER (June 21 - July 22) | |
442 | You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. They | |
443 | think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why | |
444 | you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare recipients are | |
445 | Cancer people. | |
446 | %% | |
447 | CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19) | |
448 | You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do much of | |
449 | anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any | |
450 | importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as | |
451 | they take root and become trees. | |
452 | %% | |
453 | COMMENT | |
454 | ||
455 | Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, | |
456 | A medley of extemporanea; | |
457 | And love is thing that can never go wrong; | |
458 | And I am Marie of Roumania. | |
459 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
460 | %% | |
461 | Deck Us All With Boston Charlie | |
462 | ||
463 | Deck us all with Boston Charlie, | |
464 | Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo! | |
465 | Nora's freezin' on the trolley, | |
466 | Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo! | |
467 | ||
468 | Don't we know archaic barrel, | |
469 | Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou. | |
470 | Trolley Molly don't love Harold, | |
471 | Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! | |
472 | -- Walt Kelly | |
473 | %% | |
474 | "Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all | |
475 | sorts of marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got | |
476 | a theory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah, | |
477 | those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly | |
478 | blessed. | |
479 | -- Randy Davis | |
480 | %% | |
481 | During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen | |
482 | were blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a | |
483 | red-faced country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted, | |
484 | "Hey, you almost hit my wife." | |
485 | "Did I?" cried the hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a | |
486 | shot at mine, over there." | |
487 | %% | |
488 | Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping | |
489 | mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as | |
490 | "Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you | |
491 | how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence", | |
492 | "Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night | |
493 | So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc. | |
494 | -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" | |
495 | %% | |
496 | FIGHTING WORDS | |
497 | ||
498 | Say my love is easy had, | |
499 | Say I'm bitten raw with pride, | |
500 | Say I am too often sad -- | |
501 | Still behold me at your side. | |
502 | ||
503 | Say I'm neither brave nor young, | |
504 | Say I woo and coddle care, | |
505 | Say the devil touched my tongue -- | |
506 | Still you have my heart to wear. | |
507 | ||
508 | But say my verses do not scan, | |
509 | And I get me another man! | |
510 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
511 | %% | |
512 | Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each | |
513 | other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around | |
514 | the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors | |
515 | d'oeuvres. | |
516 | Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes | |
517 | to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your | |
518 | Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright | |
519 | piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres. | |
520 | Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with | |
521 | inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down | |
522 | other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and | |
523 | placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when | |
524 | the little hammers strike. | |
525 | Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over | |
526 | their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning | |
527 | Christmas tree. The piano is missing. | |
528 | ||
529 | You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless | |
530 | you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level | |
531 | 4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog. | |
532 | %% | |
533 | "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence | |
534 | of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind." | |
535 | ||
536 | "Whose?" | |
537 | ||
538 | "MINE! HA-HA!" | |
539 | %% | |
540 | GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) | |
541 | You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you | |
542 | are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much for too | |
543 | little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for committing | |
544 | incest. | |
545 | %% | |
546 | GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (#21) -- July 30, 1917 | |
547 | ||
548 | On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then- | |
549 | Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought them | |
550 | off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought I | |
551 | wouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from his | |
552 | mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs in a | |
553 | tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service men | |
554 | stood lookout. | |
555 | %% | |
556 | "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at Morse Science High has an | |
557 | extracurricular activity except you." | |
558 | "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?" | |
559 | "Only to ten, Mudhead." | |
560 | ||
561 | -- Firesign Theater | |
562 | %% | |
563 | Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the | |
564 | month. According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people | |
565 | are experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China. | |
566 | The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either | |
567 | (depending on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax | |
568 | tadpole". | |
569 | Bite the wax tadpole. | |
570 | There is a sort of rough justice, is there not? | |
571 | The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's | |
572 | hard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to | |
573 | bite a wax tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad, | |
574 | but broad satiric vistas do not open up. | |
575 | -- John Carrol, San Francisco Chronicle | |
576 | %% | |
577 | "I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frodo in a quavering | |
578 | voice. | |
579 | "No," Said Gandalf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, of | |
580 | course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which | |
581 | I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in | |
582 | Elven-lore: | |
583 | ||
584 | "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves, | |
585 | Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves. | |
586 | Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop, | |
587 | This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop. | |
588 | The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring. | |
589 | The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing. | |
590 | If broken or busted, it cannot be remade. | |
591 | If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)." | |
592 | %% | |
593 | "I don't know what you mean by `glory,'" Alice said | |
594 | Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't-- | |
595 | till I tell you. I meant `there's a nice knock-down argument for | |
596 | you!'" | |
597 | "But glory doesn't mean `a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice | |
598 | objected. | |
599 | "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful | |
600 | tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor | |
601 | less." | |
602 | "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean | |
603 | so many different things." | |
604 | "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-- | |
605 | that's all." | |
606 | -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
607 | %% | |
608 | "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of | |
609 | that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put | |
610 | more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it | |
611 | might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not | |
612 | otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be | |
613 | otherwise.'" | |
614 | -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" | |
615 | %% | |
616 | INVENTORY | |
617 | Four be the things I am wiser to know: | |
618 | Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe. | |
619 | ||
620 | Four be the things I'd been better without: | |
621 | Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt. | |
622 | ||
623 | Three be the things I shall never attain: | |
624 | Envy, content, and sufficient champagne. | |
625 | ||
626 | Three be the things I shall have till I die: | |
627 | Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. | |
628 | %% | |
629 | In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, | |
630 | junior, what are you up to?" | |
631 | "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the | |
632 | rabbit. | |
633 | "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!" | |
634 | "Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the | |
635 | rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied | |
636 | expression on his face. | |
637 | Comes along a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?" | |
638 | "I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits | |
639 | devour wolves." | |
640 | "Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?" | |
641 | "Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes | |
642 | out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw. | |
643 | Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody | |
644 | should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion sitting | |
645 | next to some bloody and furry remnants of the wolf and the fox. | |
646 | ||
647 | The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important -- | |
648 | it's your PhD advisor that really counts. | |
649 | %% | |
650 | It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your | |
651 | parents will not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all | |
652 | to themselves and because in the presence of your friend, they will | |
653 | have to act like mature human beings ... | |
654 | -- Playboy, January 1983 | |
655 | %% | |
656 | It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east | |
657 | laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. The | |
658 | thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle, | |
659 | nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying | |
660 | for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's. | |
661 | Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating | |
662 | under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting | |
663 | icepacks. | |
664 | -- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" | |
665 | %% | |
666 | LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) | |
667 | You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. Most | |
668 | Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike honest criticism. | |
669 | Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieves. | |
670 | %% | |
671 | LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22) | |
672 | You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If | |
673 | you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for employment | |
674 | and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women are prostitutes. | |
675 | All Libra people die of Venereal disease. | |
676 | %% | |
677 | Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she | |
678 | lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always | |
679 | getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to | |
680 | the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their | |
681 | sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do | |
682 | you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her? | |
683 | What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead | |
684 | of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under | |
685 | the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops | |
686 | whatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, which | |
687 | Lassie filed the applications for. | |
688 | -- Dave Barry | |
689 | %% | |
690 | Love's Drug | |
691 | ||
692 | My love is like an iron wand | |
693 | That conks me on the head, | |
694 | My love is like the valium | |
695 | That I take before me bed, | |
696 | My love is like the pint of scotch | |
697 | That I drink when i be dry; | |
698 | And I shall love thee still my dear, | |
699 | Until my wife is wise. | |
700 | %% | |
701 | Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring | |
702 | Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping | |
703 | pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret | |
704 | military installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray and | |
705 | Esther and hustle them off to prison. | |
706 | They can't prove who they are because they've left their | |
707 | passports in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day | |
708 | and night to get them to name their contacts in the liberation | |
709 | movement.. Finally they're hauled in front of a military court, | |
710 | charged with espionage, and sentenced to death. | |
711 | The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where | |
712 | they'll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them | |
713 | if they have any lasts requests. Esther wants to know if she can call | |
714 | her daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not | |
715 | possible, and turns to Murray. | |
716 | "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he | |
717 | spits in the sergeants face. | |
718 | "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble." | |
719 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
720 | %% | |
721 | On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in | |
722 | receipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day's | |
723 | income was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than | |
724 | $283 on the desk before the cashier. | |
725 | "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. That | |
726 | route never brought in money like this! What happened?" | |
727 | "Well, after three days on that cockamamie route, I figured | |
728 | business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and | |
729 | worked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!" | |
730 | %% | |
731 | Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a | |
732 | great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to | |
733 | the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of | |
734 | life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But | |
735 | one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is | |
736 | going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I | |
737 | shall die of boredom." | |
738 | The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that | |
739 | current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the | |
740 | rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" | |
741 | But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, | |
742 | and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. | |
743 | Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current | |
744 | lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. | |
745 | And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, | |
746 | "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the | |
747 | Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current | |
748 | said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us | |
749 | free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this | |
750 | adventure. | |
751 | But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to | |
752 | the rocks, making legends of a Saviour. | |
753 | %% | |
754 | One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How | |
755 | enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? | |
756 | Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many | |
757 | years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. | |
758 | Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple | |
759 | language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for | |
760 | students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for | |
761 | interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of | |
762 | its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on | |
763 | VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. | |
764 | It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will | |
765 | run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and | |
766 | will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. | |
767 | With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and | |
768 | quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With | |
769 | VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of | |
770 | documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the | |
771 | difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS | |
772 | is that it's all there. | |
773 | -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984 | |
774 | %% | |
775 | PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) | |
776 | You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed by | |
777 | the CIA or FBI. You have minor influence over your associates and | |
778 | people resent your flaunting of your power. You lack confidence and | |
779 | you are generally a coward. Pisces people do terrible things to small | |
780 | animals. | |
781 | %% | |
782 | "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" | |
783 | Candy | |
784 | Is dandy | |
785 | But liquor | |
786 | Is quicker. | |
787 | -- Ogden Nash | |
788 | %% | |
789 | SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21) | |
790 | You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless tendency to | |
791 | rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority of Sagittarians are | |
792 | drunks or dope fiends or both. People laugh at you a great deal. | |
793 | %% | |
794 | SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21) | |
795 | You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will achieve the | |
796 | pinnacle of success because of your total lack of ethics. Most Scorpio | |
797 | people are murdered. | |
798 | %% | |
799 | "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated | |
800 | thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY | |
801 | advice, I'd have said `Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now." | |
802 | "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly. | |
803 | "Too proud?" the other enquired. | |
804 | Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," | |
805 | she said, "that one can't help growing older." | |
806 | "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With | |
807 | proper assistance, you might have left off at seven." | |
808 | -- Lewis Carroll | |
809 | %% | |
810 | TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20) | |
811 | You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged determination and | |
812 | work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bull headed. | |
813 | You are a Communist. | |
814 | %% | |
815 | THE WOMBAT | |
816 | ||
817 | The wombat lives across the seas, | |
818 | Among the far Antipodes. | |
819 | He may exist on nuts and berries, | |
820 | Or then again, on missionaries; | |
821 | His distant habitat precludes | |
822 | Conclusive knowledge of his moods. | |
823 | But I would not engage the wombat | |
824 | In any form of mortal combat. | |
825 | %% | |
826 | THEORY | |
827 | Into love and out again, | |
828 | Thus I went and thus I go. | |
829 | Spare your voice, and hold your pen: | |
830 | Well and bitterly I know | |
831 | All the songs were ever sung, | |
832 | All the words were ever said; | |
833 | Could it be, when I was young, | |
834 | Someone dropped me on my head? | |
835 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
836 | %% | |
837 | Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content | |
838 | to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good | |
839 | beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up | |
840 | drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a | |
841 | nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves | |
842 | and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" So | |
843 | Coca-Cola was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw | |
844 | no need to improve ... | |
845 | -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" | |
846 | %% | |
847 | The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the | |
848 | klutz said, "Life is like a bowl of sour cream." | |
849 | ||
850 | "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?" | |
851 | ||
852 | "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?" | |
853 | %% | |
854 | The people of Halifax invented the trampoline. During the | |
855 | Victorian period the tripe-dressers of Halifax stretched tripe across a | |
856 | large wooden frame and jumped up and down on it to `tender and dress' | |
857 | it. The tripoline, as they called it, degenerated into becoming the | |
858 | apparatus for a spectator sport. | |
859 | ||
860 | The people of Halifax also invented the harmonium, a device for | |
861 | castrating pigs during Sunday service. | |
862 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
863 | %% | |
864 | The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood | |
865 | as he reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all. | |
866 | The Gray Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in | |
867 | the palace of Gilpkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts in | |
868 | twenty-five of him are dead, he is alive. | |
869 | ||
870 | "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached | |
871 | everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a | |
872 | fierce host which out-numbers Lankhamar's inhabitants by fifty to one | |
873 | -- and equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city." | |
874 | ||
875 | "How?" demanded Fafhrd. | |
876 | ||
877 | Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know." | |
878 | -- Fritz Leiber, from "The Swords of Lankhmar" | |
879 | %% | |
880 | There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that | |
881 | someone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew named | |
882 | Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or | |
883 | Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that | |
884 | every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is | |
885 | this? | |
886 | Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for | |
887 | centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think ___\b\b\b\byou | |
888 | can find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it's | |
889 | forbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster | |
890 | -- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don't | |
891 | even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover | |
892 | why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance. | |
893 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
894 | %% | |
895 | Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire | |
896 | rainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better | |
897 | than he does. | |
898 | As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about | |
899 | it. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily | |
900 | sane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we | |
901 | consider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is | |
902 | being eaten alive by tinhorn politicians. | |
903 | The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can | |
904 | do for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his | |
905 | honor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can | |
906 | be as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public | |
907 | relations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter | |
908 | Thompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes. | |
909 | This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease. | |
910 | -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt | |
911 | from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear | |
912 | and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" | |
913 | %% | |
914 | To A Quick Young Fox: | |
915 | Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp, | |
916 | Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice? | |
917 | Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp -- | |
918 | Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice. | |
919 | -- Lazy Dog | |
920 | %% | |
921 | VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22) | |
922 | You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is | |
923 | sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and sometimes | |
924 | fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus drivers. | |
925 | %% | |
926 | "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past | |
927 | year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley | |
928 | reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their | |
929 | artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue | |
930 | moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon | |
931 | Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the | |
932 | entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the | |
933 | sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips." | |
934 | ||
935 | "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. | |
936 | ||
937 | "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made | |
938 | good copy." | |
939 | -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" | |
940 | %% | |
941 | We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. | |
942 | But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle | |
943 | Haggard song at a French restaurant. ... | |
944 | I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of | |
945 | her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I | |
946 | had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone | |
947 | told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was | |
948 | lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he | |
949 | fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing | |
950 | what men must do. ... | |
951 | "Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible | |
952 | sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew | |
953 | not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a | |
954 | quiet and peace I will never forget. | |
955 | "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the | |
956 | tollway belle's for thee." | |
957 | The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was | |
958 | a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I | |
959 | poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day. | |
960 | -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway | |
961 | Competition | |
962 | %% | |
963 | "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty | |
964 | teenager asked her mother. | |
965 | "Encouragement, dear," she replied. | |
966 | %% | |
967 | "What's that thing?" | |
968 | "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in | |
969 | computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what | |
970 | it does. We call it a two-by-four." | |
971 | -- Jeff MacNelly, "Shoe" | |
972 | %% | |
973 | When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure | |
974 | clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer | |
975 | to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. | |
976 | In a way, the next move is up to him. | |
977 | -- R. A. Lafferty | |
978 | %% | |
979 | "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon | |
980 | airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in | |
981 | deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me | |
982 | when I was young!" | |
983 | "Why, what did she tell you?" | |
984 | "I don't know, I didn't listen!" | |
985 | -- Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
986 | %% | |
987 | ... And malt does more than Milton can | |
988 | To justify God's ways to man | |
989 | -- A. E. Housman | |
990 | %% | |
991 | ... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, | |
992 | my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any | |
993 | resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. | |
994 | The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold | |
995 | them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the | |
996 | existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god | |
997 | coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism | |
998 | is beyond the scope of this article.) | |
999 | %% | |
1000 | ... But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can | |
1001 | easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed | |
1002 | and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) | |
1003 | upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was | |
1004 | without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based | |
1005 | on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court | |
1006 | was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and | |
1007 | sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, | |
1008 | human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. | |
1009 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1010 | %% | |
1011 | ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human | |
1012 | intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as | |
1013 | we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues | |
1014 | that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding | |
1015 | of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard | |
1016 | example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- | |
1017 | makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing | |
1018 | whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a | |
1019 | finite or an infinite number. | |
1020 | -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds" | |
1021 | %% | |
1022 | ... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, | |
1023 | and you would not have been informed. | |
1024 | %% | |
1025 | ... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to | |
1026 | get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in | |
1027 | the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs | |
1028 | on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage | |
1029 | children emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a | |
1030 | snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn | |
1031 | to love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about | |
1032 | a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an | |
1033 | outcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does | |
1034 | he ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect | |
1035 | Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks | |
1036 | Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some | |
1037 | kind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want your | |
1038 | children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop | |
1039 | quickly. | |
1040 | -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
1041 | %% | |
1042 | ... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to you | |
1043 | with ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them. Holiday | |
1044 | shoppers have been whipped into a frenzy by months of holiday | |
1045 | advertisements, and they will buy anything small enough to stuff into a | |
1046 | shopping bag. If your children object to being tied, threaten to take | |
1047 | them to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them up. | |
1048 | -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
1049 | %% | |
1050 | ... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that | |
1051 | consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune | |
1052 | of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to | |
1053 | listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it. | |
1054 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
1055 | %% | |
1056 | "... all the modern inconveniences ..." | |
1057 | -- Mark Twain | |
1058 | %% | |
1059 | "... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often | |
1060 | picturesque liar." | |
1061 | -- Mark Twain | |
1062 | %% | |
1063 | ... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. | |
1064 | -- J. B. White | |
1065 | %% | |
1066 | ... if forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with | |
1067 | the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls | |
1068 | asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ... | |
1069 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
1070 | %% | |
1071 | !07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH | |
1072 | %% | |
1073 | (1) Alexander the Great was a great general. | |
1074 | (2) Great generals are forewarned. | |
1075 | (3) Forewarned is forearmed. | |
1076 | (4) Four is an even number. | |
1077 | (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. | |
1078 | (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. | |
1079 | ||
1080 | Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms. | |
1081 | %% | |
1082 | (1) Everything depends. | |
1083 | (2) Nothing is always. | |
1084 | (3) Everything is sometimes. | |
1085 | %% | |
1086 | $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at | |
1087 | which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. | |
1088 | -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
1089 | %% | |
1090 | 101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR | |
1091 | (1) Scarecrow for centipedes | |
1092 | (2) Dead cat brush | |
1093 | (3) Hair barrettes | |
1094 | (4) Cleats | |
1095 | (5) Self-piercing earrings | |
1096 | (6) Fungus trellis | |
1097 | (7) False eyelashes | |
1098 | (8) Prosthetic dog claws | |
1099 | . | |
1100 | . | |
1101 | . | |
1102 | (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors) | |
1103 | (100) Killer velcro | |
1104 | 101. Currency | |
1105 | %% | |
1106 | 186,282 miles per second: | |
1107 | ||
1108 | It isn't just a good idea, it's the law! | |
1109 | %% | |
1110 | $3,000,000 | |
1111 | %% | |
1112 | 355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible | |
1113 | simulation! | |
1114 | %% | |
1115 | 43rd Law of Computing: | |
1116 | Anything that can go wr | |
1117 | fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped | |
1118 | %% | |
1119 | 77. HO HUM -- The Redundant | |
1120 | ||
1121 | ------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme | |
1122 | --- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife | |
1123 | ------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working | |
1124 | ---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop | |
1125 | ---X--- (9) the GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates | |
1126 | --- --- (8) to nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex. | |
1127 | ||
1128 | Nine in the second place means: | |
1129 | The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune. | |
1130 | ||
1131 | Six in the third place means: | |
1132 | In former times men built altars to honor the Internal | |
1133 | Revenue Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble! | |
1134 | %% | |
1135 | 99 blocks of crud on the disk, | |
1136 | 99 blocks of crud! | |
1137 | You patch a bug, and dump it again: | |
1138 | 100 blocks of crud on the disk! | |
1139 | ||
1140 | 100 blocks of crud on the disk, | |
1141 | 100 blocks of crud! | |
1142 | You patch a bug, and dump it again: | |
1143 | 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ... | |
1144 | %% | |
1145 | A CONS is an object which cares. | |
1146 | -- Bernie Greenberg. | |
1147 | %% | |
1148 | A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of | |
1149 | nothing. | |
1150 | %% | |
1151 | A Law of Computer Programming: | |
1152 | Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you | |
1153 | will find the programmers cannot write in English. | |
1154 | %% | |
1155 | A UNIX saleslady, Lenore, | |
1156 | Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more. | |
1157 | She found a good way | |
1158 | To combine work and play: | |
1159 | She sells C shells by the seashore. | |
1160 | %% | |
1161 | A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no | |
1162 | responsibility at the other. | |
1163 | %% | |
1164 | A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman | |
1165 | out of a divorce. | |
1166 | -- Don Quinn | |
1167 | %% | |
1168 | A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining | |
1169 | and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. | |
1170 | -- Mark Twain | |
1171 | %% | |
1172 | A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it | |
1173 | adds up to be real money. | |
1174 | -- Everett McKinley Dirksen | |
1175 | %% | |
1176 | A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. | |
1177 | %% | |
1178 | A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. | |
1179 | %% | |
1180 | A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have | |
1181 | enlightened him with ours. | |
1182 | %% | |
1183 | A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well | |
1184 | as afterward. | |
1185 | %% | |
1186 | A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the | |
1187 | poor to protect them from each other. | |
1188 | %% | |
1189 | A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. | |
1190 | %% | |
1191 | A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. | |
1192 | Avoid him. He's a Commie. | |
1193 | %% | |
1194 | A city is a large community where people are lonesome together | |
1195 | -- Herbert Prochnow | |
1196 | %% | |
1197 | A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody | |
1198 | wants to read. | |
1199 | -- Mark Twain | |
1200 | %% | |
1201 | A closed mouth gathers no foot. | |
1202 | %% | |
1203 | A computer, to print out a fact, | |
1204 | Will divide, multiply, and subtract. | |
1205 | But this output can be | |
1206 | No more than debris, | |
1207 | If the input was short of exact. | |
1208 | -- Gigo | |
1209 | %% | |
1210 | A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. | |
1211 | %% | |
1212 | A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. | |
1213 | -- Ben Franklin | |
1214 | %% | |
1215 | A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison | |
1216 | And had an affair with a Saracen. | |
1217 | She was not oversexed, | |
1218 | Or jealous or vexed, | |
1219 | She just wanted to make a comparison. | |
1220 | %% | |
1221 | A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? | |
1222 | %% | |
1223 | A day without sunshine is like night. | |
1224 | %% | |
1225 | A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a | |
1226 | fur coat. | |
1227 | %% | |
1228 | A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that | |
1229 | you will look forward to the trip. | |
1230 | %% | |
1231 | A diva who specializes in risqu'\be arias is an off-coloratura soprano ... | |
1232 | %% | |
1233 | A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. | |
1234 | -- Ogden Nash | |
1235 | %% | |
1236 | A dozen, a gross, and a score, | |
1237 | Plus three times the square root of four, | |
1238 | Divided by seven, | |
1239 | Plus five time eleven, | |
1240 | Equals nine squared plus zero, no more. | |
1241 | %% | |
1242 | A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a | |
1243 | Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. | |
1244 | Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network | |
1245 | with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the | |
1246 | Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed | |
1247 | the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while simultaneously | |
1248 | hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick Interlisp Manual. | |
1249 | The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. | |
1250 | %% | |
1251 | A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the | |
1252 | subject. | |
1253 | -- Winston Churchill | |
1254 | %% | |
1255 | A fool must now and then be right by chance. | |
1256 | %% | |
1257 | A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block | |
1258 | of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an | |
1259 | elephant. | |
1260 | %% | |
1261 | A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into | |
1262 | superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. | |
1263 | -- G. B. Shaw | |
1264 | %% | |
1265 | A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. | |
1266 | -- D. Gries | |
1267 | %% | |
1268 | A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort | |
1269 | of). | |
1270 | %% | |
1271 | A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely | |
1272 | rearranging their prejudices. | |
1273 | -- William James | |
1274 | %% | |
1275 | A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. | |
1276 | %% | |
1277 | A lady with one of her ears applied | |
1278 | To an open keyhole heard, inside, | |
1279 | Two female gossips in converse free -- | |
1280 | The subject engaging them was she. | |
1281 | "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks | |
1282 | That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" | |
1283 | As soon as no more of it she could hear | |
1284 | The lady, indignant, removed her ear. | |
1285 | "I will not stay," she said with a pout, | |
1286 | "To hear my character lied about!" | |
1287 | -- Gopete Sherany | |
1288 | %% | |
1289 | A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is | |
1290 | not worth knowing. | |
1291 | %% | |
1292 | A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program | |
1293 | in than some that do. | |
1294 | -- Dennis M. Ritchie | |
1295 | %% | |
1296 | A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work | |
1297 | by being declared to work. | |
1298 | -- Anatol Holt | |
1299 | %% | |
1300 | A limerick packs laughs anatomical | |
1301 | Into space that is quite economical. | |
1302 | But the good ones I've seen | |
1303 | So seldom are clean, | |
1304 | And the clean ones so seldom are comical. | |
1305 | %% | |
1306 | A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any | |
1307 | price. | |
1308 | %% | |
1309 | A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I | |
1310 | believe everything positively stinks. | |
1311 | -- Lew Col | |
1312 | %% | |
1313 | A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" | |
1314 | ||
1315 | "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a | |
1316 | sense of obligation." | |
1317 | -- Stephen Crane | |
1318 | %% | |
1319 | A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. | |
1320 | %% | |
1321 | A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. | |
1322 | %% | |
1323 | A new dramatist of the absurd | |
1324 | Has a voice that will shortly be heard. | |
1325 | I learn from my spies | |
1326 | He's about to devise | |
1327 | An unprintable three-letter word. | |
1328 | %% | |
1329 | A new koan: | |
1330 | ||
1331 | If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. | |
1332 | ||
1333 | If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. | |
1334 | ||
1335 | It is an ice cream koan. | |
1336 | %% | |
1337 | A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary. | |
1338 | Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a "round tuit" now | |
1339 | has no excuse for further procrastination. | |
1340 | %% | |
1341 | A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. | |
1342 | %% | |
1343 | A penny saved is ridiculous. | |
1344 | %% | |
1345 | A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. | |
1346 | %% | |
1347 | A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. | |
1348 | -- George Wald | |
1349 | %% | |
1350 | A pig is a jolly companion, | |
1351 | Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt -- | |
1352 | A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, | |
1353 | Though mountains may topple and tilt. | |
1354 | When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, | |
1355 | When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, | |
1356 | Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, | |
1357 | You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, | |
1358 | You'll never go wrong with a pig! | |
1359 | -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" | |
1360 | %% | |
1361 | A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? | |
1362 | ||
1363 | And he answered: | |
1364 | ||
1365 | It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. | |
1366 | ||
1367 | It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. | |
1368 | ||
1369 | It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City | |
1370 | upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come | |
1371 | to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness. | |
1372 | ||
1373 | And that is Fate? said the priest. | |
1374 | ||
1375 | Fate ... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master. | |
1376 | ||
1377 | That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was | |
1378 | too. | |
1379 | -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" | |
1380 | %% | |
1381 | A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. | |
1382 | %% | |
1383 | "A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis | |
1384 | of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite | |
1385 | series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric | |
1386 | precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from | |
1387 | inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical | |
1388 | accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality | |
1389 | for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly | |
1390 | defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the | |
1391 | information in the first place." | |
1392 | -- IEEE Grid newsmagazine | |
1393 | %% | |
1394 | A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that | |
1395 | your wife will give you for free. | |
1396 | %% | |
1397 | A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices | |
1398 | that the system works. | |
1399 | %% | |
1400 | A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and | |
1401 | the real reason. | |
1402 | %% | |
1403 | A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen | |
1404 | objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer | |
1405 | scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added | |
1406 | concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three | |
1407 | dimensional objects ... | |
1408 | %% | |
1409 | A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man | |
1410 | contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. | |
1411 | -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery | |
1412 | %% | |
1413 | A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard | |
1414 | -- Prof. Steiner | |
1415 | %% | |
1416 | A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was | |
1417 | waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. | |
1418 | -- Mark Twain | |
1419 | %% | |
1420 | A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. | |
1421 | -- O'Henry | |
1422 | %% | |
1423 | A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an | |
1424 | exam. | |
1425 | %% | |
1426 | A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by | |
1427 | its author. | |
1428 | -- S. C. Johnson | |
1429 | %% | |
1430 | A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, | |
1431 | and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. | |
1432 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1433 | %% | |
1434 | A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by | |
1435 | blowing first. | |
1436 | %% | |
1437 | A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. | |
1438 | %% | |
1439 | A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest | |
1440 | in students. | |
1441 | -- John Ciardi | |
1442 | %% | |
1443 | A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature | |
1444 | replaces it with. | |
1445 | -- Tenessee Williams | |
1446 | %% | |
1447 | A very intelligent turtle | |
1448 | Found programming UNIX a hurdle | |
1449 | The system, you see, | |
1450 | Ran as slow as did he, | |
1451 | And that's not saying much for the turtle. | |
1452 | %% | |
1453 | A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without | |
1454 | getting nervous. | |
1455 | %% | |
1456 | "A witty saying proves nothing." | |
1457 | -- Voltaire | |
1458 | %% | |
1459 | A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe | |
1460 | in God. | |
1461 | %% | |
1462 | A.A.A.A.A.: | |
1463 | An organization for drunks who drive | |
1464 | %% | |
1465 | \a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\aAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!!\a | |
1466 | You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room! | |
1467 | %% | |
1468 | ADA, n.: | |
1469 | Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in | |
1470 | Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA | |
1471 | awareness." | |
1472 | %% | |
1473 | Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. | |
1474 | %% | |
1475 | About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the | |
1476 | ends. | |
1477 | -- Herbert Hoover | |
1478 | %% | |
1479 | Absence makes the heart go wander. | |
1480 | %% | |
1481 | Absent, adj.: | |
1482 | Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; | |
1483 | slandered. | |
1484 | %% | |
1485 | Absentee, n.: | |
1486 | A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove | |
1487 | himself from the sphere of exaction. | |
1488 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1489 | %% | |
1490 | Abstainer, n.: | |
1491 | A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a | |
1492 | pleasure. | |
1493 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1494 | %% | |
1495 | Absurdity, n.: | |
1496 | A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own | |
1497 | opinion. | |
1498 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1499 | %% | |
1500 | Accident, n.: | |
1501 | A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of | |
1502 | body is better. | |
1503 | %% | |
1504 | Accidents cause History. | |
1505 | ||
1506 | If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the | |
1507 | Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not | |
1508 | have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil | |
1509 | could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and | |
1510 | the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd. | |
1511 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
1512 | %% | |
1513 | According to my best recollection, I don't remember. | |
1514 | -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo | |
1515 | %% | |
1516 | According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are | |
1517 | totally worthless. | |
1518 | %% | |
1519 | Accordion, n.: | |
1520 | A bagpipe with pleats. | |
1521 | %% | |
1522 | Accuracy, n.: | |
1523 | The vice of being right | |
1524 | %% | |
1525 | Acid -- better living through chemistry. | |
1526 | %% | |
1527 | Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality. | |
1528 | %% | |
1529 | Acquaintance, n.: | |
1530 | A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well | |
1531 | enough to lend to. | |
1532 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1533 | %% | |
1534 | "Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from | |
1535 | coughing." | |
1536 | %% | |
1537 | Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had | |
1538 | everyone glued in their seats!" | |
1539 | Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of | |
1540 | it!" | |
1541 | %% | |
1542 | Actor: So what do you do for a living? | |
1543 | Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving | |
1544 | dishes for Chinese restaurants. | |
1545 | -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" | |
1546 | %% | |
1547 | Admiration, n.: | |
1548 | Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. | |
1549 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1550 | %% | |
1551 | Adolescence, n.: | |
1552 | The stage between puberty and adultery. | |
1553 | %% | |
1554 | "Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look | |
1555 | like you ..." | |
1556 | --- Gilda Radner | |
1557 | %% | |
1558 | Adore, v.: | |
1559 | To venerate expectantly. | |
1560 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1561 | %% | |
1562 | Adult, n.: | |
1563 | One old enough to know better. | |
1564 | %% | |
1565 | After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose | |
1566 | names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary | |
1567 | Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted | |
1568 | many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi | |
1569 | Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two | |
1570 | different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current | |
1571 | developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer | |
1572 | attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led | |
1573 | to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today, | |
1574 | skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously | |
1575 | injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it | |
1576 | hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact | |
1577 | that it sinks like a stone. | |
1578 | -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" | |
1579 | %% | |
1580 | After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK? | |
1581 | %% | |
1582 | After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known | |
1583 | quotations. | |
1584 | -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare | |
1585 | %% | |
1586 | After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not | |
1587 | for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have | |
1588 | simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. | |
1589 | -- P. J. O'Rourke | |
1590 | %% | |
1591 | After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found | |
1592 | on the bench. | |
1593 | %% | |
1594 | After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access | |
1595 | cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been | |
1596 | removed. | |
1597 | %% | |
1598 | Afternoon, n.: | |
1599 | That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the | |
1600 | morning. | |
1601 | %% | |
1602 | Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a | |
1603 | change. | |
1604 | %% | |
1605 | Air is water with holes in it | |
1606 | %% | |
1607 | Alas, I am dying beyond my means. | |
1608 | -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed | |
1609 | %% | |
1610 | Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire | |
1611 | telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New | |
1612 | York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? | |
1613 | And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they | |
1614 | receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." | |
1615 | %% | |
1616 | Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, | |
1617 | Aleph-null bottles of beer, | |
1618 | You take one down, and pass it around, | |
1619 | Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. | |
1620 | %% | |
1621 | Alex Haley was adopted! | |
1622 | %% | |
1623 | Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting | |
1624 | for a dial tone. | |
1625 | %% | |
1626 | Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of | |
1627 | them keeps paying for it. | |
1628 | -- Peggy Joyce | |
1629 | %% | |
1630 | All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. | |
1631 | %% | |
1632 | All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own | |
1633 | importance. | |
1634 | %% | |
1635 | "All flesh is grass" | |
1636 | -- Isiah | |
1637 | Smoke a friend today. | |
1638 | %% | |
1639 | "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us | |
1640 | sane." | |
1641 | %% | |
1642 | All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. | |
1643 | %% | |
1644 | All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of | |
1645 | every organism to live beyond its income. | |
1646 | -- Samuel Butler | |
1647 | %% | |
1648 | All science is either physics or stamp collecting. | |
1649 | -- E. Rutherford | |
1650 | %% | |
1651 | All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, | |
1652 | too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you | |
1653 | subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you | |
1654 | can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. | |
1655 | Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax | |
1656 | decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What | |
1657 | if it rains?" | |
1658 | -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" | |
1659 | %% | |
1660 | All the world's a VAX, | |
1661 | And all the coders merely butchers; | |
1662 | They have their exits and their entrails; | |
1663 | And one int in his time plays many widths, | |
1664 | His sizeof being N bytes. At first the infant, | |
1665 | Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms. | |
1666 | And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun, | |
1667 | And shining morning face, creeping like slug | |
1668 | Unwillingly to school. | |
1669 | -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11 | |
1670 | %% | |
1671 | All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. | |
1672 | -- Sean O'Casey | |
1673 | %% | |
1674 | All things are possible except skiing thru a revolving door. | |
1675 | %% | |
1676 | All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. | |
1677 | %% | |
1678 | All you have to do to see the accuracy of my thesis is look around | |
1679 | you. Look, in particular, at the people who, like you, are making | |
1680 | average incomes for doing average jobs -- bank vice presidents, | |
1681 | insurance salesman, auditors, secretaries of defense -- and you'll | |
1682 | realize they all dress the same way, essentially the way the mannequins | |
1683 | in the Sears menswear department dress. Now look at the real | |
1684 | successes, the people who make a lot more money than you -- Elton John, | |
1685 | Captain Kangaroo, anybody from Saudi Arabia, Big Bird, and so on. They | |
1686 | all dress funny -- and they all succeed. Are you catching on? | |
1687 | -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success" | |
1688 | %% | |
1689 | Alliance, n.: | |
1690 | In international politics, the union of two thieves who have | |
1691 | their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot | |
1692 | separately plunder a third. | |
1693 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1694 | %% | |
1695 | Alone, adj.: | |
1696 | In bad company. | |
1697 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1698 | %% | |
1699 | Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, | |
1700 | mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have | |
1701 | any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place | |
1702 | to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, | |
1703 | Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a | |
1704 | serious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by the | |
1705 | same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely | |
1706 | that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A | |
1707 | penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job | |
1708 | running the post office. | |
1709 | -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" | |
1710 | %% | |
1711 | Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid | |
1712 | back. | |
1713 | %% | |
1714 | Ambidextrous, adj.: | |
1715 | Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. | |
1716 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1717 | %% | |
1718 | Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. | |
1719 | -- Charlie McCarthy | |
1720 | %% | |
1721 | America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism | |
1722 | to decadence without touching civilization. | |
1723 | -- John O'Hara | |
1724 | %% | |
1725 | America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him, | |
1726 | until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and | |
1727 | changed its name to "America". | |
1728 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
1729 | %% | |
1730 | Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. | |
1731 | %% | |
1732 | An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but | |
1733 | is always polite to traffic cops. | |
1734 | %% | |
1735 | An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. | |
1736 | -- A. P. Herbert | |
1737 | %% | |
1738 | An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. | |
1739 | %% | |
1740 | An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. | |
1741 | %% | |
1742 | An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch He wears | |
1743 | a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised | |
1744 | only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich | |
1745 | Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in | |
1746 | incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote | |
1747 | excellence: | |
1748 | ||
1749 | "The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and | |
1750 | discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able | |
1751 | to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting | |
1752 | things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch | |
1753 | parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a | |
1754 | timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who | |
1755 | doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful. | |
1756 | Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high | |
1757 | school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as | |
1758 | successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and | |
1759 | they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha." | |
1760 | -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" | |
1761 | %% | |
1762 | An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. | |
1763 | %% | |
1764 | Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no | |
1765 | government at all. | |
1766 | %% | |
1767 | And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. | |
1768 | %% | |
1769 | And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a | |
1770 | horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical | |
1771 | columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, | |
1772 | ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the | |
1773 | world. | |
1774 | -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men" | |
1775 | %% | |
1776 | Angels we have heard on High | |
1777 | Tell us to go out and Buy. | |
1778 | -- Tom Leher | |
1779 | %% | |
1780 | Ankh if you love Isis. | |
1781 | %% | |
1782 | Anoint, v.: | |
1783 | To grease a king or other great functionary already | |
1784 | sufficiently slippery. | |
1785 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
1786 | %% | |
1787 | Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. | |
1788 | %% | |
1789 | Anthony's Law of Force: | |
1790 | Don't force it; get a larger hammer. | |
1791 | %% | |
1792 | Anthony's Law of the Workshop: | |
1793 | Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible | |
1794 | corner of the workshop. | |
1795 | ||
1796 | Corollary: | |
1797 | On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike | |
1798 | your toes. | |
1799 | %% | |
1800 | Antonym, n.: | |
1801 | The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. | |
1802 | %% | |
1803 | Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. | |
1804 | -- Charles McCabe | |
1805 | %% | |
1806 | Any excuse will serve a tyrant. | |
1807 | -- Aesop | |
1808 | %% | |
1809 | Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to | |
1810 | sell it. | |
1811 | %% | |
1812 | Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a | |
1813 | larger object. | |
1814 | %% | |
1815 | Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged | |
1816 | demo. | |
1817 | %% | |
1818 | Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. | |
1819 | -- Arthur C. Clarke | |
1820 | %% | |
1821 | Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. | |
1822 | -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. | |
1823 | %% | |
1824 | Any woman is a volume if one knows how to read her. | |
1825 | %% | |
1826 | Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. | |
1827 | %% | |
1828 | Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is | |
1829 | probably parked. | |
1830 | %% | |
1831 | Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire. | |
1832 | %% | |
1833 | Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. | |
1834 | -- Publilius Syrus | |
1835 | %% | |
1836 | Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he | |
1837 | is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not | |
1838 | make messes in the house. | |
1839 | -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
1840 | %% | |
1841 | Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. | |
1842 | -- Samuel Goldwyn | |
1843 | %% | |
1844 | Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. | |
1845 | -- W. C. Fields | |
1846 | %% | |
1847 | Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no | |
1848 | account be allowed to do the job. | |
1849 | -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
1850 | %% | |
1851 | Anything free is worth what you pay for it. | |
1852 | %% | |
1853 | Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate. | |
1854 | %% | |
1855 | Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. | |
1856 | %% | |
1857 | Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the | |
1858 | price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" | |
1859 | means the price went way up. | |
1860 | %% | |
1861 | Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate. | |
1862 | %% | |
1863 | Anything worth doing is worth overdoing | |
1864 | %% | |
1865 | Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked | |
1866 | something. | |
1867 | %% | |
1868 | Aquadextrous, adj.: | |
1869 | Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off | |
1870 | with your toes. | |
1871 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
1872 | %% | |
1873 | "Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." | |
1874 | -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" | |
1875 | %% | |
1876 | Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your | |
1877 | shoes. | |
1878 | -- Mickey Mouse | |
1879 | %% | |
1880 | Armadillo: | |
1881 | To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle | |
1882 | %% | |
1883 | Arnold's Laws of Documentation: | |
1884 | (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. | |
1885 | (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. | |
1886 | (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the | |
1887 | first two laws. | |
1888 | %% | |
1889 | Arthur's Laws of Love: | |
1890 | (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you | |
1891 | remind them of someone else. | |
1892 | (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will | |
1893 | be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool | |
1894 | of yourself in person. | |
1895 | %% | |
1896 | Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. | |
1897 | %% | |
1898 | As I was passing Project MAC, | |
1899 | I met a Quux with seven hacks. | |
1900 | Every hack had seven bugs; | |
1901 | Every bug had seven manifestations; | |
1902 | Every manifestation had seven symptoms. | |
1903 | Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, | |
1904 | How many losses at Project MAC? | |
1905 | %% | |
1906 | As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free | |
1907 | variable." | |
1908 | %% | |
1909 | As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." | |
1910 | %% | |
1911 | As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not | |
1912 | certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. | |
1913 | -- Albert Einstein | |
1914 | %% | |
1915 | As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. | |
1916 | -- Weisert | |
1917 | %% | |
1918 | As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its | |
1919 | fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be | |
1920 | popular. | |
1921 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
1922 | %% | |
1923 | As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. | |
1924 | %% | |
1925 | "As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 | |
1926 | programs -- a process that traditionally requires some debugging." | |
1927 | --- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover to a new | |
1928 | computer system. | |
1929 | %% | |
1930 | As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it | |
1931 | wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had | |
1932 | to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized | |
1933 | that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in | |
1934 | finding mistakes in my own programs. | |
1935 | -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949 | |
1936 | %% | |
1937 | As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's | |
1938 | so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. | |
1939 | -- Woody Allen | |
1940 | %% | |
1941 | As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there | |
1942 | is always a future in Computer Maintenance. | |
1943 | -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" | |
1944 | %% | |
1945 | As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple | |
1946 | memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time | |
1947 | to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, | |
1948 | E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. | |
1949 | -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" | |
1950 | %% | |
1951 | Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only the | |
1952 | Station-to-Station rate. | |
1953 | %% | |
1954 | Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in the | |
1955 | bathtub, it tolls for thee. | |
1956 | %% | |
1957 | Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell" | |
1958 | for an answer. | |
1959 | %% | |
1960 | Ass, n.: | |
1961 | The masculine of "lass". | |
1962 | %% | |
1963 | At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial | |
1964 | challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. | |
1965 | -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985 | |
1966 | %% | |
1967 | At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los | |
1968 | Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head | |
1969 | under the exhaust of a bus until he revived. | |
1970 | %% | |
1971 | At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will | |
1972 | find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on | |
1973 | the computer. | |
1974 | %% | |
1975 | Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. | |
1976 | -- Winston Churchill | |
1977 | %% | |
1978 | Automobile, n.: | |
1979 | A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down | |
1980 | pedestrians. | |
1981 | %% | |
1982 | Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. | |
1983 | -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" | |
1984 | %% | |
1985 | Avoid reality at all costs. | |
1986 | %% | |
1987 | BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...) | |
1988 | %% | |
1989 | BLISS is ignorance | |
1990 | %% | |
1991 | BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the | |
1992 | outfit." | |
1993 | GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?" | |
1994 | BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive..." | |
1995 | -- Jay Ward | |
1996 | %% | |
1997 | Bacchus, n.: | |
1998 | A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for | |
1999 | getting drunk. | |
2000 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2001 | %% | |
2002 | Bagdikian's Observation: | |
2003 | Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American | |
2004 | newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" | |
2005 | on a ukelele. | |
2006 | %% | |
2007 | Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: | |
2008 | A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides | |
2009 | by governors. | |
2010 | %% | |
2011 | Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. | |
2012 | %% | |
2013 | Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. | |
2014 | %% | |
2015 | Barach's Rule: | |
2016 | An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own | |
2017 | physician. | |
2018 | %% | |
2019 | Barometer, n.: | |
2020 | An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we | |
2021 | are having. | |
2022 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2023 | %% | |
2024 | Barth's Distinction: | |
2025 | There are two types of people: those who divide people into two | |
2026 | types, and those who don't. | |
2027 | %% | |
2028 | Baruch's Observation: | |
2029 | If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. | |
2030 | %% | |
2031 | Basic, n.: | |
2032 | A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in | |
2033 | that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. | |
2034 | %% | |
2035 | Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your | |
2036 | door. | |
2037 | %% | |
2038 | Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely | |
2039 | get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your | |
2040 | face. | |
2041 | -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" | |
2042 | %% | |
2043 | Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. | |
2044 | -- Mark Twain | |
2045 | %% | |
2046 | Be different: conform. | |
2047 | %% | |
2048 | Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so | |
2049 | get used to it. | |
2050 | %% | |
2051 | Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and | |
2052 | miss | |
2053 | -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
2054 | %% | |
2055 | Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh | |
2056 | away. | |
2057 | %% | |
2058 | Beifeld's Principle: | |
2059 | The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and | |
2060 | receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when | |
2061 | he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) | |
2062 | a better looking and richer male friend. | |
2063 | %% | |
2064 | Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. | |
2065 | %% | |
2066 | "Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence" | |
2067 | -- Time Bandits | |
2068 | %% | |
2069 | Besides the device, the box should contain: | |
2070 | ||
2071 | * Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING" | |
2072 | ||
2073 | * A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two | |
2074 | club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns. | |
2075 | ||
2076 | YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram | |
2077 | cable. | |
2078 | ||
2079 | IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your | |
2080 | spouse and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car | |
2081 | that can get all the way through the drive-through at Burger King | |
2082 | without a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's | |
2083 | why." | |
2084 | ||
2085 | WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret. | |
2086 | -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" | |
2087 | %% | |
2088 | Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. | |
2089 | -- Leonard Brandwein | |
2090 | %% | |
2091 | "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not | |
2092 | tried it." | |
2093 | -- Donald Knuth | |
2094 | %% | |
2095 | Beware of low-flying butterflies. | |
2096 | %% | |
2097 | Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but | |
2098 | nothing of interest is easy. | |
2099 | %% | |
2100 | "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and | |
2101 | finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of | |
2102 | murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by | |
2103 | their ignorance the hard way." | |
2104 | -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" | |
2105 | %% | |
2106 | Binary, adj.: | |
2107 | Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes. | |
2108 | %% | |
2109 | Bipolar, adj.: | |
2110 | Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo, | |
2111 | New York | |
2112 | %% | |
2113 | Birth, n.: | |
2114 | The first and direst of all disasters. | |
2115 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2116 | %% | |
2117 | Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic | |
2118 | %% | |
2119 | Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known | |
2120 | as Wheels. | |
2121 | %% | |
2122 | Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. | |
2123 | %% | |
2124 | Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in | |
2125 | plain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has | |
2126 | it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was | |
2127 | arrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people kept | |
2128 | throwing up on them. | |
2129 | %% | |
2130 | Boling's postulate: | |
2131 | If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. | |
2132 | %% | |
2133 | Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: | |
2134 | Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so | |
2135 | vividly manifests their lack of progress. | |
2136 | %% | |
2137 | Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: | |
2138 | Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. | |
2139 | %% | |
2140 | Boob's Law: | |
2141 | You always find something in the last place you look. | |
2142 | %% | |
2143 | Bore, n.: | |
2144 | A person who talks when you wish him to listen. | |
2145 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2146 | %% | |
2147 | Boren's Laws: | |
2148 | (1) When in charge, ponder. | |
2149 | (2) When in trouble, delegate. | |
2150 | (3) When in doubt, mumble. | |
2151 | %% | |
2152 | Boss, n.: | |
2153 | According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages | |
2154 | the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss, | |
2155 | in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an | |
2156 | ornamental stud." | |
2157 | %% | |
2158 | Boston, n.: | |
2159 | Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for | |
2160 | finishing second in the Irish jig competition. | |
2161 | %% | |
2162 | Boy, n.: | |
2163 | A noise with dirt on it. | |
2164 | %% | |
2165 | Bradley's Bromide: | |
2166 | If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a | |
2167 | committee -- that will do them in. | |
2168 | %% | |
2169 | Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: | |
2170 | When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more | |
2171 | easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone | |
2172 | Ranger have handled this?" | |
2173 | %% | |
2174 | Brain fried -- Core dumped | |
2175 | %% | |
2176 | Brain, n.: | |
2177 | The apparatus with which we think that we think. | |
2178 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2179 | %% | |
2180 | Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]: | |
2181 | To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of | |
2182 | error in an opponent. | |
2183 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2184 | %% | |
2185 | Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, | |
2186 | since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. | |
2187 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
2188 | %% | |
2189 | Bride, n.: | |
2190 | A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. | |
2191 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2192 | %% | |
2193 | Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may | |
2194 | revitalize the corner saloon. | |
2195 | %% | |
2196 | British Israelites: | |
2197 | The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of | |
2198 | Britain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by | |
2199 | Sargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They further | |
2200 | believe that the future can be foretold by the measurements of the | |
2201 | Great Pyramid, which probably means it will be big and yellow and in | |
2202 | the hand of the Arabs. They also believe that if you sleep with your | |
2203 | head under the pillow a fairy will come and take all your teeth. | |
2204 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
2205 | %% | |
2206 | Broad-mindedness, n.: | |
2207 | The result of flattening high-mindedness out. | |
2208 | %% | |
2209 | Brooke's Law: | |
2210 | Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool | |
2211 | discovers something which either abolishes the system or | |
2212 | expands it beyond recognition. | |
2213 | %% | |
2214 | Brook's Law: | |
2215 | Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later | |
2216 | %% | |
2217 | Bubble Memory, n.: | |
2218 | A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's | |
2219 | intelligence. See also "vacuum tube". | |
2220 | %% | |
2221 | Bucy's Law: | |
2222 | Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. | |
2223 | %% | |
2224 | Bug: | |
2225 | Small living things that small living boys throw on small | |
2226 | living girls. | |
2227 | %% | |
2228 | Bug, n.: | |
2229 | An aspect of a computer program which exists because the | |
2230 | PROGRAMMER was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he | |
2231 | wrote the program. | |
2232 | ||
2233 | Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. | |
2234 | -- Ray Simard | |
2235 | %% | |
2236 | Bumper sticker: | |
2237 | ||
2238 | "All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British | |
2239 | manufacture" | |
2240 | %% | |
2241 | Bureaucrat, n.: | |
2242 | A politician who has tenure. | |
2243 | %% | |
2244 | But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the | |
2245 | system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, | |
2246 | analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. | |
2247 | -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing | |
2248 | Compilers" | |
2249 | %% | |
2250 | But scientists, who ought to know | |
2251 | Assure us that it must be so. | |
2252 | Oh, let us never, never doubt | |
2253 | What nobody is sure about. | |
2254 | -- Hilaire Belloc | |
2255 | %% | |
2256 | But soft you, the fair Ophelia: | |
2257 | Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, | |
2258 | But get thee to a nunnery -- go! | |
2259 | -- Mark "The Bard" Twain | |
2260 | %% | |
2261 | But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who | |
2262 | was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal | |
2263 | education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in | |
2264 | 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of | |
2265 | American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was | |
2266 | invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he | |
2267 | invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant | |
2268 | adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends | |
2269 | electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the | |
2270 | electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant | |
2271 | part) sends it right back to the customer again. | |
2272 | ||
2273 | This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch | |
2274 | of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since | |
2275 | very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. | |
2276 | In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United | |
2277 | States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it | |
2278 | ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate | |
2279 | increases. | |
2280 | -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" | |
2281 | %% | |
2282 | "But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad | |
2283 | place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge. | |
2284 | Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a | |
2285 | kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs, | |
2286 | poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I | |
2287 | explained yet about the bytes?" | |
2288 | %% | |
2289 | "But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable | |
2290 | computers?" | |
2291 | %% | |
2292 | Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes | |
2293 | Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn; | |
2294 | Less dear than army ants in apple pies | |
2295 | Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn, | |
2296 | Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit; | |
2297 | Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose | |
2298 | They suck, and like the double-breasted suit | |
2299 | Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose, | |
2300 | Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed; | |
2301 | And stem the produce of thy waspish wits: | |
2302 | Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed; | |
2303 | Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits. | |
2304 | Be off, I say; go bug somebody new, | |
2305 | Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you. | |
2306 | %% | |
2307 | By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task | |
2308 | completely overwhelm you. | |
2309 | %% | |
2310 | "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, | |
2311 | it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to | |
2312 | invent. (R. Emerson)" | |
2313 | -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program | |
2314 | (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") | |
2315 | [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to | |
2316 | misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"] | |
2317 | %% | |
2318 | Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to | |
2319 | point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very | |
2320 | fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are | |
2321 | often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people | |
2322 | from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B | |
2323 | that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____\b\b\b\b\bthere. They often | |
2324 | wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell | |
2325 | they wanted to be. | |
2326 | -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
2327 | %% | |
2328 | C, n.: | |
2329 | A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more | |
2330 | like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or | |
2331 | anything else. It is either the best language available to the art | |
2332 | today, or it isn't. | |
2333 | -- Ray Simard | |
2334 | %% | |
2335 | CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. | |
2336 | %% | |
2337 | Cabbage, n.: | |
2338 | A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as | |
2339 | a man's head. | |
2340 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2341 | %% | |
2342 | Cahn's Axiom: | |
2343 | When all else fails, read the instructions. | |
2344 | %% | |
2345 | California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange. | |
2346 | -- Fred Allen | |
2347 | %% | |
2348 | California, n.: | |
2349 | From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or | |
2350 | Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or | |
2351 | "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." | |
2352 | -- Ed Moran | |
2353 | %% | |
2354 | Call on God, but row away from the rocks. | |
2355 | -- Indian proverb | |
2356 | %% | |
2357 | "Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missle sighted, target | |
2358 | Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." | |
2359 | %% | |
2360 | "Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle." | |
2361 | -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth | |
2362 | %% | |
2363 | "Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth | |
2364 | Corner, Vermont." | |
2365 | -- Clarence Darrow | |
2366 | %% | |
2367 | Canada Bill Jone's Motto: | |
2368 | It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. | |
2369 | ||
2370 | Supplement: | |
2371 | A .44 magnum beats four aces. | |
2372 | %% | |
2373 | Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents | |
2374 | for postage and 30 cents for storage. | |
2375 | -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial | |
2376 | Post | |
2377 | %% | |
2378 | Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? | |
2379 | Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, | |
2380 | A root or two, a torus and a node: | |
2381 | The inverse of my verse, a null domain. | |
2382 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
2383 | %% | |
2384 | Captain Penny's Law: | |
2385 | You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of | |
2386 | the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom. | |
2387 | %% | |
2388 | Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than | |
2389 | expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to | |
2390 | complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their | |
2391 | planning to reduce the time it takes. | |
2392 | %% | |
2393 | Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: | |
2394 | The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a | |
2395 | dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then | |
2396 | putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. | |
2397 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
2398 | %% | |
2399 | Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education. | |
2400 | -- Mark Twain | |
2401 | %% | |
2402 | Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. | |
2403 | %% | |
2404 | Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. | |
2405 | %% | |
2406 | Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, | |
2407 | how many? | |
2408 | %% | |
2409 | Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel. | |
2410 | Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something | |
2411 | Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy | |
2412 | out of it? | |
2413 | Jaka: Ugh! | |
2414 | Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy? | |
2415 | -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret" | |
2416 | %% | |
2417 | Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long | |
2418 | walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They | |
2419 | then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy | |
2420 | health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, | |
2421 | not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find | |
2422 | only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the | |
2423 | others who have tried it. | |
2424 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2425 | %% | |
2426 | Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny-- | |
2427 | Did you ever try buying then without money? | |
2428 | -- Ogden Nash | |
2429 | %% | |
2430 | Character Density: the number of very weird people in the office. | |
2431 | %% | |
2432 | Chemicals, n.: | |
2433 | Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. | |
2434 | %% | |
2435 | Chicago, n.: | |
2436 | Where the dead still vote ... early and often! | |
2437 | %% | |
2438 | Chicken Little was right. | |
2439 | %% | |
2440 | Chicken Soup, n.: | |
2441 | An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, | |
2442 | cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure | |
2443 | is neurotic dependence on one's mother. | |
2444 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
2445 | %% | |
2446 | Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every | |
2447 | effort to teach them good manners. | |
2448 | %% | |
2449 | Children aren't happy without something to ignore, | |
2450 | And that's what parents were created for. | |
2451 | -- Ogden Nash | |
2452 | %% | |
2453 | Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for | |
2454 | word what you shouldn't have said. | |
2455 | %% | |
2456 | Chism's Law of Completion: | |
2457 | The amount of time required to complete a government project is | |
2458 | precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it. | |
2459 | %% | |
2460 | Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: | |
2461 | When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. | |
2462 | %% | |
2463 | Christ: | |
2464 | A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. | |
2465 | %% | |
2466 | Churchill's Commentary on Man: | |
2467 | Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the | |
2468 | time he will pick himself up and continue on. | |
2469 | %% | |
2470 | Cigarette, n.: | |
2471 | A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in | |
2472 | between. | |
2473 | %% | |
2474 | Cinemuck, n.: | |
2475 | The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which | |
2476 | covers the floors of movie theaters. | |
2477 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
2478 | %% | |
2479 | Cleanliness is next to impossible. | |
2480 | %% | |
2481 | "Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day." | |
2482 | %% | |
2483 | Cleveland still lives. God ____\b\b\b\bmust be dead. | |
2484 | %% | |
2485 | Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery. | |
2486 | %% | |
2487 | Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on | |
2488 | society. | |
2489 | -- Mark Twain | |
2490 | %% | |
2491 | Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan. | |
2492 | %% | |
2493 | Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- | |
2494 | "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." | |
2495 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2496 | %% | |
2497 | Cold, adj.: | |
2498 | When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions. | |
2499 | %% | |
2500 | Cold, adj.: | |
2501 | When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own | |
2502 | pockets. | |
2503 | %% | |
2504 | Collaboration, n.: | |
2505 | A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the | |
2506 | other fellow can spell. | |
2507 | %% | |
2508 | College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the | |
2509 | faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if | |
2510 | the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, | |
2511 | legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the | |
2512 | loss to humanity. | |
2513 | -- H. L. Mencken | |
2514 | %% | |
2515 | Colvard's Logical Premises: | |
2516 | All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or | |
2517 | it won't. | |
2518 | Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: | |
2519 | This is especially true when dealing with someone you're | |
2520 | attracted to. | |
2521 | Grelb's Commentary | |
2522 | Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. | |
2523 | %% | |
2524 | Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, | |
2525 | And every vector dreams of matrices. | |
2526 | Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: | |
2527 | It whispers of a more ergodic zone. | |
2528 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
2529 | %% | |
2530 | Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, | |
2531 | Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, | |
2532 | Their indices bedecked from one to _\bn, | |
2533 | Commingled in an endless Markov chain! | |
2534 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
2535 | %% | |
2536 | Command, n.: | |
2537 | Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in | |
2538 | such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control. | |
2539 | %% | |
2540 | Commitment, n.: | |
2541 | Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. | |
2542 | The chicken was involved, the pig was committed. | |
2543 | %% | |
2544 | Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. | |
2545 | -- Albert Einstein | |
2546 | %% | |
2547 | Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems | |
2548 | theory. | |
2549 | %% | |
2550 | Computer programmers do it byte by byte | |
2551 | %% | |
2552 | Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. | |
2553 | %% | |
2554 | Conceit causes more conversation than wit. | |
2555 | -- LaRouchefoucauld | |
2556 | %% | |
2557 | Concept, n.: | |
2558 | Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than | |
2559 | $25,000. | |
2560 | %% | |
2561 | Condense soup, not books! | |
2562 | %% | |
2563 | Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is | |
2564 | good for dandruff. | |
2565 | -- Peter de Vries | |
2566 | %% | |
2567 | Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. | |
2568 | %% | |
2569 | Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that | |
2570 | would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that | |
2571 | you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer | |
2572 | maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS | |
2573 | OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY | |
2574 | UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED | |
2575 | IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD | |
2576 | WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDED AND | |
2577 | SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH HE KNOBS, | |
2578 | RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, | |
2579 | RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE | |
2580 | FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT? | |
2581 | -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" | |
2582 | %% | |
2583 | Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking | |
2584 | -- H. L. Mencken | |
2585 | %% | |
2586 | Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. | |
2587 | %% | |
2588 | Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then | |
2589 | give it back to them. | |
2590 | %% | |
2591 | "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and | |
2592 | if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" | |
2593 | -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
2594 | %% | |
2595 | Conversation, n.: | |
2596 | A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath | |
2597 | is called the listener. | |
2598 | %% | |
2599 | Conway's Law: | |
2600 | In any organization there will always be one person who knows | |
2601 | what is going on. | |
2602 | ||
2603 | This person must be fired. | |
2604 | %% | |
2605 | Coronation, n.: | |
2606 | The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and | |
2607 | visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite | |
2608 | bomb. | |
2609 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2610 | %% | |
2611 | Corrupt, adj.: | |
2612 | In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. | |
2613 | %% | |
2614 | Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job | |
2615 | is to enforce the law and fight crime. | |
2616 | -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan | |
2617 | %% | |
2618 | Coward, n.: | |
2619 | One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. | |
2620 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2621 | %% | |
2622 | Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with | |
2623 | nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. | |
2624 | -- Wernher von Braun | |
2625 | %% | |
2626 | Crime does not pay ... as well as politics. | |
2627 | -- A. E. Newman | |
2628 | %% | |
2629 | Critic, n.: | |
2630 | A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries | |
2631 | to please him. | |
2632 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2633 | %% | |
2634 | Cynic, n.: | |
2635 | A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not | |
2636 | as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking | |
2637 | out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. | |
2638 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2639 | %% | |
2640 | Cynic, n.: | |
2641 | One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced | |
2642 | eye. | |
2643 | %% | |
2644 | Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. | |
2645 | %% | |
2646 | Dawn, n.: | |
2647 | The time when men of reason go to bed. | |
2648 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2649 | %% | |
2650 | Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. | |
2651 | %% | |
2652 | DeVries's Dilemma: | |
2653 | If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want | |
2654 | hits the paper. | |
2655 | %% | |
2656 | Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also | |
2657 | easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to | |
2658 | improve. | |
2659 | %% | |
2660 | Dear Lord: | |
2661 | I just want *___\b\b\bone* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On | |
2662 | the other hand", again. | |
2663 | %% | |
2664 | Dear Miss Manners: | |
2665 | My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's | |
2666 | elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between | |
2667 | courses, is all right. Which is correct? | |
2668 | ||
2669 | Gentle Reader: | |
2670 | For the purpose of answering examinations in your home | |
2671 | economics class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this | |
2672 | principle of education may be of even greater importance to you now | |
2673 | than learning correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners | |
2674 | believes that is. | |
2675 | %% | |
2676 | Dear Miss Manners: | |
2677 | Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from | |
2678 | your face. | |
2679 | ||
2680 | Gentle Reader: | |
2681 | Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on | |
2682 | your face ... | |
2683 | %% | |
2684 | Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. | |
2685 | %% | |
2686 | Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. | |
2687 | %% | |
2688 | Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. | |
2689 | -- R. Geis | |
2690 | %% | |
2691 | Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down | |
2692 | %% | |
2693 | Decisionmaker, n.: | |
2694 | The person in your office who was unable to form a task force | |
2695 | before the music stopped. | |
2696 | %% | |
2697 | Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really | |
2698 | overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene | |
2699 | language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the | |
2700 | judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when | |
2701 | addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). | |
2702 | -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing | |
2703 | Assoc. | |
2704 | %% | |
2705 | Deliberation, n.: | |
2706 | The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is | |
2707 | buttered on. | |
2708 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2709 | %% | |
2710 | "Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow." | |
2711 | %% | |
2712 | Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder | |
2713 | aloud what the country could do under first-class management. | |
2714 | -- Senator Soaper | |
2715 | %% | |
2716 | Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the | |
2717 | incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. | |
2718 | -- G. B. Shaw | |
2719 | %% | |
2720 | Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by | |
2721 | Jackasses. | |
2722 | -- H. L. Mencken | |
2723 | %% | |
2724 | Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people | |
2725 | are right more than half of the time. | |
2726 | -- E. B. White | |
2727 | %% | |
2728 | Dentist, n.: | |
2729 | A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls | |
2730 | coins out of one's pockets. | |
2731 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2732 | %% | |
2733 | Did you know ... | |
2734 | ||
2735 | That no-one ever reads these things? | |
2736 | %% | |
2737 | Did you know that clones never use mirrors? | |
2738 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2739 | %% | |
2740 | "Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a | |
2741 | conventional thing to happen to him." | |
2742 | -- John Barrymore's dying words | |
2743 | %% | |
2744 | Die, v.: | |
2745 | To stop sinning suddenly. | |
2746 | -- Elbert Hubbard | |
2747 | %% | |
2748 | Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. | |
2749 | %% | |
2750 | Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. | |
2751 | Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight. | |
2752 | %% | |
2753 | Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. | |
2754 | %% | |
2755 | Disc space -- the final frontier! | |
2756 | %% | |
2757 | Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. | |
2758 | %% | |
2759 | Distress, n.: | |
2760 | A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. | |
2761 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2762 | %% | |
2763 | Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? | |
2764 | %% | |
2765 | Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? | |
2766 | %% | |
2767 | Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. | |
2768 | %% | |
2769 | Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. | |
2770 | %% | |
2771 | Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to | |
2772 | anger. | |
2773 | %% | |
2774 | Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. | |
2775 | Violators will be prosecuted. | |
2776 | (Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.)) | |
2777 | %% | |
2778 | Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. | |
2779 | %% | |
2780 | Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each | |
2781 | day as it comes. | |
2782 | -- Donald Kaul | |
2783 | %% | |
2784 | Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. | |
2785 | %% | |
2786 | Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. | |
2787 | %% | |
2788 | Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take | |
2789 | the time to take the dirt out of them? | |
2790 | %% | |
2791 | "Do you think what we're doing is wrong?" | |
2792 | "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!" | |
2793 | "I've never done anything illegal before." | |
2794 | "I thought you said you were an accountant!" | |
2795 | %% | |
2796 | Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and | |
2797 | when it is bad, it is better than nothing. | |
2798 | -- Dick Brandon | |
2799 | %% | |
2800 | Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must | |
2801 | be good because the programmers hate it so much. | |
2802 | %% | |
2803 | Don: I didn't know you had a cousin Penelope, Bill! Was she | |
2804 | pretty? | |
2805 | W. C.: Well, her face was so wrinkled it looked like seven miles of | |
2806 | bad road. She had so many gold teeth, Don, she use to have to | |
2807 | sleep with her head in a safe. She died in Bolivia. | |
2808 | Don: Oh Bill, it must be hard to lose a relative. | |
2809 | W. C.: It's almost impossible. | |
2810 | -- W. C. Fields, from "The Further Adventures of Larson | |
2811 | E. Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles" | |
2812 | %% | |
2813 | Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. | |
2814 | %% | |
2815 | Don't be humble, you're not that great. | |
2816 | -- Golda Meir | |
2817 | %% | |
2818 | Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. | |
2819 | %% | |
2820 | Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today! | |
2821 | %% | |
2822 | Don't feed the bats tonight. | |
2823 | %% | |
2824 | Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly | |
2825 | misleading. Debug only code. | |
2826 | -- Dave Storer | |
2827 | %% | |
2828 | Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you | |
2829 | nothing. It was here first. | |
2830 | -- Mark Twain | |
2831 | %% | |
2832 | Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. | |
2833 | %% | |
2834 | Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. | |
2835 | %% | |
2836 | Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. | |
2837 | %% | |
2838 | Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. | |
2839 | %% | |
2840 | Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking | |
2841 | distance. | |
2842 | %% | |
2843 | Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. | |
2844 | %% | |
2845 | Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy | |
2846 | it today you can do it again tomorrow. | |
2847 | %% | |
2848 | "Don't say yes until I finish talking." | |
2849 | -- Darryl F. Zanuck | |
2850 | %% | |
2851 | Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out if it alive. | |
2852 | %% | |
2853 | Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. | |
2854 | %% | |
2855 | "Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to | |
2856 | get more wax!!" | |
2857 | %% | |
2858 | Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already | |
2859 | tomorrow in Australia. | |
2860 | -- Charles Schultz | |
2861 | %% | |
2862 | Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too | |
2863 | busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. | |
2864 | %% | |
2865 | Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? | |
2866 | %% | |
2867 | Down with categorical imperative! | |
2868 | %% | |
2869 | "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." | |
2870 | %% | |
2871 | Drew's Law of Highway Biology: | |
2872 | The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front | |
2873 | of your eyes. | |
2874 | %% | |
2875 | Drive defensively. Buy a tank. | |
2876 | %% | |
2877 | Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic | |
2878 | route! | |
2879 | %% | |
2880 | Ducharme's Precept: | |
2881 | Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment. | |
2882 | %% | |
2883 | Ducharm's Axiom: | |
2884 | If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize | |
2885 | yourself as part of the problem. | |
2886 | %% | |
2887 | Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and | |
2888 | it holds the universe together ... | |
2889 | -- Carl Zwanzig | |
2890 | %% | |
2891 | Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders | |
2892 | has been discontinued. | |
2893 | %% | |
2894 | Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate | |
2895 | and captain of your soul. | |
2896 | %% | |
2897 | During the next two hours, the VAX will be going up and down several | |
2898 | times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_\a~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_\a~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o | |
2899 | %% | |
2900 | Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to | |
2901 | have nothing whatever to do with it. | |
2902 | -- W. Somerset Maughm | |
2903 | %% | |
2904 | E Pluribus Unix | |
2905 | %% | |
2906 | Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends. | |
2907 | %% | |
2908 | /Earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. | |
2909 | %% | |
2910 | "Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun." | |
2911 | -- Jeff Berner | |
2912 | %% | |
2913 | Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: | |
2914 | Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the | |
2915 | cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of | |
2916 | the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this | |
2917 | means the puzzle is solved. | |
2918 | -- Steve Rubenstein | |
2919 | %% | |
2920 | Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. | |
2921 | -- John Kenneth Galbraith | |
2922 | %% | |
2923 | Economics, n.: | |
2924 | Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K. | |
2925 | Galbraith ... | |
2926 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
2927 | %% | |
2928 | Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. | |
2929 | -- Adlai Stevenson | |
2930 | %% | |
2931 | Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many | |
2932 | people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable | |
2933 | comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where | |
2934 | the "nog" comes from. | |
2935 | ||
2936 | To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in | |
2937 | season, eggs... | |
2938 | %% | |
2939 | Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain | |
2940 | of being a damned fool. | |
2941 | -- Bellamy Brooks | |
2942 | %% | |
2943 | Egotist, n.: | |
2944 | A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. | |
2945 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
2946 | %% | |
2947 | Ehrman's Commentary: | |
2948 | 1. Things will get worse before they get better. | |
2949 | 2. Who said things would get better? | |
2950 | %% | |
2951 | Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. | |
2952 | -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star | |
2953 | %% | |
2954 | Eisenhower was very nice, | |
2955 | Nixon was his only vice. | |
2956 | -- C. Degen | |
2957 | %% | |
2958 | Eleanor Rigby | |
2959 | Sits at the keyboard | |
2960 | And waits for a line on the screen | |
2961 | Lives in a dream | |
2962 | Waits for a signal | |
2963 | Finding some code | |
2964 | That will make the machine do some more. | |
2965 | What is it for? | |
2966 | ||
2967 | All the lonely users, where do they all come from? | |
2968 | All the lonely users, why does it take so long? | |
2969 | %% | |
2970 | Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. | |
2971 | %% | |
2972 | Electrocution, n.: | |
2973 | Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. | |
2974 | %% | |
2975 | Elevators smell different to midgets | |
2976 | %% | |
2977 | Emersons' Law of Contrariness: | |
2978 | Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we | |
2979 | can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. | |
2980 | %% | |
2981 | Encyclopedia Salesmen: | |
2982 | Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police | |
2983 | and tell them your house is being burgled. | |
2984 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
2985 | %% | |
2986 | Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless. | |
2987 | Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. | |
2988 | -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary | |
2989 | %% | |
2990 | Entropy isn't what it used to be. | |
2991 | %% | |
2992 | Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which | |
2993 | otherwise require harder thinking. | |
2994 | -- Jerome Lettvin | |
2995 | %% | |
2996 | Equal bytes for women. | |
2997 | %% | |
2998 | Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven | |
2999 | Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; | |
3000 | Und aller-m"\bumsige Burggoven | |
3001 | Dir mohmen R"\bath ausgraben. | |
3002 | -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
3003 | %% | |
3004 | Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. | |
3005 | -- Woody Allen | |
3006 | %% | |
3007 | Etymology, n.: | |
3008 | Some early etymological scholars come up with derivations that | |
3009 | were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed | |
3010 | from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy" | |
3011 | ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow." | |
3012 | -- Mike Kellen | |
3013 | %% | |
3014 | Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to | |
3015 | speak it to? | |
3016 | -- Clarence Darrow | |
3017 | %% | |
3018 | "Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral." | |
3019 | -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" | |
3020 | %% | |
3021 | Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United | |
3022 | States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only 2 cents a day. | |
3023 | %% | |
3024 | Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you | |
3025 | just how busy they are. | |
3026 | %% | |
3027 | Every 4 seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this woman | |
3028 | and stop her. | |
3029 | %% | |
3030 | Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation): | |
3031 | ||
3032 | Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and in | |
3033 | front they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an | |
3034 | odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both even | |
3035 | and odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of | |
3036 | legs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere, | |
3037 | there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horse | |
3038 | of another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the same | |
3039 | color"], that does not exist. | |
3040 | %% | |
3041 | Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. | |
3042 | %% | |
3043 | Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. | |
3044 | %% | |
3045 | Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired | |
3046 | signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not | |
3047 | fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not | |
3048 | spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the | |
3049 | genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way | |
3050 | of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is | |
3051 | humanity hanging on a cross of iron. | |
3052 | -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 | |
3053 | %% | |
3054 | Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. | |
3055 | -- Don Vonada | |
3056 | %% | |
3057 | Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. | |
3058 | -- Miguel de Cervantes | |
3059 | %% | |
3060 | Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one | |
3061 | instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every | |
3062 | program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work. | |
3063 | %% | |
3064 | Every program has two purposes -- | |
3065 | written and another for which it wasn't. | |
3066 | %% | |
3067 | Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. | |
3068 | %% | |
3069 | Every solution breeds new problems. | |
3070 | %% | |
3071 | Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no | |
3072 | guarantee of eventual success. | |
3073 | %% | |
3074 | "Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it." | |
3075 | %% | |
3076 | Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. | |
3077 | -- Beckett | |
3078 | %% | |
3079 | Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. | |
3080 | -- Dykstra | |
3081 | %% | |
3082 | Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. | |
3083 | %% | |
3084 | Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be | |
3085 | taught how ___\b\b\bnot to. So it is with the great programmers. | |
3086 | %% | |
3087 | Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic | |
3088 | formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the | |
3089 | scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact | |
3090 | wholly unconcerned with what ____\b\b\b\bdoes exist. Indeed, the banality of | |
3091 | existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to | |
3092 | discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the | |
3093 | problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the | |
3094 | mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, | |
3095 | one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely | |
3096 | different way ... | |
3097 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
3098 | %% | |
3099 | Everyone talks about apathy, but no one ____\b\b\b\bdoes anything about it. | |
3100 | %% | |
3101 | Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, | |
3102 | no one we know belongs. | |
3103 | %% | |
3104 | Everything you know is wrong! | |
3105 | %% | |
3106 | Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less | |
3107 | obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no | |
3108 | solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. | |
3109 | There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no | |
3110 | straight lines. | |
3111 | -- R. Buckminster Fuller | |
3112 | %% | |
3113 | Everyting should be built top-down, except the first time. | |
3114 | %% | |
3115 | Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike office water cooler. | |
3116 | %% | |
3117 | Excellent day to have a rotten day. | |
3118 | %% | |
3119 | Excellent time to become a missing person. | |
3120 | %% | |
3121 | Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from | |
3122 | acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. | |
3123 | -- W. Somerset Maugham | |
3124 | %% | |
3125 | Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. | |
3126 | %% | |
3127 | Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. | |
3128 | %% | |
3129 | Expense Accounts, n.: | |
3130 | Corporate food stamps. | |
3131 | %% | |
3132 | Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. | |
3133 | -- Olivier | |
3134 | %% | |
3135 | Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a | |
3136 | mistake when you make it again. | |
3137 | -- F. P. Jones | |
3138 | %% | |
3139 | Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and | |
3140 | the instruction afterward. | |
3141 | %% | |
3142 | Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old | |
3143 | ones. | |
3144 | %% | |
3145 | Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else. | |
3146 | %% | |
3147 | Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. | |
3148 | %% | |
3149 | F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm! | |
3150 | %% | |
3151 | FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when | |
3152 | the little hand is on the .... | |
3153 | %% | |
3154 | FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14 | |
3155 | ||
3156 | Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your good | |
3157 | liquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert and | |
3158 | light after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anything | |
3159 | drinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck. | |
3160 | %% | |
3161 | Fairy Tale, n.: | |
3162 | A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers. | |
3163 | %% | |
3164 | Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic | |
3165 | without looking to see whether the seeds move. | |
3166 | %% | |
3167 | Faith, n: | |
3168 | That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be | |
3169 | untrue. | |
3170 | %% | |
3171 | Fakir, n: | |
3172 | A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost | |
3173 | religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources seem to | |
3174 | have shinnied up a rope and vanished. | |
3175 | %% | |
3176 | Familiarity breeds attempt | |
3177 | %% | |
3178 | Families, when a child is born | |
3179 | Want it to be intelligent. | |
3180 | I, through intelligence, | |
3181 | Having wrecked my whole life, | |
3182 | Only hope the baby will prove | |
3183 | Ignorant and stupid. | |
3184 | Then he will crown a tranquil life | |
3185 | By becoming a Cabinet Minister | |
3186 | -- Su Tung-p'o | |
3187 | %% | |
3188 | Famous last words: | |
3189 | %% | |
3190 | Famous last words: | |
3191 | 1. Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix. | |
3192 | 2. Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there. | |
3193 | 3. What happens if you touch these two wires tog-- | |
3194 | 4. We won't need reservations. | |
3195 | 5. It's always sunny there this time of the year. | |
3196 | 6. Don't worry, it's not loaded. | |
3197 | 7. They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager. | |
3198 | %% | |
3199 | Famous last words: | |
3200 | 1) "Don't worry, I can handle it." | |
3201 | 2) "You and what army?" | |
3202 | 3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be | |
3203 | a cop." | |
3204 | %% | |
3205 | Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the | |
3206 | Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. | |
3207 | Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an | |
3208 | utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life | |
3209 | forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches | |
3210 | are a pretty neat idea ... | |
3211 | -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
3212 | %% | |
3213 | Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it | |
3214 | every six months. | |
3215 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
3216 | %% | |
3217 | Fats Loves Madelyn | |
3218 | %% | |
3219 | Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ... | |
3220 | %% | |
3221 | Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, | |
3222 | neither will you. | |
3223 | %% | |
3224 | Fifth Law of Applied Terror: | |
3225 | If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book. | |
3226 | Corollary: | |
3227 | If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you | |
3228 | live. | |
3229 | %% | |
3230 | Fifth Law of Procrastination: | |
3231 | Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that | |
3232 | there is nothing important to do. | |
3233 | %% | |
3234 | Finagle's Creed: | |
3235 | Science is true. Don't be misled by facts. | |
3236 | %% | |
3237 | Finagle's First Law: | |
3238 | If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. | |
3239 | %% | |
3240 | Finagle's Second Law: | |
3241 | No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be | |
3242 | someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) | |
3243 | believe it happened according to his own pet theory. | |
3244 | %% | |
3245 | Finagle's Third Law: | |
3246 | In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, | |
3247 | beyond all need of checking, is the mistake | |
3248 | ||
3249 | Corollaries: | |
3250 | 1. Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. | |
3251 | 2. The first person who stops by, whose advice you really | |
3252 | don't want to hear, will see it immediately. | |
3253 | %% | |
3254 | Finagle's fourth Law: | |
3255 | Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only | |
3256 | makes it worse. | |
3257 | %% | |
3258 | Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. | |
3259 | %% | |
3260 | Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. | |
3261 | %% | |
3262 | First Law of Bicycling: | |
3263 | No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the | |
3264 | wind. | |
3265 | %% | |
3266 | First Law of Procrastination: | |
3267 | Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility | |
3268 | for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who | |
3269 | imposed the deadline). | |
3270 | %% | |
3271 | First Law of Socio-Genetics: | |
3272 | Celibacy is not hereditary. | |
3273 | %% | |
3274 | First Rule of History: | |
3275 | History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each | |
3276 | other. | |
3277 | %% | |
3278 | Flappity, floppity, flip | |
3279 | The mouse on the m"\bobius strip; | |
3280 | The strip revolved, | |
3281 | The mouse dissolved | |
3282 | In a chronodimensional skip. | |
3283 | %% | |
3284 | Flon's Law: | |
3285 | There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is | |
3286 | the least bit difficult to write bad programs. | |
3287 | %% | |
3288 | Flugg's Law: | |
3289 | When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the | |
3290 | world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum. | |
3291 | %% | |
3292 | For a good time, call (415) 642-9483 | |
3293 | %% | |
3294 | For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be | |
3295 | always old-fashioned. | |
3296 | %% | |
3297 | For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, | |
3298 | and wrong. | |
3299 | -- H. L. Mencken | |
3300 | %% | |
3301 | For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill. | |
3302 | -- R. Clopton | |
3303 | %% | |
3304 | For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say | |
3305 | "Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something. | |
3306 | -- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to | |
3307 | the U.S. | |
3308 | %% | |
3309 | For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz. | |
3310 | %% | |
3311 | "For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of | |
3312 | a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with | |
3313 | computers altogether?" | |
3314 | -- Jehan Shuman | |
3315 | %% | |
3316 | For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they | |
3317 | like. | |
3318 | -- Abraham Lincoln | |
3319 | %% | |
3320 | For years a secret shame destroyed my peace -- | |
3321 | I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece. | |
3322 | But now I think a thought that brings me hope: | |
3323 | Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. | |
3324 | -- Justin Richardson. | |
3325 | %% | |
3326 | Forgetfulness, n.: | |
3327 | A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their | |
3328 | destitution of conscience. | |
3329 | %% | |
3330 | Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month): | |
3331 | ||
3332 | Don't Write On Walls! | |
3333 | ||
3334 | (and underneath) | |
3335 | ||
3336 | You want I should type? | |
3337 | %% | |
3338 | Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful | |
3339 | Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an | |
3340 | impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and | |
3341 | clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following | |
3342 | exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan. | |
3343 | ||
3344 | DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are | |
3345 | having to artificially propagate oysters and clams. | |
3346 | HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters? | |
3347 | DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter | |
3348 | is that female oysters through their living habits cast out | |
3349 | large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large | |
3350 | amounts of fertilization. | |
3351 | HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many | |
3352 | teenagers who read The Congressional Record. | |
3353 | %% | |
3354 | Fourth Law of Applied Terror: | |
3355 | The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology | |
3356 | instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria. | |
3357 | Corollary: | |
3358 | Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do | |
3359 | except study for that instructor's course. | |
3360 | %% | |
3361 | Fourth Law of Revision: | |
3362 | It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about | |
3363 | interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for | |
3364 | you. | |
3365 | %% | |
3366 | Fresco's Discovery: | |
3367 | If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored. | |
3368 | %% | |
3369 | Friends, Romans, Hipsters, | |
3370 | Let me clue you in; | |
3371 | I come to put down Caeser, not to groove him. | |
3372 | The square kicks some cats are on stay with them; | |
3373 | The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caeser. The cool Brutus | |
3374 | Gave you the message: Caeser had big eyes; | |
3375 | If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea, | |
3376 | And, like, old Caeser really set them straight. | |
3377 | Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- for Brutus is a real cool cat; | |
3378 | So are they all, all cool cats, -- | |
3379 | Come I to make this gig at Caeser's laying down. | |
3380 | %% | |
3381 | Frisbeetarianism, n.: | |
3382 | The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and | |
3383 | gets stuck. | |
3384 | %% | |
3385 | Frobnicate, v.: | |
3386 | To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ. | |
3387 | Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a | |
3388 | frob". See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK | |
3389 | sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless | |
3390 | manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse | |
3391 | search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is | |
3392 | turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it | |
3393 | he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the | |
3394 | screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because | |
3395 | turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. | |
3396 | %% | |
3397 | From too much love of living, | |
3398 | From hope and fear set free, | |
3399 | We thank with brief thanksgiving, | |
3400 | Whatever gods may be, | |
3401 | That no life lives forever, | |
3402 | That dead men rise up never, | |
3403 | That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea. | |
3404 | -- Swinburne | |
3405 | %% | |
3406 | Fudd's First Law of Opposition: | |
3407 | Push something hard enough and it will fall over. | |
3408 | %% | |
3409 | Furbling, v.: | |
3410 | Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank | |
3411 | even when you are the only person in line. | |
3412 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
3413 | %% | |
3414 | Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. | |
3415 | -- H. H. Williams | |
3416 | %% | |
3417 | Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening. | |
3418 | %% | |
3419 | G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. One | |
3420 | of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his | |
3421 | secretary, `Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says | |
3422 | `No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' | |
3423 | And that's your chance, my boy." | |
3424 | %% | |
3425 | GEMINI (May 21 to Jun. 20) | |
3426 | Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while | |
3427 | you can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy | |
3428 | praise and respect from those around you; everybody loves a | |
3429 | sucker. A short trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's | |
3430 | room. | |
3431 | %% | |
3432 | //GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH | |
3433 | %% | |
3434 | Garbage In -- Gospel Out. | |
3435 | %% | |
3436 | Garter, n.: | |
3437 | An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her | |
3438 | stockings and desolating the country. | |
3439 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
3440 | %% | |
3441 | Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall | |
3442 | on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!! | |
3443 | -- Adventures of Asterix. | |
3444 | %% | |
3445 | Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep". | |
3446 | ||
3447 | Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound | |
3448 | than the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference: | |
3449 | "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling." | |
3450 | Obvious, isn't it? | |
3451 | Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start | |
3452 | speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as | |
3453 | long as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all | |
3454 | your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and | |
3455 | so on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committed | |
3456 | individuals and then grow ... | |
3457 | Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those | |
3458 | signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when | |
3459 | everything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving on | |
3460 | the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs | |
3461 | backwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? I | |
3462 | think not, my friend, I think not. | |
3463 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
3464 | %% | |
3465 | Genderplex, n.: | |
3466 | The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to | |
3467 | determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and | |
3468 | tortoises). | |
3469 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
3470 | %% | |
3471 | Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why | |
3472 | you should. | |
3473 | %% | |
3474 | Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus | |
3475 | handicapped. | |
3476 | -- Elbert Hubbard | |
3477 | %% | |
3478 | Genius, n.: | |
3479 | A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with | |
3480 | "bright". | |
3481 | %% | |
3482 | George Orwell was an optimist. | |
3483 | %% | |
3484 | Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: | |
3485 | 1. An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong | |
3486 | direction. | |
3487 | 2. An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. | |
3488 | 3. The energy required to change either one of these states | |
3489 | will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so | |
3490 | much as to make the task totally impossible. | |
3491 | %% | |
3492 | Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children! | |
3493 | %% | |
3494 | Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty. | |
3495 | %% | |
3496 | Ginsberg's Theorem: | |
3497 | 1. You can't win. | |
3498 | 2. You can't break even. | |
3499 | 3. You can't even quit the game. | |
3500 | ||
3501 | Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem: | |
3502 | ||
3503 | Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem | |
3504 | meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's | |
3505 | Theorem. To wit: | |
3506 | ||
3507 | 1. Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win. | |
3508 | 2. Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break | |
3509 | even. | |
3510 | 3. Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the | |
3511 | game. | |
3512 | %% | |
3513 | Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place | |
3514 | to stand, and I will drain the world. | |
3515 | %% | |
3516 | Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities! | |
3517 | %% | |
3518 | Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to | |
3519 | a new town. | |
3520 | %% | |
3521 | Give your child mental blocks for Christmas. | |
3522 | %% | |
3523 | Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability: | |
3524 | Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the | |
3525 | probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting | |
3526 | some useful work done. | |
3527 | %% | |
3528 | Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may | |
3529 | be in owning a piece thereof. | |
3530 | -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" | |
3531 | %% | |
3532 | Go 'way! You're bothering me! | |
3533 | %% | |
3534 | God did not create the world in 7 days; he screwed around for 6 days | |
3535 | and then pulled an all-nighter. | |
3536 | %% | |
3537 | "God gives burdens; also shoulders" | |
3538 | ||
3539 | Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech | |
3540 | at the end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish | |
3541 | saying; I can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth | |
3542 | though; why would he lie about a thing like that? | |
3543 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
3544 | %% | |
3545 | God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ... | |
3546 | The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I do | |
3547 | not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman | |
3548 | ... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on | |
3549 | smoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and | |
3550 | water is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in | |
3551 | the morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at | |
3552 | night! | |
3553 | -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher | |
3554 | %% | |
3555 | God is Dead | |
3556 | -- Nietzsche | |
3557 | Nietzsche is Dead | |
3558 | -- God | |
3559 | Nietzsche is God | |
3560 | -- The Dead | |
3561 | %% | |
3562 | God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh | |
3563 | %% | |
3564 | God is a polythiest | |
3565 | %% | |
3566 | God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's | |
3567 | %% | |
3568 | God is real, unless declared integer. | |
3569 | %% | |
3570 | God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the | |
3571 | elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying | |
3572 | other things. | |
3573 | -- Pablo Picasso | |
3574 | %% | |
3575 | God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. | |
3576 | -- Alfred Jarry | |
3577 | %% | |
3578 | God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. | |
3579 | %% | |
3580 | God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. | |
3581 | %% | |
3582 | God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board | |
3583 | -- Mark Twain | |
3584 | %% | |
3585 | God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. | |
3586 | -- Kronecker | |
3587 | %% | |
3588 | God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. | |
3589 | %% | |
3590 | God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean. | |
3591 | -- Albert Einstein | |
3592 | %% | |
3593 | God must love the Common Man; He made so many of them. | |
3594 | %% | |
3595 | God rest ye CS students now, | |
3596 | Let nothing you dismay. | |
3597 | The VAX is down and won't be up, | |
3598 | Until the first of May. | |
3599 | The program that was due this morn, | |
3600 | Won't be postponed, they say. | |
3601 | ||
3602 | Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, | |
3603 | Comfort and joy, | |
3604 | Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. | |
3605 | ||
3606 | The bearings on the drum are gone, | |
3607 | The disk is wobbling, too. | |
3608 | We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol | |
3609 | Can't tell false from true. | |
3610 | And now we find that we can't get | |
3611 | At Berkeley's 4.2. | |
3612 | ||
3613 | (chorus) | |
3614 | %% | |
3615 | Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to | |
3616 | school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a | |
3617 | person a car. | |
3618 | %% | |
3619 | Gold, n.: | |
3620 | A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It | |
3621 | is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who | |
3622 | immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold | |
3623 | hasn't done anything to them. | |
3624 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
3625 | %% | |
3626 | Goldenstern's Rules: | |
3627 | 1. Always hire a rich attorney | |
3628 | 2. Never buy from a rich salesman. | |
3629 | %% | |
3630 | Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad | |
3631 | example. | |
3632 | -- La Rouchefoucauld | |
3633 | %% | |
3634 | Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. | |
3635 | %% | |
3636 | Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. | |
3637 | %% | |
3638 | Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. | |
3639 | %% | |
3640 | Good day to let down old friends who need help. | |
3641 | %% | |
3642 | Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed. | |
3643 | %% | |
3644 | Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day. | |
3645 | %% | |
3646 | Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance. | |
3647 | %% | |
3648 | Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's | |
3649 | new lover. | |
3650 | %% | |
3651 | Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. | |
3652 | -- George Saunders' dying words | |
3653 | %% | |
3654 | Got Mole problems? | |
3655 | Call Avogardo 6.02 x 10^23 | |
3656 | %% | |
3657 | Goto, n.: | |
3658 | A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers | |
3659 | to complain about unstructured programmers. | |
3660 | -- Ray Simard | |
3661 | %% | |
3662 | Goy: ... The distinction between Jewish and goyish can be quite subtle, | |
3663 | as the following quote from Lenny Bruce illustrates: | |
3664 | ||
3665 | "I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. | |
3666 | Eddie Cantor's goyish. The B'nai Brith is goyish. The Hadassah is | |
3667 | Jewish. Marine Corps -- heavy goyish, dangerous. | |
3668 | "Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish. | |
3669 | Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. | |
3670 | Instant potatoes -- goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish. | |
3671 | Macaroons are ____\b\b\b\bvery Jewish. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is | |
3672 | goyish. Lime soda is ____\b\b\b\bvery goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that | |
3673 | Jews won't go near them ..." | |
3674 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
3675 | %% | |
3676 | Grabel's Law: | |
3677 | 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2. | |
3678 | %% | |
3679 | Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture. | |
3680 | %% | |
3681 | Grandpa Charnock's Law: | |
3682 | You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. | |
3683 | %% | |
3684 | Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. | |
3685 | %% | |
3686 | Gray's Law of Programming: | |
3687 | `_\bn+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same | |
3688 | time as `_\bn' tasks. | |
3689 | ||
3690 | Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law: | |
3691 | `_\bn+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as `_\bn' trivial tasks. | |
3692 | %% | |
3693 | Green light in A.M. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic | |
3694 | tickets. | |
3695 | %% | |
3696 | Greener's Law: | |
3697 | Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel. | |
3698 | %% | |
3699 | Grelb's Reminder: | |
3700 | Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above | |
3701 | average drivers. | |
3702 | %% | |
3703 | "Grub first, then ethics." | |
3704 | -- Bertolt Brecht | |
3705 | %% | |
3706 | Gyroscope, n.: | |
3707 | A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also | |
3708 | free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to each | |
3709 | other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two | |
3710 | mutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to the | |
3711 | other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus | |
3712 | offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any | |
3713 | torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin. | |
3714 | -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary | |
3715 | %% | |
3716 | H. L. Mencken's Law: | |
3717 | Those who can -- do. | |
3718 | Those who can't -- teach. | |
3719 | ||
3720 | Martin's Extension: | |
3721 | Those who cannot teach -- administrate. | |
3722 | %% | |
3723 | HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science. | |
3724 | SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains. | |
3725 | -- Walt Kelley | |
3726 | %% | |
3727 | Hacker's Law: | |
3728 | The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir | |
3729 | a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions. | |
3730 | %% | |
3731 | Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. | |
3732 | %% | |
3733 | Hail to the sun god | |
3734 | He sure is a fun god | |
3735 | Ra! Ra! Ra! | |
3736 | %% | |
3737 | Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) | |
3738 | %% | |
3739 | Half-done: This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still | |
3740 | crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference | |
3741 | between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like | |
3742 | the the difference between life and death. | |
3743 | You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill | |
3744 | there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the | |
3745 | airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough | |
3746 | Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on | |
3747 | Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk | |
3748 | about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the | |
3749 | man, "Let me have a nice half-done." | |
3750 | Worth the trouble, wasn't it? | |
3751 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
3752 | %% | |
3753 | Hall's Laws of Politics: | |
3754 | (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending. | |
3755 | (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something | |
3756 | fixed. | |
3757 | (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend | |
3758 | military spending, and conservatives social spending in | |
3759 | their own districts). | |
3760 | %% | |
3761 | Hand, n.: | |
3762 | A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and | |
3763 | commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. | |
3764 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
3765 | %% | |
3766 | Hanlon's Razor: | |
3767 | Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by | |
3768 | stupidity. | |
3769 | %% | |
3770 | Hanson's Treatment of Time: | |
3771 | There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days | |
3772 | before Saturday. | |
3773 | %% | |
3774 | Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. | |
3775 | -- Ogden Nash | |
3776 | %% | |
3777 | Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. | |
3778 | -- Oscar Levant | |
3779 | %% | |
3780 | Happiness, n.: | |
3781 | An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of | |
3782 | another. | |
3783 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
3784 | %% | |
3785 | Hardware, n.: | |
3786 | The parts of a computer system that can be kicked. | |
3787 | %% | |
3788 | Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark | |
3789 | The Duke is fond of kittens | |
3790 | He likes to take their insides out | |
3791 | And use them for his mittens | |
3792 | From "The Thirteen Clocks" | |
3793 | %% | |
3794 | Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, | |
3795 | Advertising wondrous things. | |
3796 | -- Tom Leher | |
3797 | %% | |
3798 | Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: | |
3799 | Experience is directly proportional to the amount of | |
3800 | equipment ruined. | |
3801 | %% | |
3802 | Harris's Lament: | |
3803 | All the good ones are taken. | |
3804 | %% | |
3805 | Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he | |
3806 | makes us all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean | |
3807 | famous for its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses | |
3808 | probably stirs romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you | |
3809 | have never met any wild horses in person. In person, they are like | |
3810 | enormous hooved rats. They amble up to your camp site, and their | |
3811 | attitude is: "We're wild horses. We're going to eat your food, knock | |
3812 | down your tent and poop on your shoes. We're protected by federal law, | |
3813 | just like Richard Nixon." | |
3814 | -- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob" | |
3815 | %% | |
3816 | Hartley's First Law: | |
3817 | You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float | |
3818 | on his back, you've got something. | |
3819 | %% | |
3820 | Hartley's Second Law: | |
3821 | Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself. | |
3822 | %% | |
3823 | Harvard Law: | |
3824 | Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, | |
3825 | temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the | |
3826 | organism will do as it damn well pleases. | |
3827 | %% | |
3828 | Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are | |
3829 | typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter | |
3830 | keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use | |
3831 | of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is | |
3832 | not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears. | |
3833 | %% | |
3834 | Hatred, n.: | |
3835 | A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's | |
3836 | superiority. | |
3837 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
3838 | %% | |
3839 | Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell | |
3840 | you, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the time | |
3841 | for play? | |
3842 | %% | |
3843 | Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a | |
3844 | crack in your sidewalk? | |
3845 | %% | |
3846 | He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and | |
3847 | heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope | |
3848 | of ever behaving "normally." | |
3849 | -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" | |
3850 | %% | |
3851 | He hadn't a single redeeming vice. | |
3852 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
3853 | %% | |
3854 | "He is now rising from affluence to poverty." | |
3855 | -- Mark Twain | |
3856 | %% | |
3857 | He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered. | |
3858 | %% | |
3859 | He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. | |
3860 | -- John Mason Brown, drama critic | |
3861 | %% | |
3862 | He thought he saw an albatross | |
3863 | That fluttered 'round the lamp. | |
3864 | He looked again and saw it was | |
3865 | A penny postage stamp. | |
3866 | "You'd best be getting home," he said, | |
3867 | "The nights are rather damp." | |
3868 | %% | |
3869 | "He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both | |
3870 | eyes ..." | |
3871 | %% | |
3872 | He who Laughs, Lasts. | |
3873 | %% | |
3874 | He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry | |
3875 | attacks democracy itself. | |
3876 | -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS | |
3877 | %% | |
3878 | Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. | |
3879 | %% | |
3880 | Heaven, n.: | |
3881 | A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of | |
3882 | their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you | |
3883 | expound your own. | |
3884 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
3885 | %% | |
3886 | Heavy, adj.: | |
3887 | Seduced by the chocolate side of the force. | |
3888 | %% | |
3889 | "Heisenberg may have slept here" | |
3890 | %% | |
3891 | Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. | |
3892 | -- Milton Friedman | |
3893 | %% | |
3894 | Heller's Law: | |
3895 | The first myth of management is that it exists. | |
3896 | ||
3897 | Johnson's Corollary: | |
3898 | Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the | |
3899 | organization. | |
3900 | %% | |
3901 | Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! | |
3902 | %% | |
3903 | Help a swallow land at Capistrano. | |
3904 | %% | |
3905 | Her locks an ancient lady gave | |
3906 | Her loving husband's life to save; | |
3907 | And men -- they honored so the dame -- | |
3908 | Upon some stars bestowed her name. | |
3909 | ||
3910 | But to our modern married fair, | |
3911 | Who'd give their lords to save their hair, | |
3912 | No stellar recognition's given. | |
3913 | There are not stars enough in heaven. | |
3914 | %% | |
3915 | Here I sit, broken-hearted, | |
3916 | All logged in, but work unstarted. | |
3917 | First net.this and net.that, | |
3918 | And a hot buttered bun for net.fat. | |
3919 | ||
3920 | The boss comes by, and I play the game, | |
3921 | Then I turn back to net.flame. | |
3922 | Is there a cure (I need your views), | |
3923 | For someone trapped in net.news? | |
3924 | ||
3925 | I need your help, I say 'tween sobs, | |
3926 | 'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs. | |
3927 | %% | |
3928 | "Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from | |
3929 | Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..." | |
3930 | %% | |
3931 | Here in my heart, I am Helen; | |
3932 | I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least. | |
3933 | I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"\bel; | |
3934 | I'm Salome, moon of the East. | |
3935 | ||
3936 | Here in my soul I am Sappho; | |
3937 | Lady Hamilton am I, as well. | |
3938 | In me R'\becamier vies with Kitty O'Shea, | |
3939 | With Dido, and Eve, and poor nell. | |
3940 | ||
3941 | I'm all of the glamorous ladies | |
3942 | At whose beckoning history shook. | |
3943 | But you are a man, and see only my pan, | |
3944 | So I stay at home with a book. | |
3945 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
3946 | %% | |
3947 | Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical | |
3948 | lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach | |
3949 | your hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. | |
3950 | Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in | |
3951 | pain? This teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force, | |
3952 | but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an | |
3953 | important electrical lesson. | |
3954 | ||
3955 | It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed | |
3956 | your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small | |
3957 | objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will | |
3958 | attract dirt. The electrons travel through your bloodstream and | |
3959 | collect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your | |
3960 | friend's filling, then travels down to his feet and back into the | |
3961 | carpet, thus completing the circuit. | |
3962 | ||
3963 | Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without | |
3964 | touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your | |
3965 | finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you | |
3966 | have carpeting. | |
3967 | -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" | |
3968 | %% | |
3969 | "He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ..." | |
3970 | %% | |
3971 | He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be | |
3972 | there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter. | |
3973 | %% | |
3974 | "He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..." | |
3975 | %% | |
3976 | Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, | |
3977 | then they'd be algorithms. | |
3978 | %% | |
3979 | "Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!" | |
3980 | -- W. C. Fields | |
3981 | %% | |
3982 | Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person | |
3983 | reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes, | |
3984 | nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home. | |
3985 | %% | |
3986 | Higgeldy Piggeldy, | |
3987 | Hamlet of Elsinore | |
3988 | Ruffled the critics by | |
3989 | Dropping this bomb: | |
3990 | "Phooey on Freud and his | |
3991 | Psychoanalysis -- | |
3992 | Oedipus, Shmoedipus, | |
3993 | I just loved Mom." | |
3994 | %% | |
3995 | Hindsight is an exact science. | |
3996 | %% | |
3997 | Hippogriff, n.: | |
3998 | An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. | |
3999 | The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. | |
4000 | The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which | |
4001 | is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full | |
4002 | of surprises. | |
4003 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
4004 | %% | |
4005 | Hire the morally handicapped. | |
4006 | %% | |
4007 | "His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice" | |
4008 | -- Foghorn Leghorn | |
4009 | %% | |
4010 | "His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier." | |
4011 | %% | |
4012 | History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history. | |
4013 | %% | |
4014 | Hlade's Law: | |
4015 | If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they | |
4016 | will find an easier way to do it. | |
4017 | %% | |
4018 | Hoare's Law of Large Problems: | |
4019 | Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get | |
4020 | out. | |
4021 | %% | |
4022 | Hofstadter's Law: | |
4023 | It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take | |
4024 | Hofstadter's Law into account. | |
4025 | %% | |
4026 | Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it. | |
4027 | -- Rex Reed | |
4028 | %% | |
4029 | "Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense" | |
4030 | %% | |
4031 | Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people. | |
4032 | -- F. M. Hubbard | |
4033 | %% | |
4034 | Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..." | |
4035 | %% | |
4036 | Honk if you love peace and quiet. | |
4037 | %% | |
4038 | Honorable, adj.: | |
4039 | Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative | |
4040 | bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the | |
4041 | honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur." | |
4042 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
4043 | %% | |
4044 | Horngren's Observation: | |
4045 | Among economists, the real world is often a special case. | |
4046 | %% | |
4047 | Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on | |
4048 | people. | |
4049 | -- W. C. Fields | |
4050 | %% | |
4051 | How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? | |
4052 | %% | |
4053 | How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers? | |
4054 | %% | |
4055 | How come wrong numbers are never busy? | |
4056 | %% | |
4057 | How do you explain school to a higher intelligence? | |
4058 | -- Elliot, "E.T." | |
4059 | %% | |
4060 | How doth the VAX's C compiler | |
4061 | Improve its object code. | |
4062 | And even as we speak does it | |
4063 | Increase the system load. | |
4064 | ||
4065 | How patiently it seems to run | |
4066 | And spit out error flags, | |
4067 | While users, with frustration, all | |
4068 | Tear their clothes to rags. | |
4069 | %% | |
4070 | How doth the VAX's C-compiler | |
4071 | Improve its object code. | |
4072 | And even as we speak does it | |
4073 | Increase the system load. | |
4074 | ||
4075 | How patiently it seems to run | |
4076 | And spit out error flags, | |
4077 | While users, with frustration, all | |
4078 | Tear all their clothes to rags. | |
4079 | %% | |
4080 | How doth the little crocodile | |
4081 | Improve his shining tail, | |
4082 | And pour the waters of the Nile | |
4083 | On every golden scale! | |
4084 | ||
4085 | How cheerfully he seems to grin, | |
4086 | How neatly spreads his claws, | |
4087 | And welcomes little fishes in, | |
4088 | With gently smiling jaws! | |
4089 | -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" | |
4090 | %% | |
4091 | How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're | |
4092 | on. | |
4093 | %% | |
4094 | How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? | |
4095 | ||
4096 | None. The Universe spines the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of | |
4097 | the way. | |
4098 | %% | |
4099 | How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? | |
4100 | None: "We'll fix it in software." | |
4101 | ||
4102 | How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? | |
4103 | None: "We'll document it in the manual." | |
4104 | ||
4105 | How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb? | |
4106 | None: "The user can work it out." | |
4107 | %% | |
4108 | How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to | |
4109 | Dayton? | |
4110 | -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey | |
4111 | %% | |
4112 | How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. | |
4113 | %% | |
4114 | Howe's Law: | |
4115 | Everyone has a scheme that will not work. | |
4116 | %% | |
4117 | However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional | |
4118 | manner ... sulking and nausea. | |
4119 | -- Tom K. Ryan | |
4120 | %% | |
4121 | Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill. | |
4122 | %% | |
4123 | Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in | |
4124 | 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an | |
4125 | operating table to prevent his interference, he placed a uretheral | |
4126 | catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of | |
4127 | his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took | |
4128 | the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the | |
4129 | Nobel Prize. | |
4130 | %% | |
4131 | Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs. | |
4132 | %% | |
4133 | "Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse." | |
4134 | -- William Gilbert | |
4135 | %% | |
4136 | Hurewitz's Memory Principle: | |
4137 | The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional | |
4138 | to ..... to ........ uh .............. | |
4139 | %% | |
4140 | I am changing my name to Crysler | |
4141 | I am going down to Washington, D.C. | |
4142 | I will tell some power broker | |
4143 | What they did for Iacocca | |
4144 | Will be perfectly acceptable to me! | |
4145 | I am changing my name to Chrysler, | |
4146 | I am heading for that great receiving line. | |
4147 | When they hand a million grand out, | |
4148 | I'll be standing with my hand out, | |
4149 | Yessir, I'll get mine! | |
4150 | %% | |
4151 | I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of | |
4152 | pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell | |
4153 | you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial | |
4154 | atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something | |
4155 | inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering. | |
4156 | -- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado", Gilbert & Sullivan | |
4157 | %% | |
4158 | "I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!" | |
4159 | -- Paul McCracken | |
4160 | %% | |
4161 | I am not now, and never have been, a girl friend of Henry Kissinger. | |
4162 | -- Gloria Steinem | |
4163 | %% | |
4164 | "I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it." | |
4165 | -- English Professor | |
4166 | %% | |
4167 | I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the | |
4168 | great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. | |
4169 | -- Winston Churchill | |
4170 | %% | |
4171 | "I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone | |
4172 | has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top." | |
4173 | --English Professor, Ohio University | |
4174 | %% | |
4175 | I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater. | |
4176 | %% | |
4177 | I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. | |
4178 | -- G. K. Chesterton | |
4179 | %% | |
4180 | I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. | |
4181 | -- Will Rogers | |
4182 | %% | |
4183 | I bet the human brain is a kludge. | |
4184 | -- Marvin Minsky | |
4185 | %% | |
4186 | I can resist anything but temptation. | |
4187 | %% | |
4188 | I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions. | |
4189 | -- Lillian Hellman | |
4190 | %% | |
4191 | I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar. | |
4192 | ||
4193 | What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good | |
4194 | grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause | |
4195 | of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the | |
4196 | United States would have lost World War II." | |
4197 | -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar" | |
4198 | %% | |
4199 | I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. | |
4200 | -- Joe Walsh | |
4201 | %% | |
4202 | I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. | |
4203 | -- Isaac Asimov | |
4204 | %% | |
4205 | I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us | |
4206 | with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. | |
4207 | -- Galileo Galilei | |
4208 | %% | |
4209 | I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should. | |
4210 | -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | |
4211 | %% | |
4212 | I don't believe in astrology. But then I'm an Aquarius, and Aquarians | |
4213 | don't believe in astrology. | |
4214 | -- James R. F. Quirk | |
4215 | %% | |
4216 | "I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the | |
4217 | nominating" | |
4218 | -- Boss Tweed | |
4219 | %% | |
4220 | "I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem." | |
4221 | -- Ashleigh Brilliant | |
4222 | %% | |
4223 | I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of people | |
4224 | waiting to abuse me. | |
4225 | --Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters" | |
4226 | %% | |
4227 | I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd | |
4228 | eat it, and I just hate it. | |
4229 | -- Clarence Darrow | |
4230 | %% | |
4231 | I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!? | |
4232 | %% | |
4233 | I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business | |
4234 | on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment | |
4235 | he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual | |
4236 | becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. | |
4237 | -- George Bernard Shaw | |
4238 | %% | |
4239 | "I drink to make other people interesting." | |
4240 | -- George Jean Nathan | |
4241 | %% | |
4242 | I for one cannot protest the recent M. T. A. fare hike and the | |
4243 | accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For | |
4244 | the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that | |
4245 | can't be measured in monetary terms. | |
4246 | ||
4247 | Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have | |
4248 | that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by | |
4249 | subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should | |
4250 | someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly | |
4251 | understand his long delay. | |
4252 | %% | |
4253 | I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the | |
4254 | accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For | |
4255 | the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that | |
4256 | can't be measured in monetary terms. | |
4257 | ||
4258 | Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have | |
4259 | that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by | |
4260 | subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should | |
4261 | someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly | |
4262 | understand his long delay. | |
4263 | %% | |
4264 | I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. | |
4265 | -- Mae West | |
4266 | %% | |
4267 | I get up each morning, gather my wits. | |
4268 | Pick up the paper, read the obits. | |
4269 | If I'm not there I know I'm not dead. | |
4270 | So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed. | |
4271 | ||
4272 | Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent? | |
4273 | My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went. | |
4274 | But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin, | |
4275 | And think of the places my get-up has been. | |
4276 | -- Pete Seeger | |
4277 | %% | |
4278 | I hate quotations. | |
4279 | -- Ralph Waldo Emerson | |
4280 | %% | |
4281 | I have a simple philosophy: | |
4282 | ||
4283 | Fill what's empty. | |
4284 | Empty what's full. | |
4285 | Scratch where it itches. | |
4286 | -- A. R. Longworth | |
4287 | %% | |
4288 | I have learned | |
4289 | To spell hors d'oeuvres | |
4290 | Which still grates on | |
4291 | Some people's n'oeuvres. | |
4292 | -- Warren Knox | |
4293 | %% | |
4294 | I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that | |
4295 | I have never made one. | |
4296 | -- James Gordon Bennett | |
4297 | %% | |
4298 | I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to | |
4299 | make it shorter. | |
4300 | -- Blaise Pascal | |
4301 | %% | |
4302 | I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. | |
4303 | -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" | |
4304 | %% | |
4305 | I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. | |
4306 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
4307 | %% | |
4308 | I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. | |
4309 | %% | |
4310 | I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it. | |
4311 | %% | |
4312 | "I just need enough to tide me over until I need more." | |
4313 | -- Bill Hoest | |
4314 | %% | |
4315 | "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but | |
4316 | World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." | |
4317 | -- Albert Einstein | |
4318 | %% | |
4319 | I like being single. I'm always there when I need me. | |
4320 | -- Art Leo | |
4321 | %% | |
4322 | I like work ... | |
4323 | I can sit and watch it for hours. | |
4324 | %% | |
4325 | I like your game but we have to change the rules. | |
4326 | %% | |
4327 | "I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent." | |
4328 | -- Ashleigh Brilliant | |
4329 | %% | |
4330 | "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a | |
4331 | week sometimes to make it up." | |
4332 | -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad" | |
4333 | %% | |
4334 | I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts | |
4335 | %% | |
4336 | I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do | |
4337 | was to go away. | |
4338 | %% | |
4339 | I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like. | |
4340 | %% | |
4341 | I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral | |
4342 | slob. | |
4343 | -- William F. Buckley | |
4344 | %% | |
4345 | I really hate this damned machine | |
4346 | I wish that they would sell it. | |
4347 | It never does quite what I want | |
4348 | But only what I tell it. | |
4349 | %% | |
4350 | "I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person." | |
4351 | %% | |
4352 | I see the eigenvalue in thine eye, | |
4353 | I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh. | |
4354 | Bernoulli would have been content to die | |
4355 | Had he but known such _\ba-squared cos 2(phi)! | |
4356 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
4357 | %% | |
4358 | I sent a letter to the fish, | |
4359 | I told them, "This is what I wish." | |
4360 | The little fishes of the sea, | |
4361 | They sent an answer back to me. | |
4362 | The little fishes' answer was | |
4363 | "We cannot do it, sir, because ..." | |
4364 | I sent a letter back to say | |
4365 | It would be better to obey. | |
4366 | But someone came to me and said | |
4367 | "The little fishes are in bed." | |
4368 | I said to him, and I said it plain | |
4369 | "Then you must wake them up again." | |
4370 | I said it very loud and clear, | |
4371 | I went and shouted in his ear. | |
4372 | But he was very stiff and proud, | |
4373 | He said "You needn't shout so loud." | |
4374 | And he was very proud and stiff, | |
4375 | He said "I'll go and wake them if ..." | |
4376 | I took a kettle from the shelf, | |
4377 | I went to wake them up myself. | |
4378 | But when I found the door was locked | |
4379 | I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked, | |
4380 | And when I found the door was shut, | |
4381 | I tried to turn the handle, But ... | |
4382 | ||
4383 | "Is that all?" asked Alice. | |
4384 | "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye." | |
4385 | -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
4386 | %% | |
4387 | I think that I shall never see | |
4388 | A billboard lovely as a tree. | |
4389 | Perhaps, unless the billboards fall | |
4390 | I'll never see a tree at all. | |
4391 | -- Ogden Nash | |
4392 | %% | |
4393 | I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance. | |
4394 | %% | |
4395 | I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. | |
4396 | %% | |
4397 | "I want to buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch `St. | |
4398 | Elsewhere', won't scream, `FORGET IT, BLANCHE ... IT'S TIME FOR "HEE | |
4399 | HAW"!!'" | |
4400 | -- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County" | |
4401 | %% | |
4402 | I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I | |
4403 | didn't know. | |
4404 | -- Mark Twain | |
4405 | %% | |
4406 | I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained | |
4407 | it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass | |
4408 | stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold. | |
4409 | I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be | |
4410 | absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had | |
4411 | developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case. | |
4412 | Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's | |
4413 | temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I | |
4414 | chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to | |
4415 | the point where it would not run at all. | |
4416 | -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black | |
4417 | Holes and the Fate of Stars" | |
4418 | %% | |
4419 | I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's | |
4420 | a knob called "brightness", but it doesn't work. | |
4421 | -- Gallagher | |
4422 | %% | |
4423 | I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've | |
4424 | always worked for me. | |
4425 | -- Hunter S. Thompson | |
4426 | %% | |
4427 | IBM had a PL/I, | |
4428 | Its syntax worse than JOSS; | |
4429 | And everywhere this language went, | |
4430 | It was a total loss. | |
4431 | %% | |
4432 | I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. | |
4433 | %% | |
4434 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got | |
4435 | to undo it." | |
4436 | %% | |
4437 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat." | |
4438 | %% | |
4439 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if I | |
4440 | snore." | |
4441 | %% | |
4442 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in | |
4443 | `Y.'" | |
4444 | %% | |
4445 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my | |
4446 | blender." | |
4447 | %% | |
4448 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my | |
4449 | garage door." | |
4450 | %% | |
4451 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from | |
4452 | Julian to Gregorian." | |
4453 | %% | |
4454 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for | |
4455 | static cling." | |
4456 | %% | |
4457 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered." | |
4458 | %% | |
4459 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my | |
4460 | cottage cheese sculpture." | |
4461 | %% | |
4462 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving." | |
4463 | %% | |
4464 | "I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karma | |
4465 | transplant." | |
4466 | %% | |
4467 | "I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night." | |
4468 | %% | |
4469 | "I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV." | |
4470 | %% | |
4471 | "I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never | |
4472 | came back." | |
4473 | %% | |
4474 | "I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to say | |
4475 | tuned." | |
4476 | %% | |
4477 | "I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that | |
4478 | need worrying about." | |
4479 | %% | |
4480 | I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy. | |
4481 | %% | |
4482 | Idiot Box, n.: | |
4483 | The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the | |
4484 | stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves. | |
4485 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
4486 | %% | |
4487 | Idiot, n.: | |
4488 | A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human | |
4489 | affairs has always been dominant and controlling. | |
4490 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
4491 | %% | |
4492 | If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. | |
4493 | -- Roy Santoro | |
4494 | %% | |
4495 | If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire. | |
4496 | %% | |
4497 | If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet. | |
4498 | %% | |
4499 | If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit | |
4500 | Ears. | |
4501 | %% | |
4502 | If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their | |
4503 | Heads. | |
4504 | %% | |
4505 | If God had meant for us to be in the Army, we would have been born with | |
4506 | green, baggy skin. | |
4507 | %% | |
4508 | If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way. | |
4509 | %% | |
4510 | If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to | |
4511 | invent it. | |
4512 | %% | |
4513 | If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger | |
4514 | hands. | |
4515 | %% | |
4516 | If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions? | |
4517 | %% | |
4518 | "If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows." | |
4519 | -- Yiddish saying | |
4520 | %% | |
4521 | If I don't drive around the park, | |
4522 | I'm pretty sure to make my mark. | |
4523 | If I'm in bed each night by ten, | |
4524 | I may get back my looks again. | |
4525 | If I abstain from fun and such, | |
4526 | I'll probably amount to much; | |
4527 | But I shall stay the way I am, | |
4528 | Because I do not give a damn. | |
4529 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
4530 | %% | |
4531 | If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell, I'd sell the | |
4532 | plantation and go home. | |
4533 | -- Eugene P. Gallagher | |
4534 | %% | |
4535 | If I had any humility I would be perfect. | |
4536 | -- Ted Turner | |
4537 | %% | |
4538 | "If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith." | |
4539 | -- Albert Einstein | |
4540 | %% | |
4541 | If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction. | |
4542 | ||
4543 | On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is | |
4544 | also a psychological interaction. | |
4545 | ||
4546 | The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so | |
4547 | friendly. | |
4548 | ||
4549 | The crucial point is if you can tell which is which. | |
4550 | -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" | |
4551 | %% | |
4552 | If I traveled to the end of the rainbow | |
4553 | As Dame Fortune did intend, | |
4554 | Murphy would be there to tell me | |
4555 | The pot's at the other end. | |
4556 | -- Bert Whitney | |
4557 | %% | |
4558 | If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. | |
4559 | They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun | |
4560 | of it. | |
4561 | -- Thomas Carlyle | |
4562 | %% | |
4563 | If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country. | |
4564 | %% | |
4565 | If a group of _\bN persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be _\bN-1 | |
4566 | passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager. | |
4567 | -- T. Cheatham | |
4568 | %% | |
4569 | If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake | |
4570 | him up. | |
4571 | %% | |
4572 | If all be true that I do think, | |
4573 | There be Five Reasons why one should Drink; | |
4574 | Good friends, good wine, or being dry, | |
4575 | Or lest we should be by-and-by, | |
4576 | Or any other reason why. | |
4577 | %% | |
4578 | If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular | |
4579 | error. | |
4580 | -- John Kenneth Galbraith | |
4581 | %% | |
4582 | If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. | |
4583 | -- Paul Beatty | |
4584 | %% | |
4585 | If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a | |
4586 | conclusion. | |
4587 | -- William Baumol | |
4588 | %% | |
4589 | If an S and an I and an O and a U | |
4590 | With an X at the end spell Su; | |
4591 | And an E and a Y and an E spell I, | |
4592 | Pray what is a speller to do? | |
4593 | Then, if also an S and an I and a G | |
4594 | And an HED spell side, | |
4595 | There's nothing much left for a speller to do | |
4596 | But to go commit siouxeyesighed. | |
4597 | -- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament" | |
4598 | %% | |
4599 | If anything can go wrong, it will. | |
4600 | %% | |
4601 | If at first you don't succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool. | |
4602 | %% | |
4603 | If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. | |
4604 | %% | |
4605 | If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four | |
4606 | tellers? | |
4607 | %% | |
4608 | "If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?" | |
4609 | %% | |
4610 | If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from? | |
4611 | %% | |
4612 | If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane. | |
4613 | %% | |
4614 | If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? | |
4615 | %% | |
4616 | If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. | |
4617 | %% | |
4618 | If life is a stage, I want some better lighting. | |
4619 | %% | |
4620 | If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women | |
4621 | you've got in the house. | |
4622 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
4623 | %% | |
4624 | If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by | |
4625 | the page number. | |
4626 | %% | |
4627 | If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it. | |
4628 | %% | |
4629 | If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit | |
4630 | in my name at a Swiss bank. | |
4631 | -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" | |
4632 | %% | |
4633 | If only I could be respected without having to be respectable. | |
4634 | %% | |
4635 | If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without | |
4636 | having to accomplish anything. | |
4637 | %% | |
4638 | If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of | |
4639 | arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the | |
4640 | physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker | |
4641 | entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. | |
4642 | -- Vannevar Bush | |
4643 | %% | |
4644 | If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied | |
4645 | harder. | |
4646 | -- Pope John Paul I | |
4647 | %% | |
4648 | "If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for | |
4649 | me!" | |
4650 | -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920) | |
4651 | %% | |
4652 | If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. | |
4653 | -- Norm Schryer | |
4654 | %% | |
4655 | If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to | |
4656 | get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. | |
4657 | See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving | |
4658 | the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting | |
4659 | that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The | |
4660 | college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious | |
4661 | and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to | |
4662 | rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective. | |
4663 | Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure | |
4664 | interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by | |
4665 | opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for | |
4666 | himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for | |
4667 | boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor. | |
4668 | -- Ralph Waldo Emerson | |
4669 | %% | |
4670 | If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances | |
4671 | are 50-50 it will. | |
4672 | %% | |
4673 | If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If | |
4674 | the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the | |
4675 | bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will | |
4676 | exceed all expectations. | |
4677 | -- Reverend Chichester | |
4678 | %% | |
4679 | If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. | |
4680 | %% | |
4681 | If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that | |
4682 | will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. | |
4683 | %% | |
4684 | If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? | |
4685 | -- Art Hoppe | |
4686 | %% | |
4687 | If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it. | |
4688 | %% | |
4689 | If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same? | |
4690 | %% | |
4691 | If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is | |
4692 | doing the thinking. | |
4693 | -- Lyndon Baines Johnson | |
4694 | %% | |
4695 | If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are | |
4696 | headed. | |
4697 | %% | |
4698 | If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel | |
4699 | in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary | |
4700 | qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted. | |
4701 | -- Marguerite Emmons | |
4702 | %% | |
4703 | "If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." | |
4704 | -- J. Paul Getty | |
4705 | %% | |
4706 | If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. | |
4707 | %% | |
4708 | If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything. | |
4709 | %% | |
4710 | If you cannot convince them, confuse them. | |
4711 | -- Harry S Truman | |
4712 | %% | |
4713 | If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a | |
4714 | call. | |
4715 | %% | |
4716 | If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. | |
4717 | %% | |
4718 | If you didn't get caught, did you really do it? | |
4719 | %% | |
4720 | If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost. | |
4721 | %% | |
4722 | If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody | |
4723 | will. | |
4724 | %% | |
4725 | If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it | |
4726 | will always do it. | |
4727 | -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin | |
4728 | %% | |
4729 | "If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is | |
4730 | make the rubble bounce" | |
4731 | -- Winston Churchill | |
4732 | %% | |
4733 | If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous. | |
4734 | %% | |
4735 | If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. | |
4736 | %% | |
4737 | "If you have to hate, hate gently" | |
4738 | %% | |
4739 | If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. | |
4740 | -- Graham Summer | |
4741 | %% | |
4742 | If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you | |
4743 | really make them think they'll hate you. | |
4744 | %% | |
4745 | If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. | |
4746 | -- Maslow | |
4747 | %% | |
4748 | If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure | |
4749 | can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly | |
4750 | develop. | |
4751 | %% | |
4752 | If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite | |
4753 | you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. | |
4754 | -- Mark Twain | |
4755 | %% | |
4756 | If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine, | |
4757 | you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get | |
4758 | ice, but no cup. | |
4759 | %% | |
4760 | If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But | |
4761 | this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is | |
4762 | somehow enobled and none dare criticize it. | |
4763 | %% | |
4764 | If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. | |
4765 | -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard | |
4766 | %% | |
4767 | If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens | |
4768 | tomorrow! | |
4769 | %% | |
4770 | If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car | |
4771 | payments. | |
4772 | -- Earl Wilson | |
4773 | %% | |
4774 | If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest | |
4775 | shopping center in the world? | |
4776 | -- Richard M. Nixon | |
4777 | %% | |
4778 | If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest | |
4779 | shopping center in the world? | |
4780 | -- Richard Nixon | |
4781 | %% | |
4782 | If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would | |
4783 | be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call | |
4784 | you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw | |
4785 | another party next year. | |
4786 | ||
4787 | What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up | |
4788 | several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've | |
4789 | been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to | |
4790 | avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning | |
4791 | parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from | |
4792 | having another one ... | |
4793 | ||
4794 | If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless | |
4795 | your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas | |
4796 | through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure | |
4797 | that they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting | |
4798 | someone, your job is to make sure it isn't you ... | |
4799 | %% | |
4800 | If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every | |
4801 | word you say, talk in your sleep. | |
4802 | %% | |
4803 | "If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some | |
4804 | memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' | |
4805 | it, even if they don't know what it means." | |
4806 | -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party" | |
4807 | %% | |
4808 | If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for | |
4809 | tomorrow morning, sleep late. | |
4810 | -- Henny Youngman | |
4811 | %% | |
4812 | If you're happy, you're successful. | |
4813 | %% | |
4814 | If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. | |
4815 | %% | |
4816 | If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory. | |
4817 | -- Benjamin Disraeli | |
4818 | %% | |
4819 | If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it | |
4820 | off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the | |
4821 | universe? | |
4822 | %% | |
4823 | If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. | |
4824 | -- Ronald Reagan | |
4825 | %% | |
4826 | Il brilgue: les t^\boves libricilleux | |
4827 | Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave, | |
4828 | Enm^\bim'\bes sont les gougebosquex, | |
4829 | Et le m^\bomerade horgrave. | |
4830 | -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
4831 | %% | |
4832 | I'll grant the random access to my heart, | |
4833 | Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love; | |
4834 | And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove | |
4835 | And in our bound partition never part. | |
4836 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
4837 | %% | |
4838 | Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the | |
4839 | land He's trying to ignore. | |
4840 | %% | |
4841 | I'm N-ary the tree, I am, | |
4842 | N-ary the tree, I am, I am. | |
4843 | I'm getting traversed by the parser next door, | |
4844 | She's traversed me seven times before. | |
4845 | And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!) | |
4846 | Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!) | |
4847 | I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary. | |
4848 | N-ary the tree I am, I am, | |
4849 | N-ary the tree I am. | |
4850 | %% | |
4851 | I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from | |
4852 | man. | |
4853 | %% | |
4854 | I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my | |
4855 | sister. | |
4856 | %% | |
4857 | I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to | |
4858 | die in. | |
4859 | -- George McGovern | |
4860 | %% | |
4861 | I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here? | |
4862 | -- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate | |
4863 | %% | |
4864 | I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am. | |
4865 | It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get. | |
4866 | %% | |
4867 | I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday | |
4868 | life. | |
4869 | %% | |
4870 | I'm really enjoying not talking to you ... Let's not talk again ____\b\b\b\bREAL | |
4871 | soon ... | |
4872 | %% | |
4873 | I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, | |
4874 | I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; | |
4875 | In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, | |
4876 | I am the very model of a modern Major-General. | |
4877 | -- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance" | |
4878 | %% | |
4879 | Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. | |
4880 | -- Jules de Gaultier | |
4881 | %% | |
4882 | Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has | |
4883 | a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk | |
4884 | storage, a screen resolution of 1024 x 1024 pixels, relies entirely on | |
4885 | voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. | |
4886 | What's the first question that the computer community asks? | |
4887 | ||
4888 | "Is it PC compatible?" | |
4889 | %% | |
4890 | Immortality -- a fate worse than death. | |
4891 | -- Edgar A. Shoaff | |
4892 | %% | |
4893 | Impartial, adj.: | |
4894 | Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from | |
4895 | espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two | |
4896 | conflicting opinions. | |
4897 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
4898 | %% | |
4899 | Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the | |
4900 | mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the | |
4901 | Boss is reading it. | |
4902 | %% | |
4903 | In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one | |
4904 | of the risks he takes. | |
4905 | -- Adlai Stevenson | |
4906 | %% | |
4907 | In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last | |
4908 | resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but | |
4909 | inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. | |
4910 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
4911 | %% | |
4912 | In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our | |
4913 | programming languages. | |
4914 | %% | |
4915 | In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come | |
4916 | into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish | |
4917 | between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which | |
4918 | will only make it mushy. | |
4919 | -- Mark Twain | |
4920 | %% | |
4921 | In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space | |
4922 | Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways. | |
4923 | Our symptotes no longer out of phase, | |
4924 | We shall encounter, counting, face to face. | |
4925 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
4926 | %% | |
4927 | In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only | |
4928 | we can't control when the five year period will begin. | |
4929 | %% | |
4930 | In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own | |
4931 | incompetency | |
4932 | -- The Peter Principle | |
4933 | %% | |
4934 | In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) | |
4935 | are to be treated as variables. | |
4936 | %% | |
4937 | In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools | |
4938 | will be temporarily canceled. | |
4939 | %% | |
4940 | In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and | |
4941 | make it better. | |
4942 | %% | |
4943 | "In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable." | |
4944 | -- Winston Curchill, of Montgomery | |
4945 | %% | |
4946 | In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, | |
4947 | intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption | |
4948 | from the cares of office. | |
4949 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
4950 | %% | |
4951 | "In short, _\bN is Richardian if, and only if, _\bN is not Richardian." | |
4952 | %% | |
4953 | [In the 60's] there was madness in any direction, at any hour ... You | |
4954 | could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense | |
4955 | that whatever we were doing was `right', that we were winning ... | |
4956 | ||
4957 | And that, I think, was the handle -- the sense of inevitable victory | |
4958 | over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we | |
4959 | didn't need that. Our energy would simply `prevail'. There was no | |
4960 | point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; | |
4961 | we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave .... | |
4962 | ||
4963 | So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in | |
4964 | Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost | |
4965 | ___\b\b\bsee the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and | |
4966 | rolled back. | |
4967 | -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" | |
4968 | %% | |
4969 | In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to | |
4970 | drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at | |
4971 | discotheques. | |
4972 | -- Art Linkletter | |
4973 | %% | |
4974 | In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in | |
4975 | the proper order then why can't he? | |
4976 | %% | |
4977 | In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful | |
4978 | Dead. | |
4979 | -- Egyptian Book of the Dead | |
4980 | %% | |
4981 | In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. | |
4982 | -- Alan Perlis | |
4983 | %% | |
4984 | In the olden days in England, you could be hung for stealing a sheep or | |
4985 | a loaf of bread. However, if a sheep stole a loaf of bread and gave it | |
4986 | to you, you would only be tried for receiving, a crime punishable by | |
4987 | forty lashes with the cat or the dog, whichever was handy. If you | |
4988 | stole a dog and were caught, you were punished with twelve rabbit | |
4989 | punches, although it was hard to find rabbits big enough or strong | |
4990 | enough to punch you. | |
4991 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
4992 | %% | |
4993 | Incumbent, n.: | |
4994 | Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents. | |
4995 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
4996 | %% | |
4997 | Information Center, n.: | |
4998 | A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is | |
4999 | to tell you why you cannot have the information you require. | |
5000 | %% | |
5001 | Ingrate, n.: | |
5002 | A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of | |
5003 | indigestion. | |
5004 | %% | |
5005 | Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. | |
5006 | -- Martin Luther King, Jr. | |
5007 | %% | |
5008 | Ink, n.: | |
5009 | A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and | |
5010 | water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote | |
5011 | intellectual crime. | |
5012 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5013 | %% | |
5014 | Innovation is hard to schedule. | |
5015 | -- Dan Fylstra | |
5016 | %% | |
5017 | Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. | |
5018 | %% | |
5019 | Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the | |
5020 | salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon. | |
5021 | %% | |
5022 | Interpreter, n.: | |
5023 | One who enables two persons of different languages to | |
5024 | understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to | |
5025 | the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. | |
5026 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5027 | %% | |
5028 | Iron Law of Distribution: | |
5029 | Them that has, gets. | |
5030 | %% | |
5031 | Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is | |
5032 | meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a | |
5033 | soap bubble? | |
5034 | %% | |
5035 | Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the | |
5036 | beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get | |
5037 | out, and such as are out wish to get in? | |
5038 | -- Ralph Emerson | |
5039 | %% | |
5040 | Is your job running? You'd better go catch it! | |
5041 | %% | |
5042 | Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune | |
5043 | tellers take economists seriously? | |
5044 | %% | |
5045 | Issawi's Laws of Progress: | |
5046 | ||
5047 | The Course of Progress: | |
5048 | Most things get steadily worse. | |
5049 | ||
5050 | The Path of Progress: | |
5051 | A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. | |
5052 | %% | |
5053 | It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is | |
5054 | thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have | |
5055 | drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. | |
5056 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5057 | %% | |
5058 | It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. | |
5059 | %% | |
5060 | It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to | |
5061 | program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in | |
5062 | organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be | |
5063 | self-critical? | |
5064 | -- Alan Perlis | |
5065 | %% | |
5066 | It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a | |
5067 | pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the | |
5068 | sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. | |
5069 | -- Voltaire | |
5070 | %% | |
5071 | It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark | |
5072 | %% | |
5073 | It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three | |
5074 | benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never | |
5075 | to use either. | |
5076 | -- Mark Twain | |
5077 | %% | |
5078 | It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both | |
5079 | incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by | |
5080 | twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. | |
5081 | -- R. Serling | |
5082 | %% | |
5083 | "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is | |
5084 | lightly greased." | |
5085 | -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" | |
5086 | %% | |
5087 | It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice | |
5088 | versa. | |
5089 | %% | |
5090 | It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. | |
5091 | %% | |
5092 | It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct | |
5093 | one. | |
5094 | %% | |
5095 | It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because | |
5096 | if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of | |
5097 | people. | |
5098 | -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" | |
5099 | %% | |
5100 | It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so | |
5101 | ingenious. | |
5102 | %% | |
5103 | It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not | |
5104 | desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off. | |
5105 | -- Woody Allen | |
5106 | %% | |
5107 | It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the | |
5108 | problem. | |
5109 | %% | |
5110 | It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. | |
5111 | -- Gore Vidal | |
5112 | %% | |
5113 | It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it's one | |
5114 | damn thing over and over. | |
5115 | -- Edna St. Vincent Millay | |
5116 | %% | |
5117 | It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is? | |
5118 | -- Elizabeth Carpenter | |
5119 | %% | |
5120 | It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a | |
5121 | pit. | |
5122 | %% | |
5123 | It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that | |
5124 | virginity could be a virtue. | |
5125 | -- Voltaire | |
5126 | %% | |
5127 | It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the | |
5128 | lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as | |
5129 | high as the eagle? | |
5130 | %% | |
5131 | It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a | |
5132 | statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more | |
5133 | glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through | |
5134 | which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the | |
5135 | day, that is the highest of arts. | |
5136 | -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live" | |
5137 | %% | |
5138 | It is the business of little minds to shrink. | |
5139 | -- Carl Sandburg | |
5140 | %% | |
5141 | It is the business of the future to be dangerous. | |
5142 | -- Hawkwind | |
5143 | %% | |
5144 | It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. | |
5145 | %% | |
5146 | It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a | |
5147 | warning to others. | |
5148 | %% | |
5149 | It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the | |
5150 | flag. | |
5151 | %% | |
5152 | "It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, | |
5153 | but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous." | |
5154 | %% | |
5155 | It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. | |
5156 | %% | |
5157 | "It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps | |
5158 | I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I | |
5159 | don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and | |
5160 | the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual | |
5161 | charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its | |
5162 | novelty .... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but | |
5163 | yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable | |
5164 | man a lifetime." | |
5165 | -- Thomas Aldrich | |
5166 | %% | |
5167 | It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on | |
5168 | the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work. | |
5169 | %% | |
5170 | "It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an | |
5171 | hour!" | |
5172 | -- Macy's | |
5173 | %% | |
5174 | It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. | |
5175 | -- Andrew Jackson | |
5176 | %% | |
5177 | "It's bad luck to be superstitious." | |
5178 | -- Andrew W. Mathis | |
5179 | %% | |
5180 | "It's easier said than done." | |
5181 | ||
5182 | ... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than | |
5183 | said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than | |
5184 | said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than | |
5185 | done". | |
5186 | %% | |
5187 | It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. | |
5188 | %% | |
5189 | It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for | |
5190 | being right. | |
5191 | %% | |
5192 | It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it | |
5193 | is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It | |
5194 | isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. | |
5195 | -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News | |
5196 | %% | |
5197 | It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong | |
5198 | direction. | |
5199 | %% | |
5200 | "It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either." | |
5201 | -- Kevin White, mayor of Boston | |
5202 | %% | |
5203 | It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. | |
5204 | -- Phil White | |
5205 | %% | |
5206 | It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too. | |
5207 | -- Alexander Korda | |
5208 | %% | |
5209 | It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it | |
5210 | happens. | |
5211 | -- Woody Allen | |
5212 | %% | |
5213 | It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. | |
5214 | %% | |
5215 | Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government: | |
5216 | No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the | |
5217 | legislature is in session. | |
5218 | %% | |
5219 | Jenkinson's Law: | |
5220 | It won't work. | |
5221 | %% | |
5222 | Jesus Saves, | |
5223 | Moses Invests, | |
5224 | But only Buddha pays Dividends. | |
5225 | %% | |
5226 | Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes! | |
5227 | %% | |
5228 | Johnson's First Law: | |
5229 | When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the | |
5230 | most inconvenient possible time. | |
5231 | %% | |
5232 | Jone's Law: | |
5233 | The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone | |
5234 | to blame it on. | |
5235 | %% | |
5236 | Jone's Motto: | |
5237 | Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. | |
5238 | %% | |
5239 | Jones's First Law: | |
5240 | Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of | |
5241 | endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an | |
5242 | obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the | |
5243 | importance of their original contribution. | |
5244 | %% | |
5245 | Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he | |
5246 | knows what it is. | |
5247 | %% | |
5248 | Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you. | |
5249 | %% | |
5250 | "Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't | |
5251 | immune to bullets" | |
5252 | -- The Brigader, "Dr. Who" | |
5253 | %% | |
5254 | Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to | |
5255 | twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty! | |
5256 | %% | |
5257 | Justice is incidental to law and order. | |
5258 | -- J. Edgar Hoover | |
5259 | %% | |
5260 | Justice, n.: | |
5261 | A decision in your favor. | |
5262 | %% | |
5263 | Katz' Law: | |
5264 | Man and nations will act rationally when all other | |
5265 | possibilities have been exhausted. | |
5266 | %% | |
5267 | Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans. | |
5268 | %% | |
5269 | Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. | |
5270 | %% | |
5271 | Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo. | |
5272 | %% | |
5273 | Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee: | |
5274 | 1. The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc | |
5275 | straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this | |
5276 | force is technically termed "car suck"). | |
5277 | 2. Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive | |
5278 | than "Watch this!" | |
5279 | %% | |
5280 | Keep you Eye on the Ball, | |
5281 | Your Shoulder to the Wheel, | |
5282 | Your Nose to the Grindstone, | |
5283 | Your Feet on the Ground, | |
5284 | Your Head on your Shoulders. | |
5285 | Now ... try to get something DONE! | |
5286 | %% | |
5287 | Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most | |
5288 | automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the | |
5289 | numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the | |
5290 | driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the | |
5291 | dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know | |
5292 | what's wrong." | |
5293 | %% | |
5294 | Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College: | |
5295 | Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex for the students, | |
5296 | and parking for the faculty. | |
5297 | %% | |
5298 | Kin, n.: | |
5299 | An affliction of the blood | |
5300 | %% | |
5301 | Kinkler's First Law: | |
5302 | Responsibility always exceeds authority. | |
5303 | ||
5304 | Kinkler's Second Law: | |
5305 | All the easy problems have been solved. | |
5306 | %% | |
5307 | "Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack." | |
5308 | %% | |
5309 | Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic. | |
5310 | %% | |
5311 | Kiss your keyboard goodbye! | |
5312 | %% | |
5313 | Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within. | |
5314 | %% | |
5315 | Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within. | |
5316 | %% | |
5317 | Kleptomaniac, n.: | |
5318 | A rich thief. | |
5319 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5320 | %% | |
5321 | Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A. | |
5322 | %% | |
5323 | Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. | |
5324 | -- Henry N. Camp | |
5325 | %% | |
5326 | Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr): | |
5327 | The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards. | |
5328 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
5329 | %% | |
5330 | LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) | |
5331 | Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore. | |
5332 | Your ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because | |
5333 | you've got a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of | |
5334 | fact, if you can laugh at what happens to you today, you've got | |
5335 | a sick sense of humor. | |
5336 | %% | |
5337 | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London) | |
5338 | ||
5339 | Dear Sir, | |
5340 | ||
5341 | I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or | |
5342 | to the office. We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in | |
5343 | public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result | |
5344 | in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn | |
5345 | will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed | |
5346 | agricultural industry. | |
5347 | ||
5348 | Yours faithfully, | |
5349 | Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J. P. | |
5350 | Sevenoaks | |
5351 | %% | |
5352 | LIBRA (Sep. 23 to Oct. 22) | |
5353 | Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your | |
5354 | desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and | |
5355 | polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that. | |
5356 | %% | |
5357 | LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand. | |
5358 | %% | |
5359 | Labor, n.: | |
5360 | One of the processes by which A acquires property for B. | |
5361 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5362 | %% | |
5363 | Lackland's Laws: | |
5364 | 1. Never be first. | |
5365 | 2. Never be last. | |
5366 | 3. Never volunteer for anything | |
5367 | %% | |
5368 | Lactomangulation, n.: | |
5369 | Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly | |
5370 | that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side. | |
5371 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
5372 | %% | |
5373 | Laetrile is the pits | |
5374 | %% | |
5375 | Langsam's Laws: | |
5376 | 1) Everything depends. | |
5377 | 2) Nothing is always. | |
5378 | 3) Everything is sometimes. | |
5379 | %% | |
5380 | Larkinson's Law: | |
5381 | All laws are basically false. | |
5382 | %% | |
5383 | Laugh at your problems; everybody else does. | |
5384 | %% | |
5385 | "Laughter is the closest distance between two people." | |
5386 | -- Victor Borge | |
5387 | %% | |
5388 | Law of Communications: | |
5389 | The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications | |
5390 | between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased | |
5391 | area of misunderstanding. | |
5392 | %% | |
5393 | Law of Probable Dispersal: | |
5394 | Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly | |
5395 | distributed. | |
5396 | %% | |
5397 | Law of Selective Gravity: | |
5398 | An object will fall so as to do the most damage. | |
5399 | ||
5400 | Jenning's Corollary: | |
5401 | The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is | |
5402 | directly proportional to the cost of the carpet. | |
5403 | %% | |
5404 | Law of the Perversity of Nature: | |
5405 | You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the | |
5406 | bread to butter. | |
5407 | %% | |
5408 | Laws of Serendipity: | |
5409 | ||
5410 | 1. In order to discover anything, you must be looking for | |
5411 | something. | |
5412 | 2. If you wish to make an improved product, you must already | |
5413 | be engaged in making an inferior one. | |
5414 | %% | |
5415 | Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: | |
5416 | No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- | |
5417 | approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. | |
5418 | %% | |
5419 | Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. | |
5420 | %% | |
5421 | Leibowitz's Rule: | |
5422 | When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you | |
5423 | hold the hammer with both hands. | |
5424 | %% | |
5425 | Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday. | |
5426 | %% | |
5427 | Let us live!!! | |
5428 | Let us love!!! | |
5429 | Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!! | |
5430 | ||
5431 | You first. | |
5432 | %% | |
5433 | Let's talk about how to fill out your 1984 tax return. Here's an often | |
5434 | overlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands of dollars: | |
5435 | For several days before you put it in the mail, carry your tax return | |
5436 | around under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want to spend hours | |
5437 | poring over a sweat-stained document. So even if you owe money, you | |
5438 | can put in for an enormous refund and the agent will probably give it | |
5439 | to you, just to avoid an audit. What does he care? It's not his | |
5440 | money. | |
5441 | -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" | |
5442 | %% | |
5443 | Lewis's Law of Travel: | |
5444 | The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to | |
5445 | anyone, ever. | |
5446 | %% | |
5447 | Liar, n.: | |
5448 | A lawyer with a roving commission. | |
5449 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5450 | %% | |
5451 | Lie, n.: | |
5452 | A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one | |
5453 | discovered to date. | |
5454 | %% | |
5455 | Lieberman's Law: | |
5456 | Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. | |
5457 | %% | |
5458 | Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. | |
5459 | %% | |
5460 | Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string. | |
5461 | %% | |
5462 | Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find | |
5463 | there is nothing in it. | |
5464 | %% | |
5465 | "Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of | |
5466 | which I disapprove." | |
5467 | %% | |
5468 | Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made | |
5469 | sense from things she found in gift shops. | |
5470 | -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. | |
5471 | %% | |
5472 | Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking | |
5473 | for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem. | |
5474 | -- Alan McKay | |
5475 | %% | |
5476 | Limericks are art forms complex, | |
5477 | Their topics run chiefly to sex. | |
5478 | They usually have virgins, | |
5479 | And masculine urgin's, | |
5480 | And other erotic effects. | |
5481 | %% | |
5482 | Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. | |
5483 | %% | |
5484 | Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe | |
5485 | we should think only about today. | |
5486 | Charlie Brown: | |
5487 | No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get | |
5488 | better. | |
5489 | %% | |
5490 | Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip | |
5491 | around the Sun. | |
5492 | %% | |
5493 | Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted | |
5494 | before. | |
5495 | %% | |
5496 | Lizzie Borden took an axe, | |
5497 | And plunged it deep into the VAX; | |
5498 | Don't you envy people who | |
5499 | Do all the things ___\b\b\bYOU want to do? | |
5500 | %% | |
5501 | Lockwood's Long Shot: | |
5502 | The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street aren't | |
5503 | one in a million, but once would be enough. | |
5504 | %% | |
5505 | Look out! Behind you!\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a | |
5506 | %% | |
5507 | Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA, BOOGA!" | |
5508 | %% | |
5509 | Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the | |
5510 | world has ever seen. | |
5511 | %% | |
5512 | Love is a word that is constantly heard, | |
5513 | Hate is a word that is not. | |
5514 | Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. | |
5515 | Love, I have read, is hot. | |
5516 | But hate is the verb that to me is superb, | |
5517 | And Love but a drug on the mart. | |
5518 | Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, | |
5519 | But Hating, my boy, is an Art. | |
5520 | -- Ogden Nash | |
5521 | %% | |
5522 | Love is sentimental measles. | |
5523 | %% | |
5524 | Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. | |
5525 | -- H. L. Mencken | |
5526 | %% | |
5527 | Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up | |
5528 | to. | |
5529 | %% | |
5530 | Lowery's Law: | |
5531 | If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing | |
5532 | anyway. | |
5533 | %% | |
5534 | Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: | |
5535 | There's always one more bug. | |
5536 | %% | |
5537 | Lunatic Asylum, n.: | |
5538 | The place where optimism most flourishes. | |
5539 | %% | |
5540 | Lysistrata had a good idea. | |
5541 | %% | |
5542 | MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed) | |
5543 | ||
5544 | Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers | |
5545 | 2 cups water 2 cups sugar | |
5546 | 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice | |
5547 | Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine | |
5548 | Cinnamon | |
5549 | ||
5550 | Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break | |
5551 | RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar | |
5552 | and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon | |
5553 | juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously | |
5554 | with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top | |
5555 | crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let | |
5556 | steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust | |
5557 | is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices. | |
5558 | -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box | |
5559 | %% | |
5560 | "MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into | |
5561 | the smallest amount of thoughts." | |
5562 | -- Winston Churchill | |
5563 | %% | |
5564 | Mad, adj.: | |
5565 | Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ... | |
5566 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5567 | %% | |
5568 | Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them | |
5569 | first for seven hours, they always come out tender. | |
5570 | -- W. C. Fields | |
5571 | %% | |
5572 | Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism | |
5573 | ||
5574 | Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet. | |
5575 | ||
5576 | The two definition immediately foregoing are condensed from the works | |
5577 | of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject | |
5578 | with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human | |
5579 | knowledge. | |
5580 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5581 | %% | |
5582 | Magnocartic, adj.: | |
5583 | Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping | |
5584 | carts. | |
5585 | -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" | |
5586 | %% | |
5587 | Magpie, n.: | |
5588 | A bird whose theivish disposition suggested to someone that it | |
5589 | might be taught to talk. | |
5590 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5591 | %% | |
5592 | Maier's Law: | |
5593 | If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be | |
5594 | disposed of. | |
5595 | ||
5596 | Corollaries: | |
5597 | 1. The bigger the theory, the better. | |
5598 | 2. The experiment may be considered a success if no more than | |
5599 | 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to | |
5600 | obtain a correspondence with the theory. | |
5601 | %% | |
5602 | Main's Law: | |
5603 | For every action there is an equal and opposite government | |
5604 | program. | |
5605 | %% | |
5606 | Maintainer's Motto: | |
5607 | If we can't fix it, it ain't broke. | |
5608 | %% | |
5609 | Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly | |
5610 | as one man. | |
5611 | ||
5612 | Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds. | |
5613 | ||
5614 | Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. | |
5615 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5616 | %% | |
5617 | Majority, n.: | |
5618 | That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law. | |
5619 | %% | |
5620 | Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users | |
5621 | tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It | |
5622 | has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is | |
5623 | the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. | |
5624 | -- System V.2 administrator's guide | |
5625 | %% | |
5626 | Malek's Law: | |
5627 | Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way. | |
5628 | %% | |
5629 | "Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain." | |
5630 | -- Lily Tomlin | |
5631 | %% | |
5632 | Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called | |
5633 | upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. | |
5634 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
5635 | %% | |
5636 | Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the | |
5637 | only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. | |
5638 | -- Wernher von Braun | |
5639 | %% | |
5640 | Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. | |
5641 | -- Mark Twain | |
5642 | %% | |
5643 | Man, n.: | |
5644 | An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks | |
5645 | he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief | |
5646 | occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, | |
5647 | which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest | |
5648 | the whole habitable earth and Canada. | |
5649 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5650 | %% | |
5651 | Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- | |
5652 | unless it is an enemy. | |
5653 | -- A. Einstein | |
5654 | %% | |
5655 | Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history, | |
5656 | dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive | |
5657 | man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the | |
5658 | air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first | |
5659 | primitive umpire. | |
5660 | ||
5661 | What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as | |
5662 | mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. | |
5663 | -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag" | |
5664 | %% | |
5665 | Manual, n.: | |
5666 | A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a | |
5667 | given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The | |
5668 | information you need in in the others. | |
5669 | -- Ray Simard | |
5670 | %% | |
5671 | Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, | |
5672 | there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he | |
5673 | was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how | |
5674 | completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ... | |
5675 | -- Walt Kelly | |
5676 | %% | |
5677 | Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery: | |
5678 | Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a | |
5679 | simple yes or no answer. | |
5680 | %% | |
5681 | Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. | |
5682 | -- Voltaire | |
5683 | %% | |
5684 | "Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence." | |
5685 | %% | |
5686 | Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a | |
5687 | receipt. | |
5688 | %% | |
5689 | Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. | |
5690 | -- Jules Feiffer | |
5691 | %% | |
5692 | May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual! | |
5693 | %% | |
5694 | May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts | |
5695 | %% | |
5696 | May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones. | |
5697 | %% | |
5698 | May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a | |
5699 | Thousand Caramels. | |
5700 | %% | |
5701 | Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. | |
5702 | -- R. S. Barton | |
5703 | %% | |
5704 | Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge | |
5705 | it. | |
5706 | %% | |
5707 | Mayor Vincent J. `Buddy' Cianci on the ACLU's suit to have a city | |
5708 | nativity scene removed: | |
5709 | "They're just jealous because they don't have three wise men | |
5710 | and a virgin in the whole organization." | |
5711 | %% | |
5712 | McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: | |
5713 | If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not | |
5714 | $19.95. | |
5715 | %% | |
5716 | Meader's Law: | |
5717 | Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to | |
5718 | everyone you know, only more so. | |
5719 | %% | |
5720 | Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. | |
5721 | %% | |
5722 | Meeting, n.: | |
5723 | An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or | |
5724 | department not represented in the room must solve a problem. | |
5725 | %% | |
5726 | Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures | |
5727 | from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from Alpha | |
5728 | Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man | |
5729 | had split before. Thus was the Empire forged. | |
5730 | -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams | |
5731 | %% | |
5732 | Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: | |
5733 | The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. | |
5734 | %% | |
5735 | Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: | |
5736 | The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the | |
5737 | cork makes when it is popped. | |
5738 | %% | |
5739 | Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: | |
5740 | All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. | |
5741 | %% | |
5742 | Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: | |
5743 | Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that | |
5744 | is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city | |
5745 | can never hope to acquire it. | |
5746 | %% | |
5747 | Menu, n.: | |
5748 | A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of. | |
5749 | %% | |
5750 | Meskimen's Law: | |
5751 | There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to | |
5752 | do it over. | |
5753 | %% | |
5754 | Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it. | |
5755 | %% | |
5756 | Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch. | |
5757 | %% | |
5758 | Micro Credo: | |
5759 | Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift. | |
5760 | %% | |
5761 | "Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you | |
5762 | out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles." | |
5763 | %% | |
5764 | Miksch's Law: | |
5765 | If a string has one end, then it has another end. | |
5766 | %% | |
5767 | Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. | |
5768 | -- Groucho Marx | |
5769 | %% | |
5770 | Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. | |
5771 | -- Groucho Marx | |
5772 | %% | |
5773 | Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with | |
5774 | themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. | |
5775 | -- Susan Ertz | |
5776 | %% | |
5777 | Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede that | |
5778 | politics is almost always the choice of the lesser evil. "Tweedledum | |
5779 | and Tweedledee," they say, "I will not vote." Having abstained, they | |
5780 | are presented with a President who appoints the people who are going to | |
5781 | rummage around in their lives for the next four years. Consider all | |
5782 | the people who sat home in a stew in 1968 rather than vote for Hubert | |
5783 | Humphrey. They showed Humphrey. Those people who taught Hubert | |
5784 | Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the Nixon Supreme Court when | |
5785 | Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among the gold and the | |
5786 | black. | |
5787 | -- Russel Baker, "Ford without Flummery" | |
5788 | %% | |
5789 | Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there | |
5790 | is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, | |
5791 | myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in | |
5792 | the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my | |
5793 | unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You | |
5794 | will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as | |
5795 | dead as a door-nail. | |
5796 | %% | |
5797 | Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner. | |
5798 | %% | |
5799 | Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate. | |
5800 | %% | |
5801 | Misfortune, n.: | |
5802 | The kind of fortune that never misses. | |
5803 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5804 | %% | |
5805 | Miss, n.: | |
5806 | A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that | |
5807 | they are in the market. | |
5808 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5809 | %% | |
5810 | Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. | |
5811 | %% | |
5812 | Mitchell's Law of Committees: | |
5813 | Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are | |
5814 | held to discuss it. | |
5815 | %% | |
5816 | Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings. | |
5817 | %% | |
5818 | Molecule, n.: | |
5819 | The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished | |
5820 | from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a | |
5821 | closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of | |
5822 | matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the | |
5823 | atom in that it is an ion ... | |
5824 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5825 | %% | |
5826 | Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: | |
5827 | If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented | |
5828 | it wasn't worth doing. | |
5829 | %% | |
5830 | Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life. | |
5831 | %% | |
5832 | Monday, n.: | |
5833 | In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game. | |
5834 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5835 | %% | |
5836 | Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots | |
5837 | %% | |
5838 | Mophobia, n.: | |
5839 | Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian. | |
5840 | %% | |
5841 | More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One | |
5842 | path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total | |
5843 | extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. | |
5844 | -- Woody Allen | |
5845 | %% | |
5846 | Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: | |
5847 | Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd | |
5848 | be out of a job. | |
5849 | %% | |
5850 | Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass. | |
5851 | -- Frank Zappa | |
5852 | %% | |
5853 | Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before. | |
5854 | %% | |
5855 | Mr. Cole's Axiom: | |
5856 | The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the | |
5857 | population is growing. | |
5858 | %% | |
5859 | Murphy's Discovery: | |
5860 | Do you know Presidents talk to the country the way men talk to | |
5861 | women? They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and | |
5862 | everything will be all right." And what happens? Nine months | |
5863 | later, you're in trouble! | |
5864 | %% | |
5865 | Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't | |
5866 | work. | |
5867 | %% | |
5868 | Murphy's Law of Research: | |
5869 | Enough research will tend to support your theory. | |
5870 | %% | |
5871 | Mustgo, n.: | |
5872 | Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so | |
5873 | long it has become a science project. | |
5874 | -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" | |
5875 | %% | |
5876 | My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand | |
5877 | times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and | |
5878 | sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right | |
5879 | through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever | |
5880 | listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just | |
5881 | log out again. | |
5882 | %% | |
5883 | My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet, | |
5884 | And a wild young wood-thing bore him! | |
5885 | The ways are fair to his roaming feet, | |
5886 | And the skies are sunlit for him. | |
5887 | As sharply sweet to my heart he seems | |
5888 | As the fragrance of acacia. | |
5889 | My own dear love, he is all my dreams -- | |
5890 | And I wish he were in Asia. | |
5891 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
5892 | %% | |
5893 | My love runs by like a day in June, | |
5894 | And he makes no friends of sorrows. | |
5895 | He'll tread his galloping rigadoon | |
5896 | In the pathway or the morrows. | |
5897 | He'll live his days where the sunbeams start | |
5898 | Nor could storm or wind uproot him. | |
5899 | My own dear love, he is all my heart -- | |
5900 | And I wish somebody'd shoot him. | |
5901 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
5902 | %% | |
5903 | My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. | |
5904 | %% | |
5905 | My own dear love, he is strong and bold | |
5906 | And he cares not what comes after. | |
5907 | His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, | |
5908 | And his eyes are lit with laughter. | |
5909 | He is jubilant as a flag unfurled -- | |
5910 | Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him. | |
5911 | My own dear love, he is all my world -- | |
5912 | And I wish I'd never met him. | |
5913 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
5914 | %% | |
5915 | "My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies" | |
5916 | %% | |
5917 | Mythology, n.: | |
5918 | The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its | |
5919 | origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished | |
5920 | from the true accounts which it invents later. | |
5921 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
5922 | %% | |
5923 | NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he | |
5924 | says is wrong. | |
5925 | GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says | |
5926 | will be right. | |
5927 | -- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny" | |
5928 | %% | |
5929 | NEWS FLASH!! | |
5930 | Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West | |
5931 | German pole-vault champion. | |
5932 | %% | |
5933 | NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION | |
5934 | %% | |
5935 | Naeser's Law: | |
5936 | You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it | |
5937 | damnfoolproof. | |
5938 | %% | |
5939 | Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, | |
5940 | God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light. | |
5941 | ||
5942 | It did not last; the devil howling "Ho! | |
5943 | Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. | |
5944 | %% | |
5945 | Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's | |
5946 | character, give him power. | |
5947 | -- Abraham Lincoln | |
5948 | %% | |
5949 | Necessity is a mother. | |
5950 | %% | |
5951 | Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. | |
5952 | %% | |
5953 | Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him. | |
5954 | %% | |
5955 | Never call a man a fool; borrow from him. | |
5956 | %% | |
5957 | Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off | |
5958 | %% | |
5959 | Never drink coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled | |
5960 | with the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to | |
5961 | change into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually | |
5962 | fly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators | |
5963 | have windows. | |
5964 | %% | |
5965 | Never eat more than you can lift. | |
5966 | -- Miss Piggy | |
5967 | %% | |
5968 | Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat. | |
5969 | %% | |
5970 | Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. | |
5971 | -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation" | |
5972 | %% | |
5973 | Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to | |
5974 | make it complex and wonderful. | |
5975 | %% | |
5976 | Never offend people with style when you can offend them with | |
5977 | substance. | |
5978 | -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977 | |
5979 | %% | |
5980 | Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together. | |
5981 | %% | |
5982 | Never try to outstubborn a cat. | |
5983 | -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
5984 | %% | |
5985 | Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's | |
5986 | supposed to do. | |
5987 | -- R. A. Heinlein | |
5988 | %% | |
5989 | New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and | |
5990 | his wife most often reminds him to act it. | |
5991 | -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary | |
5992 | %% | |
5993 | New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors. | |
5994 | %% | |
5995 | New York's got the ways and means; | |
5996 | Just won't let you be. | |
5997 | -- The Grateful Dead | |
5998 | %% | |
5999 | New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt. | |
6000 | %% | |
6001 | New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of | |
6002 | Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within. | |
6003 | %% | |
6004 | New systems generate new problems. | |
6005 | %% | |
6006 | Newlan's Truism: | |
6007 | An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government | |
6008 | economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. | |
6009 | %% | |
6010 | Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction. | |
6011 | %% | |
6012 | Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law: | |
6013 | A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead. | |
6014 | %% | |
6015 | Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't | |
6016 | have a lucky day this year. | |
6017 | %% | |
6018 | Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying | |
6019 | as an income tax refund. | |
6020 | -- F. J. Raymond | |
6021 | %% | |
6022 | Nihilism should commence with oneself. | |
6023 | %% | |
6024 | Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name | |
6025 | correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into | |
6026 | (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but | |
6027 | Americans call him by value. | |
6028 | %% | |
6029 | Nine megs for the secretaries fair, | |
6030 | Seven megs for the hackers scarce, | |
6031 | Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs, | |
6032 | Three megs for system source; | |
6033 | ||
6034 | One disk to rule them all, | |
6035 | One disk to bind them, | |
6036 | One disk to hold the files | |
6037 | And in the darkness grind 'em. | |
6038 | %% | |
6039 | Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules: | |
6040 | The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of | |
6041 | the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety | |
6042 | percent. | |
6043 | %% | |
6044 | No good deed goes unpunished. | |
6045 | -- Clare Boothe Luce | |
6046 | %% | |
6047 | No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas. | |
6048 | %% | |
6049 | No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. | |
6050 | -- Eleanor Roosevelt | |
6051 | %% | |
6052 | No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it. | |
6053 | %% | |
6054 | No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere. | |
6055 | %% | |
6056 | Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with | |
6057 | constructive praise. | |
6058 | %% | |
6059 | Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations: | |
6060 | Negative expectations yield negative results. | |
6061 | Positive expectations yield negative results. | |
6062 | %% | |
6063 | Noncombatant, n.: | |
6064 | A dead Quaker. | |
6065 | -- Ambrose Bierce | |
6066 | %% | |
6067 | "Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong." | |
6068 | %% | |
6069 | Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. | |
6070 | %% | |
6071 | Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the | |
6072 | Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats | |
6073 | in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the | |
6074 | moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, | |
6075 | a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every | |
6076 | respect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside | |
6077 | it, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms, | |
6078 | then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they | |
6079 | chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine ... | |
6080 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
6081 | %% | |
6082 | "Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper | |
6083 | is from the wrong kind of tree." | |
6084 | --Profesoor W. | |
6085 | %% | |
6086 | Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter | |
6087 | of wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund | |
6088 | is astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman -- | |
6089 | unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who is | |
6090 | careful not to make any poultry jokes ... | |
6091 | -- Woody Allen | |
6092 | %% | |
6093 | Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. | |
6094 | %% | |
6095 | Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. | |
6096 | %% | |
6097 | Nothing is faster than the speed of light ... | |
6098 | ||
6099 | To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before | |
6100 | the light comes on. | |
6101 | %% | |
6102 | Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. | |
6103 | -- Andrew Young | |
6104 | %% | |
6105 | Nothing recedes like success. | |
6106 | -- Walter Winchell | |
6107 | %% | |
6108 | Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited | |
6109 | love. | |
6110 | -- Charlie Brown | |
6111 | %% | |
6112 | November, n.: | |
6113 | The eleventh twelfth of a weariness. | |
6114 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
6115 | %% | |
6116 | Now I lay me down to sleep | |
6117 | I pray the double lock will keep; | |
6118 | May no brick through the window break, | |
6119 | And, no one rob me till I awake. | |
6120 | %% | |
6121 | Now and then, an innocent man is sent to the Legislature. | |
6122 | %% | |
6123 | Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature. | |
6124 | %% | |
6125 | "Now is the time for all good men to come to." | |
6126 | -- Walt Kelly | |
6127 | %% | |
6128 | Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next | |
6129 | time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV | |
6130 | to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for | |
6131 | eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself | |
6132 | the following questions: | |
6133 | ||
6134 | 1: Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts | |
6135 | a food? | |
6136 | 2: Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich | |
6137 | exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me? | |
6138 | 3: Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as | |
6139 | prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with | |
6140 | double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living | |
6141 | right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like | |
6142 | longer.) | |
6143 | ||
6144 | That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick. | |
6145 | %% | |
6146 | "Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called | |
6147 | Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that | |
6148 | were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..." | |
6149 | -- "The Begatting of a President" | |
6150 | %% | |
6151 | [Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable. | |
6152 | -- Edwin Meese III | |
6153 | %% | |
6154 | Nudists are people who wear one-button suits. | |
6155 | %% | |
6156 | Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're | |
6157 | guessing. | |
6158 | %% | |
6159 | O give me a home, | |
6160 | Where the buffalo roam, | |
6161 | Where the deer and the antelope play, | |
6162 | Where seldom is heard | |
6163 | A discouraging word, | |
6164 | 'Cause what can an antelope say? | |
6165 | %% | |
6166 | O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law: | |
6167 | Murphy was an optimist. | |
6168 | %% | |
6169 | O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law: | |
6170 | "Murphy was an optimist." | |
6171 | %% | |
6172 | Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. | |
6173 | -- Plato | |
6174 | %% | |
6175 | "Of ______\b\b\b\b\b\bcourse it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a | |
6176 | fake?" | |
6177 | %% | |
6178 | Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy. | |
6179 | %% | |
6180 | Office Automation, n.: | |
6181 | The use of computers to improve efficiency by removing anyone | |
6182 | you would want to talk with over coffee. | |
6183 | %% | |
6184 | Ogden's Law: | |
6185 | The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch | |
6186 | up. | |
6187 | %% | |
6188 | Oh don't the days seem lank and long | |
6189 | When all goes right and none goes wrong, | |
6190 | And isn't your life extremely flat | |
6191 | With nothing whatever to grumble at! | |
6192 | %% | |
6193 | Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes. | |
6194 | %% | |
6195 | Oh, when I was in love with you, | |
6196 | Then I was clean and brave, | |
6197 | And miles around the wonder grew | |
6198 | How well did I behave. | |
6199 | ||
6200 | And now the fancy passes by, | |
6201 | And nothing will remain, | |
6202 | And miles around they'll say that I | |
6203 | Am quite myself again. | |
6204 | -- A. E. Housman | |
6205 | %% | |
6206 | Oh, wow! Look at the moon! | |
6207 | %% | |
6208 | Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. | |
6209 | -- Trotsky | |
6210 | %% | |
6211 | Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address. | |
6212 | %% | |
6213 | Old soldiers never die. Young ones do. | |
6214 | %% | |
6215 | Oliver's Law: | |
6216 | Experience is something you don't get until just after you need | |
6217 | it. | |
6218 | %% | |
6219 | On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are | |
6220 | created jerks. | |
6221 | -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow" | |
6222 | %% | |
6223 | On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague: | |
6224 | ||
6225 | "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." | |
6226 | -- Wolfgang Pauli | |
6227 | %% | |
6228 | Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were | |
6229 | forced to live on nothing but food and water for days. | |
6230 | -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee" | |
6231 | %% | |
6232 | Once Law was sitting on the bench | |
6233 | And Mercy knelt a-weeping. | |
6234 | "Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench! | |
6235 | Nor come before me creeping. | |
6236 | Upon you knees if you appear, | |
6237 | 'Tis plain you have no standing here." | |
6238 | ||
6239 | Then Justice came. His Honor cried: | |
6240 | "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!" | |
6241 | "Amica curiae," she replied -- | |
6242 | "Friend of the court, so please you." | |
6243 | "Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door -- | |
6244 | I never saw your face before!" | |
6245 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
6246 | %% | |
6247 | Once, adv.: | |
6248 | Enough. | |
6249 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
6250 | %% | |
6251 | Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that | |
6252 | each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his | |
6253 | choice. | |
6254 | ||
6255 | In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians | |
6256 | called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" | |
6257 | and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People | |
6258 | passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy | |
6259 | Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!" | |
6260 | -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
6261 | %% | |
6262 | Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human | |
6263 | beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by | |
6264 | side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them | |
6265 | which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the | |
6266 | sky. | |
6267 | -- Rainer Rilke | |
6268 | %% | |
6269 | Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of | |
6270 | us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of | |
6271 | the smaller prime numbers. | |
6272 | ||
6273 | 2: The Odd Prime -- | |
6274 | It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED. | |
6275 | 3: The True Prime -- | |
6276 | Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true." | |
6277 | 31: The Arbitrary Prime -- | |
6278 | Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime | |
6279 | in case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91 | |
6280 | received the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the | |
6281 | next most. However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none | |
6282 | at all. | |
6283 | ||
6284 | Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities are | |
6285 | derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd but | |
6286 | true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers. | |
6287 | %% | |
6288 | One Page Principle: | |
6289 | A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch | |
6290 | paper cannot be understood. | |
6291 | -- Mark Ardis | |
6292 | %% | |
6293 | One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means. | |
6294 | %% | |
6295 | One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet | |
6296 | when well oiled. | |
6297 | %% | |
6298 | One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they | |
6299 | never have to stop and answer the phone. | |
6300 | %% | |
6301 | One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people. | |
6302 | %% | |
6303 | One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible | |
6304 | from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at | |
6305 | least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts | |
6306 | are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but | |
6307 | when He's good, nobody can touch Him. | |
6308 | -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983 | |
6309 | %% | |
6310 | One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God | |
6311 | create goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "________\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\bsomebody has to buy | |
6312 | retail." | |
6313 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
6314 | %% | |
6315 | One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your | |
6316 | seat to another passenger. This may seem callous, but it is the best | |
6317 | way, really. If one passenger were to give a seat to someone who | |
6318 | fainted in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would become | |
6319 | disoriented and imagine they were in Topeka, Kansas. | |
6320 | %% | |
6321 | "One planet is all you get." | |
6322 | %% | |
6323 | One seldom sees a monument to a committee. | |
6324 | %% | |
6325 | One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh | |
6326 | paint. | |
6327 | %% | |
6328 | One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him. | |
6329 | %% | |
6330 | On-line, adj.: | |
6331 | The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a | |
6332 | computer. | |
6333 | %% | |
6334 | Only God can make random selections. | |
6335 | %% | |
6336 | Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps. | |
6337 | %% | |
6338 | Optimization hinders evolution. | |
6339 | %% | |
6340 | Oregon, n.: | |
6341 | Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday | |
6342 | night. | |
6343 | %% | |
6344 | Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. | |
6345 | Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. | |
6346 | -- Mike Adams | |
6347 | %% | |
6348 | Osborn's Law: | |
6349 | Variables won't; constants aren't. | |
6350 | %% | |
6351 | Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your | |
6352 | nails. | |
6353 | %% | |
6354 | Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. | |
6355 | Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, | |
6356 | in kernel as it is in user! | |
6357 | %% | |
6358 | Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is | |
6359 | they charge fifteen cents for them. | |
6360 | %% | |
6361 | Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing. | |
6362 | -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president Litton Industries | |
6363 | %% | |
6364 | Overdrawn? But I still have checks left! | |
6365 | %% | |
6366 | Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. | |
6367 | %% | |
6368 | Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated. | |
6369 | %% | |
6370 | Ozman's Laws: | |
6371 | 1. If someone says he will do something "without fail," he | |
6372 | won't. | |
6373 | 2. The more people talk on the phone, the less money they | |
6374 | make. | |
6375 | 3. People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't. | |
6376 | 4. Pizza always burns the roof of your mouth. | |
6377 | %% | |
6378 | PISCES (Feb. 19 to Mar. 20) | |
6379 | Take the high road, look for the good things, carry the | |
6380 | American Express card and a weapon. The world is yours today, | |
6381 | as nobody else wants it. Your mortgage will be foreclosed. | |
6382 | You will probably get run over by a bus. | |
6383 | %% | |
6384 | PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem set than to the | |
6385 | solution set. | |
6386 | -- E. W. Dijkstra | |
6387 | %% | |
6388 | PLUNDERER'S THEME | |
6389 | (to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius) | |
6390 | ||
6391 | Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. | |
6392 | If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation. | |
6393 | Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations. | |
6394 | Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. | |
6395 | %% | |
6396 | Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life. | |
6397 | %% | |
6398 | Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to | |
6399 | criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too. | |
6400 | -- D. J. Hicks | |
6401 | %% | |
6402 | Pardo's First Postulate: | |
6403 | Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. | |
6404 | ||
6405 | Arnold's Addendum: | |
6406 | Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in | |
6407 | rats. | |
6408 | %% | |
6409 | Parker's Law: | |
6410 | Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone. | |
6411 | %% | |
6412 | Parkinson's Fifth Law: | |
6413 | If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good | |
6414 | bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. | |
6415 | %% | |
6416 | Parkinson's Fourth Law: | |
6417 | The number of people in any working group tends to increase | |
6418 | regardless of the amount of work to be done. | |
6419 | %% | |
6420 | Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be. | |
6421 | %% | |
6422 | Pascal Users: | |
6423 | To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the | |
6424 | death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half | |
6425 | speed. | |
6426 | %% | |
6427 | "Pascal is not a high-level language." | |
6428 | -- Steven Feiner | |
6429 | %% | |
6430 | Pascal, n.: | |
6431 | A programming language named after a man who would turn over in | |
6432 | his grave if he knew about it. | |
6433 | %% | |
6434 | Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. | |
6435 | -- Eric Hoffer | |
6436 | %% | |
6437 | Paul Revere was a tattle-tale | |
6438 | %% | |
6439 | Paul's Law: | |
6440 | In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you | |
6441 | save. | |
6442 | %% | |
6443 | Paul's Law: | |
6444 | You can't fall off the floor. | |
6445 | %% | |
6446 | Peace, n.: | |
6447 | In international affairs, a period of cheating between two | |
6448 | periods of fighting. | |
6449 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
6450 | %% | |
6451 | Peanut Blossoms | |
6452 | ||
6453 | 4 cups sugar 16 tbsp. milk | |
6454 | 4 cups brown sugar 4 tsp. vanilla | |
6455 | 4 cups shortening 14 cups flour | |
6456 | 8 eggs 4 tsp. soda | |
6457 | 4 cups peanut butter 4 tsp. salt | |
6458 | ||
6459 | Shape dough into balls. Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookie | |
6460 | sheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes. Immediately top each cookie with a | |
6461 | Hershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie. Makes a | |
6462 | hell of a lot. | |
6463 | %% | |
6464 | Pecor's Health-Food Principle: | |
6465 | Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in | |
6466 | it. | |
6467 | %% | |
6468 | People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of | |
6469 | the future. | |
6470 | %% | |
6471 | People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed. | |
6472 | %% | |
6473 | People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never | |
6474 | slept in a room with a single mosquito. | |
6475 | %% | |
6476 | People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who | |
6477 | haven't what they want that they don't want it. | |
6478 | -- Ogden Nash | |
6479 | %% | |
6480 | People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that | |
6481 | Benjamin Franklin said it first. | |
6482 | %% | |
6483 | People will buy anything that's one to a customer. | |
6484 | %% | |
6485 | Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. | |
6486 | "Confound those who have said our remarks before us." | |
6487 | -- Aelius Donatus | |
6488 | %% | |
6489 | Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things. | |
6490 | %% | |
6491 | Peter's Law of Substitution: | |
6492 | Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after | |
6493 | themselves. | |
6494 | %% | |
6495 | Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to | |
6496 | exciting Camden, New Jersy. | |
6497 | %% | |
6498 | Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny. | |
6499 | %% | |
6500 | Pig, n.: | |
6501 | An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race | |
6502 | by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is | |
6503 | inferior in scope, for it balks at pig. | |
6504 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
6505 | %% | |
6506 | Please ignore previous fortune. | |
6507 | %% | |
6508 | Please take note: | |
6509 | %% | |
6510 | Please try to limit the amount of `this room doesn't have any bazingas' | |
6511 | until you are told that those rooms are `punched out.' Once punched | |
6512 | out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas, | |
6513 | and such. | |
6514 | -- N. Meyrowitz | |
6515 | %% | |
6516 | Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means? | |
6517 | %% | |
6518 | Pohl's law: | |
6519 | Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. | |
6520 | %% | |
6521 | Police: Good evening, are you the host? | |
6522 | Host: No. | |
6523 | Police: We've been getting complaints about this party. | |
6524 | Host: About the drugs? | |
6525 | Police: No. | |
6526 | Host: About the guns, then? Is somebody complaining about the guns? | |
6527 | Police: No, the noise. | |
6528 | Host: Oh, the noise. Well that makes sense because there are no guns | |
6529 | or drugs here. (An enormous explosion is heard in the | |
6530 | background.) Or fireworks. Who's complaining about the noise? | |
6531 | The neighbors? | |
6532 | Police: No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago. Most of the recent | |
6533 | complaints have come from Pittsburgh. Do you think you could | |
6534 | ask the host to quiet things down? | |
6535 | Host: No Problem. (At this point, a Volkswagon bug with primitive | |
6536 | religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living | |
6537 | room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the | |
6538 | lawn, where it smashes into a tree. Eight guests tumble out | |
6539 | onto the grass, moaning.) See? Things are starting to wind | |
6540 | down. | |
6541 | %% | |
6542 | Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell | |
6543 | all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds. | |
6544 | %% | |
6545 | Politician, n.: | |
6546 | From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tete" ("head" or | |
6547 | "face," as in "tete-a-tete": head to head or face to face). Hence | |
6548 | "polytetien", a person of two or more faces. | |
6549 | -- Martin Pitt | |
6550 | %% | |
6551 | Politics is like coaching a football team. you have to be smart enough | |
6552 | to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest. | |
6553 | %% | |
6554 | Polymer physicists are into chains. | |
6555 | %% | |
6556 | Pope Goestheveezl was the shortest reigning pope in the history of the | |
6557 | Church, reigning for two hours and six minutes on 1 April 1866. The | |
6558 | white smoke had hardly faded into the blue of the Vatican skies before | |
6559 | it dawned on the assembled multitudes in St. Peter's Square that his | |
6560 | name had hilarious possibilities. The crowds fell about, helpless with | |
6561 | laughter, singing | |
6562 | Half a pound of tuppenny rice | |
6563 | Half a pound of treacle | |
6564 | That's the way the chimney smokes | |
6565 | Pope Goestheveezl | |
6566 | The square was finally cleared by armed carabineri with tears of | |
6567 | laughter streaming down their faces. The event set a record for | |
6568 | hilarious civic functions, smashing the previous record set when Baron | |
6569 | Hans Neizant B"\bompzidaize was elected Landburgher of K"\boln in 1653. | |
6570 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
6571 | %% | |
6572 | Positive, adj.: | |
6573 | Mistaken at the top of one's voice. | |
6574 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
6575 | %% | |
6576 | Power, n: | |
6577 | The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA. | |
6578 | %% | |
6579 | Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little | |
6580 | more time for dreaming. | |
6581 | -- J. P. McEvoy | |
6582 | %% | |
6583 | Predestination was doomed from the start. | |
6584 | %% | |
6585 | President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and | |
6586 | forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax. | |
6587 | %% | |
6588 | President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the | |
6589 | vote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting. | |
6590 | -- The Washington Post | |
6591 | %% | |
6592 | Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist! | |
6593 | %% | |
6594 | Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: | |
6595 | It's on the other side. | |
6596 | %% | |
6597 | [Prime Minister Joseph] Chamberlain loves the working man -- he loves | |
6598 | to see him work. | |
6599 | -- Winston Churchill | |
6600 | %% | |
6601 | Pro is to con as progress is to Congress. | |
6602 | %% | |
6603 | Probable-Possible, my black hen, | |
6604 | She lays eggs in the Relative When. | |
6605 | She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now | |
6606 | Because she's unable to postulate how. | |
6607 | -- Frederick Winsor | |
6608 | %% | |
6609 | Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem. | |
6610 | Eng. 130 midterm. Once again a student did not receive a single point | |
6611 | on his exam. Newell has now tossed 5 shutouts this quarter. Newell's | |
6612 | earned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30% | |
6613 | %% | |
6614 | Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction. | |
6615 | ||
6616 | This technique is used on equations with "_\bn" in them. Induction | |
6617 | techniques are very popular, even the military used them. | |
6618 | ||
6619 | SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction. | |
6620 | ||
6621 | We know it's true for _\bn equal to 1. Now assume that it's true | |
6622 | for every natural number less than _\bn. _\bN is arbitrary, so we can take _\bn | |
6623 | as large as we want. If _\bn is sufficiently large, the case of _\bn+1 is | |
6624 | trivially equivalent, so the only important _\bn are _\bn less than _\bn. We | |
6625 | can take _\bn = _\bn (from above), so it's true for _\bn+1 because it's just | |
6626 | about _\bn. | |
6627 | QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?") | |
6628 | %% | |
6629 | Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity. | |
6630 | SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs. | |
6631 | (1) Horses have an even number of legs. | |
6632 | (2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front. | |
6633 | (3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of | |
6634 | legs for a horse. | |
6635 | (4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity. | |
6636 | (5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs. | |
6637 | ||
6638 | Topics is be covered in future issues include proof by: | |
6639 | Intimidation | |
6640 | Gesticulation (handwaving) | |
6641 | "Try it; it works" | |
6642 | Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...) | |
6643 | Blatant assertion | |
6644 | Changing all the 2's to _\bn's | |
6645 | Mutual consent | |
6646 | Lack of a counterexample, and | |
6647 | "It stands to reason" | |
6648 | %% | |
6649 | Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check | |
6650 | three friends. If they're ok, you're it. | |
6651 | %% | |
6652 | Put your Nose to the Grindstone! | |
6653 | -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd. | |
6654 | %% | |
6655 | Putt's Law: | |
6656 | Technology is dominated by two types of people: | |
6657 | Those who understand what they do not manage. | |
6658 | Those who manage what they do not understand. | |
6659 | %% | |
6660 | Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is? | |
6661 | A: One per person. | |
6662 | %% | |
6663 | Q: Why do ducks have flat feet? | |
6664 | A: To stamp out forest fires. | |
6665 | ||
6666 | Q: Why do elephants have flat feet? | |
6667 | A: To stamp out flaming ducks. | |
6668 | %% | |
6669 | Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together? | |
6670 | A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home. | |
6671 | %% | |
6672 | Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat ? | |
6673 | A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. | |
6674 | %% | |
6675 | Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat? | |
6676 | A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. | |
6677 | ||
6678 | Q: How long does it take? | |
6679 | A: It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've | |
6680 | brought with them. | |
6681 | ||
6682 | Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats? | |
6683 | A: They replace your generator. | |
6684 | %% | |
6685 | Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? | |
6686 | A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. | |
6687 | %% | |
6688 | Q: How many IBM cpu's does it take to do a logical right shift? | |
6689 | A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register. | |
6690 | %% | |
6691 | Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? | |
6692 | A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001, | |
6693 | Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of | |
6694 | the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% | |
6695 | of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences | |
6696 | of non-blank characters separated by blanks". | |
6697 | %% | |
6698 | Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? | |
6699 | A: One and a half. | |
6700 | %% | |
6701 | Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? | |
6702 | A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those | |
6703 | Californians trying to share the experience. | |
6704 | %% | |
6705 | Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? | |
6706 | A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb itself | |
6707 | symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a | |
6708 | netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin | |
6709 | cosmos of nothingness. | |
6710 | %% | |
6711 | Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? | |
6712 | A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring | |
6713 | light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government | |
6714 | plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a pulitzer | |
6715 | prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb-assassin | |
6716 | to break the bulb in the first place. | |
6717 | % | |
6718 | Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb in | |
6719 | San Francisco? | |
6720 | A: Both of them. | |
6721 | %% | |
6722 | Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? | |
6723 | A: Two. One to hold the girrafe and the other to fill the bathtub with | |
6724 | brightly colored machine tools. | |
6725 | %% | |
6726 | Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road? | |
6727 | A: Because it was on the other side. | |
6728 | %% | |
6729 | QWERT (kwirt), n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth]: | |
6730 | 1. a unit of weight equal to 13 poiuyt avoirdupois (or 1.69 | |
6731 | kiloliks), commonly used in structural engineering; 2. [Colloq.] one | |
6732 | thirteenth the load that a fully grown sligo can carry; 3. [Anat.] a | |
6733 | painful irritation of the dermis in the region of the anus; 4. [Slang] | |
6734 | person who excites in others the symptoms of a qwert. | |
6735 | -- Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed. | |
6736 | %% | |
6737 | Quality Control, n.: | |
6738 | The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off | |
6739 | a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100 works. | |
6740 | %% | |
6741 | Question: | |
6742 | Man Invented Alcohol, | |
6743 | God Invented Grass. | |
6744 | Who do you trust? | |
6745 | %% | |
6746 | Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened! | |
6747 | %% | |
6748 | "Qvid me anxivs svm?" | |
6749 | %% | |
6750 | ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. | |
6751 | MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church- | |
6752 | door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. | |
6753 | %% | |
6754 | RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED | |
6755 | 1. Never eat on an empty stomach. | |
6756 | 2. Never leave the table hungry. | |
6757 | 3. When traveling, never leave a country hungry. | |
6758 | 4. Enjoy your food. | |
6759 | 5. Enjoy your companion's food. | |
6760 | 6. Really taste your food. It may take several portions to | |
6761 | accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned. | |
6762 | 7. Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare, for | |
6763 | example, the texture of a turnip to that of a brownie. | |
6764 | Which feels better against your cheeks? | |
6765 | 8. Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal. | |
6766 | 9. Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You | |
6767 | can always eat it later. | |
6768 | 10. Avoid any wine with a childproof cap. | |
6769 | 11. Avoid blue food. | |
6770 | -- Richard Smit, "The Bronx Diet" | |
6771 | %% | |
6772 | Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives. | |
6773 | %% | |
6774 | Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something | |
6775 | I saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of | |
6776 | computer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport | |
6777 | store. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told | |
6778 | all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how all | |
6779 | the lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are | |
6780 | they taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the current | |
6781 | rate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions on | |
6782 | Information Theory" at the A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be | |
6783 | impressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the saying | |
6784 | goes, giving away the store? | |
6785 | -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President | |
6786 | %% | |
6787 | Ray's Rule of Precision: | |
6788 | Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. | |
6789 | %% | |
6790 | Razors pain you; | |
6791 | Rivers are damp; | |
6792 | Acids stain you; | |
6793 | And drugs cause cramp. | |
6794 | Guns aren't lawful; | |
6795 | Nooses give; | |
6796 | Gas smells awful; | |
6797 | You might as well live. | |
6798 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
6799 | %% | |
6800 | Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe | |
6801 | the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described | |
6802 | with pictures. | |
6803 | %% | |
6804 | Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires | |
6805 | you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers | |
6806 | wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly | |
6807 | spring up in the middle of the machine room. | |
6808 | %% | |
6809 | Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who | |
6810 | can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN. | |
6811 | %% | |
6812 | Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue. | |
6813 | %% | |
6814 | Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use | |
6815 | functions for scratch space after they are finished calling them? | |
6816 | %% | |
6817 | Real Time, adj.: | |
6818 | Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there | |
6819 | and then. | |
6820 | %% | |
6821 | Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs. | |
6822 | %% | |
6823 | Reality is an obstacle to hallucination. | |
6824 | %% | |
6825 | Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction. | |
6826 | %% | |
6827 | "Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!" | |
6828 | %% | |
6829 | Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than | |
6830 | being flat broke and having a stomach ache. | |
6831 | -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" | |
6832 | %% | |
6833 | Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you | |
6834 | lose your job. These economic downturns are very difficult to predict, | |
6835 | but sophisticated econometric modeling houses like Data Resources and | |
6836 | Chase Econometrics have successfully predicted 14 of the last 3 | |
6837 | recessions. | |
6838 | %% | |
6839 | Reclaimer, spare that tree! | |
6840 | Take not a single bit! | |
6841 | It used to point to me, | |
6842 | Now I'm protecting it. | |
6843 | It was the reader's CONS | |
6844 | That made it, paired by dot; | |
6845 | Now, GC, for the nonce, | |
6846 | Thou shalt reclaim it not. | |
6847 | %% | |
6848 | "Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universe | |
6849 | again ..." An unusually long pause followed, "... but I don't know | |
6850 | which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A | |
6851 | spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the | |
6852 | starfield surrounding the ship. | |
6853 | ||
6854 | "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC | |
6855 | announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they | |
6856 | are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been | |
6857 | intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and | |
6858 | transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown. | |
6859 | Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious." | |
6860 | -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star" | |
6861 | %% | |
6862 | Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia: | |
6863 | If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it. | |
6864 | %% | |
6865 | Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. | |
6866 | %% | |
6867 | Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat. | |
6868 | %% | |
6869 | Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be | |
6870 | worse in Cleveland. | |
6871 | -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" | |
6872 | %% | |
6873 | Reporter, n.: | |
6874 | A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a | |
6875 | tempest of words. | |
6876 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
6877 | %% | |
6878 | Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of | |
6879 | Western Civilization? | |
6880 | Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. | |
6881 | %% | |
6882 | Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. | |
6883 | -- Wernher von Braun | |
6884 | %% | |
6885 | Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get | |
6886 | another chance later on. | |
6887 | %% | |
6888 | Review Questions | |
6889 | ||
6890 | 1: If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 | |
6891 | KPH, and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it | |
6892 | be before he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be | |
6893 | before the Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his | |
6894 | spaceship? | |
6895 | ||
6896 | 2: If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he | |
6897 | breaks twice as many bones as before, how long will it be | |
6898 | before he breaks every bone in his body? How long will it be | |
6899 | before they cut off his insurance? Where does he get a new car | |
6900 | every week? | |
6901 | ||
6902 | 3: If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four | |
6903 | beers the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the | |
6904 | cans in a pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger | |
6905 | than King Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice? | |
6906 | %% | |
6907 | Rhode's Law: | |
6908 | When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening, | |
6909 | circumstance, or result can in no way be directly, indirectly, | |
6910 | empirically, or circuitously proven, derived, implied, | |
6911 | inferred, induced, deducted, estimated, or scientifically | |
6912 | guessed, it will always for the purpose of convenience, | |
6913 | expediency, political advantage, material gain, or personal | |
6914 | comfort, or any combination of the above, or none of the above, | |
6915 | be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed, proclaimed, and | |
6916 | adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably, universally, | |
6917 | immutably, and infinitely so, until such time as it becomes | |
6918 | advantageous to assume otherwise, maybe. | |
6919 | %% | |
6920 | Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention | |
6921 | Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will | |
6922 | reject the proposal. | |
6923 | %% | |
6924 | Rudin's Law: | |
6925 | If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will | |
6926 | do it every time. | |
6927 | %% | |
6928 | Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London: | |
6929 | Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall | |
6930 | be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind | |
6931 | person shall be deemed to be a cat. | |
6932 | %% | |
6933 | Rule of Creative Research: | |
6934 | 1) Never draw what you can copy. | |
6935 | 2) Never copy what you can trace. | |
6936 | 3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down. | |
6937 | %% | |
6938 | Rule of Defactualization: | |
6939 | Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies. | |
6940 | %% | |
6941 | Rule of Feline Frustration: | |
6942 | When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly | |
6943 | content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the | |
6944 | bathroom. | |
6945 | %% | |
6946 | Rule of the Great: | |
6947 | When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep | |
6948 | thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch. | |
6949 | %% | |
6950 | Rules for driving in New York: | |
6951 | 1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal. | |
6952 | 2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers | |
6953 | on. | |
6954 | 3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the | |
6955 | intersection. | |
6956 | %% | |
6957 | SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! | |
6958 | -- Ken Thompson | |
6959 | %% | |
6960 | SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT! | |
6961 | POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE! | |
6962 | %% | |
6963 | SOFTWARE -- formal evening attire for female computer analysts. | |
6964 | %% | |
6965 | Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence | |
6966 | Tip #1: How to tell when you are dead. | |
6967 | ||
6968 | 1. Little things start bothering you: little things like | |
6969 | worms, bugs, ants. | |
6970 | 2. Something is missing in your personal relationships. | |
6971 | 3. Your dog becomes overly affectionate. | |
6972 | 4. You have a hard time getting a waiter. | |
6973 | 5. Exotic birds flock around you. | |
6974 | 6. People ignore you at parties. | |
6975 | 7. You have a hard time getting up in the morning. | |
6976 | 8. You no longer get off on cocaine. | |
6977 | %% | |
6978 | San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was. | |
6979 | -- Herb Caen | |
6980 | %% | |
6981 | San Francisco, n.: | |
6982 | Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse. | |
6983 | %% | |
6984 | Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, | |
6985 | He must be a communist. | |
6986 | And a beard and long hair, | |
6987 | Must be a pacifist. | |
6988 | ||
6989 | What's in that pipe that he's smoking? | |
6990 | -- Arlo Guthrie | |
6991 | %% | |
6992 | Satellite Safety Tip #14: | |
6993 | If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck. | |
6994 | %% | |
6995 | Sattinger's Law: | |
6996 | It works better if you plug it in. | |
6997 | %% | |
6998 | Saturday night in Toledo Ohio, | |
6999 | Is like being nowhere at all, | |
7000 | All through the day how the hours rush by, | |
7001 | You sit in the park and you watch the grass die. | |
7002 | -- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio" | |
7003 | %% | |
7004 | Save energy: be apathetic. | |
7005 | %% | |
7006 | Save the whales. Collect the whole set. | |
7007 | %% | |
7008 | Schapiro's Explanation: | |
7009 | The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's | |
7010 | because they use more manure. | |
7011 | %% | |
7012 | Schizophrenia beats being alone. | |
7013 | %% | |
7014 | Science is what happens when preconception meets verification. | |
7015 | %% | |
7016 | Scott's first Law: | |
7017 | No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right. | |
7018 | %% | |
7019 | Scott's second Law: | |
7020 | When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found | |
7021 | to have been wrong in the first place. | |
7022 | Corollary: | |
7023 | After the correction has been found in error, it will be | |
7024 | impossible to fit the original quantity back into the | |
7025 | equation. | |
7026 | %% | |
7027 | Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it! | |
7028 | Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock? | |
7029 | Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table. | |
7030 | Kirk: Then it's of external origin? | |
7031 | Spock: Affirmative. | |
7032 | Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two. | |
7033 | Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two. | |
7034 | %% | |
7035 | Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else. | |
7036 | %% | |
7037 | Second Law of Business Meetings: | |
7038 | If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you | |
7039 | will pick the wrong one. | |
7040 | ||
7041 | Corollary: | |
7042 | If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it | |
7043 | wrong, anyway. | |
7044 | %% | |
7045 | Security check: \a\a\aINTRUDER ALERT! | |
7046 | %% | |
7047 | Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. | |
7048 | She scissored short. Sorely shorn, | |
7049 | Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, | |
7050 | Silently scheming, | |
7051 | Sightlessly seeking | |
7052 | Some savage, spectacular suicide. | |
7053 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
7054 | %% | |
7055 | Self Test for Paranoia: | |
7056 | You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's | |
7057 | your own fault. | |
7058 | %% | |
7059 | Seminars, n.: | |
7060 | From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion. | |
7061 | %% | |
7062 | Serocki's Stricture: | |
7063 | Marriage is always a bachelor's last option. | |
7064 | %% | |
7065 | Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence. | |
7066 | %% | |
7067 | Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. | |
7068 | -- Swami X | |
7069 | %% | |
7070 | Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated. | |
7071 | -- M. C. Reed. | |
7072 | %% | |
7073 | Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, | |
7074 | it's one of the best. | |
7075 | -- Woody Allen | |
7076 | %% | |
7077 | Shamus, n.: | |
7078 | A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the | |
7079 | temple, and makes sure everything is in working order. | |
7080 | A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagog | |
7081 | functionaries, and there's a joke about that: | |
7082 | A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the | |
7083 | middle of a service, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The cantor, not to be | |
7084 | bested, also cries out, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" | |
7085 | The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, "Oh, Lord, I | |
7086 | am nobody!" The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, "Look who thinks | |
7087 | he's nobody!" | |
7088 | -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" | |
7089 | %% | |
7090 | Shaw's Principle: | |
7091 | Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will | |
7092 | want to use it. | |
7093 | %% | |
7094 | "She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to." | |
7095 | -- Gypsy Rose Lee | |
7096 | %% | |
7097 | She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot. | |
7098 | -- Mark Twain | |
7099 | %% | |
7100 | She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could | |
7101 | have poured on a waffle ... | |
7102 | %% | |
7103 | "Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have | |
7104 | taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an | |
7105 | excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature." | |
7106 | -- Samuel Johnson | |
7107 | %% | |
7108 | She's genuinely bogus. | |
7109 | %% | |
7110 | Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is | |
7111 | playing golf with his boss. | |
7112 | %% | |
7113 | Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change. | |
7114 | %% | |
7115 | Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help. | |
7116 | -- from the Brown Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet | |
7117 | %% | |
7118 | Silverman's Law: | |
7119 | If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. | |
7120 | %% | |
7121 | Simon's Law: | |
7122 | Everything put together falls apart sooner or later. | |
7123 | %% | |
7124 | Since I hurt my pendulum | |
7125 | My life is all erratic. | |
7126 | My parrot, who was cordial, | |
7127 | Is now transmitting static. | |
7128 | The carpet died, a palm collapsed, | |
7129 | The cat keeps doing poo. | |
7130 | The only thing that keeps me sane | |
7131 | Is talking to my shoe. | |
7132 | -- My Shoe | |
7133 | %% | |
7134 | Since we're all here, we must not be all there. | |
7135 | -- Bob "Mountain" Beck | |
7136 | %% | |
7137 | [Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the | |
7138 | vices I admire. | |
7139 | -- Winston Churchill | |
7140 | %% | |
7141 | Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the Vulgate | |
7142 | Bible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automatically | |
7143 | excommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text. | |
7144 | This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personally | |
7145 | examined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the published | |
7146 | Vulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to be | |
7147 | printed and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wry | |
7148 | comments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus had | |
7149 | no recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy. | |
7150 | %% | |
7151 | Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): | |
7152 | That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, | |
7153 | or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you | |
7154 | should have gotten. | |
7155 | %% | |
7156 | Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes | |
7157 | to work. | |
7158 | %% | |
7159 | Slick's Three Laws of the Universe: | |
7160 | 1. Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad | |
7161 | check. | |
7162 | 2. A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat. | |
7163 | 3. There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is | |
7164 | attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is | |
7165 | attracted to dark objects. | |
7166 | %% | |
7167 | Slurm, n.: | |
7168 | The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when | |
7169 | it sits in the dish too long. | |
7170 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
7171 | %% | |
7172 | Snacktrek, n.: | |
7173 | The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly | |
7174 | returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have | |
7175 | materialized. | |
7176 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
7177 | %% | |
7178 | So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in | |
7179 | praise of intelligence. | |
7180 | -- Bertrand Russell | |
7181 | %% | |
7182 | "So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple | |
7183 | pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops | |
7184 | its head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very | |
7185 | imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, | |
7186 | and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, | |
7187 | and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the | |
7188 | gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots." | |
7189 | -- Samuel Foote | |
7190 | %% | |
7191 | Sodd's Second Law: | |
7192 | Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is | |
7193 | bound to occur. | |
7194 | %% | |
7195 | Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to | |
7196 | celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around | |
7197 | stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on | |
7198 | "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind | |
7199 | of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The | |
7200 | government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level | |
7201 | Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and | |
7202 | billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which | |
7203 | it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming | |
7204 | thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with | |
7205 | the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money | |
7206 | and go to a mall. | |
7207 | -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
7208 | %% | |
7209 | Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some | |
7210 | people have mediocrity thrust upon them. | |
7211 | -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" | |
7212 | %% | |
7213 | Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit | |
7214 | them on the head. | |
7215 | %% | |
7216 | Some points to remember [about animals]: | |
7217 | ||
7218 | 1. Don't go to sleep under big animals, e.g., elephants, | |
7219 | rhinoceri, hippopotamuses; | |
7220 | 2. Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the | |
7221 | front of your clothes; | |
7222 | 3. Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or | |
7223 | dogs you have just kicked. | |
7224 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
7225 | %% | |
7226 | Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the | |
7227 | pens will multiply instead of disappear. | |
7228 | %% | |
7229 | Someone will try to honk your nose today. | |
7230 | %% | |
7231 | "Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm | |
7232 | the only ashtray." | |
7233 | %% | |
7234 | Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. | |
7235 | -- Lily Tomlin | |
7236 | %% | |
7237 | "Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the | |
7238 | Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then | |
7239 | intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men | |
7240 | and women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our | |
7241 | best, with good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are | |
7242 | we not God's Machineries of Joy?" | |
7243 | ||
7244 | "If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin." | |
7245 | -- R. Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy" | |
7246 | %% | |
7247 | Sooner or later you must pay for your sins. (Those who have already | |
7248 | paid may disregard this fortune). | |
7249 | %% | |
7250 | Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- | |
7251 | bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the | |
7252 | road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. | |
7253 | -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
7254 | %% | |
7255 | Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers: | |
7256 | If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as | |
7257 | if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the | |
7258 | question back at him. | |
7259 | %% | |
7260 | Speak roughly to your little VAX, | |
7261 | And boot it when it crashes; | |
7262 | It knows that one cannot relax | |
7263 | Because the paging thrashes! | |
7264 | ||
7265 | Wow! Wow! Wow! | |
7266 | ||
7267 | I speak severely to my VAX, | |
7268 | And boot it when it crashes; | |
7269 | In spite of all my favorite hacks | |
7270 | My jobs it always thrashes! | |
7271 | ||
7272 | Wow! Wow! Wow! | |
7273 | %% | |
7274 | Speak roughly to your little boy, | |
7275 | And beat him when he sneezes: | |
7276 | He only does it to annoy | |
7277 | Because he knows it teases. | |
7278 | ||
7279 | Wow! wow! wow! | |
7280 | ||
7281 | I speak severely to my boy, | |
7282 | And beat him when he sneezes: | |
7283 | For he can thoroughly enjoy | |
7284 | The pepper when he pleases! | |
7285 | ||
7286 | Wow! wow! wow! | |
7287 | -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" | |
7288 | %% | |
7289 | Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword. | |
7290 | %% | |
7291 | Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am | |
7292 | sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, | |
7293 | cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free | |
7294 | the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a | |
7295 | bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a | |
7296 | controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before | |
7297 | passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same | |
7298 | memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well, | |
7299 | no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously | |
7300 | designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use? | |
7301 | %% | |
7302 | Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently | |
7303 | these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people | |
7304 | to communicate with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't | |
7305 | communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so | |
7306 | on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on (and in real | |
7307 | life, I might add) spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't | |
7308 | communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very _____\b\b\b\b\bleast | |
7309 | he can do is to Shut Up! | |
7310 | -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was" | |
7311 | %% | |
7312 | Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers. | |
7313 | %% | |
7314 | Spirtle, n.: | |
7315 | The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in | |
7316 | your eye. | |
7317 | -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" | |
7318 | %% | |
7319 | Spouse, n.: | |
7320 | Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you | |
7321 | wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single. | |
7322 | %% | |
7323 | Stay away from flying saucers today. | |
7324 | %% | |
7325 | Stay away from hurricanes for a while. | |
7326 | %% | |
7327 | "Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly." | |
7328 | %% | |
7329 | Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy: | |
7330 | Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have | |
7331 | another drink. | |
7332 | %% | |
7333 | Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming | |
7334 | Never test for an error condition you don't know how to | |
7335 | handle. | |
7336 | %% | |
7337 | Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. | |
7338 | %% | |
7339 | Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if they'd only | |
7340 | take a bath ... | |
7341 | %% | |
7342 | Stult's Report: | |
7343 | Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is | |
7344 | fight the solutions. | |
7345 | %% | |
7346 | Stupid, n.: | |
7347 | Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay. | |
7348 | %% | |
7349 | Sturgeon's Law: | |
7350 | 90% of everything is crud. | |
7351 | %% | |
7352 | Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your | |
7353 | editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. | |
7354 | -- Mark Twain | |
7355 | %% | |
7356 | Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring. | |
7357 | %% | |
7358 | (Sung to the tune of "The Impossible Dream" from MAN OF LA MANCHA) | |
7359 | ||
7360 | To code the impossible code, | |
7361 | To bring up a virgin machine, | |
7362 | To pop out of endless recursion, | |
7363 | To grok what appears on the screen, | |
7364 | ||
7365 | To right the unrightable bug, | |
7366 | To endlessly twiddle and thrash, | |
7367 | To mount the unmountable magtape, | |
7368 | To stop the unstoppable crash! | |
7369 | %% | |
7370 | Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have! | |
7371 | %% | |
7372 | Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just type | |
7373 | in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving | |
7374 | the room is punishable under law: | |
7375 | ||
7376 | Name # | |
7377 | %% | |
7378 | Surprise due today. Also the rent. | |
7379 | %% | |
7380 | Surprise your boss. Get to work on time. | |
7381 | %% | |
7382 | Sweater, n.: | |
7383 | A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly. | |
7384 | %% | |
7385 | Swipple's Rule of Order: | |
7386 | He who shouts the loudest has the floor. | |
7387 | %% | |
7388 | System/3! System/3! | |
7389 | See how it runs! See how it runs! | |
7390 | Its monitor loses so totally! | |
7391 | It runs all its programs in RPG! | |
7392 | It's made by our favorite monopoly! | |
7393 | System/3! | |
7394 | %% | |
7395 | THE GOLDEN RULE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES | |
7396 | The one who has the gold makes the rules. | |
7397 | %% | |
7398 | THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10 -- SIMPLE | |
7399 | ||
7400 | SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language | |
7401 | Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for | |
7402 | Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code | |
7403 | with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, | |
7404 | END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make | |
7405 | a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus | |
7406 | they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without | |
7407 | the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. | |
7408 | %% | |
7409 | THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12 -- LITHP | |
7410 | ||
7411 | This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of | |
7412 | an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said | |
7413 | to be useful in protheththing lithtth. | |
7414 | %% | |
7415 | THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13 -- SLOBOL | |
7416 | ||
7417 | SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. | |
7418 | Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they | |
7419 | compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the | |
7420 | coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom | |
7421 | sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to | |
7422 | compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but | |
7423 | infinitely faster) language, COCAINE. | |
7424 | %% | |
7425 | THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17 -- SARTRE | |
7426 | ||
7427 | Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an | |
7428 | extremely unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; | |
7429 | they just are. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own | |
7430 | functions. SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are | |
7431 | no fun at parties. | |
7432 | %% | |
7433 | THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17 -- SARTRE | |
7434 | ||
7435 | Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely | |
7436 | unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just | |
7437 | are. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. | |
7438 | SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at | |
7439 | parties. | |
7440 | %% | |
7441 | THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18 -- C- | |
7442 | ||
7443 | This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he | |
7444 | submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is | |
7445 | best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the | |
7446 | language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code | |
7447 | statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very | |
7448 | similar to COBOL. | |
7449 | %% | |
7450 | THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18 -- FIFTH | |
7451 | ||
7452 | FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types | |
7453 | refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and | |
7454 | JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and | |
7455 | BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY, | |
7456 | CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND. | |
7457 | ||
7458 | The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and | |
7459 | financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include | |
7460 | VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH | |
7461 | and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers | |
7462 | who end up using this language. | |
7463 | %% | |
7464 | THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM | |
7465 | ||
7466 | If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your | |
7467 | contribution of a pithy fortune, clean or obscene? We cannot continue | |
7468 | without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are | |
7469 | contributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We | |
7470 | can't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money | |
7471 | for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the | |
7472 | difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight | |
7473 | and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to | |
7474 | "fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now before | |
7475 | you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week. | |
7476 | Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute | |
7477 | 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The | |
7478 | Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or | |
7479 | more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug .... | |
7480 | %% | |
7481 | TV is chewing gum for the eyes. | |
7482 | -- Frank Lloyd Wright | |
7483 | %% | |
7484 | Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a | |
7485 | hole in his head. | |
7486 | %% | |
7487 | Tact, n.: | |
7488 | The unsaid part of what you're thinking. | |
7489 | %% | |
7490 | Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way. | |
7491 | %% | |
7492 | Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting | |
7493 | enough cheese | |
7494 | -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" | |
7495 | %% | |
7496 | Take it easy, we're in a hurry. | |
7497 | %% | |
7498 | Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it | |
7499 | needs a very clever woman to manage a fool. | |
7500 | -- Kipling | |
7501 | %% | |
7502 | Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to | |
7503 | your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms, | |
7504 | and they'll call you crazy. | |
7505 | -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul" | |
7506 | %% | |
7507 | Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to | |
7508 | your execution is not generally understood by less-advanced life-forms, | |
7509 | and they'll call you crazy. | |
7510 | -- Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul | |
7511 | %% | |
7512 | Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. | |
7513 | -- Euripides | |
7514 | %% | |
7515 | Talkers are no good doers. | |
7516 | -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" | |
7517 | %% | |
7518 | Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. | |
7519 | -- Friedrich Nietzsche | |
7520 | %% | |
7521 | Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind | |
7522 | the tree." | |
7523 | -- Russell Long | |
7524 | %% | |
7525 | Taxes, n.: | |
7526 | Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get | |
7527 | an extension. | |
7528 | %% | |
7529 | Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he | |
7530 | grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway. | |
7531 | %% | |
7532 | Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else. | |
7533 | %% | |
7534 | Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means | |
7535 | for going backwards. | |
7536 | -- Aldous Huxley | |
7537 | %% | |
7538 | Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop | |
7539 | writing. | |
7540 | -- R. Geis | |
7541 | %% | |
7542 | "Terence, this is stupid stuff: | |
7543 | You eat your victuals fast enough; | |
7544 | There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear, | |
7545 | To see the rate you drink your beer. | |
7546 | But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, | |
7547 | It gives a chap the belly-ache. | |
7548 | The cow, the old cow, she is dead; | |
7549 | It sleeps well the horned head: | |
7550 | We poor lads, 'tis our turn now | |
7551 | To hear such tunes as killed the cow. | |
7552 | Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme | |
7553 | Your friends to death before their time. | |
7554 | Moping, melancholy mad: | |
7555 | Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad." | |
7556 | -- A. E. Housman | |
7557 | %% | |
7558 | Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a | |
7559 | pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city | |
7560 | until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him is | |
7561 | ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe | |
7562 | because it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historical | |
7563 | fact, for he merely said: | |
7564 | ||
7565 | "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because | |
7566 | it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain | |
7567 | because it is impossible." | |
7568 | ||
7569 | Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of | |
7570 | philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it. | |
7571 | -- C. G. Jung, in Psychological Types | |
7572 | ||
7573 | (Teruillian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church). | |
7574 | %% | |
7575 | Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones. | |
7576 | %% | |
7577 | "Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even | |
7578 | one which cannot be justified on any other grounds." | |
7579 | -- J. Finnegan, USC. | |
7580 | %% | |
7581 | "That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all." | |
7582 | %% | |
7583 | That secret you've been guarding, isn't. | |
7584 | %% | |
7585 | That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them. | |
7586 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
7587 | %% | |
7588 | The Abrams' Principle: | |
7589 | The shortest distance between two points is off the wall. | |
7590 | %% | |
7591 | The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion. | |
7592 | Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed | |
7593 | and color, but also on ability. | |
7594 | -- T. Lehrer | |
7595 | %% | |
7596 | The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe. | |
7597 | -- Bill Murray | |
7598 | %% | |
7599 | The Briggs/Chase Law of Program Development: | |
7600 | To determine how long it will take to write and debug a | |
7601 | program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add | |
7602 | one, and convert to the next higher units. | |
7603 | %% | |
7604 | "The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the | |
7605 | flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language." | |
7606 | %% | |
7607 | The Crown is full of it! | |
7608 | -- Nate Harris, 1775 | |
7609 | %% | |
7610 | The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach | |
7611 | their children to speak it. | |
7612 | -- G. B. Shaw | |
7613 | %% | |
7614 | The Fifth Rule: | |
7615 | You have taken yourself too seriously. | |
7616 | %% | |
7617 | The First Rule of Program Optimization: | |
7618 | Don't do it. | |
7619 | ||
7620 | The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): | |
7621 | Don't do it yet. | |
7622 | -- Michael Jackson | |
7623 | %% | |
7624 | The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by | |
7625 | people who want some. | |
7626 | -- Dwight MacDonald | |
7627 | %% | |
7628 | The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog: | |
7629 | The Gerat Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in | |
7630 | courtship, his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk | |
7631 | clerks. Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods | |
7632 | of time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp | |
7633 | Hedgehog Eater. | |
7634 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
7635 | %% | |
7636 | The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: | |
7637 | You can never be sure how many beers you had last night. | |
7638 | %% | |
7639 | The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided | |
7640 | by the number of people in the group. | |
7641 | %% | |
7642 | The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free | |
7643 | information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a | |
7644 | dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a | |
7645 | real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless. | |
7646 | ||
7647 | So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business never | |
7648 | pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big | |
7649 | consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes... | |
7650 | -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" | |
7651 | %% | |
7652 | The Kennedy Constant: | |
7653 | Don't get mad -- get even. | |
7654 | %% | |
7655 | The Killer Ducks are coming!!! | |
7656 | %% | |
7657 | The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the | |
7658 | poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal | |
7659 | bread. | |
7660 | -- Anatole France | |
7661 | %% | |
7662 | "The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as | |
7663 | we could with both of them." | |
7664 | -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" | |
7665 | %% | |
7666 | The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says: | |
7667 | Support your right to bare arms! | |
7668 | %% | |
7669 | The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory, | |
7670 | in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system. | |
7671 | ||
7672 | But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for | |
7673 | whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. | |
7674 | -- Matthew 5:37 | |
7675 | %% | |
7676 | The Official MBA Handbook on business cards: | |
7677 | ||
7678 | Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm, | |
7679 | Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of | |
7680 | Corporate Planning." | |
7681 | %% | |
7682 | The Pig, if I am not mistaken, | |
7683 | Gives us ham and pork and Bacon. | |
7684 | Let others think his heart is big, | |
7685 | I think it stupid of the Pig. | |
7686 | -- Ogden Nash | |
7687 | %% | |
7688 | The Preacher, the Politicain, the Teacher, | |
7689 | Were each of them once a kiddie. | |
7690 | A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature. | |
7691 | Do I want one? God Forbiddie! | |
7692 | -- Ogden Nash | |
7693 | %% | |
7694 | The Psblurtex is an 18-inch long anaconda that hides in the gentlemen's | |
7695 | outfitting departments of Amazonian stores and is often bought by | |
7696 | mistake since its colors are those of the London Reform Club. Once | |
7697 | tied around its victim's neck, it strangles him gently and then claims | |
7698 | the insurance before running off to Germany where it lives in hiding. | |
7699 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
7700 | %% | |
7701 | The Roman Rule | |
7702 | The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the | |
7703 | one who is doing it. | |
7704 | %% | |
7705 | The Ruffed Pandanga of Borneo and Rotherham spreads out his feathers in | |
7706 | his courtship dance and imitates Winston Churchill and Tommy Cooper on | |
7707 | one leg. The padanga is dying out because the female padanga doesn't | |
7708 | take it too seriously. | |
7709 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
7710 | %% | |
7711 | The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100 | |
7712 | showed that all had these things in common: | |
7713 | ||
7714 | 1. They all had moderate appetites. | |
7715 | 2. They all came from middle class homes | |
7716 | 3. All but two of them were dead. | |
7717 | %% | |
7718 | The Third Law of Photography: | |
7719 | If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined | |
7720 | when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of | |
7721 | the dark leaks out. | |
7722 | %% | |
7723 | The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and | |
7724 | religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging | |
7725 | from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its | |
7726 | yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the | |
7727 | world put together. | |
7728 | -- Sir Peter Medawar | |
7729 | %% | |
7730 | The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and | |
7731 | religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging | |
7732 | from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its | |
7733 | yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of the | |
7734 | world put together. | |
7735 | -- Sir Peter Medawar | |
7736 | %% | |
7737 | The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie | |
7738 | Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said | |
7739 | to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his | |
7740 | decision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride." | |
7741 | %% | |
7742 | The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper | |
7743 | -- Thomas Jefferson | |
7744 | %% | |
7745 | The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the | |
7746 | average man can see better than he can think. | |
7747 | %% | |
7748 | The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than | |
7749 | cities. Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and | |
7750 | difficult to park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, | |
7751 | which are also dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- | |
7752 | here is the big difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO | |
7753 | RULES. You're allowed to do anything. You can drive as fast as you | |
7754 | want in any direction you want. I was once driving in a mall parking | |
7755 | lot when my car was struck by a pickup truck being driven backward by a | |
7756 | squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" on his forearm, who got out | |
7757 | and explained to me, in great detail, why the accident was my fault, | |
7758 | his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, whereas I was | |
7759 | neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall parking | |
7760 | lots. | |
7761 | -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" | |
7762 | %% | |
7763 | The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; | |
7764 | but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. | |
7765 | %% | |
7766 | The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. | |
7767 | -- W. C. Fields | |
7768 | %% | |
7769 | The best defense against logic is ignorance. | |
7770 | %% | |
7771 | The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time. | |
7772 | %% | |
7773 | The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse | |
7774 | time. | |
7775 | -- Merrick Furst | |
7776 | %% | |
7777 | The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss | |
7778 | Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public. | |
7779 | ||
7780 | It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has been | |
7781 | known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and, | |
7782 | in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two | |
7783 | under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight of | |
7784 | people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a | |
7785 | city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking | |
7786 | umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of | |
7787 | activity that frightens the horses on the street ... | |
7788 | %% | |
7789 | "The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch." | |
7790 | %% | |
7791 | The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up | |
7792 | in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school. | |
7793 | %% | |
7794 | The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up | |
7795 | at the steam fitters' picnic. | |
7796 | %% | |
7797 | The chief cause of problems is solutions. | |
7798 | %% | |
7799 | "The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live | |
7800 | elsewhere." | |
7801 | %% | |
7802 | The computing field is always in need of new cliches. | |
7803 | -- Alan Perlis | |
7804 | %% | |
7805 | The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is | |
7806 | none of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but." | |
7807 | Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. | |
7808 | Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you | |
7809 | talked about. | |
7810 | -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
7811 | %% | |
7812 | The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity. | |
7813 | %% | |
7814 | The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going | |
7815 | down. | |
7816 | %% | |
7817 | The cow is nothing but a machine with makes grass fit for us people to | |
7818 | eat. | |
7819 | -- John McNulty | |
7820 | %% | |
7821 | The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of | |
7822 | us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching | |
7823 | Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe. | |
7824 | %% | |
7825 | The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary? | |
7826 | %% | |
7827 | The devil finds work for idle circuits to do. | |
7828 | %% | |
7829 | "The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell | |
7830 | into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him | |
7831 | out again, it would be a calamity." | |
7832 | -- Benjamin Disraeli | |
7833 | %% | |
7834 | The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science | |
7835 | requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require | |
7836 | scholarship. | |
7837 | -- Robert Heinlein | |
7838 | %% | |
7839 | The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show | |
7840 | off this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his | |
7841 | next hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the | |
7842 | duck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the | |
7843 | duck and returned it to his master. | |
7844 | "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly. | |
7845 | "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't | |
7846 | swim." | |
7847 | %% | |
7848 | The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier. | |
7849 | %% | |
7850 | The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, with | |
7851 | symposium to follow. | |
7852 | %% | |
7853 | The fact that it works is immaterial. | |
7854 | -- L. Ogborn | |
7855 | %% | |
7856 | The first Great Steward, Parrafin the Climber, was employed in King | |
7857 | Chloroplast's kitchen as second scullery boy when the old King met a | |
7858 | tragic death. He apparently fell backward by accident on a dozen salad | |
7859 | forks. Simultaneously the true heir, his son Carotene, mysteriously | |
7860 | fled the city, complaining of some sort of plot and a lot of | |
7861 | threatening notes left on his breakfast tray. At the time, this looked | |
7862 | suspicious what with his father's death, and Carotene was suspected of | |
7863 | foul play. Then the rest of the King's relatives began to drop dead | |
7864 | one after the other in an odd fashion. Some were found strangled with | |
7865 | dishrags and some succumbed to food poisoning. A few were found | |
7866 | drowned in the soup vats, and one was attacked by assailants unknown | |
7867 | and beaten to death with a pot roast. At least three appear to have | |
7868 | thrown themselves backward on salad forks, perhaps in a noble gesture | |
7869 | of grief over the King's untimely end. Finally there was no one left | |
7870 | in Minas Troney who was either eligible or willing to wear the accursed | |
7871 | crown, and the rule of Twodor was up for grabs. The scullery slave | |
7872 | Parrafin bravely accepted the Stewardship of Twodor until that day when | |
7873 | a lineal descendant of Carotene's returns to reclaim his rightful | |
7874 | throne, conquer Twodor's enemies, and revamp the postal system. | |
7875 | -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" | |
7876 | %% | |
7877 | The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. | |
7878 | -- Abbie Hoffman | |
7879 | %% | |
7880 | The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish | |
7881 | child, was propounded to me by my father: | |
7882 | "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and | |
7883 | whistles?" | |
7884 | I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity | |
7885 | gave up. | |
7886 | "A herring," said my father. | |
7887 | "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!" | |
7888 | "So hang it there." | |
7889 | "But a herring isn't green!" I protested. | |
7890 | "Paint it." | |
7891 | "But a herring isn't wet." | |
7892 | "If its just painted its still wet." | |
7893 | "But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring | |
7894 | doesn't whistle!!" | |
7895 | "Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it | |
7896 | hard." | |
7897 | -- Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish" | |
7898 | %% | |
7899 | The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by | |
7900 | a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities. | |
7901 | %% | |
7902 | The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to | |
7903 | chance. | |
7904 | %% | |
7905 | The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the | |
7906 | center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South | |
7907 | Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South | |
7908 | End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End. | |
7909 | %% | |
7910 | The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at | |
7911 | least until we've finished building it. | |
7912 | %% | |
7913 | The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. | |
7914 | The goal of nature is to build better mice. | |
7915 | %% | |
7916 | The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him | |
7917 | love and he invented marriage. | |
7918 | %% | |
7919 | The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. | |
7920 | -- Albert Einstein | |
7921 | %% | |
7922 | The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, | |
7923 | a custom whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to | |
7924 | the contrary, nohow. | |
7925 | %% | |
7926 | The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent | |
7927 | thinkers. | |
7928 | %% | |
7929 | The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for | |
7930 | lists of "Ten Best". | |
7931 | -- H. Allen Smith | |
7932 | %% | |
7933 | The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity | |
7934 | -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. | |
7935 | %% | |
7936 | The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange | |
7937 | protein -- it rejects it. | |
7938 | -- P. Medawar | |
7939 | %% | |
7940 | The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. | |
7941 | -- Mark Twain | |
7942 | %% | |
7943 | "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit | |
7944 | longer." | |
7945 | -- Henry Kissinger | |
7946 | %% | |
7947 | The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important | |
7948 | point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly | |
7949 | important thing to people. | |
7950 | -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King | |
7951 | %% | |
7952 | The ladies men admire, I've heard, | |
7953 | Would shudder at a wicked word. | |
7954 | Their candle gives a single light; | |
7955 | They'd rather stay at home at night. | |
7956 | They do not keep awake till three, | |
7957 | Nor read erotic poetry. | |
7958 | They never sanction the impure, | |
7959 | Nor recognize an overture. | |
7960 | They shrink from powders and from paints ... | |
7961 | So far, I've had no complaints. | |
7962 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
7963 | %% | |
7964 | The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching | |
7965 | train. | |
7966 | %% | |
7967 | The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get | |
7968 | much sleep. | |
7969 | -- Woody Allen | |
7970 | %% | |
7971 | The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself. | |
7972 | -- Henry Kissinger | |
7973 | %% | |
7974 | The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the | |
7975 | crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no | |
7976 | one has ever been. | |
7977 | -- Alan Ashley-Pitt | |
7978 | %% | |
7979 | The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a | |
7980 | soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which | |
7981 | when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years. | |
7982 | %% | |
7983 | The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse. | |
7984 | %% | |
7985 | The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away. | |
7986 | %% | |
7987 | The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and | |
7988 | robbers there will be. | |
7989 | -- Lao Tsu | |
7990 | %% | |
7991 | The more things change, the more they stay insane. | |
7992 | %% | |
7993 | The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us | |
7994 | is right. | |
7995 | %% | |
7996 | The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey. | |
7997 | -- Andy Warhol | |
7998 | %% | |
7999 | The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new | |
8000 | discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." | |
8001 | -- Isaac Asimov | |
8002 | %% | |
8003 | The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on. | |
8004 | %% | |
8005 | The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I | |
8006 | hope I don't get run over again. | |
8007 | %% | |
8008 | The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to | |
8009 | choose from. | |
8010 | -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum | |
8011 | %% | |
8012 | The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the | |
8013 | 80-column card. | |
8014 | -- Dennis M. Ritchie | |
8015 | %% | |
8016 | The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughly | |
8017 | analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their | |
8018 | occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve | |
8019 | these problems when called upon. | |
8020 | ||
8021 | However, When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to | |
8022 | remind yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp. | |
8023 | %% | |
8024 | The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. | |
8025 | %% | |
8026 | The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when | |
8027 | to cringe. | |
8028 | %% | |
8029 | The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the | |
8030 | `social sciences' is: some do, some don't. | |
8031 | -- Ernest Rutherford | |
8032 | %% | |
8033 | The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop | |
8034 | and take a rest. | |
8035 | %% | |
8036 | The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any | |
8037 | use to oneself. | |
8038 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
8039 | %% | |
8040 | The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. | |
8041 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
8042 | %% | |
8043 | The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up | |
8044 | until 5 or 6 pm. | |
8045 | %% | |
8046 | The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. | |
8047 | -- Bohr | |
8048 | %% | |
8049 | The optimum committee has no members. | |
8050 | -- Norman Augustine | |
8051 | %% | |
8052 | The owner of a large furniture store in the mid-west arrived in France | |
8053 | on a buying trip. As he was checking into a hotel he struck up an | |
8054 | acquaintance with a beautiful young lady. However, she only spoke | |
8055 | French and he only spoke English, so each couldn't understand a word | |
8056 | the other spoke. He took out a pencil and a notebook and drew a | |
8057 | picture of a taxi. She smiled, nodded her head and they went for a | |
8058 | ride in the park. Later, he drew a picture of a table in a restaurant | |
8059 | with a question mark and she nodded, so they went to dinner. After | |
8060 | dinner he sketched two dancers and she was delighted. They went to | |
8061 | several nightclubs, drank champagne, danced and had a glorious | |
8062 | evening. It had gotten quite late when she motioned for the pencil and | |
8063 | drew a picture of a four-poster bed. He was dumbfounded, and has never | |
8064 | be able to understand how she knew he was in the furniture business. | |
8065 | %% | |
8066 | The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because | |
8067 | it isn't here. | |
8068 | -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) | |
8069 | %% | |
8070 | The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter | |
8071 | swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the | |
8072 | batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The | |
8073 | center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute | |
8074 | his eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it. | |
8075 | -- Dizzy Dean | |
8076 | %% | |
8077 | The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to | |
8078 | constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every | |
8079 | appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA | |
8080 | statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This | |
8081 | also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change. | |
8082 | -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers | |
8083 | %% | |
8084 | The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the | |
8085 | stupidity of your action. | |
8086 | %% | |
8087 | The problem ... is that we have run out of dinosaurs to form oil with. | |
8088 | Scientists working for the Department of Energy have tried to form oil | |
8089 | using other animals; they've piled thousands of tons of sand and Middle | |
8090 | Eastern countries on top of cows, raccoons, haddock, laboratory rats, | |
8091 | etc., but so far all they have managed to do is run up an enormous | |
8092 | bulldozer-rental bill and anger a lot of Middle Eastern persons. None | |
8093 | of the animals turned into oil, although most of the laboratory rats | |
8094 | developed cancer. | |
8095 | -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" | |
8096 | %% | |
8097 | The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go | |
8098 | to erase it. | |
8099 | -- Glaser and Way | |
8100 | %% | |
8101 | The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be | |
8102 | pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues. | |
8103 | -- Elizabeth Taylor | |
8104 | %% | |
8105 | The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. | |
8106 | %% | |
8107 | "The pyramid is opening!" | |
8108 | "Which one?" | |
8109 | "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" | |
8110 | -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At | |
8111 | Once When You're Not Anywhere At All" | |
8112 | %% | |
8113 | The rain it raineth on the just | |
8114 | And also on the unjust fella, | |
8115 | But chiefly on the just, because | |
8116 | The unjust steals the just's umbrella. | |
8117 | %% | |
8118 | The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much. | |
8119 | %% | |
8120 | The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one | |
8121 | persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all | |
8122 | progress depends on the unreasonable man. | |
8123 | -- George Bernard Shaw | |
8124 | %% | |
8125 | The revolution will not be televised. | |
8126 | %% | |
8127 | The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. | |
8128 | -- Emerson | |
8129 | %% | |
8130 | The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. | |
8131 | This means that only left handed people are in their right mind. | |
8132 | %% | |
8133 | The shortest distance between two points is under construction. | |
8134 | -- Noelie Altito | |
8135 | %% | |
8136 | "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity | |
8137 | and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exaulted | |
8138 | activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ... | |
8139 | neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." | |
8140 | %% | |
8141 | "The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up!" | |
8142 | %% | |
8143 | The steady state of disks is full. | |
8144 | --Ken Thompson | |
8145 | %% | |
8146 | The sun was shining on the sea, | |
8147 | Shining with all his might: | |
8148 | He did his very best to make | |
8149 | The billows smooth and bright -- | |
8150 | And this was very odd, because it was | |
8151 | The middle of the night. | |
8152 | -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" | |
8153 | %% | |
8154 | The superfluous is very necessary. | |
8155 | -- Voltaire | |
8156 | %% | |
8157 | The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our | |
8158 | authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as | |
8159 | the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as | |
8160 | the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much | |
8161 | radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much | |
8162 | as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we | |
8163 | receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the | |
8164 | Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will | |
8165 | heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to | |
8166 | the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much | |
8167 | heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for | |
8168 | radiation, (_\bH/_\bE)^4 = 50, where _\bE is the absolute temperature of the | |
8169 | earth (-300K), gives _\bH as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell | |
8170 | cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the | |
8171 | fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which | |
8172 | burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means | |
8173 | that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We | |
8174 | have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. | |
8175 | -- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972 | |
8176 | %% | |
8177 | The three laws of thermodynamics: | |
8178 | ||
8179 | The First Law: You can't get anything without working for it. | |
8180 | The Second Law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break | |
8181 | even. | |
8182 | The Third Law: You can only break even at absolute zero. | |
8183 | %% | |
8184 | The trouble with a kitten is that | |
8185 | When it grows up, it's always a cat | |
8186 | -- Ogden Nash. | |
8187 | %% | |
8188 | The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time. | |
8189 | %% | |
8190 | The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing | |
8191 | more important to do. | |
8192 | %% | |
8193 | The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody | |
8194 | appreciates how difficult it was. | |
8195 | %% | |
8196 | The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And | |
8197 | vice versa. | |
8198 | %% | |
8199 | The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks | |
8200 | Which practically conceal its sex. | |
8201 | I think it clever of the turtle | |
8202 | In such a fix to be so fertile. | |
8203 | -- Ogden Nash | |
8204 | %% | |
8205 | The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more | |
8206 | annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation. | |
8207 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
8208 | %% | |
8209 | The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be | |
8210 | regarded as a criminal offense. | |
8211 | -- E. W. Dijkstra | |
8212 | %% | |
8213 | "The voters have spoken, the bastards ..." | |
8214 | %% | |
8215 | "The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity | |
8216 | that would be clearly understood." | |
8217 | -- Alexander Haig | |
8218 | %% | |
8219 | "The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start | |
8220 | with a large fortune." | |
8221 | %% | |
8222 | The world is coming to an end. Please log off. | |
8223 | %% | |
8224 | The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books! | |
8225 | %% | |
8226 | The world's as ugly as sin, | |
8227 | And almost as delightful | |
8228 | -- Frederick Locker-Lampson | |
8229 | %% | |
8230 | The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages of | |
8231 | four and eighteen. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all | |
8232 | the answers. | |
8233 | %% | |
8234 | Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations. | |
8235 | ||
8236 | He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the Jordan, | |
8237 | then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an open | |
8238 | market. | |
8239 | ||
8240 | If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he should | |
8241 | not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of himself. | |
8242 | ||
8243 | Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree. | |
8244 | Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg. | |
8245 | Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower. | |
8246 | -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" | |
8247 | %% | |
8248 | There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, | |
8249 | and praiseworthy ... | |
8250 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
8251 | %% | |
8252 | There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a | |
8253 | vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone. | |
8254 | -- Gloria Steinem | |
8255 | %% | |
8256 | There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both | |
8257 | plants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis; | |
8258 | and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again, | |
8259 | don't we all? | |
8260 | %% | |
8261 | There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. | |
8262 | -- Disraeli | |
8263 | %% | |
8264 | "There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away | |
8265 | from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; or someone | |
8266 | loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor." | |
8267 | %% | |
8268 | There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be | |
8269 | offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin | |
8270 | a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount | |
8271 | of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of | |
8272 | affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. | |
8273 | When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. | |
8274 | Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. | |
8275 | -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour | |
8276 | %% | |
8277 | There are three ways to get something done: | |
8278 | 1. Do it yourself. | |
8279 | 2. Hire someone to do it for you. | |
8280 | 3. Forbid your kids to do it. | |
8281 | %% | |
8282 | There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire | |
8283 | someone, or forbid your kids to do it. | |
8284 | %% | |
8285 | There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect | |
8286 | the sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the | |
8287 | sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too. | |
8288 | -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" | |
8289 | %% | |
8290 | "There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the | |
8291 | other is to read Pope." | |
8292 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
8293 | %% | |
8294 | There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one | |
8295 | works. | |
8296 | %% | |
8297 | There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a | |
8298 | suitable application of high explosives. | |
8299 | %% | |
8300 | There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. | |
8301 | -- Henry Kissinger | |
8302 | %% | |
8303 | There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know | |
8304 | nothing about. | |
8305 | %% | |
8306 | There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of | |
8307 | paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write. | |
8308 | %% | |
8309 | There is a green, multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder. | |
8310 | %% | |
8311 | There is a theory that states: "If anyone finds out what the universe | |
8312 | is for it will disappear and be replaced by something more bazaarly | |
8313 | inexplicable." | |
8314 | ||
8315 | There is another theory that states: "This has already happened ...." | |
8316 | -- Donald Adams, "Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" | |
8317 | %% | |
8318 | There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly | |
8319 | what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly | |
8320 | disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and | |
8321 | inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has | |
8322 | already happened. | |
8323 | -- Donald Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
8324 | %% | |
8325 | There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. | |
8326 | -- Mark Twain | |
8327 | %% | |
8328 | There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the | |
8329 | tools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not | |
8330 | abuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and | |
8331 | war hold him in check. And also the wife who wants him home by five, | |
8332 | of course. | |
8333 | -- Encyclopadia Apocryphia, 1990 ed. | |
8334 | %% | |
8335 | There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it | |
8336 | -- G. B. Shaw | |
8337 | %% | |
8338 | There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast | |
8339 | reflexes. | |
8340 | %% | |
8341 | There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be | |
8342 | doing. | |
8343 | %% | |
8344 | There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and | |
8345 | that is not being talked about. | |
8346 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
8347 | %% | |
8348 | There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale | |
8349 | returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. | |
8350 | -- Mark Twain | |
8351 | %% | |
8352 | There once was a girl named Irene | |
8353 | Who lived on distilled kerosene | |
8354 | But she started absorbin' | |
8355 | A new hydrocarbon | |
8356 | And since then has never benzene. | |
8357 | %% | |
8358 | There once was an old man from Esser, | |
8359 | Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser. | |
8360 | It at last grew so small, | |
8361 | He knew nothing at all, | |
8362 | And now he's a College Professor. | |
8363 | %% | |
8364 | "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved | |
8365 | it." | |
8366 | -- C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia | |
8367 | %% | |
8368 | There was a plane crash over mid-ocean, and only three survivors were | |
8369 | left in the life-raft: the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley. | |
8370 | Unfortunately, it was a one-man life-raft, and quickly sinking, so they | |
8371 | started debating who should be allowed to stay. | |
8372 | ||
8373 | The Pope pointed out that he was the spiritual leader of millions all | |
8374 | over the world, the President explained that if he died then America | |
8375 | would be stuck with the Vice-President, and so forth. Then Mayor Daley | |
8376 | said, "Look! We're not solving anything like this! The only fair | |
8377 | thing to do is to vote on it." So they did, and Mayor Daley won by 97 | |
8378 | votes. | |
8379 | %% | |
8380 | There was a young lady from Hyde | |
8381 | Who ate a green apple and died. | |
8382 | While her lover lamented | |
8383 | The apple fermented | |
8384 | And made cider inside her inside. | |
8385 | %% | |
8386 | There was a young man who said "God, | |
8387 | I find it exceedingly odd, | |
8388 | That the willow oak tree | |
8389 | Continues to be, | |
8390 | When there's no one about in the Quad." | |
8391 | ||
8392 | "Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd, | |
8393 | For I'm always about in the Quad; | |
8394 | And that's why the tree, | |
8395 | Continues to be," | |
8396 | Signed "Yours faithfully, God." | |
8397 | %% | |
8398 | There was a young poet named Dan, | |
8399 | Whose poetry never would scan. | |
8400 | When told this was so, | |
8401 | He said, "Yes, I know. | |
8402 | It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that last line that I can." | |
8403 | %% | |
8404 | There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of | |
8405 | the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double- | |
8406 | digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the | |
8407 | 8-cent postcard. The second was responsible for such things as the | |
8408 | transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity | |
8409 | stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative | |
8410 | feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching | |
8411 | systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the | |
8412 | first electrical digital computer, and the first communications | |
8413 | satellite. Guess which one got to tell the other how to run the | |
8414 | telephone business? | |
8415 | %% | |
8416 | There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad its not a | |
8417 | fence. | |
8418 | %% | |
8419 | There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. | |
8420 | %% | |
8421 | There's little in taking or giving, | |
8422 | There's little in water or wine: | |
8423 | This living, this living, this living, | |
8424 | Was never a project of mine. | |
8425 | Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is | |
8426 | The gain of the one at the top, | |
8427 | For art is a form of catharsis, | |
8428 | And love is a permanent flop, | |
8429 | And work is the province of cattle, | |
8430 | And rest's for a clam in a shell, | |
8431 | So I'm thinking of throwing the battle -- | |
8432 | Would you kindly direct me to hell? | |
8433 | -- Dorothy Parker | |
8434 | %% | |
8435 | There's no future in time travel | |
8436 | %% | |
8437 | There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. | |
8438 | -- Dr. Who | |
8439 | %% | |
8440 | There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get | |
8441 | any worse. | |
8442 | %% | |
8443 | There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn | |
8444 | what it is I'll get married again. | |
8445 | -- Clint Eastwood | |
8446 | %% | |
8447 | There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is | |
8448 | becoming an endangered synthetic. | |
8449 | -- Lily Tomlin | |
8450 | %% | |
8451 | "These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!" | |
8452 | "These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!" | |
8453 | "These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP | |
8454 | out of MEGATON MAN!" | |
8455 | %% | |
8456 | These days the necessities of life cost you about three times what they | |
8457 | used to, and half the time they aren't even fit to drink. | |
8458 | %% | |
8459 | They also surf who only stand on waves. | |
8460 | %% | |
8461 | They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners | |
8462 | always spell better than they pronounce. | |
8463 | -- Mark Twain | |
8464 | %% | |
8465 | "They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!" | |
8466 | %% | |
8467 | They told me you had proven it When they discovered our results | |
8468 | About a month before. Their hair began to curl | |
8469 | The proof was valid, more or less Instead of understanding it | |
8470 | But rather less than more. We'd run the thing through PRL. | |
8471 | ||
8472 | He sent them word that we would try Don't tell a soul about all this | |
8473 | To pass where they had failed For it must ever be | |
8474 | And after we were done, to them A secret, kept from all the rest | |
8475 | The new proof would be mailed. Between yourself and me. | |
8476 | ||
8477 | My notion was to start again | |
8478 | Ignoring all they'd done | |
8479 | We quickly turned it into code | |
8480 | To see if it would run. | |
8481 | %% | |
8482 | They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid! | |
8483 | %% | |
8484 | Things are more like they used to be than they are now. | |
8485 | %% | |
8486 | Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face. | |
8487 | %% | |
8488 | Think big. Pollute the Mississippi. | |
8489 | %% | |
8490 | Think honk if you're a telepath. | |
8491 | %% | |
8492 | Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! | |
8493 | %% | |
8494 | Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the | |
8495 | computer crashes. | |
8496 | %% | |
8497 | Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click". | |
8498 | %% | |
8499 | This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need, | |
8500 | please use the program "________\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\brandchar". This program generates random | |
8501 | characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with | |
8502 | something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be | |
8503 | more profound than THIS program has ever been. | |
8504 | %% | |
8505 | This fortune intentionally not included. | |
8506 | %% | |
8507 | This fortune is false. | |
8508 | %% | |
8509 | This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week. | |
8510 | %% | |
8511 | "This is a country where people are free to practice their religion, | |
8512 | regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling | |
8513 | keys ..." | |
8514 | %% | |
8515 | This is for all ill-treated fellows | |
8516 | Unborn and unbegot, | |
8517 | For them to read when they're in trouble | |
8518 | And I am not. | |
8519 | -- A. E. Housman | |
8520 | %% | |
8521 | This is the story of the bee | |
8522 | Whose sex is very hard to see | |
8523 | ||
8524 | You cannot tell the he from the she | |
8525 | But she can tell, and so can he | |
8526 | ||
8527 | The little bee is never still | |
8528 | She has no time to take the pill | |
8529 | ||
8530 | And that is why, in times like these | |
8531 | There are so many sons of bees. | |
8532 | %% | |
8533 | This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, | |
8534 | you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where | |
8535 | to go. | |
8536 | %% | |
8537 | This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88 | |
8538 | %% | |
8539 | This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of | |
8540 | the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many | |
8541 | solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were | |
8542 | largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, | |
8543 | which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of | |
8544 | paper that were unhappy. | |
8545 | -- Douglas Adams | |
8546 | %% | |
8547 | This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget | |
8548 | it. | |
8549 | %% | |
8550 | Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate. | |
8551 | %% | |
8552 | Those who can't write, write manuals. | |
8553 | %% | |
8554 | Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, | |
8555 | for these only gave life, those the art of living well. | |
8556 | -- Aristotle | |
8557 | %% | |
8558 | Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose. | |
8559 | %% | |
8560 | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent | |
8561 | revolution inevitable. | |
8562 | -- John F. Kennedy | |
8563 | %% | |
8564 | Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are | |
8565 | the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with | |
8566 | Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether -- | |
8567 | whose existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation ... A | |
8568 | fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any | |
8569 | more about the matter than the others. | |
8570 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
8571 | %% | |
8572 | Time flies like an arrow | |
8573 | Fruit flies like a banana | |
8574 | %% | |
8575 | Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at | |
8576 | once. | |
8577 | %% | |
8578 | "To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." | |
8579 | -- Woody Allen | |
8580 | %% | |
8581 | To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it. | |
8582 | %% | |
8583 | To be is to do. | |
8584 | -- I. Kant | |
8585 | To do is to be. | |
8586 | -- A. Sartre | |
8587 | Yabba-Dabba-Doo! | |
8588 | -- F. Flinstone | |
8589 | %% | |
8590 | To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit, | |
8591 | call it the target. | |
8592 | %% | |
8593 | To err is human, to forgive is Not Company Policy. | |
8594 | %% | |
8595 | To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. | |
8596 | -- Thomas Edison | |
8597 | %% | |
8598 | To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. | |
8599 | %% | |
8600 | To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional | |
8601 | system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy, | |
8602 | inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence: | |
8603 | precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel, | |
8604 | uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar, | |
8605 | well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures | |
8606 | of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very | |
8607 | secure ecological niche. | |
8608 | -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers" | |
8609 | %% | |
8610 | "To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?" | |
8611 | %% | |
8612 | Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day. | |
8613 | %% | |
8614 | Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official. | |
8615 | %% | |
8616 | Today is the first day of the rest of the mess | |
8617 | %% | |
8618 | Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday | |
8619 | %% | |
8620 | Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity? | |
8621 | ||
8622 | And where does it go after it leaves the toaster? | |
8623 | -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" | |
8624 | %% | |
8625 | Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest. | |
8626 | %% | |
8627 | Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree. | |
8628 | %% | |
8629 | Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL. | |
8630 | -- Mae West | |
8631 | %% | |
8632 | Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow. | |
8633 | %% | |
8634 | Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and live | |
8635 | in eucalyptus trees. | |
8636 | %% | |
8637 | Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant | |
8638 | intelligence. | |
8639 | -- Henrik Tikkanen | |
8640 | %% | |
8641 | Truth will be out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.) | |
8642 | %% | |
8643 | Truthful, adj.: | |
8644 | Dumb and illiterate. | |
8645 | %% | |
8646 | Truthful, adj.: | |
8647 | Dumb and illiterate. | |
8648 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
8649 | %% | |
8650 | Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational. | |
8651 | -- Charles Schulz | |
8652 | %% | |
8653 | Try to be the best of whatever you are, even if what you are is no | |
8654 | good. | |
8655 | %% | |
8656 | Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance. | |
8657 | %% | |
8658 | Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only | |
8659 | specification is that it should run noiselessly. | |
8660 | %% | |
8661 | Turnaucka's Law: | |
8662 | The attention span of a computer is only as long as its | |
8663 | electrical cord. | |
8664 | %% | |
8665 | Tussman's Law: | |
8666 | Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come. | |
8667 | %% | |
8668 | 'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks | |
8669 | Did gyre and gimble in their cave | |
8670 | All mimsy was the CS-VAX | |
8671 | And Cory raths outgrave. | |
8672 | ||
8673 | "Beware the software rot, my son! | |
8674 | The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash! | |
8675 | Beware the broken pipe, and shun | |
8676 | The frumious system crash!" | |
8677 | %% | |
8678 | 'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period | |
8679 | preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And | |
8680 | throughout our place of residence, | |
8681 | Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the | |
8682 | possessors of this potential, including that | |
8683 | species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. | |
8684 | Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward | |
8685 | edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus, | |
8686 | Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an | |
8687 | imminent visitation from an eccentric | |
8688 | philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations | |
8689 | is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ... | |
8690 | %% | |
8691 | Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. | |
8692 | -- Howard Kandel | |
8693 | %% | |
8694 | Two percent of zero is almost nothing. | |
8695 | %% | |
8696 | UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist. | |
8697 | %% | |
8698 | "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" | |
8699 | ||
8700 | "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food, | |
8701 | right?" | |
8702 | -- MacNelley, "Shoe" | |
8703 | %% | |
8704 | Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: | |
8705 | Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a | |
8706 | hammer or get a splinter in it. | |
8707 | %% | |
8708 | Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it | |
8709 | can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic ... | |
8710 | %% | |
8711 | Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics: | |
8712 | Superiority is recessive. | |
8713 | %% | |
8714 | Unfair animal names: | |
8715 | ||
8716 | -- tsetse fly -- bullhead | |
8717 | -- booby -- duck-billed platypus | |
8718 | -- sapsucker -- Clarence | |
8719 | -- Gary Larson | |
8720 | %% | |
8721 | United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of the | |
8722 | Christmas season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of | |
8723 | all the military forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of | |
8724 | all the patriots of every persuasion. | |
8725 | ||
8726 | Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time low over the | |
8727 | world. | |
8728 | -- Isaac Asimov | |
8729 | %% | |
8730 | Universe, n.: | |
8731 | The problem. | |
8732 | %% | |
8733 | University, n.: | |
8734 | Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's | |
8735 | usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to | |
8736 | fix it, and ... | |
8737 | %% | |
8738 | Unnamed Law: | |
8739 | If it happens, it must be possible. | |
8740 | %% | |
8741 | Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out | |
8742 | twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. | |
8743 | -- H. L. Mencken | |
8744 | %% | |
8745 | Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir | |
8746 | %% | |
8747 | User n.: | |
8748 | A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. | |
8749 | %% | |
8750 | Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach. | |
8751 | -- S. C. Johnson | |
8752 | %% | |
8753 | VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22) | |
8754 | Learn something new today, like how to spell or how to count to | |
8755 | ten without using your fingers. Be careful dressing this | |
8756 | morning. You may be hit by a car later in the day and you | |
8757 | wouldn't want to be taken to the doctor's office in some of | |
8758 | that old underwear you own. | |
8759 | %% | |
8760 | Vail's Second Axiom: | |
8761 | The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the | |
8762 | amount of work already completed. | |
8763 | %% | |
8764 | Van Roy's Law: | |
8765 | An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. | |
8766 | %% | |
8767 | Velilind's Laws of Experimentation: | |
8768 | 1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only | |
8769 | once. | |
8770 | 2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data | |
8771 | points. | |
8772 | %% | |
8773 | Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters. | |
8774 | %% | |
8775 | Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. | |
8776 | -- Salvor Hardin | |
8777 | %% | |
8778 | Virtue is its own punishment. | |
8779 | %% | |
8780 | Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving | |
8781 | from where you left them to where you can't find them. | |
8782 | %% | |
8783 | Vitamin C deficiency is apauling | |
8784 | %% | |
8785 | Vote anarchist | |
8786 | %% | |
8787 | WARNING: | |
8788 | Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your | |
8789 | mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth of | |
8790 | hair on your palms, and make a difference in the outcome of | |
8791 | your favorite war. | |
8792 | %% | |
8793 | WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE | |
8794 | ||
8795 | Oh, dear, where can the matter be | |
8796 | When it's converted to energy? | |
8797 | There is a slight loss of parity. | |
8798 | Johnny's so long at the fair. | |
8799 | %% | |
8800 | "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." | |
8801 | -- Mark Twain | |
8802 | %% | |
8803 | Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?" | |
8804 | 1st customer: "I'll have tea." | |
8805 | 2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!" | |
8806 | (Waiter exits, returns) | |
8807 | Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?" | |
8808 | %% | |
8809 | War hath no fury like a non-combatant. | |
8810 | -- Charles Edward Montague | |
8811 | %% | |
8812 | Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. | |
8813 | -- John F. Kennedy | |
8814 | %% | |
8815 | Wasting time is an important part of living. | |
8816 | %% | |
8817 | Watson's Law: | |
8818 | The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the | |
8819 | number and significance of any persons watching it. | |
8820 | %% | |
8821 | We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it. | |
8822 | -- Whole Earth Catalog | |
8823 | %% | |
8824 | We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. | |
8825 | -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo" | |
8826 | %% | |
8827 | We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved. | |
8828 | %% | |
8829 | "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company." | |
8830 | %% | |
8831 | We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the | |
8832 | hardware, but we can *___\b\b\bsee* the blinking lights! | |
8833 | %% | |
8834 | We have met the enemy, and he is us. | |
8835 | -- Walt Kelly | |
8836 | %% | |
8837 | "We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his | |
8838 | hands for masturbation." | |
8839 | -- Lily Tomlin | |
8840 | %% | |
8841 | We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always | |
8842 | respect their good judgement. | |
8843 | %% | |
8844 | We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass | |
8845 | no matter how self-seeking. | |
8846 | -- F. G. Withington | |
8847 | %% | |
8848 | We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best | |
8849 | friends are trying to kill us. | |
8850 | %% | |
8851 | We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one | |
8852 | technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter. | |
8853 | %% | |
8854 | We wish you a Hare Krishna | |
8855 | We wish you a Hare Krishna | |
8856 | We wish you a Hare Krishna | |
8857 | And a Sun Myung Moon! | |
8858 | -- Maxwell Smart | |
8859 | %% | |
8860 | Weiler's Law: | |
8861 | Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it | |
8862 | himself. | |
8863 | %% | |
8864 | Weinberg's First Law: | |
8865 | Progress is made on alternate Fridays. | |
8866 | %% | |
8867 | Weinberg's Principle: | |
8868 | An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while | |
8869 | sweeping on to the grand fallacy. | |
8870 | %% | |
8871 | Weinberg's Second Law: | |
8872 | If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, | |
8873 | then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy | |
8874 | civilization. | |
8875 | %% | |
8876 | Weiner's Law of Libraries: | |
8877 | There are no answers, only cross references. | |
8878 | %% | |
8879 | Well, I would -- if they realized that we -- again if -- if we led them | |
8880 | back to that stalemate only because our retaliatory power, our seconds, | |
8881 | or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive they | |
8882 | they couldn't afford it, that would hold them off. | |
8883 | -- President Ronald Reagan, on the MX missile | |
8884 | %% | |
8885 | "We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later." | |
8886 | %% | |
8887 | "Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___\b\b\bcan* | |
8888 | you believe?!" | |
8889 | -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward] | |
8890 | %% | |
8891 | Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail, | |
8892 | And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail; | |
8893 | I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues, | |
8894 | I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. | |
8895 | ||
8896 | If you think that it's nice that you get what you C, | |
8897 | Then go : illogical statement with your whole family, | |
8898 | 'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views. | |
8899 | I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. | |
8900 | ||
8901 | On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze, | |
8902 | But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze. | |
8903 | Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse, | |
8904 | I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. | |
8905 | -- Core Dumped Blues | |
8906 | %% | |
8907 | We're deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell from | |
8908 | the fact that everywhere you look, you see jolly old St. Nick urging | |
8909 | you to purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him right | |
8910 | in his bowl full of jelly. | |
8911 | -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" | |
8912 | %% | |
8913 | Westheimer's Discovery: | |
8914 | A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a | |
8915 | couple of hours in the library. | |
8916 | %% | |
8917 | Wethern's Law: | |
8918 | Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. | |
8919 | %% | |
8920 | We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center | |
8921 | of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week, | |
8922 | but for some reason nobody's ever done it. | |
8923 | -- Andy Rooney | |
8924 | %% | |
8925 | What I tell you three times is true. | |
8926 | %% | |
8927 | What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility. | |
8928 | %% | |
8929 | What does it mean if there is no fortune for you? | |
8930 | %% | |
8931 | What garlic is to food, insanity is to art. | |
8932 | %% | |
8933 | What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art. | |
8934 | %% | |
8935 | What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the | |
8936 | entrance? | |
8937 | %% | |
8938 | What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow | |
8939 | in his footsteps? | |
8940 | %% | |
8941 | What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I | |
8942 | definitely overpaid for my carpet. | |
8943 | -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" | |
8944 | %% | |
8945 | What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's | |
8946 | worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? | |
8947 | -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" | |
8948 | %% | |
8949 | What is a magician but a practising theorist? | |
8950 | -- Obi-Wan Kenobi | |
8951 | %% | |
8952 | What is mind? No matter. | |
8953 | What is matter? Never mind. | |
8954 | -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875 | |
8955 | %% | |
8956 | What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern | |
8957 | computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest | |
8958 | and the establishment of a Hilton on its peak. | |
8959 | %% | |
8960 | "What is the robbing of a bank compared to the FOUNDING of a bank?" | |
8961 | -- Bertold Brecht | |
8962 | %% | |
8963 | What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do. | |
8964 | %% | |
8965 | What makes the Universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing | |
8966 | to compare it with. | |
8967 | %% | |
8968 | What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing | |
8969 | to compare it with. | |
8970 | %% | |
8971 | What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism. | |
8972 | It's corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell books | |
8973 | and magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, Scotch, cigarettes | |
8974 | and, most important, corporate America's message, which runs: "Yes, | |
8975 | women were discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunate | |
8976 | mistake has been remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestige | |
8977 | and power by dint of individual rather than collective effort." | |
8978 | -- Susan Gordon | |
8979 | %% | |
8980 | What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? | |
8981 | -- Ursula K. LeGuin | |
8982 | %% | |
8983 | What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket. | |
8984 | %% | |
8985 | What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away. | |
8986 | %% | |
8987 | What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent | |
8988 | bagel. | |
8989 | %% | |
8990 | What this country needs is a good 5 dollar plasma weapon. | |
8991 | %% | |
8992 | What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING! | |
8993 | %% | |
8994 | What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel. | |
8995 | %% | |
8996 | What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? | |
8997 | -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" | |
8998 | %% | |
8999 | What with chromodynamics and electroweak too | |
9000 | Our Standardized Model should please even you, | |
9001 | Tho once you did say that of charm there was none | |
9002 | It took courage to switch as to say Earth moves not Sun. | |
9003 | Yet your state of the union penultimate large | |
9004 | Is the last known haunt of the Fractional Charge, | |
9005 | And as you surf in the hot tub with sourdough roll | |
9006 | Please ponder the passing of your sole Monopole. | |
9007 | Your Olympics were fun, you should bring them all back | |
9008 | For transsexual tennis or Anamalon Track, | |
9009 | But Hollywood movies remain sinfully crude | |
9010 | Whether seen on the telly or Remotely Viewed. | |
9011 | Now fasten your sunbelts, for you've done it once more, | |
9012 | You said it in Leipzig of the thing we adore, | |
9013 | That you've built an incredible crystalline sphere | |
9014 | Whose German attendants spread trembling and fear | |
9015 | Of the death of our theory by Particle Zeta | |
9016 | Which I'll bet is not there say your article, later. | |
9017 | -- Sheldon Glashow, Physics Today, Dec. 1984 | |
9018 | %% | |
9019 | Whatever became of Strange de Jim? Well, he found a substitute for | |
9020 | cocaine: "You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrils | |
9021 | as far as they will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shredding | |
9022 | hundred dollar bills." | |
9023 | -- Herb Caen | |
9024 | %% | |
9025 | Whatever became of eternal truth? | |
9026 | %% | |
9027 | Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not | |
9028 | nailed down. | |
9029 | -- Collis P. Huntingdon | |
9030 | %% | |
9031 | When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to | |
9032 | guarantee them. | |
9033 | %% | |
9034 | When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young | |
9035 | ladies, and, of course, the goat. | |
9036 | %% | |
9037 | When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now | |
9038 | I'm beginning to believe it. | |
9039 | -- Clarence Darrow | |
9040 | %% | |
9041 | When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into | |
9042 | the soul of the boy sitting next to me. | |
9043 | -- Woody Allen | |
9044 | %% | |
9045 | When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened | |
9046 | or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I | |
9047 | cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to | |
9048 | go to pieces like this but we all have to do it. | |
9049 | -- Mark Twain | |
9050 | %% | |
9051 | When Marriage is Outlawed, | |
9052 | Only Outlaws will have Inlaws. | |
9053 | %% | |
9054 | When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the | |
9055 | money is. | |
9056 | -- Robespierre | |
9057 | %% | |
9058 | When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the | |
9059 | thing," it's the money. | |
9060 | -- Kim Hubbard | |
9061 | %% | |
9062 | When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half | |
9063 | loop? | |
9064 | %% | |
9065 | When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is | |
9066 | not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space | |
9067 | travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. | |
9068 | -- Robert Heinlein | |
9069 | %% | |
9070 | When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see the | |
9071 | sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain | |
9072 | relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten. | |
9073 | -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle | |
9074 | Maintenance" | |
9075 | %% | |
9076 | When all other means of communication fail, try words. | |
9077 | %% | |
9078 | When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I | |
9079 | think it was a Tuesday. | |
9080 | %% | |
9081 | When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess. | |
9082 | %% | |
9083 | "When in doubt, tell the truth." | |
9084 | -- Mark Twain | |
9085 | %% | |
9086 | When in doubt, use brute force. | |
9087 | -- Ken Thompson | |
9088 | %% | |
9089 | When love is gone, there's always justice. | |
9090 | And when justice is gone, there's always force. | |
9091 | And when force is gone, there's always Mom. | |
9092 | Hi, Mom! | |
9093 | -- Laurie Anderson | |
9094 | %% | |
9095 | When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment | |
9096 | results. | |
9097 | -- Calvin Coolidge | |
9098 | %% | |
9099 | When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only | |
9100 | say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. | |
9101 | %% | |
9102 | When the Ngdanga tribe of West Africa hold their moon love ceremonies, | |
9103 | the men of the tribe bang their heads on sacred trees until they get a | |
9104 | nose bleed, which usually cures them of ____\b\b\b\bthat. | |
9105 | -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" | |
9106 | %% | |
9107 | When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the | |
9108 | stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them | |
9109 | from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones | |
9110 | were set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the | |
9111 | corners as bodies of a lower grade ... | |
9112 | -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" | |
9113 | %% | |
9114 | "When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical" | |
9115 | -- Jon Carroll | |
9116 | %% | |
9117 | When the government bureau's remedies do not match your problem, you | |
9118 | modify the problem, not the remedy. | |
9119 | %% | |
9120 | When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most | |
9121 | insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are | |
9122 | required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and | |
9123 | exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. | |
9124 | -- George Bernard Shaw | |
9125 | %% | |
9126 | When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is | |
9127 | not hereditary. | |
9128 | -- Thomas Paine | |
9129 | %% | |
9130 | "When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut." | |
9131 | %% | |
9132 | When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly. | |
9133 | %% | |
9134 | "When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite." | |
9135 | -- Winston Curchill, On formal declarations of war | |
9136 | %% | |
9137 | When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers. | |
9138 | -- The Wall Street Journal | |
9139 | %% | |
9140 | When you're away, I'm restless, lonely, | |
9141 | Wretched, bored, dejected; only | |
9142 | Here's the rub, my darling dear | |
9143 | I feel the same when you are near. | |
9144 | -- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away" | |
9145 | %% | |
9146 | When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN. | |
9147 | %% | |
9148 | Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to | |
9149 | see it tried on him personally. | |
9150 | -- A. Lincoln | |
9151 | %% | |
9152 | Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they really mean, "not really". | |
9153 | -- Dave Parnas | |
9154 | %% | |
9155 | Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. | |
9156 | --Oscar Wilde | |
9157 | %% | |
9158 | Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last | |
9159 | you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his | |
9160 | Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. | |
9161 | -- Mark Twain | |
9162 | "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" | |
9163 | %% | |
9164 | Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time | |
9165 | to reform. | |
9166 | -- Mark Twain | |
9167 | %% | |
9168 | Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what | |
9169 | is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. | |
9170 | -- John Kenneth Galbraith | |
9171 | %% | |
9172 | Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax. | |
9173 | %% | |
9174 | Whether you can hear it or not | |
9175 | The Universe is laughing behind your back | |
9176 | -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" | |
9177 | %% | |
9178 | While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, | |
9179 | The fate of empires and the fall of kings; | |
9180 | While quacks of State must each produce his plan, | |
9181 | And even children lisp the Rights of Man; | |
9182 | Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, | |
9183 | The Rights of Woman merit some attention. | |
9184 | -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman", | |
9185 | November 26, 1792 | |
9186 | %% | |
9187 | While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is | |
9188 | admission to someone else. | |
9189 | %% | |
9190 | While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own | |
9191 | form of misery. | |
9192 | %% | |
9193 | While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining | |
9194 | position. | |
9195 | %% | |
9196 | While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their | |
9197 | correctness never does. | |
9198 | %% | |
9199 | While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very | |
9200 | reassuring to know that it's still there. | |
9201 | %% | |
9202 | While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are | |
9203 | safe, for you can watch both of his. | |
9204 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
9205 | %% | |
9206 | Whistler's Law: | |
9207 | You never know who is right, but you always know who is in | |
9208 | charge. | |
9209 | %% | |
9210 | "Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new | |
9211 | Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..." | |
9212 | %% | |
9213 | Who made the world I cannot tell; | |
9214 | 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. | |
9215 | My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, | |
9216 | I never soiled with such a deed. | |
9217 | -- A. E. Housman | |
9218 | %% | |
9219 | Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink? | |
9220 | %% | |
9221 | Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. | |
9222 | %% | |
9223 | Who's on first? | |
9224 | %% | |
9225 | Why I Can't Go Out With You: | |
9226 | ||
9227 | I'd LOVE to, but ... | |
9228 | -- I have to floss my cat. | |
9229 | -- I've dedicated my life to linguini. | |
9230 | -- I need to spend more time with my blender. | |
9231 | -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People. | |
9232 | -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish. | |
9233 | -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves. | |
9234 | -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products. | |
9235 | -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise. | |
9236 | -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist. | |
9237 | -- I have some really hard words to look up. | |
9238 | -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. | |
9239 | -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps. | |
9240 | %% | |
9241 | "Why be a man when you can be a success?" | |
9242 | -- Bertold Brecht | |
9243 | %% | |
9244 | Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to | |
9245 | avoid responsibility with? | |
9246 | %% | |
9247 | Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office | |
9248 | automation? | |
9249 | %% | |
9250 | Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently | |
9251 | there must be a beverage. | |
9252 | -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" | |
9253 | %% | |
9254 | "Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is | |
9255 | because we are not the person involved" | |
9256 | -- Mark Twain | |
9257 | %% | |
9258 | "Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?" | |
9259 | -- Lily Tomlin | |
9260 | %% | |
9261 | Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year? | |
9262 | Just picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as your | |
9263 | children open their old-fashioned presents. | |
9264 | ||
9265 | Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?" | |
9266 | ||
9267 | You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it | |
9268 | falls down. What fun! Ha, ha!" | |
9269 | ||
9270 | Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer | |
9271 | with two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory, | |
9272 | and I get this cretin TOP?" | |
9273 | ||
9274 | Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this." | |
9275 | ||
9276 | You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!" | |
9277 | ||
9278 | Daughter: "It looks like goat barf." | |
9279 | -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" | |
9280 | %% | |
9281 | "Why was I born with such contemporaries?" | |
9282 | -- Oscar Wilde | |
9283 | %% | |
9284 | Wiker's Law: | |
9285 | Government expands to absorb revenue and then some. | |
9286 | %% | |
9287 | Williams and Holland's Law: | |
9288 | If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by | |
9289 | statistical methods. | |
9290 | %% | |
9291 | Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as | |
9292 | it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. | |
9293 | %% | |
9294 | Wit, n.: | |
9295 | The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery | |
9296 | ... by leaving it out. | |
9297 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
9298 | %% | |
9299 | With a rubber duck, one's never alone. | |
9300 | -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" | |
9301 | %% | |
9302 | With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once | |
9303 | build a nuclear balm? | |
9304 | %% | |
9305 | With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand | |
9306 | miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and | |
9307 | still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no | |
9308 | such thing as progress. | |
9309 | -- Ransom K. Ferm | |
9310 | %% | |
9311 | Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless. | |
9312 | %% | |
9313 | Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If | |
9314 | you cut down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut | |
9315 | down the new tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that | |
9316 | tree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a mutation with | |
9317 | long, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it will sit | |
9318 | there in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when you | |
9319 | come back. | |
9320 | ||
9321 | Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago, | |
9322 | when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot. | |
9323 | Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the | |
9324 | cavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood | |
9325 | heat!" The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately | |
9326 | beat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made, | |
9327 | and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed, | |
9328 | although their insurance rates went way up. | |
9329 | -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" | |
9330 | %% | |
9331 | Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your | |
9332 | chairs. | |
9333 | %% | |
9334 | Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing: | |
9335 | August. The lines are the shortest, though. | |
9336 | -- Steve Rubenstein | |
9337 | %% | |
9338 | Worst Month of the Year: | |
9339 | February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if | |
9340 | you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't | |
9341 | get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible. | |
9342 | -- Steve Rubenstein | |
9343 | %% | |
9344 | Worst Vegetable of the Year: | |
9345 | The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next | |
9346 | year. | |
9347 | -- Steve Rubenstein | |
9348 | %% | |
9349 | "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" | |
9350 | ||
9351 | "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat | |
9352 | -- Lewis Carrol | |
9353 | %% | |
9354 | Write-Protect Tab, n.: | |
9355 | A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly | |
9356 | left by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error | |
9357 | message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the | |
9358 | momentary inconvenience. | |
9359 | -- Robb Russon | |
9360 | %% | |
9361 | Xerox does it again and again and again and ... | |
9362 | %% | |
9363 | Xerox never comes up with anything original. | |
9364 | %% | |
9365 | X-rated movies are all alike ... the only thing they leave to the | |
9366 | imagination is the plot. | |
9367 | %% | |
9368 | "Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have | |
9369 | goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in | |
9370 | their endless search for "one more feature". Their irritating | |
9371 | unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my | |
9372 | doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right. | |
9373 | -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements" | |
9374 | %% | |
9375 | Year, n.: | |
9376 | A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments. | |
9377 | -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
9378 | %% | |
9379 | Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache. | |
9380 | %% | |
9381 | Yes, but which self do you want to be? | |
9382 | %% | |
9383 | Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still | |
9384 | be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement. | |
9385 | -- Snoopy | |
9386 | %% | |
9387 | Yesterday upon the stair | |
9388 | I met a man who wasn't there. | |
9389 | He wasn't there again today -- | |
9390 | I think he's from the CIA. | |
9391 | %% | |
9392 | Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again. | |
9393 | -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" | |
9394 | %% | |
9395 | Yinkel, n.: | |
9396 | A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one | |
9397 | will notice. | |
9398 | -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" | |
9399 | %% | |
9400 | "You are old, Father William," the young man said, | |
9401 | "All your papers these days look the same; | |
9402 | Those William's would be better unread -- | |
9403 | Do these facts never fill you with shame?" | |
9404 | ||
9405 | "In my youth," Father William replied to his son, | |
9406 | "I wrote wonderful papers galore; | |
9407 | But the great reputation I found that I'd won, | |
9408 | Made it pointless to think any more." | |
9409 | %% | |
9410 | "You are old, father William," the young man said, | |
9411 | "And your hair has become very white; | |
9412 | And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- | |
9413 | Do you think, at your age, it is right?" | |
9414 | ||
9415 | "In my youth," father William replied to his son, | |
9416 | "I feared it might injure the brain; | |
9417 | But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, | |
9418 | Why, I do it again and again." | |
9419 | -- Lewis Carrol | |
9420 | %% | |
9421 | "You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers | |
9422 | That your lectures bore people to death. | |
9423 | Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year -- | |
9424 | Don't you think that you should save your breath?" | |
9425 | ||
9426 | "I have answered three questions and that is enough," | |
9427 | Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs! | |
9428 | Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? | |
9429 | Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!" | |
9430 | %% | |
9431 | "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak | |
9432 | For anything tougher than suet; | |
9433 | Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -- | |
9434 | Pray, how did you manage to do it?" | |
9435 | ||
9436 | "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, | |
9437 | And argued each case with my wife; | |
9438 | And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, | |
9439 | Has lasted the rest of my life." | |
9440 | -- Lewis Carrol | |
9441 | %% | |
9442 | "You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run, | |
9443 | And there isn't one language you like; | |
9444 | Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none -- | |
9445 | Have you thought about taking a hike?" | |
9446 | ||
9447 | "Since I never write programs," his father replied, | |
9448 | "Every language looks equally bad; | |
9449 | Yet the people keep paying to read all my books | |
9450 | And don't realize that they've been had." | |
9451 | %% | |
9452 | "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, | |
9453 | And have grown most uncommonly fat; | |
9454 | Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- | |
9455 | Pray what is the reason of that?" | |
9456 | ||
9457 | "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, | |
9458 | "I kept all my limbs very supple | |
9459 | By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box -- | |
9460 | Allow me to sell you a couple?" | |
9461 | -- Lewis Carrol | |
9462 | %% | |
9463 | "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, | |
9464 | And make errors few people could bear; | |
9465 | You complain about everyone's English but yours -- | |
9466 | Do you really think this is quite fair?" | |
9467 | ||
9468 | "I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared, | |
9469 | "But my stature these days is so great | |
9470 | That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared, | |
9471 | And to stop me it's now far too late." | |
9472 | %% | |
9473 | "You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose | |
9474 | That your eye was as steady as ever; | |
9475 | Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- | |
9476 | What made you so awfully clever?" | |
9477 | ||
9478 | "I have answered three questions, and that is enough," | |
9479 | Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs! | |
9480 | Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? | |
9481 | Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" | |
9482 | -- Lewis Carrol | |
9483 | %% | |
9484 | You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. | |
9485 | %% | |
9486 | You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading | |
9487 | this sort of trash. | |
9488 | %% | |
9489 | You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting | |
9490 | incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail. | |
9491 | Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable | |
9492 | to find a way to damage them. They last forever, largely because | |
9493 | nobody ever eats them. In fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes | |
9494 | they receive and send them back to the original givers the next year; | |
9495 | some fruitcakes have been passed back and forth for hundreds of years. | |
9496 | ||
9497 | The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then | |
9498 | pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear | |
9499 | safety glasses. | |
9500 | -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts" | |
9501 | %% | |
9502 | You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior | |
9503 | executive. | |
9504 | %% | |
9505 | You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you | |
9506 | can with just a kind word. | |
9507 | -- Bumper Sticker | |
9508 | %% | |
9509 | You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular. | |
9510 | %% | |
9511 | You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on | |
9512 | the continuing viability of FORTRAN. | |
9513 | -- Alan Perlis | |
9514 | %% | |
9515 | You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding | |
9516 | decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left | |
9517 | over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart. | |
9518 | -- F. Allen | |
9519 | %% | |
9520 | You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of | |
9521 | supercomputers. | |
9522 | -- Steven Feiner | |
9523 | %% | |
9524 | You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. | |
9525 | %% | |
9526 | You cannot kill time without injuring eternity. | |
9527 | %% | |
9528 | You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back. | |
9529 | %% | |
9530 | You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks. | |
9531 | %% | |
9532 | You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. | |
9533 | %% | |
9534 | You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic | |
9535 | enough worrying about what's happening now. | |
9536 | -- Lauren Bacall | |
9537 | %% | |
9538 | "You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they | |
9539 | don't." | |
9540 | -- Dagwood Bumstead | |
9541 | %% | |
9542 | You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first | |
9543 | and last month in advance. | |
9544 | %% | |
9545 | You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable | |
9546 | doubt. | |
9547 | -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict | |
9548 | %% | |
9549 | You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. | |
9550 | -- J. D. Salinger | |
9551 | %% | |
9552 | You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting | |
9553 | needles. | |
9554 | -- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food | |
9555 | %% | |
9556 | You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form. The | |
9557 | short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified", | |
9558 | which means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears | |
9559 | tax-preparation expert to distinguish between their first and last | |
9560 | names. Here's the complete text: | |
9561 | ||
9562 | "1. How much did you make? (AMOUNT) | |
9563 | "2. How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT) | |
9564 | "3. Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to | |
9565 | send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF | |
9566 | THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME) | |
9567 | household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way | |
9568 | you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST | |
9569 | NAME), that it pays to file the short form!" | |
9570 | ||
9571 | The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your | |
9572 | money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long | |
9573 | form. | |
9574 | -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" | |
9575 | %% | |
9576 | You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot | |
9577 | today. | |
9578 | %% | |
9579 | You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your | |
9580 | friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it. | |
9581 | %% | |
9582 | You may be recognized soon. Hide. | |
9583 | %% | |
9584 | You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. | |
9585 | -- Alfred Kahn | |
9586 | %% | |
9587 | You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for | |
9588 | success. You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits | |
9589 | or white plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume | |
9590 | party disguised as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World. | |
9591 | -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success" | |
9592 | %% | |
9593 | You might have mail | |
9594 | %% | |
9595 | "You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable | |
9596 | proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do." | |
9597 | %% | |
9598 | You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll | |
9599 | be dead. | |
9600 | %% | |
9601 | You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the | |
9602 | beach. | |
9603 | %% | |
9604 | You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were | |
9605 | you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare | |
9606 | yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the | |
9607 | company. | |
9608 | -- J. Wellington Wells | |
9609 | %% | |
9610 | You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained. | |
9611 | %% | |
9612 | You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially | |
9613 | if they are dead. | |
9614 | %% | |
9615 | You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for | |
9616 | freedom and liberty. | |
f2ca8c17 | 9617 | -- Henrik Ibsen |
58fe6ef4 KB |
9618 | %% |
9619 | You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that, | |
9620 | contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from | |
9621 | houses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many | |
9622 | scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the | |
9623 | summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day, | |
9624 | you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist | |
9625 | sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily. | |
9626 | -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" | |
9627 | %% | |
9628 | You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. | |
9629 | %% | |
9630 | You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old. | |
9631 | %% | |
9632 | You will be surprised by a loud noise. | |
9633 | %% | |
9634 | You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You are not paid enough | |
9635 | to worry. | |
9636 | %% | |
9637 | "You'll never be the man your mother was!" | |
9638 | %% | |
9639 | Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a | |
9640 | thing he tells you. | |
9641 | %% | |
9642 | Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you | |
9643 | from enjoying it. | |
9644 | %% | |
9645 | Your fault: core dumped | |
9646 | %% | |
9647 | Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret. | |
9648 | %% | |
9649 | Your lucky color has faded. | |
9650 | %% | |
9651 | Your lucky number has been disconnected. | |
9652 | %% | |
9653 | Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere. | |
9654 | %% | |
9655 | Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. | |
9656 | %% | |
9657 | You're at the end of the road again. | |
9658 | %% | |
9659 | You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days. | |
9660 | %% | |
9661 | You're never too old to become younger. | |
9662 | -- Mae West | |
9663 | %% | |
9664 | You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. | |
9665 | -- Dean Martin | |
9666 | %% | |
9667 | Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is | |
9668 | when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. | |
9669 | %% | |
9670 | You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture. | |
9671 | %% | |
9672 | Zero Defects, n.: | |
9673 | The result of shutting down a production line. | |
9674 | %% | |
9675 | Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words | |
9676 | since I first called my brother's father dad. | |
9677 | -- William Shakespeare, "King John" | |
9678 | %% | |
9679 | Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor: | |
9680 | People are always available for work in the past tense. | |
9681 | %% | |
9682 | better !pout !cry | |
9683 | better watchout | |
9684 | lpr why | |
9685 | santa claus <north pole >town | |
9686 | ||
9687 | cat /etc/passwd >list | |
9688 | ncheck list | |
9689 | ncheck list | |
9690 | cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist | |
9691 | cat list | grep nice >giftlist | |
9692 | santa claus <north pole > town | |
9693 | ||
9694 | who | grep sleeping | |
9695 | who | grep awake | |
9696 | who | egrep 'bad|good' | |
9697 | for (goodness sake) { | |
9698 | be good | |
9699 | } | |
9700 | %% | |
9701 | /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. | |
9702 | %% | |
9703 | f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. | |
9704 | %% | |
9705 | f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng. | |
9706 | %% | |
9707 | pi seconds is a nanocentury. | |
9708 | -- Tom Duff | |
9709 | %% | |
9710 | we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love, | |
9711 | we will cry over things we used to laugh & | |
9712 | our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentile | |
9713 | creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then & | |
9714 | in the end a summer with wild winds & | |
9715 | new friends will be. | |
9716 | %% |