fortunes revision 1.23 1 !07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH
2 %
3 (1) Alexander the Great was a great general.
4 (2) Great generals are forewarned.
5 (3) Forewarned is forearmed.
6 (4) Four is an even number.
7 (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have.
8 (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
9
10 Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.
11 %
12 (1) Everything depends.
13 (2) Nothing is always.
14 (3) Everything is sometimes.
15 %
16 1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's
17 the law!
18 %
19 10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.
20 %
21 100 buckets of bits on the bus
22 100 buckets of bits
23 Take one down, short it to ground
24 FF buckets of bits on the bus
25
26 FF buckets of bits on the bus
27 FF buckets of bits
28 Take one down, short it to ground
29 FE buckets of bits on the bus
30
31 ad infinitum...
32 %
33 $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at
34 which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.
35 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
36 %
37 101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR
38 (1) Scarecrow for centipedes
39 (2) Dead cat brush
40 (3) Hair barrettes
41 (4) Cleats
42 (5) Self-piercing earrings
43 (6) Fungus trellis
44 (7) False eyelashes
45 (8) Prosthetic dog claws
46 .
47 .
48 .
49 (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors)
50 (100) Killer velcro
51 (101) Currency
52 %
53 186,282 miles per second:
54
55 It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!
56 %
57 2180, U.S. History question:
58 What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what
59 office did he later hold?
60 %
61 $3,000,000
62 %
63 "355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible
64 simulation!"
65 %
66 43rd Law of Computing:
67 Anything that can go wr
68 fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped
69 %
70 77. HO HUM -- The Redundant
71
72 ------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme
73 --- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife
74 ------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working
75 ---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop the
76 ---X--- (9) GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates to
77 --- --- (8) nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex.
78
79 Nine in the second place means:
80 The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune.
81
82 Six in the third place means:
83 In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue
84 Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble!
85 %
86 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
87 The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National
88 Redwood Forest.
89 %
90 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
91 The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the
92 Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus.
93 %
94 99 blocks of crud on the disk,
95 99 blocks of crud!
96 You patch a bug, and dump it again:
97 100 blocks of crud on the disk!
98
99 100 blocks of crud on the disk,
100 100 blocks of crud!
101 You patch a bug, and dump it again:
102 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ...
103 %
104 A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
105 "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
106 -- Mahatma Ghandi
107 %
108 A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree.
109 Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific
110 game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have
111 traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there,
112 preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass.
113 -- Donald A. Metz
114 %
115 A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and
116 placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or
117 rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results
118 from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball
119 and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the
120 ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical
121 phenomena.
122 -- Donald A. Metz
123 %
124 A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no
125 responsibility at the other.
126 %
127 A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.
128 -- Carl Sandburg
129 %
130 A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out
131 of a divorce.
132 -- Don Quinn
133 %
134 A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining
135 and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
136 -- Mark Twain
137 %
138 A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it
139 adds up to be real money.
140 -- Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen
141 %
142 A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.
143 %
144 A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
145 %
146 A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose.
147 %
148 ... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you
149 have turned into a pile of dust.
150 %
151 A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have
152 enlightened him with ours.
153 %
154 A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well
155 as afterward.
156 %
157 A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the
158 poor to protect them from each other.
159 %
160 A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.
161 %
162 A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not
163 mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty
164 trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators.
165 -- Dave Barry
166 %
167 A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.
168 %
169 A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon.
170 Avoid him. He's a Commie.
171 %
172 A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but
173 won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
174 -- Bill Vaughan
175 %
176 A city is a large community where people are lonesome together
177 -- Herbert Prochnow
178 %
179 A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody
180 wants to read.
181 -- Mark Twain
182 %
183 A closed mouth gathers no foot.
184 %
185 A computer, to print out a fact,
186 Will divide, multiply, and subtract.
187 But this output can be
188 No more than debris,
189 If the input was short of exact.
190 -- Gigo
191 %
192 A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
193 %
194 A CONS is an object which cares.
195 -- Bernie Greenberg.
196 %
197 A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it
198 is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.
199 %
200 A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.
201 -- Dyer
202 %
203 A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the
204 damned things is ample.
205 -- Rebecca West
206 %
207 A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
208 -- Ben Franklin
209 %
210 A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison
211 And had an affair with a Saracen.
212 She was not oversexed,
213 Or jealous or vexed,
214 She just wanted to make a comparison.
215 %
216 A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen
217 lantern.
218 -- Edgar A. Shoaff
219 %
220 A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it?
221 %
222 A day without sunshine is like night.
223 %
224 A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur
225 coat.
226 %
227 A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
228 you will look forward to the trip.
229 %
230 A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was
231 eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality
232 test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy."
233 Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into
234 the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too".
235 %
236 A diva who specializes in risqu'e arias is an off-coloratura soprano ...
237 %
238 A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing
239 about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their
240 arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon
241 the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because
242 Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply
243 incredible surgical feat."
244 The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the
245 Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of
246 that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an
247 architect."
248 The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said,
249 "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"
250 %
251 A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
252 -- Ogden Nash
253 %
254 A dozen, a gross, and a score,
255 Plus three times the square root of four,
256 Divided by seven,
257 Plus five times eleven,
258 Equals nine squared plus zero, no more.
259 %
260 A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a
261 Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser.
262 Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network
263 with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the
264 Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly
265 pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while
266 simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick
267 Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened.
268 %
269 A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the
270 subject.
271 -- Winston Churchill
272 %
273 A fool must now and then be right by chance.
274 %
275 A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into
276 superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
277 -- G. B. Shaw
278 %
279 A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block
280 of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an
281 elephant.
282 %
283 A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.
284 -- D. Gries
285 %
286 "A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch
287 dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension."
288 -- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"
289 %
290 A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
291 -- Adlai Stevenson
292 %
293 A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than
294 he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men
295 favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter
296 facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.
297 -- H. L. Mencken
298 %
299 A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding
300 ducks.
301 -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
302 %
303 A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident.
304 A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident.
305 But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *____that ___had __to ____mean _________something*.
306 -- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers"
307 %
308 A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort
309 of).
310 %
311 A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened
312 into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the
313 hope of greening the landscape of idea.
314 -- John Ciardi
315 %
316 A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
317 rearranging their prejudices.
318 -- William James
319 %
320 A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest
321 man a century.
322 %
323 A hypothetical paradox:
324 What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security
325 team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of
326 Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet?
327 -- Tom Galloway
328 %
329 A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears.
330 C is for Clair who wasted away, D is for Desmond thrown out of the sleigh.
331 E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech.
332 G is for George, smothered under a rug, H is for Hector, done in by a thug.
333 I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, J is for James who took lye, by mistake.
334 K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks.
335 M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, N is for Nevil who died of enui.
336 O is for Olive, run through with an awl, P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl
337 Q is for Quinton who sank in a mire, R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire.
338 S is for Susan who parished of fits, T is for Titas who flew into bits.
339 U is for Una who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train.
340 W is for Winie, embedded in ice, X is for Xercies, devoured by mice.
341 Y is for Yoric whose head was bashed in, Z is for Zilla who drank too much gin.
342 -- Edward Gorey "The Gastly Crumb Tines"
343 %
344 A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
345 %
346 A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide
347 who has the better lawyer.
348 -- Robert Frost
349 %
350 A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
351 %
352 A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
353 %
354 A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
355 %
356 A lady with one of her ears applied
357 To an open keyhole heard, inside,
358 Two female gossips in converse free --
359 The subject engaging them was she.
360 "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks
361 That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
362 As soon as no more of it she could hear
363 The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
364 "I will not stay," she said with a pout,
365 "To hear my character lied about!"
366 -- Gopete Sherany
367 %
368 A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
369 not worth knowing.
370 %
371 A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program
372 in than some that do.
373 -- Dennis M. Ritchie
374 %
375 A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work
376 by being declared to work.
377 -- Anatol Holt
378 %
379 A Law of Computer Programming:
380 Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you
381 will find the programmers cannot write in English.
382 %
383 A limerick packs laughs anatomical
384 Into space that is quite economical.
385 But the good ones I've seen
386 So seldom are clean,
387 And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
388 %
389 A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of
390 nothing.
391 %
392 A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
393 -- H. H. Munroe
394 %
395 A long memory is the most subversive idea in America.
396 %
397 A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any
398 price.
399 %
400 A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in
401 his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and
402 exceptional ability in that particular field."
403 %
404 A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths.
405 -- Steve Wright
406 %
407 A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I
408 believe everything positively stinks.
409 -- Lew Col
410 %
411 A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The
412 first thing he notices is that the arms are too long.
413 "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow
414 and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine."
415 "But the collar is up around my ears!"
416 "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a
417 little more ... that's it."
418 "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation.
419 "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you
420 go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly."
421 So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the
422 street. Reba and Florence see him go by.
423 "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!"
424 "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit."
425 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
426 %
427 A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!"
428
429 "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a
430 sense of obligation."
431 -- Stephen Crane
432 %
433 A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.
434 %
435 A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his
436 novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how
437 insignificant," said the master.
438
439 "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
440
441 "It is," came the reply.
442
443 "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
444
445 "It is even in a video game," said the master.
446
447 "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
448
449 The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The
450 lesson is over for today," he said.
451 -- "The Tao of Programming"
452 %
453 A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.
454 %
455 A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
456 on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
457 game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
458 pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
459 along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
460 heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
461 around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
462 direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the
463 paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
464 colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
465 fall over gently onto their backs.
466 -- Audobon Society Magazine
467 %
468 A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at
469 the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the
470 pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite
471 nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if ..."
472 "If what?" asked the composer.
473 "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"
474 %
475 A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out
476 on loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed
477 loudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom
478 do you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?"
479 %
480 A new dramatist of the absurd
481 Has a voice that will shortly be heard.
482 I learn from my spies
483 He's about to devise
484 An unprintable three-letter word.
485 %
486 A new koan:
487
488 If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you.
489
490 If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you.
491
492 It is an ice cream koan.
493 %
494 A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary.
495 Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now
496 has no excuse for further procrastination.
497 %
498 A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies
499 insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the
500 right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them.
501 %
502 A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the
503 rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion.
504 %
505 A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, which
506 removes most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted to
507 doing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendous
508 amounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardware
509 limitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in the
510 larger systems which require a more involved & less efficient
511 power-down sequence.
512 An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for the
513 building, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth has
514 bugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beer
515 cool.
516 %
517 A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power
518 off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly:
519 "You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no
520 understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off
521 and on. The machine worked.
522 %
523 A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.
524 %
525 A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
526 -- Gloria Steinem
527 %
528 A penny saved is ridiculous.
529 %
530 A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.
531 %
532 A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.
533 -- George Wald
534 %
535 A pig is a jolly companion,
536 Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
537 A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
538 Though mountains may topple and tilt.
539 When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,
540 When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
541 Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover,
542 You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
543 You'll never go wrong with a pig!
544 -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
545 %
546 A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
547 by Mark Twain
548
549 For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped
550 to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer
551 be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained
552 would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2
553 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the
554 same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with
555 "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
556 Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
557 with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12
558 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
559 Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi
560 ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz
561 ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
562 Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
563 hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
564 %
565 "A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!"
566 -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra"
567 %
568 A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
569
570 And he answered:
571
572 It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
573
574 It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
575
576 It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City
577 upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come
578 to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
579
580 And that is Fate? said the priest.
581
582 Fate ... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
583
584 That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was
585 too.
586 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
587 %
588 A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came
589 upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope.
590 "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow
591 man".
592 As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well,
593 he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing."
594 %
595 A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
596 %
597 "A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis
598 of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite
599 series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric
600 precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from
601 inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical
602 accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality
603 for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly
604 defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the
605 information in the first place."
606 -- IEEE Grid news magazine
607 %
608 A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that
609 your wife will give you for free.
610 %
611 A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be
612 too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which
613 was intended for her preservation.
614 -- Colton
615 %
616 A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as
617 "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if
618 the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants
619 to make a travesty of the game.
620 -- Donald A. Metz
621 %
622 "A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked
623 out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon."
624 -- Steel City News
625 %
626 "A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives."
627 %
628 A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:
629
630 Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying,
631 "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny
632 bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the
633 lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and
634 breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the
635 Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of
636 the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt
637 thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then
638 proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being
639 the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand
640 Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight,
641 shall snuff it."
642 -- Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
643 %
644 A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices
645 that the system works.
646 %
647 A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and
648 the real reason.
649 %
650 A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen
651 objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer
652 scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added
653 concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three
654 dimensional objects ...
655 %
656 A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may
657 not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized
658 rosewater.
659 %
660 A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man
661 contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
662 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
663 %
664 A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will
665 keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those
666 that are worth committing.
667 -- Samuel Butler
668 %
669 A Severe Strain on the Credulity
670
671 As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest
672 parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket
673 is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one
674 considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one
675 begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really
676 starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor
677 maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left.
678 Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing
679 of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to
680 re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum
681 against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the
682 knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
683 -- New York Times Editorial, 1920
684 %
685 A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard
686 -- Prof. Steiner
687 %
688 ... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he
689 was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
690 -- Mark Twain
691 %
692 A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
693 -- O'Henry
694 %
695 A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
696 bad measures.
697 -- Daniel Webster
698 %
699 A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an
700 exam.
701 %
702 A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to
703 Greenblatt. As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it
704 true," asked the student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as
705 Lisp?" Almost before the student had finished his question, Greenblatt
706 shouted, "FOO!", and hit the student with a stick.
707 %
708 A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something
709 undreamed of by its author.
710 -- S. C. Johnson
711 %
712 A tautology is a thing which is tautological.
713 %
714 A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention,
715 and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
716 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
717 %
718 A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by
719 blowing first.
720 %
721 A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene
722 triangle.
723 %
724 A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.
725 %
726 A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest
727 in students.
728 -- John Ciardi
729 %
730 "A University without students is like an ointment without a fly."
731 -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin
732 %
733 A UNIX saleslady, Lenore,
734 Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more.
735 She found a good way
736 To combine work and play:
737 She sells C shells by the seashore.
738 %
739 A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature
740 replaces it with.
741 -- Tennessee Williams
742 %
743 A very intelligent turtle
744 Found programming UNIX a hurdle
745 The system, you see,
746 Ran as slow as did he,
747 And that's not saying much for the turtle.
748 %
749 A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without
750 getting nervous.
751 %
752 A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets
753 people's attention.
754 %
755 "A witty saying proves nothing."
756 -- Voltaire
757 %
758 "A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to
759 admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact
760 remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one
761 reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It
762 is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of
763 using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these
764 matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times."
765 -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII
766 %
767 A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe
768 in God.
769 %
770 A.A.A.A.A.:
771 An organization for drunks who drive
772 %
773 AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!!
774 You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room!
775 %
776 Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.
777 %
778 "About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the
779 ends."
780 -- Herbert Hoover
781 %
782 Absence makes the heart go wander.
783 %
784 Absent, adj.:
785 Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed;
786 slandered.
787 %
788 Absentee, n.:
789 A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove
790 himself from the sphere of exaction.
791 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
792 %
793 Abstainer, n.:
794 A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a
795 pleasure.
796 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
797 %
798 Absurdity, n.:
799 A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own
800 opinion.
801 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
802 %
803 Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics,
804 because the stakes are so low.
805 -- Wallace Sayre
806 %
807 Accident, n.:
808 A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of
809 body is better.
810 %
811 Accidents cause History.
812
813 If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the
814 Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not
815 have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil
816 could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and
817 the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd.
818 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
819 %
820 According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person
821 shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than
822 fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening
823 of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of
824 the returns."
825 %
826 According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least
827 once a year.
828 %
829 According to my best recollection, I don't remember.
830 -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo
831 %
832 According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are
833 totally worthless.
834 %
835 According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never
836 dies.
837 %
838 "According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to
839 live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came
840 in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much.
841 Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime."
842 -- David Letterman
843 %
844 Accordion, n.:
845 A bagpipe with pleats.
846 %
847 Accuracy, n.:
848 The vice of being right
849 %
850 ACHTUNG!!!
851
852 Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy
853 schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit
854 spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das
855 rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und
856 vatch das blinkenlights!!!
857 %
858 Acid -- better living through chemistry.
859 %
860 Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality.
861 %
862 Acquaintance, n.:
863 A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well
864 enough to lend to.
865 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
866 %
867 "Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from
868 coughing."
869 %
870 Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had
871 everyone glued in their seats!"
872 Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of
873 it!"
874 %
875 Actor: So what do you do for a living?
876 Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving
877 dishes for Chinese restaurants.
878 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
879 %
880 Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.
881 %
882 ADA, n.:
883 Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in
884 Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA
885 awareness."
886 %
887 Admiration, n.:
888 Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
889 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
890 %
891 Adolescence, n.:
892 The stage between puberty and adultery.
893 %
894 "Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look
895 like you ..."
896 -- Gilda Radner
897 %
898 Adore, v.:
899 To venerate expectantly.
900 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
901 %
902 Adult, n.:
903 One old enough to know better.
904 %
905 Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest
906 way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
907 -- Sinclair Lewis
908 %
909 Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic,
910 then at least be asceptic.
911 %
912 After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose
913 names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary
914 Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted
915 many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi
916 Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two
917 different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current
918 developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer
919 attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led
920 to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today,
921 skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously
922 injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it
923 hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact
924 that it sinks like a stone.
925 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
926 %
927 After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out.
928 It was replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life
929 more advanced than the lichen family.
930 -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly
931 Do"
932 %
933 After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.
934 %
935 "... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known
936 quotations."
937 -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare
938 %
939 After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not
940 for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have
941 simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.
942 -- P. J. O'Rourke
943 %
944 After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found
945 on the bench.
946 %
947 After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from
948 Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought,
949 and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon
950 to be created."
951 "This is true," He replied.
952 "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly.
953 "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the
954 right to make his laws?"
955 "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to
956 make his own."
957 It was so granted.
958 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
959 %
960 "After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of
961 the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the
962 cost to others, to win advancement."
963 -- Norman Thomas
964 %
965 After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK?
966 %
967 After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe
968 everything. Just in case.
969 %
970 After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access
971 cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been
972 removed.
973 %
974 Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a
975 change.
976 %
977 Afternoon, n.:
978 That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the
979 morning.
980 %
981 Age before beauty; and pearls before swine.
982 -- Dorothy Parker
983 %
984 Age, n.:
985 That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we
986 still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise
987 to commit.
988 -- Ambrose Bierce
989 %
990 Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.
991 %
992 Ah, but the choice of dreams to live,
993 there's the rub.
994
995 For all dreams are not equal,
996 some exit to nightmare
997 most end with the dreamer
998
999 But at least one must be lived ... and died.
1000 %
1001 "Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the
1002 Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact
1003 that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately
1004 unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep
1005 up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers."
1006 -- A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comic
1007 %
1008 Air is water with holes in it
1009 %
1010 Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
1011 -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed
1012 %
1013 Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire
1014 telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New
1015 York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?
1016 And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
1017 receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
1018 %
1019 Alden's Laws:
1020 (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause
1021 of pregnancy.
1022 (2) Always be backlit.
1023 (3) Sit down whenever possible.
1024 %
1025 Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall,
1026 Aleph-null bottles of beer,
1027 You take one down, and pass it around,
1028 Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.
1029 %
1030 Alex Haley was adopted!
1031 %
1032 Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting
1033 for a dial tone.
1034 %
1035 Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of
1036 them keeps paying for it.
1037 -- Peggy Joyce
1038 %
1039 All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent
1040 upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a
1041 visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is
1042 informing, stimulating and ennobling.
1043 -- H. L. Mencken
1044 %
1045 All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely
1046 than others.
1047 -- Alan Truscott
1048 %
1049 All extremists should be taken out and shot.
1050 %
1051 All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing
1052 without thinking.
1053 %
1054 "All flesh is grass"
1055 -- Isiah
1056 Smoke a friend today.
1057 %
1058 All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
1059 %
1060 All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own
1061 importance.
1062 %
1063 All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled
1064 by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ...
1065 %
1066 All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power
1067 -- Ashleigh Brilliant
1068 %
1069 All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are
1070 Socrates.
1071 -- Woody Allen
1072 %
1073 "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us
1074 sane."
1075 %
1076 "All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more
1077 specific."
1078 -- Jane Wagner
1079 %
1080 All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
1081 -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
1082 %
1083 All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of
1084 the United States.
1085 -- Vic Gold
1086 %
1087 All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
1088 %
1089 All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
1090 %
1091 All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of
1092 every organism to live beyond its income.
1093 -- Samuel Butler
1094 %
1095 All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
1096 -- E. Rutherford
1097 %
1098 "All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right
1099 hands."
1100 -- Saint Patrick
1101 %
1102 All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.
1103 %
1104 All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can,
1105 too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you
1106 subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you
1107 can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S.
1108 Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax
1109 decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What
1110 if it rains?"
1111 -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
1112 %
1113 "... all the modern inconveniences ..."
1114 -- Mark Twain
1115 %
1116 All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most
1117 ridiculous ones.
1118 -- La Rochefoucauld
1119 %
1120 All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by
1121 the government in less than a second.
1122 -- Jim Fiebig
1123 %
1124 All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
1125 -- Sean O'Casey
1126 %
1127 All the world's a VAX,
1128 And all the coders merely butchers;
1129 They have their exits and their entrails;
1130 And one int in his time plays many widths,
1131 His sizeof being _N bytes. At first the infant,
1132 Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms.
1133 And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun,
1134 And shining morning face, creeping like slug
1135 Unwillingly to school.
1136 -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11
1137 %
1138 All theoretical chemistry is really physics;
1139 and all theoretical chemists know it.
1140 -- Richard P. Feynman
1141 %
1142 All things are possible, except skiing thru a revolving door.
1143 %
1144 All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for
1145 fun. Money's just the way we keep score.
1146 %
1147 All true wisdom is found on T-shirts.
1148 %
1149 All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes
1150 infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in
1151 which he was born.
1152 -- Francois Fenelon
1153 %
1154 Alliance, n.:
1155 In international politics, the union of two thieves who have
1156 their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot
1157 separately plunder a third.
1158 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1159 %
1160 Alone, adj.:
1161 In bad company.
1162 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1163 %
1164 Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight
1165 Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
1166 -- Dave Barry
1167 %
1168 Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
1169 %
1170 Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios,
1171 mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have
1172 any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place
1173 to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer,
1174 Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a
1175 serious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by the
1176 same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely
1177 that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A
1178 penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job
1179 running the post office.
1180 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
1181 %
1182 Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been
1183 reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the
1184 day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable
1185 interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on
1186 pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin,
1187 and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.
1188 Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous
1189 material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the
1190 management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion
1191 the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical
1192 Gamekeeping."
1193 -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959)
1194 %
1195 Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid
1196 back.
1197 %
1198 Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
1199 %
1200 "Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing
1201 that way."
1202 %
1203 Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves.
1204 %
1205 AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
1206
1207 If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end
1208 across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful.
1209 %
1210 AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
1211
1212 There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it
1213 would completely cover the Sahara Desert.
1214 %
1215 Ambidextrous, adj.:
1216 Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
1217 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1218 %
1219 Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
1220 -- Charlie McCarthy
1221 %
1222 America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism
1223 to decadence without touching civilization.
1224 -- John O'Hara
1225 %
1226 America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him,
1227 until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and
1228 changed its name to "America".
1229 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
1230 %
1231 American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective
1232 employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for
1233 employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference
1234 between the men's room and the women's room without having little
1235 pictures on the doors.
1236 -- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister"
1237 %
1238 "Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it."
1239 %
1240 An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because
1241 people refuse to see it.
1242 -- James Michener, "Space"
1243 %
1244 An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but
1245 is always polite to traffic cops.
1246 %
1247 "An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to
1248 New Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but
1249 not new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax."
1250 -- David Letterman
1251 %
1252 An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away.
1253 %
1254 An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He
1255 knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with
1256 great restraint.
1257 As he designs the first work, frill after frill and
1258 embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away
1259 to be used "next time". Sooner or later the first system is finished,
1260 and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of
1261 that class of systems, is ready to build a second system.
1262 This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs.
1263 When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will
1264 confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems,
1265 and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that
1266 are particular and not generalizable.
1267 The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using
1268 all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first
1269 one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile".
1270 -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"
1271 %
1272 An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it.
1273 %
1274 An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree
1275 murder. "Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's
1276 mutilated body into a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border.
1277 Just north of Tijuana a cop spotted her hand sticking out of the
1278 suitcase. Now, I would like to stress that my client is *not* a
1279 murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..."
1280 %
1281 An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you
1282 really care to know.
1283 %
1284 An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
1285 %
1286 An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.
1287 %
1288 An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded
1289 summation, leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your
1290 arguments, Sir Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey
1291 responded, "That may be, Milord, but at least you're better informed!"
1292 %
1293 An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose.
1294 -- A. P. Herbert
1295 %
1296 An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. He
1297 wears a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is
1298 advertised only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and
1299 Rich Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in
1300 incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote
1301 excellence:
1302
1303 "The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and
1304 discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able
1305 to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting
1306 things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch
1307 parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a
1308 timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who
1309 doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful.
1310 Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high
1311 school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as
1312 successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and
1313 they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha."
1314 -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
1315 %
1316 An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future.
1317 %
1318 "... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often
1319 picturesque liar."
1320 -- Mark Twain
1321 %
1322 An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of these
1323 eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as
1324 possible.
1325 -- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann"
1326 %
1327 An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.
1328 %
1329 An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity
1330 in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him.
1331 "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if
1332 you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like
1333 an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an
1334 hour seems like a minute."
1335 The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a
1336 moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?"
1337 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
1338 %
1339 "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge."
1340 %
1341 Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no
1342 government at all.
1343 %
1344 And as we stand on the edge of darkness
1345 Let our chant fill the void
1346 That others may know
1347
1348 In the land of the night
1349 The ship of the sun
1350 Is drawn by
1351 The grateful dead.
1352
1353 -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC.
1354 %
1355 ... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers.
1356 %
1357 And I heard Jeff exclaim,
1358 As they strolled out of sight,
1359 "Merry Christmas to all --
1360 You take credit cards, right?"
1361 -- "Outsiders" comic
1362 %
1363 ... And malt does more than Milton can
1364 To justify God's ways to man
1365 -- A. E. Housman
1366 %
1367 And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode.
1368 %
1369 "... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of
1370 your own."
1371 -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter
1372 Preposterous Words
1373 %
1374 And so, men, we can see that human skin is an even more complex and
1375 fascinating organ than we thought it was, and if we want to keep it
1376 looking good, we have to care for it as though it were our own. One
1377 approach is to undergo a painful surgical procedure wherein your skin
1378 is turned inside-out, so the young cells are on the outside, but then
1379 of course you have the unpleasant side effect that your insides
1380 gradually fill up with dead old cells and you explode. So this
1381 procedure is pretty much limited to top Hollywood stars for whom
1382 youthful beauty is a career necessity, such as Elizabeth Taylor and
1383 Orson Welles.
1384 -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
1385 %
1386 "...and the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely a
1387 courtesy detail."
1388 %
1389 And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a
1390 horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical
1391 columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory,
1392 ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the
1393 world.
1394 -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men"
1395 %
1396 "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?"
1397 asked the father of his little son.
1398 "Diet."
1399 %
1400 And yet, seasons must be taken with a grain of salt, for they too have
1401 a sense of humor, as does history. Corn stalks comedy, comedy stalks
1402 tragedy, and this too is historic. And yet, still, when corn meets
1403 tragedy face to face, we have politics.
1404 -- Dalglish, Larsen and Sutherland, "Root Crops and
1405 Ground Cover"
1406 %
1407 Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes.
1408 Galileo: No, unhappy the land that _____needs heroes.
1409 -- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo"
1410 %
1411 Angels we have heard on High
1412 Tell us to go out and Buy.
1413 -- Tom Lehrer
1414 %
1415 Ankh if you love Isis.
1416 %
1417 Anoint, v.:
1418 To grease a king or other great functionary already
1419 sufficiently slippery.
1420 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1421 %
1422 Another Glitch in the Call
1423 ------- ------ -- --- ----
1424 (Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.)
1425
1426 We don't need no indirection
1427 We don't need no flow control
1428 No data typing or declarations
1429 Did you leave the lists alone?
1430
1431 Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
1432
1433 Chorus:
1434 All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
1435 All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
1436 %
1437 Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
1438 %
1439 Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but
1440 television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom
1441 and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that
1442 offers whiter teeth *___and* fresher breath.
1443 -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly
1444 Do"
1445 %
1446 Answers to Last Fortune's Questions:
1447
1448 (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark).
1449 (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle.
1450 (3) I don't know.
1451 (4) Who cares?
1452 (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk,
1453 Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5.
1454 (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my
1455 book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and
1456 bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of
1457 Papyrus Books).
1458 %
1459 Anthony's Law of Force:
1460 Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
1461 %
1462 Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
1463 Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible
1464 corner of the workshop.
1465
1466 Corollary:
1467 On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike
1468 your toes.
1469 %
1470 Antonym, n.:
1471 The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.
1472 %
1473 Any clod can have the facts, but having an opinion is an art.
1474 -- Charles McCabe
1475 %
1476 Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.
1477 -- Charles McCabe
1478 %
1479 Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a
1480 representation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a
1481 representation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by anyone
1482 capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously.
1483 -- Richard Schickel
1484 %
1485 Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
1486 -- Aesop
1487 %
1488 Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that
1489 this country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a
1490 whole week.
1491 %
1492 Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to
1493 sell it.
1494 %
1495 Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche
1496 -- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance,
1497 my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off
1498 the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was
1499 undoubtedly true.
1500 -- Solomon Short
1501 %
1502 Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.
1503 -- Sydney J. Harris
1504 %
1505 Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger
1506 object.
1507 %
1508 Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to
1509 exactly the point of most pressure.
1510 -- Milt Barber
1511 %
1512 Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
1513 -- Rich Kulawiec
1514 %
1515 Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
1516 demo.
1517 %
1518 Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
1519 -- Arthur C. Clarke
1520 %
1521 Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
1522 something.
1523 %
1524 Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
1525 -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
1526 %
1527 Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry.
1528 %
1529 Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is
1530 probably parked.
1531 %
1532 Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire.
1533 %
1534 Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is
1535 supposed to be doing at the moment.
1536 -- Robert Benchley
1537 %
1538 Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
1539 -- Publius Syrus
1540 %
1541 Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with
1542 none.
1543 %
1544 Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
1545 is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
1546 make messes in the house.
1547 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
1548 %
1549 Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
1550 -- Samuel Goldwyn
1551 %
1552 Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad.
1553 -- W. C. Fields
1554 %
1555 Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no
1556 account be allowed to do the job.
1557 -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
1558 %
1559 Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never
1560 tried taking candy from a baby.
1561 -- Robin Hood
1562 %
1563 Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
1564 %
1565 Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate.
1566 %
1567 Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.
1568 %
1569 Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the
1570 price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW"
1571 means the price went way up.
1572 %
1573 Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate.
1574 %
1575 Anything worth doing is worth overdoing
1576 %
1577 "Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution"
1578 %
1579 Aphorism, n.:
1580 A concise, clever statement.
1581 Afterism, n.:
1582 A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late.
1583 -- James Alexander Thom
1584 %
1585 APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of
1586 the future for the problems of the past: it creates a new generation of
1587 coding bums.
1588 %
1589 "APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I
1590 can't read any of them."
1591 -- Roy Keir
1592 %
1593 Aquadextrous, adj.:
1594 Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off
1595 with your toes.
1596 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
1597 %
1598 AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
1599 You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive.
1600 You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to
1601 be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same
1602 mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid.
1603 %
1604 Arbitrary systems, pl.n.:
1605 Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing
1606 general can be said."
1607 %
1608 ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE --
1609 FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE
1610 %
1611 Are you a turtle?
1612 %
1613 Are you a turtle?
1614 %
1615 "Arguments with furniture are rarely productive."
1616 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
1617 %
1618 ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19)
1619 You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You
1620 are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are
1621 not very nice.
1622 %
1623 Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your
1624 shoes.
1625 -- Mickey Mouse
1626 %
1627 Armadillo:
1628 To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle
1629 %
1630 Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
1631 (1) If it should exist, it doesn't.
1632 (2) If it does exist, it's out of date.
1633 (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the
1634 first two laws.
1635 %
1636 Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to
1637 measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you
1638 imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?
1639 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
1640 %
1641 Art is anything you can get away with.
1642 -- Marshall McLuhan.
1643 %
1644 Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
1645 -- Paul Gauguin
1646 %
1647 Arthur's Laws of Love:
1648 (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you
1649 remind them of someone else.
1650 (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be
1651 delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of
1652 yourself in person.
1653 %
1654 Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum.
1655 %
1656 As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who are
1657 interested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sick
1658 perverted disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask,
1659 "that you make jokes about setting fire to a goat?" ...
1660 -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
1661 %
1662 "As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual
1663 certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I
1664 became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can
1665 meet girls."
1666 -- Matt Cartmill
1667 %
1668 As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
1669 certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
1670 -- Albert Einstein
1671 %
1672 As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.
1673 -- Weisert
1674 %
1675 As I was going up Punch Card Hill,
1676 Feeling worse and worser,
1677 There I met a C.R.T.
1678 And it drop't me a cursor.
1679
1680 C.R.T., C.R.T.,
1681 Phosphors light on you!
1682 If I had fifty hours a day
1683 I'd spend them all at you.
1684
1685 -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes
1686 %
1687 As I was passing Project MAC,
1688 I met a Quux with seven hacks.
1689 Every hack had seven bugs;
1690 Every bug had seven manifestations;
1691 Every manifestation had seven symptoms.
1692 Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks,
1693 How many losses at Project MAC?
1694 %
1695 As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great
1696 industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free
1697 speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to
1698 myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a
1699 real American talk like that.
1700 -- Frank Hague (1896-1956)
1701 %
1702 As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?
1703 %
1704 As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its
1705 fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be
1706 popular.
1707 -- Oscar Wilde
1708 %
1709 As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code.
1710 %
1711 "As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500
1712 programs; a process that traditionally requires some debugging."
1713 -- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover to a new
1714 computer system.
1715 %
1716 As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it
1717 wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had
1718 to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized
1719 that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in
1720 finding mistakes in my own programs.
1721 -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949
1722 %
1723 As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's
1724 so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
1725 -- Woody Allen
1726 %
1727 As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there
1728 is always a future in Computer Maintenance.
1729 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
1730 %
1731 As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free
1732 variable."
1733 %
1734 As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple
1735 memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time
1736 to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A,
1737 E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.
1738 -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion"
1739 %
1740 As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would
1741 interfere with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the
1742 Wright Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure
1743 out how to get their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on
1744 Wilbur. "Orville," he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual
1745 organs!" You should have seen their original design.] As a result,
1746 birds are very, very difficult to arouse sexually. You almost never
1747 see an aroused bird. So when they want to reproduce, birds fly up and
1748 stand on telephone lines, where they monitor telephone conversations
1749 with their feet. When they find a conversation in which people are
1750 talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they are both
1751 highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant.
1752 -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
1753 Teen Should Know"
1754 %
1755 As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull
1756 your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you.
1757 The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along
1758 with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall
1759 from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all
1760 over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of
1761 a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the
1762 spider is suing you for damages.
1763 %
1764 As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself."
1765 %
1766 ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS.
1767 %
1768 Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if
1769 one went to Harvard).
1770 -- Edgar R. Fiedler
1771 %
1772 Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.
1773 %
1774 Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only the
1775 Station-to-Station rate.
1776 %
1777 Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in the
1778 bathtub, it tolls for thee.
1779 %
1780 Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell"
1781 for an answer.
1782 %
1783 "Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-old
1784 woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, `The way I look at it,
1785 she's the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds.'"
1786 -- David Letterman
1787 %
1788 Ass, n.:
1789 The masculine of "lass".
1790 %
1791 Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve.
1792 Run with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be
1793 strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a bum.
1794 Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check
1795 and dying broke.
1796 -- Stanley Walker
1797 %
1798 "At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los
1799 Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head
1800 under the exhaust of a bus until he revived."
1801 %
1802 At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is
1803 not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where
1804 it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest.
1805 -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow
1806 %
1807 At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial
1808 challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
1809 -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985
1810 %
1811 At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial
1812 challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
1813 -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985
1814 %
1815 ... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand.
1816 -- J. B. White
1817 %
1818 "At least they're ___________EXPERIENCED incompetents"
1819 %
1820 At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his
1821 thumb with a hammer.
1822 -- Marshall Lumsden
1823 %
1824 At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will
1825 find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on
1826 the computer.
1827 %
1828 Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole
1829 or street lamp.
1830 %
1831 Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason.
1832 -- Winston Churchill
1833 %
1834 Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever
1835 depths they were once able to plumb.
1836 -- Stanley Kaufman
1837 %
1838 Automobile, n.:
1839 A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down
1840 pedestrians.
1841 %
1842 Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep.
1843 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
1844 %
1845 Avoid reality at all costs.
1846 %
1847 "Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but
1848 we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you."
1849 -- Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a student entering
1850 school in the fall after the Kent State shootings
1851 %
1852 Bacchus, n.:
1853 A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for
1854 getting drunk.
1855 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1856 %
1857 Bagbiter:
1858 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually
1859 intermittently. 2. adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This
1860 bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar." Usage: verges on
1861 obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting the
1862 bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS,
1863 CHOMPER, CHOMPING.
1864 %
1865 Bagdikian's Observation:
1866 Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American
1867 newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a
1868 ukelele.
1869 %
1870 Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry:
1871 A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides
1872 by governors.
1873 %
1874 Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
1875 %
1876 Banectomy, n.:
1877 The removal of bruises on a banana.
1878 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
1879 %
1880 Bank error in your favor. Collect $200.
1881 %
1882 Barach's Rule:
1883 An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own
1884 physician.
1885 %
1886 Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the
1887 floor -- especially in the dark.
1888 %
1889 Barometer, n.:
1890 An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we
1891 are having.
1892 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1893 %
1894 Barth's Distinction:
1895 There are two types of people: those who divide people into two
1896 types, and those who don't.
1897 %
1898 Baruch's Observation:
1899 If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
1900 %
1901 Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game -- it, and high
1902 taxes.
1903 -- Will Rogers
1904 %
1905 Basic is a high level languish.
1906 APL is a high level anguish.
1907 %
1908 "BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'."
1909 %
1910 Basic, n.:
1911 A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in
1912 that those who have it will not admit it in polite company.
1913 %
1914 Bathquake, n.:
1915 The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water
1916 faucet is turned on to a certain point.
1917 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
1918 %
1919 Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your
1920 door.
1921 %
1922 BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...)
1923 %
1924 Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely
1925 get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your
1926 face.
1927 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
1928 %
1929 Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
1930 %
1931 Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint.
1932 -- Mark Twain
1933 %
1934 Be different: conform.
1935 %
1936 Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so
1937 get used to it.
1938 %
1939 Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake.
1940 %
1941 Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and
1942 miss
1943 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
1944 %
1945 Bees are very busy souls
1946 They have no time for birth controls
1947 And that is why in times like these
1948 There are so many Sons of Bees.
1949 %
1950 Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and
1951 took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his
1952 followers.
1953 One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and
1954 there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
1955 "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his
1956 commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your
1957 Purpose in Life, anyway?"
1958 Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The
1959 Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)
1960 Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.
1961 Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.
1962 -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"
1963 %
1964 Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's
1965 ego.
1966 %
1967 Begathon, n.:
1968 A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money so
1969 you won't have to watch commercials.
1970 %
1971 Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh
1972 away.
1973 %
1974 Beifeld's Principle:
1975 The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and
1976 receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is
1977 already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better
1978 looking and richer male friend.
1979 %
1980 "Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" <huff, huff>
1981 %
1982 "Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" <huff, huff>
1983 %
1984 Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
1985 %
1986 Bennett's Laws of Horticulture:
1987 (1) Houses are for people to live in.
1988 (2) Gardens are for plants to live in.
1989 (3) There is no such thing as a houseplant.
1990 %
1991 "Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence"
1992 -- Time Bandits
1993 %
1994 Besides the device, the box should contain:
1995
1996 * Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING"
1997
1998 * A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two
1999 club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.
2000
2001 YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram
2002 cable.
2003
2004 IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your
2005 spouse and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car
2006 that can get all the way through the drive-through at Burger King
2007 without a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's
2008 why."
2009
2010 WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret.
2011 -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
2012 %
2013 Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon.
2014 %
2015 better !pout !cry
2016 better watchout
2017 lpr why
2018 santa claus <north pole >town
2019
2020 cat /etc/passwd >list
2021 ncheck list
2022 ncheck list
2023 cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
2024 cat list | grep nice >giftlist
2025 santa claus <north pole > town
2026
2027 who | grep sleeping
2028 who | grep awake
2029 who | egrep 'bad|good'
2030 for (goodness sake) {
2031 be good
2032 }
2033 %
2034 Better dead than mellow.
2035 %
2036 Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson
2037 Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate.
2038 Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and
2039 great effort pushing boulders into a single word.
2040
2041 It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow.
2042 Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin
2043 equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the
2044 destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass
2045 both Parliament and Party.
2046
2047 It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other
2048 planets, this may be the first message received from us.
2049 -- The Realist, November, 1964.
2050 %
2051 "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
2052 tried it."
2053 -- Donald Knuth
2054 %
2055 Beware of computerized fortune-tellers!
2056 %
2057 Beware of low-flying butterflies.
2058 %
2059 Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.
2060 -- Leonard Brandwein
2061 %
2062 Beware of self-styled experts: an ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a
2063 drip under pressure.
2064 %
2065 "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and
2066 finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of
2067 murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by
2068 their ignorance the hard way."
2069 -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"
2070 %
2071 Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but
2072 nothing of interest is easy.
2073 %
2074 Binary, adj.:
2075 Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes.
2076 %
2077 "Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same
2078 thing as division."
2079 %
2080 Bipolar, adj.:
2081 Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo,
2082 New York
2083 %
2084 Birth, n.:
2085 The first and direst of all disasters.
2086 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2087 %
2088 Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic
2089 %
2090 Bizoos, n.:
2091 The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up a
2092 basketball.
2093 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
2094 %
2095 ... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ...
2096 %
2097 Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.
2098 %
2099 Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as
2100 Wheels.
2101 %
2102 BLISS is ignorance
2103 %
2104 Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
2105 %
2106 Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier.
2107 %
2108 Blore's Razor:
2109 Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is
2110 funnier.
2111 %
2112 Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in
2113 plain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has
2114 it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was
2115 arrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people kept
2116 throwing up on them.
2117 %
2118 Boling's postulate:
2119 If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
2120 %
2121 Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom:
2122 Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so
2123 vividly manifests their lack of progress.
2124 %
2125 Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:
2126 Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
2127 %
2128 BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH!
2129 %
2130 Boob's Law:
2131 You always find something in the last place you look.
2132 %
2133 Bore, n.:
2134 A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary.
2135 -- Walter Winchell
2136 %
2137 Bore, n.:
2138 A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
2139 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2140 %
2141 Boren's Laws:
2142 (1) When in charge, ponder.
2143 (2) When in trouble, delegate.
2144 (3) When in doubt, mumble.
2145 %
2146 Boss, n.:
2147 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages
2148 the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss,
2149 in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an
2150 ornamental stud."
2151 %
2152 Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System. You couldn't pry
2153 that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation
2154 straightened out for a crowbar.
2155 -- O. W. Holmes
2156 %
2157 Boston, n.:
2158 Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for
2159 finishing second in the Irish jig competition.
2160 %
2161 Boy, life takes a long time to live.
2162 -- Steven Wright
2163 %
2164 Boy, n.:
2165 A noise with dirt on it.
2166 %
2167 Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least
2168 when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.
2169 -- James Thurber
2170 %
2171 Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.
2172 -- Kin Hubbard
2173 %
2174 Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the
2175 unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only
2176 (gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend
2177 to think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.'
2178 -- Mike Padlipsky, Foreword to "Elements of Networking
2179 Style"
2180 %
2181 Bradley's Bromide:
2182 If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a
2183 committee -- that will do them in.
2184 %
2185 Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
2186 When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
2187 easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have
2188 handled this?"
2189 %
2190 Brain fried -- Core dumped
2191 %
2192 Brain, n.:
2193 The apparatus with which we think that we think.
2194 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2195 %
2196 Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]:
2197 To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of
2198 error in an opponent.
2199 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2200 %
2201 Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests,
2202 since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind.
2203 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
2204 %
2205 Bride, n.:
2206 A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
2207 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2208 %
2209 Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may
2210 revitalize the corner saloon.
2211 %
2212 British Israelites:
2213 The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of
2214 Britain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by
2215 Sargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They further
2216 believe that the future can be foretold by the measurements of the
2217 Great Pyramid, which probably means it will be big and yellow and in
2218 the hand of the Arabs. They also believe that if you sleep with your
2219 head under the pillow a fairy will come and take all your teeth.
2220 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
2221 %
2222 Broad-mindedness, n.:
2223 The result of flattening high-mindedness out.
2224 %
2225 Brontosaurus Principle:
2226 Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them
2227 in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when
2228 this occurs, they are an endangered species.
2229 -- Thomas K. Connellan
2230 %
2231 Brook's Law:
2232 Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
2233 %
2234 Brooke's Law:
2235 Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool
2236 discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it
2237 beyond recognition.
2238 %
2239 Bubble Memory, n.:
2240 A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's
2241 intelligence. See also "vacuum tube".
2242 %
2243 Bucy's Law:
2244 Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
2245 %
2246 Bug, n.:
2247 An aspect of a computer program which exists because the
2248 programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he
2249 wrote the program.
2250
2251 Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed.
2252 -- Ray Simard
2253 %
2254 Bugs, pl. n.:
2255 Small living things that small living boys throw on small
2256 living girls.
2257 %
2258 BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the
2259 outfit."
2260 GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?"
2261 BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive..."
2262 -- Jay Ward
2263 %
2264 Bumper sticker:
2265
2266 "All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British
2267 manufacture"
2268 %
2269 Bureaucrat, n.:
2270 A person who cuts red tape sideways.
2271 -- J. McCabe
2272 %
2273 Bureaucrat, n.:
2274 A politician who has tenure.
2275 %
2276 Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise.
2277 %
2278 Burn's Hog Weighing Method:
2279 (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a
2280 sawhorse.
2281 (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank.
2282 (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again
2283 perfectly balanced.
2284 (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.
2285 -- Robert Burns
2286 %
2287 ... But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can
2288 easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed
2289 and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession)
2290 upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was
2291 without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based
2292 on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court
2293 was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and
2294 sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches,
2295 human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
2296 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2297 %
2298 "But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations
2299 paws."
2300 %
2301 "But I don't like Spam!!!!"
2302 %
2303 ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human
2304 intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as
2305 we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues
2306 that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding
2307 of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard
2308 example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads --
2309 makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing
2310 whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a
2311 finite or an infinite number.
2312 -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"
2313 %
2314 But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the
2315 system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed,
2316 analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.
2317 -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing
2318 Compilers"
2319 %
2320 "But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coast
2321 to the nearest gas station."
2322 %
2323 But scientists, who ought to know
2324 Assure us that it must be so.
2325 Oh, let us never, never doubt
2326 What nobody is sure about.
2327 -- Hilaire Belloc
2328 %
2329 But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
2330 Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
2331 But get thee to a nunnery -- go!
2332 -- Mark "The Bard" Twain
2333 %
2334 But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who
2335 was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal
2336 education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in
2337 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of
2338 American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was
2339 invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he
2340 invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant
2341 adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends
2342 electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the
2343 electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant
2344 part) sends it right back to the customer again.
2345
2346 This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch
2347 of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since
2348 very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely.
2349 In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United
2350 States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it
2351 ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate
2352 increases.
2353 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
2354 %
2355 "But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad
2356 place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge.
2357 Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a
2358 kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs,
2359 poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I
2360 explained yet about the bytes?"
2361 %
2362 ... But we've only fondled the surface of that subject.
2363 -- Virginia Masters
2364 %
2365 "But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable
2366 computers?"
2367 %
2368 Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes
2369 Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn;
2370 Less dear than army ants in apple pies
2371 Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn,
2372 Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit;
2373 Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose
2374 They suck, and like the double-breasted suit
2375 Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose,
2376 Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed;
2377 And stem the produce of thy waspish wits:
2378 Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed;
2379 Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits.
2380 Be off, I say; go bug somebody new,
2381 Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you.
2382 %
2383 By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
2384 completely overwhelm you.
2385 %
2386 "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact,
2387 it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to
2388 invent. (R. Emerson)"
2389 -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program
2390 (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.")
2391 [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to
2392 misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"]
2393 %
2394 "By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began
2395 to suspect 'Hungry' ..."
2396 -- Gary Larson, "The Far Side"
2397 %
2398 By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's, I
2399 mean.
2400 -- Mark Twain
2401 %
2402 Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to
2403 point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very
2404 fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are
2405 often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people
2406 from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B
2407 that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____there. They often
2408 wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell
2409 they wanted to be.
2410 -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
2411 %
2412 C, n.:
2413 A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more
2414 like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or
2415 anything else. It is either the best language available to the art
2416 today, or it isn't.
2417 -- Ray Simard
2418 %
2419 Cabbage, n.:
2420 A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as
2421 a man's head.
2422 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2423 %
2424 "Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception."
2425 -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989
2426 %
2427 Cahn's Axiom:
2428 When all else fails, read the instructions.
2429 %
2430 California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange.
2431 -- Fred Allen
2432 %
2433 California, n.:
2434 From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or
2435 Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or
2436 "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex."
2437 -- Ed Moran
2438 %
2439 Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
2440 -- Indian proverb
2441 %
2442 "Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target
2443 Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept."
2444 %
2445 "Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle."
2446 -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth
2447 %
2448 "Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth
2449 Corner, Vermont."
2450 -- Clarence Darrow
2451 %
2452 Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two
2453 points.
2454 -- M. M. Johnston
2455 %
2456 Canada Bill Jone's Motto:
2457 It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.
2458
2459 Supplement:
2460 A .44 magnum beats four aces.
2461 %
2462 Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents
2463 for postage and 30 cents for storage.
2464 -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial
2465 Post
2466 %
2467 Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?
2468 Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
2469 A root or two, a torus and a node:
2470 The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
2471 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
2472 %
2473 CANCER (June 21 - July 22)
2474 You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's
2475 problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things
2476 off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare
2477 recipients are Cancer people.
2478 %
2479 Canonical, adj.:
2480 The usual or standard state or manner of something. A true
2481 story: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some
2482 annoyance at the use of jargon. Over his loud objections, we made a
2483 point of using jargon as much as possible in his presence, and
2484 eventually it began to sink in. Finally, in one conversation, he used
2485 the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion without thinking.
2486 Steele: "Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!"
2487 Stallman: "What did he say?"
2488 Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way."
2489 %
2490 CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19)
2491 You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do
2492 much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any
2493 importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as
2494 they take root and become trees.
2495 %
2496 Captain Penny's Law:
2497 You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of
2498 the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.
2499 %
2500 Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than
2501 expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to
2502 complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their
2503 planning to reduce the time it takes.
2504 %
2505 Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and
2506 trousers that don't match.
2507 %
2508 Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.:
2509 The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a
2510 dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then
2511 putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
2512 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
2513 %
2514 Cat, n.:
2515 Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer.
2516 %
2517 Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.
2518 -- Mark Twain
2519 %
2520 Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.
2521 %
2522 CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh..
2523 %
2524 Cecil, you're my final hope
2525 Of finding out the true Straight Dope
2526 For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat
2527 But none of my cats are at all like that.
2528 This unusual animal (so it is said)
2529 Is simultaneously alive and dead!
2530 What I don't understand is just why he
2531 Can't be one or the other, unquestionably.
2532 My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
2533 In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't.
2534 If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way
2535 And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
2536 But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
2537 Then I will *___and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo.
2538 -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium
2539 of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams
2540 %
2541 Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch.
2542 %
2543 Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the
2544 center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation
2545 works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool.
2546 -- Kelvin Throop III
2547 %
2548 Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so,
2549 how many?
2550 %
2551 Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel.
2552 Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something
2553 Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy
2554 out of it?
2555 Jaka: Ugh!
2556 Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy?
2557 -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret"
2558 %
2559 Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long
2560 walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They
2561 then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
2562 health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
2563 not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find
2564 only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
2565 others who have tried it.
2566 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2567 %
2568 Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny--
2569 Did you ever try buying them without money?
2570 -- Ogden Nash
2571 %
2572 Chapter 1
2573
2574 The story so far:
2575
2576 In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot
2577 of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
2578 %
2579 Character Density, n.:
2580 The number of very weird people in the office.
2581 %
2582 Checkuary, n.:
2583 The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year's Day and
2584 ends when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his
2585 checks.
2586 %
2587 Chef, n.:
2588 Any cook who swears in French.
2589 %
2590 Chemicals, n.:
2591 Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.
2592 %
2593 Chemistry is applied theology.
2594 -- Augustus Stanley Owsley III
2595 %
2596 Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire.
2597 %
2598 Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #36:
2599 Never ever ask the tough looking gentleman wearing El Rukn
2600 headgear where he got his "pyramid powered pizza warmer".
2601 -- Chicago Reader 3/27/81
2602 %
2603 Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #84:
2604 The CTA has complimentary pop-up timers available on request
2605 for overheated passengers. When your timer pops up, the driver will
2606 cheerfully baste you.
2607 -- Chicago Reader 5/28/82
2608 %
2609 Chicago, n.:
2610 Where the dead still vote ... early and often!
2611 %
2612 Chicken Little only has to be right once.
2613 %
2614 Chicken Little was right.
2615 %
2616 Chicken Soup, n.:
2617 An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin,
2618 cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure
2619 is neurotic dependence on one's mother.
2620 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
2621 %
2622 Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every
2623 effort to teach them good manners.
2624 %
2625 Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're
2626 going to catch you in next.
2627 -- Franklin P. Jones
2628 %
2629 Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
2630 And that's what parents were created for.
2631 -- Ogden Nash
2632 %
2633 Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for
2634 word what you shouldn't have said.
2635 %
2636 Chism's Law of Completion:
2637 The amount of time required to complete a government project is
2638 precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it.
2639 %
2640 Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
2641 When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
2642 %
2643 Chivalry, Schmivalry!
2644 Roger the thief has a
2645 method he uses for
2646 sneaky attacks:
2647 Folks who are reading are
2648 Characteristically
2649 Always Forgetting to
2650 Guard their own bac ...
2651 %
2652 Christ:
2653 A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time.
2654 %
2655 Churchill's Commentary on Man:
2656 Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the
2657 time he will pick himself up and continue on.
2658 %
2659 Cigarette, n.:
2660 A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in
2661 between.
2662 %
2663 Cinemuck, n.:
2664 The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which
2665 covers the floors of movie theaters.
2666 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
2667 %
2668 Clairvoyant, n.:
2669 A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that
2670 which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead.
2671 -- Ambrose Bierce
2672 %
2673 Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like
2674 shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
2675 -- Phyllis Diller
2676 %
2677 Cleanliness is next to impossible.
2678 %
2679 Cleveland still lives. God ____must be dead.
2680 %
2681 "Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day."
2682 %
2683 Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.
2684 %
2685 Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
2686 society.
2687 -- Mark Twain
2688 %
2689 COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance.
2690 %
2691 Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan.
2692 %
2693 Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum --
2694 "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am."
2695 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2696 %
2697 "Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong."
2698 -- Blair Houghton
2699 %
2700 Coincidence, n.:
2701 You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was
2702 going on.
2703 %
2704 Coincidences are spiritual puns.
2705 -- G. K. Chesterton
2706 %
2707 Cold, adj.:
2708 When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions.
2709 %
2710 Cold, adj.:
2711 When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own
2712 pockets.
2713 %
2714 Collaboration, n.:
2715 A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the
2716 other fellow can spell.
2717 %
2718 College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the
2719 faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if
2720 the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms,
2721 legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the
2722 loss to humanity.
2723 -- H. L. Mencken
2724 %
2725 Colvard's Logical Premises:
2726 All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it
2727 won't.
2728
2729 Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary:
2730 This is especially true when dealing with someone you're
2731 attracted to.
2732
2733 Grelb's Commentary
2734 Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you.
2735 %
2736 Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,
2737 And every vector dreams of matrices.
2738 Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
2739 It whispers of a more ergodic zone.
2740 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
2741 %
2742 Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,
2743 Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
2744 Their indices bedecked from one to _n,
2745 Commingled in an endless Markov chain!
2746 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
2747 %
2748 Command, n.:
2749 Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in
2750 such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control.
2751 %
2752 COMMENT
2753
2754 Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
2755 A medley of extemporanea;
2756 And love is thing that can never go wrong;
2757 And I am Marie of Roumania.
2758 -- Dorothy Parker
2759 %
2760 Commitment, n.:
2761 Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs.
2762 The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.
2763 %
2764 Committee Rules:
2765 (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.
2766 (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this
2767 stamps you as being wise.
2768 (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the
2769 others.
2770 (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.
2771 (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you
2772 popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for.
2773 %
2774 Committee, n.:
2775 A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group
2776 decide that nothing can be done.
2777 -- Fred Allen
2778 %
2779 Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to
2780 be appointed to do the work.
2781 %
2782 Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at
2783 different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
2784 -- Clive James
2785 %
2786 Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.
2787 -- Josh Billings
2788 %
2789 Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
2790 -- Albert Einstein
2791 %
2792 Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness
2793 of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule."
2794 -- David Guaspari
2795 %
2796 Computer programmers do it byte by byte
2797 %
2798 Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems
2799 theory.
2800 %
2801 Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
2802 %
2803 Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
2804 -- Pablo Picasso
2805 %
2806 Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in
2807 the world that just don't add up.
2808 %
2809 Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more
2810 than the estimate the job will cost.
2811 %
2812 Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
2813 -- LaRouchefoucauld
2814 %
2815 Concept, n.:
2816 Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than
2817 $25,000.
2818 %
2819 ... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in this
2820 business, it probably would be gibberish.
2821 -- Thom McLeod
2822 %
2823 Condense soup, not books!
2824 %
2825 Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is
2826 good for dandruff.
2827 -- Peter de Vries
2828 %
2829 Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the
2830 situation.
2831 %
2832 Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that
2833 would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that
2834 you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer
2835 maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS
2836 OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY
2837 UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED
2838 IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD
2839 WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND
2840 SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS,
2841 RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS,
2842 RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE
2843 FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?
2844 -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
2845 %
2846 Connector Conspiracy, n:
2847 [probably came into prominence with the appearance of the
2848 KL-10, none of whose connectors match anything else] The tendency of
2849 manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything)
2850 to come up with new products which don't fit together with the old
2851 stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive
2852 interface devices.
2853 %
2854 Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
2855 -- H. L. Mencken
2856 %
2857 Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking
2858 -- H. L. Mencken
2859 %
2860 Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
2861 %
2862 Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you
2863 wish you weren't.
2864 %
2865 "Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich."
2866 -- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones]
2867 %
2868 Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then
2869 give it back to them.
2870 %
2871 "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and
2872 if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"
2873 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
2874 %
2875 "Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern
2876 technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat."
2877 %
2878 Conversation, n.:
2879 A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath
2880 is called the listener.
2881 %
2882 Conway's Law:
2883 In any organization there will always be one person who knows
2884 what is going on.
2885
2886 This person must be fired.
2887 %
2888 Coronation, n.:
2889 The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and
2890 visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite
2891 bomb.
2892 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2893 %
2894 Corrupt, adj.:
2895 In politics, holding an office of trust or profit.
2896 %
2897 Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a
2898 muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can
2899 make of capitalism.
2900 -- Walter Lippmann
2901 %
2902 Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job
2903 is to enforce the law and fight crime.
2904 -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan
2905 %
2906 Court, n.:
2907 A place where they dispense with justice.
2908 -- Arthur Train
2909 %
2910 Coward, n.:
2911 One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
2912 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2913 %
2914 Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with
2915 nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.
2916 -- Wernher von Braun
2917 %
2918 Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.
2919 -- A. E. Newman
2920 %
2921 Critic, n.:
2922 A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries
2923 to please him.
2924 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2925 %
2926 Croll's Query:
2927 If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of?
2928 %
2929 cursor address, n:
2930 "Hello, cursor!"
2931 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
2932 %
2933 "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
2934 eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
2935 business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
2936 -- Johnny Hart
2937 %
2938 "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
2939 eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
2940 business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
2941 -- Johnny Hart
2942 %
2943 Cynic, n.:
2944 A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not
2945 as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking
2946 out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
2947 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2948 %
2949 Cynic, n.:
2950 One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced
2951 eye.
2952 %
2953 Dare to be naive.
2954 -- R. Buckminster Fuller
2955 %
2956 Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie.
2957 %
2958 Dave Mack: "Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par."
2959 Allen Gwinn: "Yours is."
2960 %
2961 Dawn, n.:
2962 The time when men of reason go to bed.
2963 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2964 %
2965 Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed.
2966 %
2967 %DCL-MEM-BAD, bad memory
2968 VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears
2969 %
2970 Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also
2971 easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to
2972 improve.
2973 %
2974 Dear Lord:
2975 I just want *___one* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On
2976 the other hand", again.
2977 %
2978 Dear Miss Manners:
2979 My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's
2980 elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between
2981 courses, is all right. Which is correct?
2982
2983 Gentle Reader:
2984 For the purpose of answering examinations in your home
2985 economics class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this
2986 principle of education may be of even greater importance to you now
2987 than learning correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners
2988 believes that is.
2989 %
2990 Dear Miss Manners:
2991 Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from
2992 your face.
2993
2994 Gentle Reader:
2995 Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on
2996 your face ...
2997 %
2998 Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part
2999 of this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old
3000 will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a
3001 commercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as
3002 "Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on a
3003 table next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always
3004 says: "Part of this complete breakfast". Don't that really mean,
3005 "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as this
3006 complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claim
3007 if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a
3008 dead bat?
3009
3010 Answer: Yes.
3011 -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
3012 %
3013 Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?
3014
3015 Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business
3016 signs to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a
3017 word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR
3018 ANY ITEM'S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when
3019 creating hand- lettered small-business signs is that you should put
3020 quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT
3021 DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.
3022 -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
3023 %
3024 Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy.
3025 %
3026 Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired.
3027 -- R. Geis
3028 %
3029 Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings.
3030 %
3031 "Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'".
3032 %
3033 Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down
3034 %
3035 Death is only a state of mind.
3036
3037 Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else.
3038 %
3039 Death to all fanatics!
3040 %
3041 Decision maker, n.:
3042 The person in your office who was unable to form a task force
3043 before the music stopped.
3044 %
3045 Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really
3046 overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene
3047 language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the
3048 judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when
3049 addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang).
3050 -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing
3051 Assoc.
3052 %
3053 Deck Us All With Boston Charlie
3054
3055 Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
3056 Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
3057 Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
3058 Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo!
3059
3060 Don't we know archaic barrel,
3061 Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou.
3062 Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
3063 Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!
3064 -- Walt Kelly
3065 %
3066 "Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts of
3067 marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a
3068 theory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah,
3069 those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly
3070 blessed.
3071 -- Randy Davis
3072 %
3073 default, n.:
3074 [Possibly from Black English "De fault wid dis system is you,
3075 mon."] The vain attempt to avoid errors by inactivity. "Nothing will
3076 come of nothing: speak again." -- King Lear.
3077 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
3078 %
3079 #define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255)
3080 #define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \
3081 - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \
3082 - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111))
3083
3084 -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word
3085 %
3086 DELETE A FORTUNE!
3087
3088 Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like
3089 to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to
3090 "fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure it
3091 gets expunged.
3092 %
3093 Deliberation, n.:
3094 The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is
3095 buttered on.
3096 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3097 %
3098 "Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow."
3099 %
3100 Demand the establishment of the government
3101 in its rightful home at Disneyland.
3102 %
3103 Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than
3104 we deserve.
3105 -- George Bernard Shaw
3106 %
3107 Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder
3108 aloud what the country could do under first-class management.
3109 -- Senator Soaper
3110 %
3111 Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the
3112 incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
3113 -- G. B. Shaw
3114 %
3115 Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you
3116 don't think.
3117 %
3118 Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by
3119 Jackasses.
3120 -- H. L. Mencken
3121 %
3122 Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.
3123 -- Jawaharlal Nehru
3124 %
3125 Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people
3126 are right more than half of the time.
3127 -- E. B. White
3128 %
3129 Democracy, n.:
3130 A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass
3131 meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy.
3132 Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights.
3133 Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate,
3134 whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion,
3135 prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
3136 Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
3137 -- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932),
3138 since withdrawn.
3139 %
3140 Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the
3141 board. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls.
3142 %
3143 Dentist, n.:
3144 A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls
3145 coins out of one's pockets.
3146 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3147 %
3148 Despising machines to a man,
3149 The Luddites joined up with the Klan,
3150 And ride out by night
3151 In a sheeting of white
3152 To lynch all the robots they can.
3153 -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson
3154 %
3155 Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will
3156 be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over
3157 the table.
3158 -- The Anarchist Cookbook
3159 %
3160 DETERIORATA
3161
3162 Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
3163 And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
3164 Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
3165 Rotate your tires.
3166 Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
3167 And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys.
3168 Know what to kiss -- and when.
3169 Remember that two wrongs never make a right,
3170 But that three do.
3171 Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD".
3172 Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
3173 And despite the changing fortunes of time,
3174 There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
3175
3176 You are a fluke of the universe ...
3177 You have no right to be here.
3178 Whether you can hear it or not, the universe
3179 Is laughing behind your back.
3180 -- National Lampoon
3181 %
3182 DeVries's Dilemma:
3183 If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want
3184 hits the paper.
3185 %
3186 Did I say 2? I lied.
3187 %
3188 Did you know ...
3189
3190 That no-one ever reads these things?
3191 %
3192 Did you know that clones never use mirrors?
3193 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3194 %
3195 Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and lined
3196 them up end to end, they'd still point in the wrong direction?
3197 %
3198 Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilot
3199 that shot down the Korean jet? At one point he definitely states:
3200
3201 "Natasha! First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and
3202 squirrel."
3203
3204 -- ihuxw!tommyo
3205 %
3206 Die, v.:
3207 To stop sinning suddenly.
3208 -- Elbert Hubbard
3209 %
3210 "Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a
3211 conventional thing to happen to him."
3212 -- John Barrymore's dying words
3213 %
3214 Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little.
3215 %
3216 Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term.
3217 Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
3218 %
3219 Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
3220 %
3221 Disc space -- the final frontier!
3222 %
3223 Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be
3224 yours too."
3225 -- Dave Haynie
3226 %
3227 Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the above views and those of my
3228 employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely
3229 coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is
3230 non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the
3231 absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader.
3232 The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for
3233 the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal,
3234 non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.)
3235 %
3236 Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art.
3237 %
3238 Distinctive, adj.:
3239 A different color or shape than our competitors.
3240 %
3241 Distress, n.:
3242 A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
3243 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3244 %
3245 District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape
3246 injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any
3247 damage inflicted on the vehicle.
3248 %
3249 Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery?
3250 %
3251 Do molecular biologists wear designer genes?
3252 %
3253 Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them.
3254 %
3255 Do not drink coffee in early a.m. It will keep you awake until noon.
3256 %
3257 Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to
3258 anger.
3259 %
3260 "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good
3261 with ketchup."
3262 %
3263 Do not read this fortune under penalty of law.
3264 Violators will be prosecuted.
3265 (Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.))
3266 %
3267 Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight.
3268 %
3269 Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each
3270 day as it comes.
3271 -- Donald Kaul
3272 %
3273 Do something unusual today. Pay a bill.
3274 %
3275 Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum.
3276 %
3277 Do you have lysdexia?
3278 %
3279 Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take
3280 the time to take the dirt out of them?
3281 %
3282 "Do you think what we're doing is wrong?"
3283 "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!"
3284 "I've never done anything illegal before."
3285 "I thought you said you were an accountant!"
3286 %
3287 Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and
3288 when it is bad, it is better than nothing.
3289 -- Dick Brandon
3290 %
3291 Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must
3292 be good because the programmers hate it so much.
3293 %
3294 Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
3295 %
3296 Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow.
3297 %
3298 Don't be humble ... you're not that great.
3299 -- Golda Meir
3300 %
3301 Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.
3302 %
3303 Don't change the reason, just change the excuses!
3304 -- Joe Cointment
3305 %
3306 "Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly,
3307 sincerely, extremely dangerously.
3308
3309 They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs.
3310 They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They
3311 used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used
3312 finks. They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used
3313 fallaron. They used betterment incentives. They used finger prints.
3314 They used the bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile.
3315 They used treachery. They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help.
3316 They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology. And
3317 what the hell, they caught him.
3318
3319 -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the
3320 Tick-Tock Man"
3321 %
3322 Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today!
3323 %
3324 Don't feed the bats tonight.
3325 %
3326 Don't get even -- get odd!
3327 %
3328 Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly
3329 misleading. Debug only code.
3330 -- Dave Storer
3331 %
3332 "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes
3333 you nothing. It was here first."
3334 -- Mark Twain
3335 %
3336 Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while.
3337 %
3338 Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.
3339 %
3340 Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier.
3341 %
3342 Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today.
3343 %
3344 Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam.
3345 %
3346 Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking
3347 distance.
3348 %
3349 Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone.
3350 %
3351 Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you.
3352 %
3353 Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy
3354 it today you can do it again tomorrow.
3355 %
3356 "Don't say yes until I finish talking."
3357 -- Darryl F. Zanuck
3358 %
3359 Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business.
3360 Cheat.
3361 -- Ambrose Bierce
3362 %
3363 Don't suspect your friends -- turn them in!
3364 -- "Brazil"
3365 %
3366 Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.
3367 -- Walt Kelly
3368 %
3369 Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out of it alive.
3370 %
3371 Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective.
3372 %
3373 "Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to
3374 get more wax!!"
3375 %
3376 Don't worry about avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it starts
3377 avoiding you.
3378 -- The Old Farmer's Almanac
3379 %
3380 "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any
3381 good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
3382 -- Howard Aiken
3383 %
3384 Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already
3385 tomorrow in Australia.
3386 -- Charles Schultz
3387 %
3388 Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too
3389 busy worrying over what you are thinking about them.
3390 %
3391 Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in?
3392 %
3393 Don: I didn't know you had a cousin Penelope, Bill! Was she
3394 pretty?
3395 W. C.: Well, her face was so wrinkled it looked like seven miles of
3396 bad road. She had so many gold teeth, Don, she use to have to
3397 sleep with her head in a safe. She died in Bolivia.
3398 Don: Oh Bill, it must be hard to lose a relative.
3399 W. C.: It's almost impossible.
3400 -- W. C. Fields, from "The Further Adventures of Larson
3401 E. Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles"
3402 %
3403 Double Bucky
3404 (Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie")
3405
3406 Double bucky, you're the one!
3407 You make my keyboard lots of fun
3408 Double bucky, an additional bit or two:
3409 (Vo-vo-de-o!)
3410 Control and Meta side by side,
3411 Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!
3412 Double bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
3413
3414 Double bucky, left and right
3415 OR'd together, outta sight!
3416 Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of
3417 Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of
3418 Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!
3419
3420 -- (C) 1978 by Guy L. Steele, Jr.
3421 %
3422 Double-Blind Experiment, n.:
3423 An experiment in which the chief researcher believes he is
3424 fooling both the subject and the lab assistant. Often accompanied by a
3425 belief in the tooth fairy.
3426 %
3427 Down with categorical imperative!
3428 %
3429 "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."
3430 %
3431 Drew's Law of Highway Biology:
3432 The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front
3433 of your eyes.
3434 %
3435 Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *__is* fun trying.
3436 %
3437 Drive defensively. Buy a tank.
3438 %
3439 Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic
3440 route!
3441 %
3442 Ducharme's Axiom:
3443 If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize
3444 yourself as part of the problem.
3445 %
3446 Ducharme's Precept:
3447 Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
3448 %
3449 Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and
3450 it holds the universe together ...
3451 -- Carl Zwanzig
3452 %
3453 Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders
3454 has been discontinued.
3455 %
3456 Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate
3457 and captain of your soul.
3458 %
3459 Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been
3460 discontinued.
3461 %
3462 During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen
3463 were blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a
3464 red-faced country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted,
3465 "Hey, you almost hit my wife."
3466 "Did I?" cried the hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a
3467 shot at mine, over there."
3468 %
3469 During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several
3470 times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o
3471 %
3472 "Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have
3473 nothing whatever to do with it."
3474 -- W. Somerset Maugham
3475 %
3476 E Pluribus Unix
3477 %
3478 Eagleson's Law:
3479 Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more
3480 months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is
3481 an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)
3482 %
3483 Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends
3484 %
3485 /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can.
3486 %
3487 Earth is a beta site.
3488 %
3489 "Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun."
3490 -- Jeff Berner
3491 %
3492 Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube:
3493 Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the
3494 cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of
3495 the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this
3496 means the puzzle is solved.
3497 -- Steve Rubenstein
3498 %
3499 Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.
3500 %
3501 "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work."
3502 %
3503 Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
3504 -- John Kenneth Galbraith
3505 %
3506 Economics, n.:
3507 Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K.
3508 Galbraith ...
3509 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
3510 %
3511 Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy
3512 would turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it
3513 hasn't.
3514 -- Robert Orben
3515 %
3516 Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a
3517 percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor.
3518 -- Edgar R. Fiedler
3519 %
3520 Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent.
3521 -- Fred Allen
3522 %
3523 Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine.
3524 -- Irsin Edman
3525 %
3526 Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak!
3527 -- Bullwinkle Moose
3528 %
3529 Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.
3530 -- Adlai Stevenson
3531 %
3532 Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many
3533 people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable
3534 comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where
3535 the "nog" comes from.
3536
3537 To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in
3538 season, eggs...
3539 %
3540 Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain
3541 of being a damned fool.
3542 -- Bellamy Brooks
3543 %
3544 Egotist, n.:
3545 A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
3546 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3547 %
3548 Ehrman's Commentary:
3549 (1) Things will get worse before they get better.
3550 (2) Who said things would get better?
3551 %
3552 Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees.
3553 -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star
3554 %
3555 Eleanor Rigby
3556 Sits at the keyboard
3557 And waits for a line on the screen
3558 Lives in a dream
3559 Waits for a signal
3560 Finding some code
3561 That will make the machine do some more.
3562 What is it for?
3563
3564 All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
3565 All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
3566 %
3567 Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance.
3568 %
3569 Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles,
3570 called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you
3571 have been drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in
3572 most American homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In the
3573 time it has taken you to read this sentence so far, an electron could
3574 have traveled all the way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey,
3575 although God alone knows why it would want to.
3576 The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current,
3577 direct current, lightning, static, and European. Most American homes
3578 have alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in one
3579 direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents
3580 harmful electron buildup in the wires.
3581 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
3582 %
3583 Electrocution, n.:
3584 Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements.
3585 %
3586 Elevators smell different to midgets
3587 %
3588 Emerson's Law of Contrariness:
3589 Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we
3590 can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.
3591 %
3592 Encyclopedia Salesmen:
3593 Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police
3594 and tell them your house is being burgled.
3595 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
3596 %
3597 Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless.
3598 Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop.
3599 -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary
3600 %
3601 Entropy isn't what it used to be.
3602 %
3603 Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which
3604 otherwise require harder thinking.
3605 -- Jerome Lettvin
3606 %
3607 Epperson's law:
3608 When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably
3609 something his wife can beat him at.
3610 %
3611 Equal bytes for women.
3612 %
3613 Error in operator: add beer
3614 %
3615 Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven
3616 Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
3617 Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven
3618 Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben.
3619 -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass"
3620 %
3621 Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
3622 -- Woody Allen
3623 %
3624 Etymology, n.:
3625 Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that
3626 were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed
3627 from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy"
3628 ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow."
3629 -- Mike Kellen
3630 %
3631 Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to
3632 speak it to?
3633 -- Clarence Darrow
3634 %
3635 "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit
3636 there."
3637 -- Will Rogers
3638 %
3639 "Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral."
3640 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
3641 %
3642 Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United
3643 States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents a
3644 day.
3645 %
3646 Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you
3647 just how busy they are.
3648 %
3649 Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what,
3650 exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men."
3651 All the other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with
3652 spears, and the wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about:
3653 Would you please take my wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please
3654 take her right now. No How about: Would you like to take something?
3655 My wife is available. No. How about ..."
3656 -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
3657 %
3658 Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it.
3659 %
3660 Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt.
3661 %
3662 Every four seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this
3663 woman and stop her.
3664 %
3665 "Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one
3666 idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's
3667 sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all
3668 of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two
3669 highly-motivated, caustic twits."
3670 -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet
3671 %
3672 Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
3673 signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
3674 fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
3675 spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
3676 genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way
3677 of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
3678 humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
3679 -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
3680 %
3681 Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation):
3682
3683 Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and in
3684 front they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an
3685 odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both even
3686 and odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of
3687 legs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere,
3688 there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horse
3689 of another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the same
3690 color"], that does not exist.
3691 %
3692 Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.
3693 -- Frank Moore Colby
3694 %
3695 Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.
3696 %
3697 Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own.
3698 -- Don Vonada
3699 %
3700 "Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95."
3701 %
3702 Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse.
3703 -- Miguel de Cervantes
3704 %
3705 "Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the
3706 richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work"
3707 -- Robert Orben
3708 %
3709 Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis.
3710
3711 It makes sense, when you don't think about it.
3712 %
3713 Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one
3714 instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every
3715 program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.
3716 %
3717 Every program has two purposes -- one for which it was written and
3718 another for which it wasn't.
3719 %
3720 Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits.
3721 %
3722 Every solution breeds new problems.
3723 %
3724 Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no
3725 guarantee of eventual success.
3726 %
3727 "Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it."
3728 %
3729 Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.
3730 -- Beckett
3731 %
3732 Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
3733 -- Dykstra
3734 %
3735 Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
3736 %
3737 Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be
3738 taught how ___not to. So it is with the great programmers.
3739 %
3740 Everyone is a genius. It's just that some people are too stupid to
3741 realize it.
3742 %
3743 Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic
3744 formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the
3745 scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact
3746 wholly unconcerned with what ____does exist. Indeed, the banality of
3747 existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to
3748 discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the
3749 problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the
3750 mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all,
3751 one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely
3752 different way ...
3753 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
3754 %
3755 Everyone talks about apathy, but no one ____does anything about it.
3756 %
3757 Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately,
3758 no one we know belongs.
3759 %
3760 Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being
3761 that a belch is more satisfying.
3762 -- Ingmar Bergman
3763 %
3764 Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.
3765 %
3766 Everything you know is wrong!
3767 %
3768 Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less
3769 obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no
3770 solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid.
3771 There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no
3772 straight lines.
3773 -- R. Buckminster Fuller
3774 %
3775 Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping
3776 mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as
3777 "Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you
3778 how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence",
3779 "Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night
3780 So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc.
3781 -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
3782 %
3783 Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike office water cooler.
3784 %
3785 Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator.
3786 %
3787 Excellent day to have a rotten day.
3788 %
3789 Excellent time to become a missing person.
3790 %
3791 Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from
3792 acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
3793 -- W. Somerset Maugham
3794 %
3795 Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility.
3796 %
3797 Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do
3798 the work.
3799 -- John G. Pollard
3800 %
3801 Expect the worst, it's the least you can do.
3802 %
3803 Expense Accounts, n.:
3804 Corporate food stamps.
3805 %
3806 Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
3807 -- Olivier
3808 %
3809 Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
3810 when you make it again.
3811 -- F. P. Jones
3812 %
3813 Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and
3814 the instruction afterward.
3815 %
3816 Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old
3817 ones.
3818 %
3819 Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.
3820 %
3821 Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
3822 %
3823 Expert, n.:
3824 Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides.
3825 %
3826 Extract from Official Sweepstakes Rules:
3827
3828 NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE
3829
3830 To claim your prize without purchase, do the following: (a) Carefully
3831 cut out your computer-printed name and address from upper right hand
3832 corner of the Prize Claim Form. (b) Affix computer-printed name and
3833 address -- with glue or cellophane tape (no staples or paper clips) --
3834 to a 3x5 inch index card. (c) Also cut out the "No" paragraph (lower
3835 left hand corner of Prize Claim Form) and affix it to the 3x5 card
3836 below your address label. (d) Then print on your 3x5 card, above your
3837 computer-printed name and address the words "CARTER & VAN PEEL
3838 SWEEPSTAKES" (Use all capital letters.) (e) Finally place 3x5 card
3839 (without bending) into a plain envelope [NOTE: do NOT use the
3840 Official Prize Claim and CVP Perfume Reply Envelope or you may be
3841 disqualified], and mail to: CVP, Box 1320, Westbury, NY 11595. Print
3842 this address correctly. Comply with above instructions carefully and
3843 completely or you may be disqualified from receiving your prize.
3844 %
3845 F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm!
3846 %
3847 f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd.
3848 %
3849 f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.
3850 %
3851 F: When into a room I plunge, I
3852 Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI.
3853 Then I linger, darkly brooding
3854 On the poison they're exuding.
3855 -- The Roguelet's ABC
3856 %
3857 Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
3858 %
3859 Fairy Tale, n.:
3860 A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers.
3861 %
3862 Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic
3863 without looking to see whether the seeds move.
3864 %
3865 Faith, n:
3866 That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be
3867 untrue.
3868 %
3869 Fakir, n:
3870 A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost
3871 religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources seem to
3872 have shinnied up a rope and vanished.
3873 %
3874 Familiarity breeds attempt
3875 %
3876 Families, when a child is born
3877 Want it to be intelligent.
3878 I, through intelligence,
3879 Having wrecked my whole life,
3880 Only hope the baby will prove
3881 Ignorant and stupid.
3882 Then he will crown a tranquil life
3883 By becoming a Cabinet Minister
3884 -- Su Tung-p'o
3885 %
3886 Famous last words:
3887 %
3888 Famous last words:
3889 (1) "Don't worry, I can handle it."
3890 (2) "You and what army?"
3891 (3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be
3892 a cop."
3893 %
3894 Famous last words:
3895 (1) Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix.
3896 (2) Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there.
3897 (3) What happens if you touch these two wires tog--
3898 (4) We won't need reservations.
3899 (5) It's always sunny there this time of the year.
3900 (6) Don't worry, it's not loaded.
3901 (7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager.
3902 %
3903 Famous, adj.:
3904 Conspicuously miserable.
3905 -- Ambrose Bierce
3906 %
3907 Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the
3908 Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
3909 Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an
3910 utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life
3911 forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches
3912 are a pretty neat idea ...
3913 -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
3914 %
3915 Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it
3916 every six months.
3917 -- Oscar Wilde
3918 %
3919 Fats Loves Madelyn
3920 %
3921 Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ...
3922 %
3923 Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children,
3924 neither will you.
3925 %
3926 Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each
3927 other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around
3928 the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors
3929 d'oeuvres.
3930 Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes
3931 to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your
3932 Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright
3933 piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres.
3934 Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with
3935 inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down
3936 other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and
3937 placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when
3938 the little hammers strike.
3939 Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over
3940 their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning
3941 Christmas tree. The piano is missing.
3942
3943 You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless
3944 you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level
3945 4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog.
3946 %
3947 Fifth Law of Applied Terror:
3948 If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.
3949
3950 Corollary:
3951 If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you
3952 live.
3953 %
3954 Fifth Law of Procrastination:
3955 Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that
3956 there is nothing important to do.
3957 %
3958 Fifty flippant frogs
3959 Walked by on flippered feet
3960 And with their slime they made the time
3961 Unnaturally fleet.
3962 %
3963 FIGHTING WORDS
3964
3965 Say my love is easy had,
3966 Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
3967 Say I am too often sad --
3968 Still behold me at your side.
3969
3970 Say I'm neither brave nor young,
3971 Say I woo and coddle care,
3972 Say the devil touched my tongue --
3973 Still you have my heart to wear.
3974
3975 But say my verses do not scan,
3976 And I get me another man!
3977 -- Dorothy Parker
3978 %
3979 Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber, North
3980 Carolina.
3981 %
3982 Finagle's Creed:
3983 Science is true. Don't be misled by facts.
3984 %
3985 Finagle's First Law:
3986 If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
3987 %
3988 Finagle's fourth Law:
3989 Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes
3990 it worse.
3991 %
3992 Finagle's Second Law:
3993 No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be
3994 someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it
3995 happened according to his own pet theory.
3996 %
3997 Finagle's Third Law:
3998 In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct,
3999 beyond all need of checking, is the mistake
4000
4001 Corollaries:
4002 (1) Nobody whom you ask for help will see it.
4003 (2) The first person who stops by, whose advice you really
4004 don't want to hear, will see it immediately.
4005 %
4006 Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture
4007 on a rock.
4008 -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
4009 %
4010 Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can.
4011 %
4012 Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy.
4013 %
4014 Fine's Corollary:
4015 Functionality breeds Contempt.
4016 %
4017 Finish the sentence below in 25 words or less:
4018
4019 "Love is what you feel just before you give someone a good ..."
4020
4021 Mail your answer along with the top half of your supervisor to:
4022
4023 P.O. Box 35
4024 Baffled Greek, Michigan
4025 %
4026 First Corollary of Taber's Second Law:
4027 Machines that piss people off get murdered.
4028 -- Pat Taber
4029 %
4030 First Law of Bicycling:
4031 No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the
4032 wind.
4033 %
4034 First Law of Procrastination:
4035 Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility
4036 for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed
4037 the deadline).
4038 %
4039 First Law of Socio-Genetics:
4040 Celibacy is not hereditary.
4041 %
4042 First Rule of History:
4043 History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each
4044 other.
4045 %
4046 "First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
4047 -- The Doctor, "Doctor Who"
4048 %
4049 First, a few words about tools.
4050
4051 Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of
4052 the laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously
4053 injure yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. If
4054 you're ever walking down the street and you notice some people who look
4055 particularly smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for
4056 granted. If I were you, I'd walk right up and smack them in the face.
4057 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
4058 %
4059 Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity.
4060 -- Robert Firth
4061 %
4062 Flappity, floppity, flip
4063 The mouse on the m"obius strip;
4064 The strip revolved,
4065 The mouse dissolved
4066 In a chronodimensional skip.
4067 %
4068 FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when
4069 the little hand is on the ....
4070 %
4071 Flon's Law:
4072 There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is
4073 the least bit difficult to write bad programs.
4074 %
4075 Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to her
4076 husband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen my
4077 joules!"
4078
4079 "Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux
4080 a moment. Perhaps they're mislead."
4081
4082 "No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting them
4083 in my burette ... We must call a copper."
4084
4085 Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms,
4086 said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name
4087 of Lawrence Ium.
4088
4089 "We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and
4090 dangerous. His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I can
4091 catch him there." With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an
4092 activated state and sped off along the reaction pathway ...
4093 -- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations"
4094 %
4095 flowchart, n. & v.:
4096 [From flow "to ripple down in rich profusion, as hair" + chart
4097 "a cryptic hidden-treasure map designed to mislead the uninitiated."]
4098 1. n. The solution, if any, to a class of Mascheroni construction
4099 problems in which given algorithms require geometrical representation
4100 using only the 35 basic ideograms of the ANSI template. 2. n. Neronic
4101 doodling while the system burns. 3. n. A low-cost substitute for
4102 wallpaper. 4. n. The innumerate misleading the illiterate. "A
4103 thousand pictures is worth ten lines of code." -- The Programmer's
4104 Little Red Vade Mecum, Mao Tse T'umps. 5. v.intrans. To produce
4105 flowcharts with no particular object in mind. 6. v.trans. To obfuscate
4106 (a problem) with esoteric cartoons.
4107 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
4108 %
4109 Flugg's Law:
4110 When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the
4111 world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.
4112 %
4113 Flying saucers on occasion
4114 Show themselves to human eyes.
4115 Aliens fume, put off invasion
4116 While they brand these tales as lies.
4117 %
4118 Fog Lamps, n.:
4119 Excessively (often obnoxiously) bright lamps mounted on the
4120 fronts of automobiles; used on dry, clear nights to indicate that the
4121 driver's brain is in a fog.
4122
4123 See also "Idiot Lights".
4124 %
4125 Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.
4126 -- Walt Kelly, "Putluck Pogo"
4127 %
4128 For 20 dollars, I'll give you a good fortune next time ...
4129 %
4130 For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a
4131 cat.
4132 %
4133 "For an adequate time call 555-3321"
4134 %
4135 For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be
4136 always old-fashioned.
4137 %
4138 For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
4139 and wrong.
4140 -- H. L. Mencken
4141 %
4142 For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.
4143 -- R. Clopton
4144 %
4145 "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence
4146 of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind."
4147
4148 "Whose?"
4149
4150 "MINE! HA-HA!"
4151 %
4152 For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two.
4153 %
4154 For my son, Robert, this is proving to be the high-point of his entire
4155 life to date. He has had his pajamas on for two, maybe three days
4156 now. He has the sense of joyful independence a 5-year-old child gets
4157 when he suddenly realizes that he could be operating an acetylene torch
4158 in the coat closet and neither parent [because of the flu] would have
4159 the strength to object. He has been foraging for his own food, which
4160 means his diet consists entirely of "food" substances which are
4161 advertised only on Saturday-morning cartoon shows; substances that are
4162 the color of jukebox lights and that, for legal reasons, have their
4163 names spelled wrong, as in New Creemy Chok-'n'-Cheez Lumps o' Froot
4164 ("part of this complete breakfast").
4165 -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"
4166 %
4167 For perfect happiness, remember two things:
4168 (1) Be content with what you've got.
4169 (2) Be sure you've got plenty.
4170 %
4171 For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say
4172 "Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something.
4173 -- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to
4174 the U.S.
4175 %
4176 For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz.
4177 %
4178 "For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of
4179 a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with
4180 computers altogether?"
4181 -- Jehan Shuman
4182 %
4183 For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they
4184 like.
4185 -- Abraham Lincoln
4186 %
4187 "For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but
4188 phone calls taper off."
4189 -- Johnny Carson
4190 %
4191 For years a secret shame destroyed my peace --
4192 I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece.
4193 But now I think a thought that brings me hope:
4194 Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.
4195 -- Justin Richardson.
4196 %
4197 For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH!
4198 %
4199 Forgetfulness, n.:
4200 A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their
4201 destitution of conscience.
4202 %
4203 Forms follow function, and often obliterate it.
4204 %
4205 FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS! #6
4206
4207 RAZORBACK: Paul Harbride, 1984, 2 hours 25 min.
4208 One of the great Australian films of the early 1980's, and
4209 arguably the best movie ever made about a large, man-eating
4210 hog. Some violence. With Gregory Harrison.
4211 %
4212 fortune's Contribution of the Month to the Animal Rights Debate:
4213
4214 I'll stay out of animals' way if they'll stay out of mine.
4215 "Hey you, get off my plate"
4216 -- Roger Midnight
4217 %
4218 Fortune's Fictitious Country Song Title of the Week:
4219 "How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?"
4220 %
4221 Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month):
4222
4223 Don't Write On Walls!
4224
4225 (and underneath)
4226
4227 You want I should type?
4228 %
4229 Fortune's Law of the Week (this week, from Kentucky):
4230 No female shall appear in a bathing suit at any airport in this
4231 State unless she is escorted by two officers or unless she is armed
4232 with a club. The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females
4233 weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it
4234 apply to female horses.
4235 %
4236 Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful
4237 Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an
4238 impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and
4239 clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following
4240 exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan.
4241
4242 DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are
4243 having to artificially propagate oysters and clams.
4244 HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters?
4245 DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter
4246 is that female oysters through their living habits cast out
4247 large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large
4248 amounts of fertilization ...
4249 HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many
4250 teenagers who read The Congressional Record.
4251 %
4252 Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week:
4253
4254 Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige.
4255 %
4256 FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14
4257
4258 Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your good
4259 liquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert and
4260 light after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anything
4261 drinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck.
4262 %
4263 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #18:
4264
4265 Q: Are you married?
4266 A: No, I'm divorced.
4267 Q: And what did your husband do before you divorced him?
4268 A: A lot of things I didn't know about.
4269 %
4270 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #19:
4271
4272 Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
4273 A: All my autopsies have been performed on dead people.
4274 %
4275 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #29:
4276
4277 THE JUDGE: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present
4278 information and prejudice from your minds, if you have
4279 any ...
4280 %
4281 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #32:
4282
4283 Q: Do you know how far pregnant you are right now?
4284 A: I will be three months November 8th.
4285 Q: Apparently then, the date of conception was August 8th?
4286 A: Yes.
4287 Q: What were you and your husband doing at that time?
4288 %
4289 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #37:
4290
4291 Q: Did he pick the dog up by the ears?
4292 A: No.
4293 Q: What was he doing with the dog's ears?
4294 A: Picking them up in the air.
4295 Q: Where was the dog at this time?
4296 A: Attached to the ears.
4297 %
4298 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #3:
4299
4300 Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were
4301 able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to
4302 go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with
4303 him to the station?
4304 MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.
4305 %
4306 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41:
4307
4308 Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?
4309 A: By death.
4310 Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
4311 %
4312 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #52:
4313
4314 Q: What is your name?
4315 A: Ernestine McDowell.
4316 Q: And what is your marital status?
4317 A: Fair.
4318 %
4319 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #7:
4320
4321 Q: What happened then?
4322 A: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify
4323 me."
4324 Q: Did he kill you?
4325 A: No.
4326 %
4327 fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped.
4328 %
4329 Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samuri
4330 sword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
4331
4332 Oh, and have a nice day!
4333 -- Bryce Nesbitt '84
4334 %
4335 Fourth Law of Applied Terror:
4336 The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology
4337 instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria.
4338
4339 Corollary:
4340 Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do
4341 except study for that instructor's course.
4342 %
4343 Fourth Law of Revision:
4344 It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about
4345 interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you.
4346 %
4347 Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is not
4348 almost one, it is damn near zero.
4349 -- David Ellis
4350 %
4351 Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a
4352 policeman's tie.
4353 %
4354 Fresco's Discovery:
4355 If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored.
4356 %
4357 Friends, Romans, Hipsters,
4358 Let me clue you in;
4359 I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him.
4360 The square kicks some cats are on stay with them;
4361 The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus
4362 Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes;
4363 If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea,
4364 And, like, old Caesar really set them straight.
4365 Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- for Brutus is a real cool cat;
4366 So are they all, all cool cats, --
4367 Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down.
4368 %
4369 Frisbeetarianism, n.:
4370 The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and
4371 gets stuck.
4372 %
4373 Frobnicate, v.:
4374 To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ.
4375 Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a
4376 frob". See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK
4377 sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless
4378 manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse
4379 search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is
4380 turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it
4381 he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the
4382 screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because
4383 turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it.
4384 %
4385 Frobnitz, pl. Frobnitzem (frob'nitsm) n.:
4386 An unspecified physical object, a widget. Also refers to
4387 electronic black boxes. This rare form is usually abbreviated to
4388 FROTZ, or more commonly to FROB. Also used are FROBNULE, FROBULE, and
4389 FROBNODULE. Starting perhaps in 1979, FROBBOZ (fruh-bahz'), pl.
4390 FROBBOTZIM, has also become very popular, largely due to its exposure
4391 via the Adventure spin-off called Zork (Dungeon). These can also be
4392 applied to non-physical objects, such as data structures.
4393 %
4394 [From an announcement of a congress of the International Ontopsychology
4395 Association, in Rome]:
4396
4397 The Ontopsychological school, availing itself of new research criteria
4398 and of a new telematic epistemology, maintains that social modes do not
4399 spring from dialectics of territory or of class, or of consumer goods,
4400 or of means of power, but rather from dynamic latencies capillarized in
4401 millions of individuals in system functions which, once they have
4402 reached the event maturation, burst forth in catastrophic phenomenology
4403 engaging a suitable stereotype protagonist or duty marionette (general,
4404 president, political party, etc.) to consummate the act of social
4405 schizophrenia in mass genocide.
4406 %
4407 From the "Guiness Book of World Records", 1973:
4408
4409 Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and
4410 the most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the
4411 Court of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his
4412 candidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground
4413 nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts,
4414 other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not
4415 qualify as nuts (unground)(other than ground nuts) by reason of their
4416 being nuts (unground)."
4417 %
4418 From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was
4419 convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
4420 -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"
4421 %
4422 [From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, made
4423 in Japan]:
4424
4425 The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOT
4426 MATRIX LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, is
4427 featured by permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high quality
4428 against low cost", "diversified functions with compact design",
4429 "flexibility in accessibleness and durability of approx. 2000,000,00
4430 Dot/Head", "being sophisticated in mechanism but possibly agile
4431 operating under noises being extremely suppressed" etc.
4432
4433 And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to help
4434 achieve "super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned by
4435 HOST COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being.
4436 %
4437 From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of the
4438 instructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a new
4439 experience in sound:
4440
4441 5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading
4442 sound is normal for this type of connector.
4443 %
4444 From too much love of living,
4445 From hope and fear set free,
4446 We thank with brief thanksgiving,
4447 Whatever gods may be,
4448 That no life lives forever,
4449 That dead men rise up never,
4450 That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.
4451 -- Swinburne
4452 %
4453 Fuch's Warning:
4454 If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well
4455 enough to travel.
4456 %
4457 Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
4458 Push something hard enough and it will fall over.
4459 %
4460 Furbling, v.:
4461 Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank
4462 even when you are the only person in line.
4463 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
4464 %
4465 Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
4466 -- H. H. Williams
4467 %
4468 Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening.
4469 %
4470 G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. One
4471 of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his
4472 secretary, `Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says
4473 `No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' And
4474 that's your chance, my boy."
4475 %
4476 Garbage In -- Gospel Out.
4477 %
4478 Garter, n.:
4479 An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her
4480 stockings and desolating the country.
4481 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
4482 %
4483 Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall
4484 on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!!
4485 -- Adventures of Asterix.
4486 %
4487 Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep".
4488
4489 Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound
4490 than the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference:
4491 "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling."
4492 Obvious, isn't it?
4493 Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start
4494 speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as
4495 long as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all
4496 your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and
4497 so on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committed
4498 individuals and then grow ...
4499 Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those
4500 signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when
4501 everything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving on
4502 the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs
4503 backwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? I
4504 think not, my friend, I think not.
4505 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
4506 %
4507 "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at More Science High has an
4508 extracurricular activity except you."
4509 "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?"
4510 "Only to ten, Mudhead."
4511
4512 -- Firesign Theater
4513 %
4514 "Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore."
4515 %
4516 GEMINI (May 21 - June 20)
4517 You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you
4518 because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much
4519 for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for
4520 committing incest.
4521 %
4522 GEMINI (May 21 to Jun. 20)
4523 Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while
4524 you can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy praise
4525 and respect from those around you; everybody loves a sucker. A short
4526 trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's room.
4527 %
4528 Genderplex, n.:
4529 The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to
4530 determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and
4531 tortoises).
4532 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
4533 %
4534 Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why
4535 you should.
4536 %
4537 Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus
4538 handicapped.
4539 -- Elbert Hubbard
4540 %
4541 Genius, n.:
4542 A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with
4543 "bright".
4544 %
4545 George Orwell 1984. Northwestern 0.
4546 -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
4547 %
4548 George Orwell was an optimist.
4549 %
4550 George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to
4551 have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
4552 -- Ashley Cooper
4553 %
4554 Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
4555 (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong
4556 direction.
4557 (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
4558 (3) The energy required to change either one of these states
4559 will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so
4560 much as to make the task totally impossible.
4561 %
4562 Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty.
4563 %
4564 Get GUMMed
4565 --- ------
4566 The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April
4567 1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above
4568 the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grep
4569 each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered
4570 chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek
4571 nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Three
4572 days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Two
4573 seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user-
4574 friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know is
4575 Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis
4576 "cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You
4577 Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because
4578 all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we
4579 could tell them.
4580 -- Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84
4581 %
4582 Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children!
4583 %
4584 -- Gifts for Children --
4585
4586 This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children,
4587 because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months
4588 and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday-
4589 morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children
4590 exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If
4591 your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You
4592 Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it
4593 might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe
4594 me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child
4595 who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift.
4596 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
4597 %
4598 -- Gifts for Men --
4599
4600 Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professional
4601 ice hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But you
4602 should never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the
4603 clothes they will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For
4604 example, your average man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only
4605 three of them. He has learned, through humiliating trial and error,
4606 that if he wears any of the other 81 ties, his wife will probably laugh
4607 at him ("You're not going to wear THAT tie with that suit, are you?").
4608 So he has narrowed it down to three safe ties, and has gone several
4609 years without being laughed at. If you give him a new tie, he will
4610 pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you.
4611
4612 If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More
4613 than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set
4614 of tires.
4615 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
4616 %
4617 Gimmie That Old Time Religion
4618 We will follow Zarathustra, We will worship like the Druids,
4619 Zarathustra like we use to, Dancing naked in the woods,
4620 I'm a Zarathustra booster, Drinking strange fermented fluids,
4621 And he's good enough for me! And it's good enough for me!
4622 (chorus) (chorus)
4623
4624 In the church of Aphrodite,
4625 The priestess wears a see-through nightie,
4626 She's a mighty righteous sightie,
4627 And she's good enough for me!
4628 (chorus)
4629
4630 CHORUS: Give me that old time religion,
4631 Give me that old time religion,
4632 Give me that old time religion,
4633 'Cause it's good enough for me!
4634 %
4635 Ginsberg's Theorem:
4636 (1) You can't win.
4637 (2) You can't break even.
4638 (3) You can't even quit the game.
4639
4640 Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem:
4641 Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem
4642 meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's
4643 Theorem. To wit:
4644
4645 (1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
4646 (2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break
4647 even.
4648 (3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the
4649 game.
4650 %
4651 Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place
4652 to stand, and I will drain the world.
4653 %
4654 "Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war."
4655 -- Napoleon
4656 %
4657 Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities!
4658 %
4659 Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to
4660 a new town.
4661 %
4662 Give your child mental blocks for Christmas.
4663 %
4664 "Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying
4665 around, I'd rather lie around. No contest."
4666 -- Eric Clapton
4667 %
4668 Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden:
4669 Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP
4670 machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
4671 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
4672 %
4673 Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
4674 Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
4675 probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some
4676 useful work done.
4677 %
4678 Gnagloot, n.:
4679 A person who leaves all his ski passes on his jacket just to
4680 impress people.
4681 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
4682 %
4683 Go 'way! You're bothering me!
4684 %
4685 Go climb a gravity well!
4686 %
4687 Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may
4688 be in owning a piece thereof.
4689 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
4690 %
4691 //GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH
4692 %
4693 God did not create the world in seven days; he screwed around for six
4694 days and then pulled an all-nighter.
4695 %
4696 God doesn't play dice.
4697 -- Albert Einstein
4698 %
4699 "God gives burdens; also shoulders"
4700
4701 Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the
4702 end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I
4703 can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why
4704 would he lie about a thing like that?
4705 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
4706 %
4707 God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ...
4708 The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I do
4709 not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman
4710 ... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on
4711 smoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and
4712 water is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in
4713 the morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at
4714 night!
4715 -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
4716 %
4717 God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh.
4718 %
4719 God is a polytheist.
4720 %
4721 God is Dead
4722 -- Nietzsche
4723 Nietzsche is Dead
4724 -- God
4725 Nietzsche is God
4726 -- The Dead
4727 %
4728 God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's
4729 %
4730 God is real, unless declared integer.
4731 %
4732 God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the
4733 elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying
4734 other things.
4735 -- Pablo Picasso
4736 %
4737 God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.
4738 -- Alfred Jarry
4739 %
4740 God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place.
4741 %
4742 God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man.
4743 %
4744 God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
4745 -- Mark Twain
4746 %
4747 God made the integers; all else is the work of Man.
4748 -- Kronecker
4749 %
4750 God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh.
4751 %
4752 God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean.
4753 -- Albert Einstein
4754 %
4755 God must love the Common Man; He made so many of them.
4756 %
4757 God rest ye CS students now,
4758 Let nothing you dismay.
4759 The VAX is down and won't be up,
4760 Until the first of May.
4761 The program that was due this morn,
4762 Won't be postponed, they say.
4763
4764 Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
4765 Comfort and joy,
4766 Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
4767
4768 The bearings on the drum are gone,
4769 The disk is wobbling, too.
4770 We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol
4771 Can't tell false from true.
4772 And now we find that we can't get
4773 At Berkeley's 4.2.
4774
4775 (chorus)
4776 %
4777 Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to
4778 school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a
4779 person a car.
4780 %
4781 Gold, n.:
4782 A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It
4783 is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who
4784 immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold
4785 hasn't done anything to them.
4786 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
4787 %
4788 Goldenstern's Rules:
4789 (1) Always hire a rich attorney
4790 (2) Never buy from a rich salesman.
4791 %
4792 Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad
4793 example.
4794 -- La Rouchefoucauld
4795 %
4796 Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall.
4797 %
4798 Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase.
4799 %
4800 Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school.
4801 %
4802 Good day to let down old friends who need help.
4803 %
4804 Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.
4805 %
4806 Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance.
4807 %
4808 Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day.
4809 %
4810 Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's
4811 new lover.
4812 %
4813 "Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored."
4814 -- George Saunders' dying words
4815 %
4816 Gordon's first law:
4817 If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing
4818 well.
4819 %
4820 "Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with
4821 time travel, you never can tell."
4822 -- Doctor Who "Androids of Tara"
4823 %
4824 Got Mole problems?
4825 Call Avogardo 6.02 x 10^23
4826 %
4827 Goto, n.:
4828 A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers
4829 to complain about unstructured programmers.
4830 -- Ray Simard
4831 %
4832 Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage.
4833 -- John Updike, "Couples"
4834 %
4835 Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are
4836 different lies.
4837 %
4838 Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know
4839 any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he
4840 doesn't know much.
4841 -- Will Rogers
4842 %
4843 Grabel's Law:
4844 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2.
4845 %
4846 Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture.
4847 %
4848 Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture.
4849 %
4850 Grandpa Charnock's Law:
4851 You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
4852 %
4853 Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks.
4854 %
4855 Gray's Law of Programming:
4856 `_n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same
4857 time as `_n' tasks.
4858
4859 Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law:
4860 `_n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as `_n' trivial tasks.
4861 %
4862 Great minds run in great circles.
4863 %
4864 GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY #21 -- July 30, 1917
4865
4866 On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then-
4867 Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought them
4868 off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought I
4869 wouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from his
4870 mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs in a
4871 tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service men
4872 stood lookout.
4873 %
4874 Green light in a.m. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic
4875 tickets.
4876 %
4877 Greener's Law:
4878 Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.
4879 %
4880 Grelb's Reminder:
4881 Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above
4882 average drivers.
4883 %
4884 "Grub first, then ethics."
4885 -- Bertolt Brecht
4886 %
4887 Gurmlish, n.:
4888 The red warning flag at the top of a club sandwich which
4889 prevents the person from biting into it and puncturing the roof of his
4890 mouth.
4891 -- Rich Hall & Friends, "Sniglets"
4892 %
4893 Gyroscope, n.:
4894 A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also
4895 free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to each
4896 other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two
4897 mutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to the
4898 other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus
4899 offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any
4900 torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin.
4901 -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary
4902 %
4903 H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L.
4904 Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude.
4905 -- Maxwell Bodenheim
4906 %
4907 H. L. Mencken's Law:
4908 Those who can -- do.
4909 Those who can't -- teach.
4910
4911 Martin's Extension:
4912 Those who cannot teach -- administrate.
4913 %
4914 H: If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you,
4915 Slice him up before he slays you.
4916 Nothing makes you look a slob
4917 Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB).
4918 -- The Roguelet's ABC
4919 %
4920 Hacker's Law:
4921 The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a
4922 nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.
4923 %
4924 Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge.
4925 %
4926 ... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror,
4927 and you would not have been informed.
4928 %
4929 Hail to the sun god
4930 He sure is a fun god
4931 Ra! Ra! Ra!
4932 %
4933 Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big
4934 enough majority in any town?
4935 -- Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn"
4936 %
4937 Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.)
4938 %
4939 Half-done:
4940 This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still
4941 crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference
4942 between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like
4943 the difference between life and death.
4944 You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill
4945 there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the
4946 airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough
4947 Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on
4948 Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk
4949 about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the
4950 man, "Let me have a nice half-done."
4951 Worth the trouble, wasn't it?
4952 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
4953 %
4954 Hall's Laws of Politics:
4955 (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending.
4956 (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something
4957 fixed.
4958 (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend
4959 military spending, and conservatives social spending in
4960 their own districts).
4961 %
4962 Hand, n.:
4963 A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and
4964 commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
4965 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
4966 %
4967 Hanlon's Razor:
4968 Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
4969 stupidity.
4970 %
4971 Hanson's Treatment of Time:
4972 There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days
4973 before Saturday.
4974 %
4975 Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.
4976 -- Ogden Nash
4977 %
4978 Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
4979 -- Oscar Levant
4980 %
4981 Happiness, n.:
4982 An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of
4983 another.
4984 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
4985 %
4986 Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances?
4987 %
4988 Hardware, n.:
4989 The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
4990 %
4991 Hark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender. You stand
4992 convicted of sickness, hunger, wretchedness, and want.
4993 -- Tobias Smollet
4994 %
4995 Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark
4996 The Duke is fond of kittens
4997 He likes to take their insides out
4998 And use them for his mittens
4999 From "The Thirteen Clocks"
5000 %
5001 Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
5002 Advertising wondrous things.
5003 -- Tom Lehrer
5004 %
5005 Harris's Lament:
5006 All the good ones are taken.
5007 %
5008 Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab:
5009 Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment
5010 ruined.
5011 %
5012 Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he
5013 makes us all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean
5014 famous for its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses
5015 probably stirs romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you
5016 have never met any wild horses in person. In person, they are like
5017 enormous hooved rats. They amble up to your camp site, and their
5018 attitude is: "We're wild horses. We're going to eat your food, knock
5019 down your tent and poop on your shoes. We're protected by federal law,
5020 just like Richard Nixon."
5021 -- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob"
5022 %
5023 Hartley's First Law:
5024 You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float
5025 on his back, you've got something.
5026 %
5027 Hartley's Second Law:
5028 Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
5029 %
5030 Harvard Law:
5031 Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure,
5032 temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will
5033 do as it damn well pleases.
5034 %
5035 "Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?"
5036 "Yes, I don't have one."
5037 "Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..."
5038 -- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372
5039 %
5040 Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are
5041 typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter
5042 keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use
5043 of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is
5044 not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears.
5045 %
5046 Has your family tried 'em?
5047
5048 POWDERMILK BISCUITS
5049
5050 Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious!
5051
5052 They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons the
5053 strength to get up and do what needs to be done.
5054
5055 POWDERMILK BISCUITS
5056
5057 Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of the
5058 biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark stains
5059 that indicate freshness.
5060 %
5061 Hatred, n.:
5062 A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's
5063 superiority.
5064 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5065 %
5066 Have an adequate day.
5067 %
5068 Have an adequate day.
5069 %
5070 Have people realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is
5071 to defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a
5072 non-cynical, or even an informative cookie?
5073
5074 Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This
5075 still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or
5076 only serves to blunt the warning signs.
5077
5078 Long live the revolution!
5079 Have a nice day.
5080 %
5081 Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell
5082 you, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the time
5083 for play?
5084 %
5085 Have you ever wondered what makes Californians so calm? Besides drugs,
5086 I mean. The answer is hot tubs. A hot tub is a redwood container
5087 filled with water that you sit in naked with members of the opposite
5088 sex, none of whom is necessarily your spouse. After a few hours in
5089 their hot tubs, Californians don't give a damn about earthquakes or
5090 mass murderers. They don't give a damn about anything , which is why
5091 they are able to produce "Laverne and Shirley" week after week.
5092 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
5093 %
5094 "Have you lived here all your life?"
5095 "Oh, twice that long."
5096 %
5097 Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a
5098 crack in your sidewalk?
5099 %
5100 Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline
5101 sharply the minute they start waving guns around?
5102 -- Dr. Who
5103 %
5104 Have you reconsidered a computer career?
5105 %
5106 "He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental
5107 effort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable
5108 perversion."
5109 -- Mick Farren, "When Gravity Fails"
5110 %
5111 "He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions"
5112 %
5113 He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation
5114 perfectly delightful.
5115 -- Sydney Smith
5116 %
5117 He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and
5118 heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope
5119 of ever behaving "normally."
5120 -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72"
5121 %
5122 He hadn't a single redeeming vice.
5123 -- Oscar Wilde
5124 %
5125 "He is now rising from affluence to poverty."
5126 -- Mark Twain
5127 %
5128 He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered.
5129 %
5130 He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace.
5131 -- John Mason Brown, drama critic
5132 %
5133 He thought he saw an albatross
5134 That fluttered 'round the lamp.
5135 He looked again and saw it was
5136 A penny postage stamp.
5137 "You'd best be getting home," he said,
5138 "The nights are rather damp."
5139 %
5140 He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
5141 -- Jonathon Swift
5142 %
5143 "He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him
5144 insufferable."
5145 %
5146 "He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both
5147 eyes ..."
5148 %
5149 He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry
5150 attacks democracy itself.
5151 -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS
5152 %
5153 He who Laughs, Lasts.
5154 %
5155 "He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ..."
5156 %
5157 He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be
5158 there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter.
5159 %
5160 "He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..."
5161 %
5162 HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science.
5163 SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their ___OWN brains.
5164 -- Walt Kelley
5165 %
5166 Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
5167 %
5168 Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
5169 of nothing.
5170 -- Redd Foxx
5171 %
5172 Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
5173 of nothing.
5174 -- Redd Foxx
5175 %
5176 Heaven, n.:
5177 A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of
5178 their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you
5179 expound your own.
5180 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5181 %
5182 Heavy, adj.:
5183 Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.
5184 %
5185 "Heisenberg may have slept here"
5186 %
5187 Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
5188 -- Milton Friedman
5189 %
5190 Heller's Law:
5191 The first myth of management is that it exists.
5192
5193 Johnson's Corollary:
5194 Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the
5195 organization.
5196 %
5197 "Hello," he lied.
5198 -- Don Carpenter quoting a Hollywood agent
5199 %
5200 Help a swallow land at Capistrano.
5201 %
5202 Help fight continental drift.
5203 %
5204 Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file!
5205 %
5206 Help stamp out and abolish redundancy.
5207 %
5208 Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70!
5209 %
5210 HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN!
5211 -- E. E. CUMMINGS
5212 %
5213 Her locks an ancient lady gave
5214 Her loving husband's life to save;
5215 And men -- they honored so the dame --
5216 Upon some stars bestowed her name.
5217
5218 But to our modern married fair,
5219 Who'd give their lords to save their hair,
5220 No stellar recognition's given.
5221 There are not stars enough in heaven.
5222 %
5223 "Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from
5224 Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..."
5225 %
5226 Here I sit, broken-hearted,
5227 All logged in, but work unstarted.
5228 First net.this and net.that,
5229 And a hot buttered bun for net.fat.
5230
5231 The boss comes by, and I play the game,
5232 Then I turn back to net.flame.
5233 Is there a cure (I need your views),
5234 For someone trapped in net.news?
5235
5236 I need your help, I say 'tween sobs,
5237 'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs.
5238 %
5239 Here in my heart, I am Helen;
5240 I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
5241 I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"el;
5242 I'm Salome, moon of the East.
5243
5244 Here in my soul I am Sappho;
5245 Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
5246 In me R'ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
5247 With Dido, and Eve, and poor nell.
5248
5249 I'm all of the glamorous ladies
5250 At whose beckoning history shook.
5251 But you are a man, and see only my pan,
5252 So I stay at home with a book.
5253 -- Dorothy Parker
5254 %
5255 Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical
5256 lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach
5257 your hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings.
5258 Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in
5259 pain? This teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force,
5260 but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an
5261 important electrical lesson.
5262
5263 It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed
5264 your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small
5265 objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will
5266 attract dirt. The electrons travel through your bloodstream and
5267 collect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your
5268 friend's filling, then travels down to his feet and back into the
5269 carpet, thus completing the circuit.
5270
5271 Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without
5272 touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your
5273 finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you
5274 have carpeting.
5275 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
5276 %
5277 Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the
5278 month. According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people
5279 are experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China.
5280 The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either
5281 (depending on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax
5282 tadpole".
5283 Bite the wax tadpole.
5284 There is a sort of rough justice, is there not?
5285 The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's
5286 hard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to
5287 bite a wax tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad,
5288 but broad satiric vistas do not open up.
5289 -- John Carrol, San Francisco Chronicle
5290 %
5291 "Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like
5292 `Psychic Wins Lottery'?"
5293 -- Jay Leno
5294 %
5295 Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs,
5296 then they'd be algorithms.
5297 %
5298 "Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!"
5299 -- W. C. Fields
5300 %
5301 Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person
5302 reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes,
5303 nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home.
5304 %
5305 "Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet.
5306 As you can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of
5307 equal height on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney.
5308 Do you have a car or a job? Do you ever walk around? If so, you
5309 probably have the makings of an excellent legal case. Although of
5310 course every case is different, I would definitely say that based on my
5311 experience and training, there's no reason why you shouldn't come out
5312 of this thing with at least a cabin cruiser.
5313
5314 "Remember, at the Preston A. Mantis Consumers Retail Law Outlet, our
5315 motto is: 'It is very difficult to disprove certain kinds of pain.'"
5316 -- Dave Barry, "Pain and Suffering"
5317 %
5318 Hier liegt ein Mann ganz obnegleich;
5319 Im Leibe dick, an Suden reich.
5320 Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws
5321 Weil es uns dunkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head;
5322 We buried him today because
5323 As far as we can tell, he's dead.
5324 -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty
5325 Sue Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher;
5326 "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter
5327 Schickele
5328 %
5329 Higgeldy Piggeldy,
5330 Hamlet of Elsinore
5331 Ruffled the critics by
5332 Dropping this bomb:
5333 "Phooey on Freud and his
5334 Psychoanalysis --
5335 Oedipus, Shmoedipus,
5336 I just love Mom."
5337 %
5338 Hindsight is an exact science.
5339 %
5340 Hippogriff, n.:
5341 An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin.
5342 The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle.
5343 The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which
5344 is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full
5345 of surprises.
5346 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5347 %
5348 Hire the morally handicapped.
5349 %
5350 "His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had
5351 money, he went to Southern California."
5352 %
5353 "His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice"
5354 -- Foghorn Leghorn
5355 %
5356 "His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier."
5357 %
5358 History is curious stuff
5359 You'd think by now we had enough
5360 Yet the fact remains I fear
5361 They make more of it every year.
5362 %
5363 History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history.
5364 %
5365 History, n.:
5366 Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we
5367 learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from
5368 what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long
5369 view.
5370 -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"
5371 %
5372 Hlade's Law:
5373 If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they
5374 will find an easier way to do it.
5375 %
5376 Hoare's Law of Large Problems:
5377 Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get
5378 out.
5379 %
5380 Hofstadter's Law:
5381 It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take
5382 Hofstadter's Law into account.
5383 %
5384 Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it.
5385 -- Rex Reed
5386 %
5387 Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's
5388 willing to pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop
5389 for lumber, hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say
5390 "shop for", as opposed to "obtain". This is the major drawback of home
5391 centers: they are always out of everything except artificial Christmas
5392 trees. The home center employees have no time to reorder merchandise
5393 because they are too busy applying little price stickers to every
5394 object -- every board, washer, nail and screw -- in the entire store ...
5395 Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the
5396 broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has
5397 a replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the
5398 inside of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the
5399 same way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at
5400 an electronic calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of
5401 these sometime around the middle of next week".
5402 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
5403 %
5404 Home of Doberman Propulsion Laboratories:
5405 The ultimate in watchdog weaponry.
5406 -- Chris Shaw
5407 %
5408 "Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense"
5409 %
5410 Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people.
5411 -- F. M. Hubbard
5412 %
5413 Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..."
5414 %
5415 Honk if you love peace and quiet.
5416 %
5417 Honorable, adj.:
5418 Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative
5419 bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the
5420 honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."
5421 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5422 %
5423 Horngren's Observation:
5424 Among economists, the real world is often a special case.
5425 %
5426 Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on
5427 people.
5428 -- W. C. Fields
5429 %
5430 Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa.
5431 %
5432 "Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed."
5433 -- Neil Armstrong
5434 %
5435 How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
5436 %
5437 How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers?
5438 %
5439 How come wrong numbers are never busy?
5440 %
5441 "How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows."
5442 %
5443 How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?
5444 -- Elliot, "E.T."
5445 %
5446 How doth the little crocodile
5447 Improve his shining tail,
5448 And pour the waters of the Nile
5449 On every golden scale!
5450
5451 How cheerfully he seems to grin,
5452 How neatly spreads his claws,
5453 And welcomes little fishes in,
5454 With gently smiling jaws!
5455 -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"
5456 %
5457 How doth the VAX's C compiler
5458 Improve its object code.
5459 And even as we speak does it
5460 Increase the system load.
5461
5462 How patiently it seems to run
5463 And spit out error flags,
5464 While users, with frustration, all
5465 Tear their clothes to rags.
5466 %
5467 How doth the VAX's C-compiler
5468 Improve its object code.
5469 And even as we speak does it
5470 Increase the system load.
5471
5472 How patiently it seems to run
5473 And spit out error flags,
5474 While users, with frustration, all
5475 Tear all their clothes to rags.
5476 %
5477 How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're
5478 on.
5479 %
5480 How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
5481 None: "We'll fix it in software."
5482
5483 How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
5484 None: "We'll document it in the manual."
5485
5486 How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb?
5487 None: "The user can work it out."
5488 %
5489 "How many hors d'oeuvres you are allowed to take off a tray being
5490 carried by a waiter at a nice party?"
5491
5492 Two, but there are ways around it, depending on the style of the hors
5493 d'oeuvre. If they're those little pastry things where you can't tell
5494 what's inside, you take one, bite off about two-thirds of it, then
5495 say: "This is cheese! I hate cheese!" Then you put the rest of it
5496 back on the tray and bite another one and go, "Darn it! Another
5497 cheese!" and so on.
5498 -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
5499 %
5500 How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are
5501 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand,
5502 who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a
5503 nanocentury.
5504 -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs
5505 %
5506 How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to
5507 Dayton?
5508 -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey
5509 %
5510 How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
5511 %
5512 How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
5513 %
5514 HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
5515 #1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces.
5516 %
5517 HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
5518 #15 Your pet rock snaps at you.
5519 %
5520 HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
5521
5522 #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of
5523 you.
5524 %
5525 Howe's Law:
5526 Everyone has a scheme that will not work.
5527 %
5528 However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional
5529 manner ... sulking and nausea.
5530 -- Tom K. Ryan
5531 %
5532 HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill.,
5533 motion that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate
5534 amendment making changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits.
5535 The Senate amendment was an amendment to the House amendment to the
5536 Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the
5537 bill. The original Senate amendment was the conference agreement on
5538 the bill. Agreed to.
5539 -- Albuquerque Journal
5540 %
5541 Hug O' War
5542
5543 I will not play at tug o' war.
5544 I'd rather play at hug o' war,
5545 Where everyone hugs
5546 Instead of tugs,
5547 Where everyone giggles
5548 And rolls on the rug,
5549 Where everyone kisses,
5550 And everyone grins,
5551 And everyone cuddles,
5552 And everyone wins.
5553 -- Shel Silverstein
5554 %
5555 Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.
5556 %
5557 Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in
5558 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an
5559 operating table to prevent his interference, he placed a uretheral
5560 catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of
5561 his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took
5562 the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the
5563 Nobel Prize.
5564 %
5565 Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs.
5566 %
5567 "Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse."
5568 -- William Gilbert
5569 %
5570 Hurewitz's Memory Principle:
5571 The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional
5572 to ..... to ........ uh ..............
5573 %
5574 I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a
5575 professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any
5576 other minority viewpoint -- no matter how distasteful to the majority.
5577 -- Richard M. Nixon
5578
5579 What are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism?
5580 -- Richard M. Nixon
5581 %
5582 "I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder
5583 have included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products.
5584 This technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's
5585 reign. My carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go
5586 by some more."
5587 -- timw (a] zeb.USWest.COM
5588 %
5589 I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work.
5590 %
5591 "I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!"
5592 -- Paul McCracken
5593 %
5594 "I am not now, and never have been, a girlfriend of Henry Kissinger."
5595 -- Gloria Steinem
5596 %
5597 I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party.
5598 -- Dennis Ritchie
5599 %
5600 "I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it."
5601 -- English Professor
5602 %
5603 "I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the
5604 great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
5605 -- Winston Churchill
5606 %
5607 "I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone
5608 has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top."
5609 -- English Professor, Ohio University
5610 %
5611 I am so optimistic about beef prices that I've just leased a pot roast
5612 with an option to buy.
5613 %
5614 "I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater."
5615 %
5616 "I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person,
5617 of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell
5618 you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial
5619 atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something
5620 inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering."
5621 -- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado", Gilbert & Sullivan
5622 %
5623 "I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of
5624 the sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for
5625 you are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway."
5626 -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy,
5627 University of Tennessee at Knoxville
5628 %
5629 "I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an
5630 argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and
5631 steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect,
5632 they don't even invite me."
5633 -- Dave Barry
5634 %
5635 'I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean."
5636 -- G. K. Chesterton
5637 %
5638 "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."
5639 -- Will Rogers
5640 %
5641 "I bet the human brain is a kludge."
5642 -- Marvin Minsky
5643 %
5644 I brake for chezlogs!
5645 %
5646 I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up.
5647 -- Biff Barf
5648 %
5649 I can feel for her because, although I have never been an Alaskan
5650 prostitute dancing on the bar in a spangled dress, I still get very
5651 bored with washing and ironing and dishwashing and cooking day after
5652 relentless day.
5653 -- Betty MacDonald
5654 %
5655 I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
5656 %
5657 "I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and
5658 25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be
5659 true."
5660 -- Harry Truman
5661 %
5662 "I can resist anything but temptation."
5663 %
5664 "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do."
5665 -- Joe Walsh
5666 %
5667 "I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling."
5668 -- Florence Henderson
5669 %
5670 I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can
5671 understand it.
5672 -- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
5673 %
5674 I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a
5675 novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.
5676 -- Fred Allen
5677 %
5678 "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."
5679 -- Lillian Hellman
5680 %
5681 I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rate
5682 of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ...
5683 -- F. H. Wales (1936)
5684 %
5685 I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar.
5686
5687 What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good
5688 grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause
5689 of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the
5690 United States would have lost World War II."
5691 -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar"
5692 %
5693 "I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frito Bugger in a
5694 quavering voice.
5695 "No," said GoodGulf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, of
5696 course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which
5697 I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in
5698 Elven-lore:
5699
5700 "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves,
5701 Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves.
5702 Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop,
5703 This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop.
5704 The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring.
5705 The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing.
5706 If broken or busted, it cannot be remade.
5707 If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)."
5708 -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
5709 %
5710 " I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights
5711 instead! Now when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is
5712 standing still ..."
5713 -- Steven Wright
5714 %
5715 I could dance till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather
5716 dance with the cows till you come home.
5717 -- Groucho Marx
5718 %
5719 "I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps
5720 the time I found out that M&Ms really *do* melt in your hand ..."
5721 -- Peter Oakley
5722 %
5723 "I didn't know it was impossible when I did it."
5724 %
5725 I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The
5726 curtain was up.
5727 %
5728 I disapprove of the F-word, not because it's dirty, but because
5729 we use it as a substitute for thoughtful insults, and it frequently
5730 leads to violence. What we ought to do, when we anger each other, say,
5731 in traffic, is exchange phone numbers, so that later on, when we've had
5732 time to think of witty and learned insults or look them up in the
5733 library, we could call each other up:
5734
5735 You: Hello? Bob?
5736 Bob: Yes?
5737 You: This is Ed. Remember? The person whose parking space you
5738 took last Thursday? Outside of Sears?
5739 Bob: Oh yes! Sure! How are you, Ed?
5740 You: Fine, thanks. Listen, Bob, the reason I'm calling is:
5741 "Madam, you may be drunk, but I am ugly, and ..." No, wait.
5742 I mean: "you may be ugly, but I am Winston Churchill
5743 and ..." No, wait. (Sound of reference book thudding onto
5744 the floor.) S-word. Excuse me. Look, Bob, I'm going to
5745 have to get back to you.
5746 Bob: Fine.
5747 -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
5748 %
5749 I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an
5750 exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to
5751 minds entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary
5752 accountants fail to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a
5753 mind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the
5754 bottom up, and then again from the top down, the result is always
5755 different.
5756 -- Mrs. La Touche (19th cent.)
5757 %
5758 "I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them."
5759 -- Isaac Asimov
5760 %
5761 "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
5762 with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use."
5763 -- Galileo Galilei
5764 %
5765 "I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should."
5766 -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5767 %
5768 "I don't believe in astrology. But then I'm an Aquarius, and Aquarians
5769 don't believe in astrology."
5770 -- James R. F. Quirk
5771 %
5772 I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just
5773 a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more
5774 numbers!!
5775 %
5776 I don't care for the Sugar Smacks commercial. I don't like the idea of
5777 a frog jumping on my Breakfast.
5778 -- Lowell, Chicago Reader 10/15/82
5779 %
5780 "I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the
5781 nominating"
5782 -- Boss Tweed
5783 %
5784 "I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem."
5785 -- Ashleigh Brilliant
5786 %
5787 "I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of
5788 people waiting to abuse me."
5789 -- Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters"
5790 %
5791 I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
5792 -- Elvis Presley
5793 %
5794 "I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."
5795 -- Elvis Presley
5796 %
5797 "I don't know what you mean by `glory,'" Alice said
5798 Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't --
5799 till I tell you. I meant `there's a nice knock-down argument for
5800 you!'"
5801 "But glory doesn't mean `a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice
5802 objected.
5803 "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful
5804 tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor
5805 less."
5806 "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean
5807 so many different things."
5808 "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--
5809 that's all."
5810 -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass"
5811 %
5812 "I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd
5813 eat it, and I just hate it."
5814 -- Clarence Darrow
5815 %
5816 "I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path."
5817 -- Ronald Mabbitt
5818 %
5819 I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the
5820 streets and frighten the horses.
5821 -- Victor Hugo
5822 %
5823 "I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!?"
5824 %
5825 "I don't think so," said Ren'e Descartes. Just then, he vanished.
5826 %
5827 "I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the other
5828 hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out."
5829 %
5830 I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that
5831 the Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress is
5832 thinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientists
5833 broadcast signals to alien beings. This would be a large mistake.
5834 Alien beings have nuclear blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off
5835 their federal programs as if they were merely poor people ...
5836 -- Davy Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE
5837 COMING!"
5838 %
5839 I doubt, therefore I might be.
5840 %
5841 "I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business
5842 on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment
5843 he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual
5844 becoming, with a goal in front and not behind."
5845 -- George Bernard Shaw
5846 %
5847 "I drink to make other people interesting."
5848 -- George Jean Nathan
5849 %
5850 I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on,
5851 so I woke up from sheer boredom.
5852 %
5853 I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the
5854 accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For
5855 the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that
5856 can't be measured in monetary terms.
5857
5858 Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have
5859 that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by
5860 subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should
5861 someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly
5862 understand his long delay.
5863 %
5864 "I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words."
5865 %
5866 "I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very
5867 reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment."
5868 -- Gotama Buddha
5869 %
5870 I gave up Smoking, Drinking and Sex. It was the most *__________horrifying* 20
5871 minutes of my life!
5872 %
5873 'I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."
5874 -- Mae West
5875 %
5876 I get up each morning, gather my wits.
5877 Pick up the paper, read the obits.
5878 If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.
5879 So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
5880 %
5881 I get up each morning, gather my wits.
5882 Pick up the paper, read the obits.
5883 If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.
5884 So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
5885
5886 Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent?
5887 My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.
5888 But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin,
5889 And think of the places my get-up has been.
5890 -- Pete Seeger
5891 %
5892 "I had to censor everything my sons watched ... even on the Mary Tyler
5893 Moore show I heard the word 'damn'!"
5894 -- Mary Lou Bax
5895 %
5896 "I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense."
5897 %
5898 "I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means
5899 it's going to be up all night."
5900 -- Steven Wright
5901 %
5902 "I hate quotations."
5903 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
5904 %
5905 I have a simple philosophy:
5906
5907 Fill what's empty.
5908 Empty what's full.
5909 Scratch where it itches.
5910 -- A. R. Longworth
5911 %
5912 "I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it
5913 any time!"
5914 %
5915 "I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show,
5916 which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark'."
5917 -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
5918 %
5919 I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth
5920 and they never believe me.
5921 -- Camillo Di Cavour
5922 %
5923 I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it.
5924 -- Edgar Allan Poe
5925 %
5926 "I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. You
5927 sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an
5928 eight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. I
5929 have never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty of
5930 beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below. Westbrook Pegler, a
5931 guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. You can take that as more
5932 of an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry."
5933 -- President Harry S Truman
5934 %
5935 I have learned
5936 To spell hors d'oeuvres
5937 Which still grates on
5938 Some people's n'oeuvres.
5939 -- Warren Knox
5940 %
5941 "I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming
5942 that I have never made one."
5943 -- James Gordon Bennett
5944 %
5945 "I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to
5946 make it shorter."
5947 -- Blaise Pascal
5948 %
5949 I have more humility in my little finger than you have in your whole
5950 ____BODY!
5951 -- from "Cerebus" #82
5952 %
5953 "I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer."
5954 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
5955 %
5956 "I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."
5957 -- Oscar Wilde
5958 %
5959 "I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it
5960 scattered around the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you've seen it.
5961 -- Steven Wright
5962 %
5963 "I have to convince you, or at least snow you ..."
5964 -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435
5965 %
5966 "I have two very rare photographs: one is a picture of Houdini locking
5967 his keys in his car; the other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell
5968 beating up a child."
5969 -- Steven Wright
5970 %
5971 I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked
5972 at in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
5973 -- Poul Anderson
5974 %
5975 "I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere."
5976 %
5977 "I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it."
5978 %
5979 I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!!
5980 %
5981 "I just need enough to tide me over until I need more."
5982 -- Bill Hoest
5983 %
5984 I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once.
5985 %
5986 "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
5987 War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
5988 -- Albert Einstein
5989 %
5990 "I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!
5991 The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building."
5992 -- Charles Schulz
5993 %
5994 "I like being single. I'm always there when I need me."
5995 -- Art Leo
5996 %
5997 I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to
5998 promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want
5999 peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of
6000 the way and let them have it.
6001 -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
6002 %
6003 "I like work ... I can sit and watch it for hours."
6004 %
6005 "I like your game but we have to change the rules."
6006 %
6007 "I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what
6008 entertainment is all about ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils."
6009 -- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
6010 %
6011 "I love to eat them Smurfies
6012 Smurfies what I love to eat
6013 Bite they ugly heads off,
6014 Nibble on they bluish feet."
6015 %
6016 "I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, but
6017 don't let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age ... at the
6018 speed of light."
6019 -- Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk
6020 %
6021 "I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent."
6022 -- Ashleigh Brilliant
6023 %
6024 "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a
6025 week sometimes to make it up."
6026 -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"
6027 %
6028 I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts
6029 %
6030 "I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do
6031 was to go away."
6032 %
6033 "I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like."
6034 %
6035 I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.
6036 -- G. B. Shaw
6037 %
6038 "I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!"
6039 -- Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus)
6040 %
6041 "I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the
6042 kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled
6043 substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no
6044 restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we
6045 made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given
6046 powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative
6047 nerve disease."
6048 -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
6049 %
6050 I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow!
6051 %
6052 "I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral
6053 slob."
6054 -- William F. Buckley
6055 %
6056 "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of
6057 that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put
6058 more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it
6059 might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
6060 otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be
6061 otherwise.'"
6062 -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"
6063 %
6064 I realize that the MX missile is none of our concern. I realize that
6065 the whole point of living in a democracy is that we pay professional
6066 congresspersons to concern themselves with things like the MX missile
6067 so we can be free to concern ourselves with getting hold of the
6068 plumber.
6069
6070 But from time to time, I feel I must address major public issues such
6071 as this, because in a free and open society, where the very future of
6072 the world hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you never
6073 win large cash journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usually
6074 write about, such as nose-picking.
6075 -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against
6076 Political Fallout"
6077 %
6078 I really hate this damned machine
6079 I wish that they would sell it.
6080 It never does quite what I want
6081 But only what I tell it.
6082 %
6083 "I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person."
6084 %
6085 I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes. I hope
6086 they do get 'em lowered enough so people can afford to pay 'em.
6087 -- Will Rogers
6088 %
6089 I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
6090 I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
6091 Bernoulli would have been content to die
6092 Had he but known such _a-squared cos 2(phi)!
6093 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
6094 %
6095 I sent a letter to the fish,
6096 I told them, "This is what I wish."
6097 The little fishes of the sea,
6098 They sent an answer back to me.
6099 The little fishes' answer was
6100 "We cannot do it, sir, because ..."
6101 I sent a letter back to say
6102 It would be better to obey.
6103 But someone came to me and said
6104 "The little fishes are in bed."
6105 I said to him, and I said it plain
6106 "Then you must wake them up again."
6107 I said it very loud and clear,
6108 I went and shouted in his ear.
6109 But he was very stiff and proud,
6110 He said "You needn't shout so loud."
6111 And he was very proud and stiff,
6112 He said "I'll go and wake them if ..."
6113 I took a kettle from the shelf,
6114 I went to wake them up myself.
6115 But when I found the door was locked
6116 I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked,
6117 And when I found the door was shut,
6118 I tried to turn the handle, But ...
6119
6120 "Is that all?" asked Alice.
6121 "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye."
6122 -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass"
6123 %
6124 "I shot an arrow into the air, and it stuck."
6125 -- Graffito in Los Angeles
6126 %
6127 "... I should explain that I was wearing a black velvet cape that was
6128 supposed to make me look like the dashing, romantic Zorro but which
6129 actually made me look like a gigantic bat wearing glasses ..."
6130 -- Dave Barry, "The Wet Zorro Suit and Other Turning
6131 Points in l'Amour"
6132 %
6133 "I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full
6134 house and four people died."
6135 -- Steven Wright
6136 %
6137 "I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to
6138 see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."
6139 -- Shirley Temple
6140 %
6141 I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do
6142 too much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which
6143 direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After
6144 much trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot
6145 tub to face is up.
6146 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
6147 %
6148 "I think it is true for all _n. I was just playing it safe with _n >= 3
6149 because I couldn't remember the proof."
6150 -- Baker, Pure Math 351a
6151 %
6152 "I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it."
6153 %
6154 I think that all good, right thinking people in this country are sick
6155 and tired of being told that all good, right thinking people in this
6156 country are fed up with being told that all good, right thinking people
6157 in this country are fed up with being sick and tired. I'm certainly
6158 not, and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am.
6159 -- Monty Python
6160 %
6161 I think that I shall never see
6162 A billboard lovely as a tree.
6163 Perhaps, unless the billboards fall
6164 I'll never see a tree at all.
6165 -- Ogden Nash
6166 %
6167 I think that I shall never see
6168 A thing as lovely as a tree.
6169 But as you see the trees have gone
6170 They went this morning with the dawn.
6171 A logging firm from out of town
6172 Came and chopped the trees all down.
6173 But I will trick those dirty skunks
6174 And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'.
6175 %
6176 "I think the sky is blue because it's a shift from black through purple
6177 to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the
6178 farther we get into darkness, and there's a shifting of color of light
6179 into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from
6180 the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that's bouncing
6181 off this earth, uh, the darker it gets ... I think if you look at the
6182 color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on
6183 out, it's the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars
6184 singing, and that's one of the effects of the shifting of colors."
6185 -- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club
6186 %
6187 I think we can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown
6188 ... HEY! PAY ATTENTION WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU DAMMIT! I said I think
6189 we can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown today.
6190 When we take the time to be courteous to each other, we find that we
6191 are happier and less likely to engage in nuclear war. This point was
6192 driven home by the recent summit talks, where Nancy Reagan and Raisa
6193 Gorbachev, each of whose husband thinks the other's husband is vermin,
6194 were able to sit down at a high-level tea and engage in courteous
6195 conversation ...
6196 -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
6197 %
6198 "I thought you were trying to get into shape."
6199 "I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle."
6200 %
6201 " ... I told my doctor I got all the exercise I needed being a
6202 pallbearer for all my friends who run and do exercises!"
6203 -- Winston Churchill
6204 %
6205 I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in
6206 twenty minutes. It's about Russia.
6207 -- Woody Allen
6208 %
6209 I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure.
6210 %
6211 "I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance."
6212 %
6213 "I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure."
6214 %
6215 "I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my
6216 body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
6217 -- Emo Phillips
6218 %
6219 I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere
6220 near the place.
6221 -- Steven Wright
6222 %
6223 I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to
6224 animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for
6225 anything connected with society except that which makes the roads
6226 safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and old men and women
6227 warmer in the winter, and happier in the summer.
6228 -- Brendan Behan
6229 %
6230 "I want to buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch `St.
6231 Elsewhere', won't scream, `FORGET IT, BLANCHE ... IT'S TIME FOR "HEE
6232 HAW"!!'"
6233 -- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County"
6234 %
6235 I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know
6236 anything else ... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is
6237 a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows
6238 up.
6239 -- Will Rogers
6240 %
6241 "I was drunk last night, crawled home across the lawn. By accident I
6242 put the car key in the door lock. The house started up. So I figured
6243 what the hell, and drove it around the block a few times. I thought I
6244 should go park it in the middle of the freeway and yell at everyone to
6245 get off my driveway."
6246 -- Steven Wright
6247 %
6248 "I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I
6249 didn't know."
6250 -- Mark Twain
6251 %
6252 I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending
6253 their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to
6254 buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.
6255 -- Emile Henry Gauvreay
6256 %
6257 "I was playing poker the other night ... with Tarot cards. I got a full
6258 house and four people died."
6259 -- Steven Wright
6260 %
6261 "I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything
6262 specific".
6263 -- Steven Wright
6264 %
6265 I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained
6266 it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass
6267 stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold.
6268 I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be
6269 absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had
6270 developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case.
6271 Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's
6272 temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I
6273 chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to
6274 the point where it would not run at all.
6275 -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black
6276 Holes and the Fate of Stars"
6277 %
6278 "I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any
6279 questions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the
6280 speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen?
6281
6282 He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work
6283 for him then.
6284 -- Steven Wright
6285 %
6286 "I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in
6287 the shape of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't
6288 included."
6289 -- Steven Wright
6290 %
6291 "I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the
6292 statues that are in all the other museums."
6293 -- Steven Wright
6294 %
6295 I went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good that
6296 it took seven others to beat him!
6297 %
6298 "I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.
6299 There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't work."
6300 -- Gallagher
6301 %
6302 "I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've
6303 always worked for me."
6304 -- Hunter S. Thompson
6305 %
6306 "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."
6307 %
6308 "I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got
6309 to undo it."
6310 %
6311 "I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat."
6312 %
6313 "I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if I
6314 snore."
6315 %
6316 "I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in
6317 `Y.'"
6318 %
6319 "I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my
6320 blender."
6321 %
6322 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my
6323 garage door."
6324 %
6325 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from
6326 Julian to Gregorian."
6327 %
6328 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for
6329 static cling."
6330 %
6331 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered."
6332 %
6333 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my
6334 cottage cheese sculpture."
6335 %
6336 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving."
6337 %
6338 "I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karma
6339 transplant."
6340 %
6341 "I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night."
6342 %
6343 "I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV."
6344 %
6345 "I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never
6346 came back."
6347 %
6348 "I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to say
6349 tuned."
6350 %
6351 "I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that
6352 need worrying about."
6353 %
6354 "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
6355 %
6356 "I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over,
6357 carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old Virginia,
6358 I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun."
6359 -- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H
6360 %
6361 I'll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I'd
6362 listen to it!
6363 -- Tom Galloway with apologies to Voltaire
6364 %
6365 I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
6366 Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love;
6367 And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove
6368 And in our bound partition never part.
6369 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
6370 %
6371 "I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob.
6372 That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood."
6373 -- Daffy Duck, "Robin Hood Daffy", [1958, Chuck Jones]
6374 %
6375 "I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from
6376 man."
6377 %
6378 I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me!
6379 %
6380 "I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my
6381 sister."
6382 %
6383 I'm changing my name to Chrysler
6384 I'm going down to Washington, D.C.
6385 I'll tell some power broker
6386 What they did for Iacocca
6387 Will be perfectly acceptable to me!
6388 I'm changing my name to Chrysler,
6389 I'm heading for that great receiving line.
6390 When they hand a million grand out,
6391 I'll be standing with my hand out,
6392 Yessir, I'll get mine!
6393 -- Tom Paxton
6394 %
6395 I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did.
6396 %
6397 "I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did."
6398 %
6399 "I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to
6400 die in."
6401 -- George McGovern
6402 %
6403 I'm going to Boston to see my doctor. He's a very sick man.
6404 -- Fred Allen
6405 %
6406 I'm going to live forever, or die trying!
6407 -- Spider Robinson
6408 %
6409 ... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM of a
6410 KOSHER DELI!!
6411 %
6412 "I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here?"
6413 -- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate
6414 %
6415 i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be
6416 living apart.
6417 -- e. e. cummings
6418 %
6419 I'm N-ary the tree, I am,
6420 N-ary the tree, I am, I am.
6421 I'm getting traversed by the parser next door,
6422 She's traversed me seven times before.
6423 And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!)
6424 Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!)
6425 I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary.
6426 N-ary the tree I am, I am,
6427 N-ary the tree I am.
6428 %
6429 "I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am.
6430 It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get."
6431 %
6432 "I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday
6433 life."
6434 %
6435 I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is
6436 -- I could be just as proud for half the money.
6437 -- Arthur Godfrey
6438 %
6439 I'm rated PG-34!!
6440 %
6441 "I'm really enjoying not talking to you ... Let's not talk again ____REAL
6442 soon ..."
6443 %
6444 "I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it
6445 (your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage."
6446 -- English Professor, Providence College
6447 %
6448 I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
6449 I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
6450 In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
6451 I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
6452 -- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance"
6453 %
6454 "I'm willing to sacrifice anything for this cause, even other people's
6455 lives"
6456 %
6457 I've built a better model than the one at Data General
6458 For data bases vegetable, animal, and mineral
6459 My OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality;
6460 My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality.
6461 My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity,
6462 You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity;
6463 There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting;
6464 My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting.
6465
6466 I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point:
6467 There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point,
6468 Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral
6469 I've built a better model than the one at Data General.
6470
6471 -- Steve Levine, "A Computer Song" (To the tune of
6472 "Modern Major General", from "Pirates of Penzance",
6473 by Gilbert & Sullivan)
6474 %
6475 I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand.
6476 %
6477 I've found my niche. If you're wondering why I'm not there, there was
6478 this little hole in the bottom ...
6479 -- John Croll
6480 %
6481 I've given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.
6482 %
6483 I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
6484 -- Groucho Marx
6485 %
6486 I've known him as a man, as an adolescent and as a child -- sometimes
6487 on the same day.
6488 %
6489 "I've seen better heads on half a pint of beer."
6490 %
6491 "I've seen, I SAY, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer"
6492 -- Senator Claghorn
6493 %
6494 I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;
6495 And from that full meridian of my glory
6496 I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
6497 Like a bright exhalation in the evening
6498 And no man see me more.
6499 -- Shakespeare
6500 %
6501 IBM had a PL/I,
6502 Its syntax worse than JOSS;
6503 And everywhere this language went,
6504 It was a total loss.
6505 %
6506 Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box
6507 of candy weighing less than fifty pounds.
6508 %
6509 Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't like
6510 solitary confinement.
6511 %
6512 Idiot Box, n.:
6513 The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the
6514 stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves.
6515 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
6516 %
6517 Idiot, n.:
6518 A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human
6519 affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
6520 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
6521 %
6522 If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape
6523 at about 30 miles/second.
6524 -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming
6525 %
6526 If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law.
6527 -- Roy Santoro
6528 %
6529 "If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far."
6530 -- Paul White
6531 %
6532 If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensus
6533 forecast is a camel's behind.
6534 -- Edgar R. Fiedler
6535 %
6536 If A equals success, then the formula is _A = _X + _Y + _Z. _X is work. _Y
6537 is play. _Z is keep your mouth shut.
6538 -- Albert Einstein
6539 %
6540 If a group of _N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be _N-1
6541 passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager.
6542 -- T. Cheatham
6543 %
6544 If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four
6545 hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where
6546 it votes guilty.
6547 -- Joseph C. Goulden
6548 %
6549 If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake
6550 him up.
6551 %
6552 If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country.
6553 %
6554 If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have
6555 dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to
6556 maintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support it
6557 must drop. The law of gravity supercedes the law of golf.
6558 -- Donald A. Metz
6559 %
6560 "If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a good
6561 attitude. If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment to
6562 playing the game right. If it plays the game right, it will win --
6563 unless, of course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no manager
6564 can make goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry?"
6565 -- Sparky Anderson
6566 %
6567 If all be true that I do think,
6568 There be Five Reasons why one should Drink;
6569 Good friends, good wine, or being dry,
6570 Or lest we should be by-and-by,
6571 Or any other reason why.
6572 %
6573 If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular
6574 error.
6575 -- John Kenneth Galbraith
6576 %
6577 If all the Chinese simultaneously jumped into the Pacific off a 10 foot
6578 platform erected 10 feet off their coast, it would cause a tidal wave
6579 that would destroy everything in this country west of Nebraska.
6580 %
6581 If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.
6582 -- Paul Beatty
6583 %
6584 If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
6585 conclusion.
6586 -- William Baumol
6587 %
6588 If an S and an I and an O and a U
6589 With an X at the end spell Su;
6590 And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
6591 Pray what is a speller to do?
6592 Then, if also an S and an I and a G
6593 And an HED spell side,
6594 There's nothing much left for a speller to do
6595 But to go commit siouxeyesighed.
6596 -- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament"
6597 %
6598 If anything can go wrong, it will.
6599 %
6600 If at first you don't succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool.
6601 %
6602 If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
6603 %
6604 If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four
6605 tellers?
6606 %
6607 "If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?"
6608 %
6609 If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?
6610 %
6611 If everybody minded their own business, the world would go
6612 around a deal faster.
6613 -- The Duchess, "Through the Looking Glass"
6614 %
6615 If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane.
6616 %
6617 ... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with
6618 the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls
6619 asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ...
6620 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
6621 %
6622 If God didn't mean for us to juggle, tennis balls wouldn't come three
6623 to a can.
6624 %
6625 If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire.
6626 %
6627 If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet.
6628 %
6629 If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit
6630 Ears.
6631 %
6632 If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their
6633 Heads.
6634 %
6635 If God had meant for us to be in the Army, we would have been born with
6636 green, baggy skin.
6637 %
6638 If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.
6639 %
6640 If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to
6641 invent it.
6642 %
6643 If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger
6644 hands.
6645 %
6646 If God is dead, who will save the Queen?
6647 %
6648 If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions?
6649 %
6650 "If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows."
6651 -- Yiddish saying
6652 %
6653 If God wanted us to be brave, why did he give us legs?
6654 -- Marvin Kitman
6655 %
6656 "If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will be
6657 replaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET!"
6658 %
6659 If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive!
6660 -- Samuel Goldwyn
6661 %
6662 If I don't drive around the park,
6663 I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
6664 If I'm in bed each night by ten,
6665 I may get back my looks again.
6666 If I abstain from fun and such,
6667 I'll probably amount to much;
6668 But I shall stay the way I am,
6669 Because I do not give a damn.
6670 -- Dorothy Parker
6671 %
6672 If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture.
6673 %
6674 If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell, I'd sell the
6675 plantation and go home.
6676 -- Eugene P. Gallagher
6677 %
6678 If I had any humility I would be perfect.
6679 -- Ted Turner
6680 %
6681 "If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith."
6682 -- Albert Einstein
6683 %
6684 If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the
6685 shoulders of giants.
6686 -- Isaac Newton
6687
6688 In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
6689 with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
6690 -- Gerald Holton
6691
6692 If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing
6693 on my shoulders.
6694 -- Hal Abelson
6695
6696 In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.
6697 -- Brian K. Reid
6698 %
6699 If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction.
6700
6701 On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is
6702 also a psychological interaction.
6703
6704 The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so
6705 friendly.
6706
6707 The crucial point is if you can tell which is which.
6708 -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
6709 %
6710 If I traveled to the end of the rainbow
6711 As Dame Fortune did intend,
6712 Murphy would be there to tell me
6713 The pot's at the other end.
6714 -- Bert Whitney
6715 %
6716 If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?
6717 %
6718 If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune.
6719 %
6720 If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him.
6721 They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun
6722 of it.
6723 -- Thomas Carlyle
6724 %
6725 "If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they
6726 forgot to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll
6727 just think the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail.
6728 And if *fifty* pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty*
6729 pieces of mail get lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken!
6730 And if 1Gb of mail gets lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa is down and
6731 think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to
6732 receive Net Mail ..."
6733 -- Leith (Casey) Leedom
6734 %
6735 If life is a stage, I want some better lighting.
6736 %
6737 If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
6738 -- Tom Robbins
6739 %
6740 If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women
6741 you've got in the house.
6742 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
6743 %
6744 If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by
6745 the page number.
6746 %
6747 If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it.
6748 %
6749 "If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think
6750 little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and
6751 Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."
6752 -- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859)
6753 %
6754 If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants.
6755 -- A. Einstein.
6756 %
6757 If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit
6758 in my name at a Swiss bank.
6759 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
6760 %
6761 If only I could be respected without having to be respectable.
6762 %
6763 If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without
6764 having to accomplish anything.
6765 %
6766 If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad,
6767 he should see how bad it is with representation.
6768 %
6769 If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of
6770 arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the
6771 physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker
6772 entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.
6773 -- Vannevar Bush
6774 %
6775 If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied
6776 harder.
6777 -- Pope John Paul I
6778 %
6779 "If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem."
6780 -- C. Durance, Computer Science 234
6781 %
6782 If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would
6783 presumably flunk it.
6784 -- Stanley Garn
6785 %
6786 If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong.
6787 -- Norm Schryer
6788 %
6789 If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to
6790 get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude.
6791 See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving
6792 the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting
6793 that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The
6794 college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious
6795 and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to
6796 rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective.
6797 Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure
6798 interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by
6799 opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for
6800 himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for
6801 boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.
6802 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
6803 %
6804 "If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for
6805 me!"
6806 -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920)
6807 %
6808 If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances
6809 are 50-50 it will.
6810 %
6811 If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If
6812 the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the
6813 bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will
6814 exceed all expectations.
6815 -- Reverend Chichester
6816 %
6817 If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams.
6818 %
6819 If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that
6820 will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
6821 %
6822 If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?
6823 -- Art Hoppe
6824 %
6825 If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make
6826 something out of you.
6827 -- Muhammad Ali
6828 %
6829 If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it.
6830 %
6831 If this is timesharing, give me my share right now.
6832 %
6833 If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same?
6834 %
6835 If today is the first day of the rest of your life, what the hell was
6836 yesterday?
6837 %
6838 If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is
6839 doing the thinking.
6840 -- Lyndon Baines Johnson
6841 %
6842 If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
6843 -- Laurence J. Peter
6844 %
6845 "If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely"
6846 %
6847 "If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage."
6848 %
6849 If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel
6850 in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary
6851 qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted.
6852 -- Marguerite Emmons
6853 %
6854 If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it?
6855 -- Ann Edwards-Duff
6856 %
6857 "If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
6858 -- J. Paul Getty
6859 %
6860 If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.
6861 %
6862 If you can read this, you're too close.
6863 %
6864 If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything.
6865 %
6866 If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a
6867 call.
6868 %
6869 If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
6870 %
6871 If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
6872 -- Harry S Truman
6873 %
6874 If you didn't get caught, did you really do it?
6875 %
6876 If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.
6877 %
6878 If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours.
6879 -- Clarence Day
6880 %
6881 If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter.
6882 -- Freeman Dyson
6883 %
6884 "If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little
6885 Lavoris in the toilet."
6886 -- Jay Leno
6887 %
6888 If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to
6889 either of you for the rest of the day.
6890 %
6891 "If you ever want to get anywhere in politics, my boy, you're going to
6892 have to get a toehold in the public eye."
6893 %
6894 If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody
6895 will.
6896 %
6897 If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it
6898 will always do it.
6899 -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin
6900 %
6901 "If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is
6902 make the rubble bounce"
6903 -- Winston Churchill
6904 %
6905 If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous.
6906 %
6907 If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
6908 %
6909 "If you have to hate, hate gently"
6910 %
6911 If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to
6912 boot yourself in the posterior.
6913 -- A. J. Liebling
6914 %
6915 If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away.
6916 %
6917 If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.
6918 -- Graham Summer
6919 %
6920 If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few
6921 people die past the age of a hundred.
6922 -- George Burns
6923 %
6924 If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you
6925 really make them think they'll hate you.
6926 %
6927 If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
6928 -- Maslow
6929 %
6930 If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure
6931 can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly
6932 develop.
6933 %
6934 If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite
6935 you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
6936 -- Mark Twain
6937 %
6938 If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine,
6939 you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get
6940 ice, but no cup.
6941 %
6942 If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But
6943 this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is
6944 somehow enobled and none dare criticize it.
6945 %
6946 If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're
6947 the sucker.
6948 %
6949 If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair.
6950 %
6951 If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker,
6952 It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock.
6953 Or some joker who is slicker,
6954 Will trick you of your liquor,
6955 If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock.
6956 %
6957 If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
6958 -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
6959 %
6960 If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens
6961 tomorrow!
6962 %
6963 If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car
6964 payments.
6965 -- Earl Wilson
6966 %
6967 If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it.
6968 -- Arthur Kasspe
6969 %
6970 If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest
6971 shopping center in the world?
6972 -- Richard M. Nixon
6973 %
6974 If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest
6975 shopping center in the world?
6976 -- Richard Nixon
6977 %
6978 If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would
6979 be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call
6980 you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw
6981 another party next year.
6982
6983 What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up
6984 several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've
6985 been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to
6986 avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning
6987 parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from
6988 having another one ...
6989
6990 If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless
6991 your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas
6992 through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure
6993 that they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting
6994 someone, your job is to make sure it isn't you ...
6995 %
6996 If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid them
6997 end to end, they'd be a lot more comfortable.
6998 -- "Graffiti in the Big Ten"
6999 %
7000 "If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything."
7001 -- A. L.
7002 %
7003 If you want divine justice, die.
7004 -- Nick Seldon
7005 %
7006 If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people
7007 he gave it to.
7008 -- Dorthy Parker
7009 %
7010 If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the
7011 Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's
7012 statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington
7013 telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with
7014 titles beginning with the word "National".
7015 -- George Will
7016 %
7017 If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every
7018 word you say, talk in your sleep.
7019 %
7020 "If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some
7021 memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' it,
7022 even if they don't know what it means."
7023 -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party"
7024 %
7025 If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings -- including this one.
7026 %
7027 If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for
7028 tomorrow morning, sleep late.
7029 -- Henny Youngman
7030 %
7031 If you're happy, you're successful.
7032 %
7033 If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs
7034 around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace
7035 explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The
7036 "professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and
7037 deposits a large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend the
7038 better part of the week in your basement whacking objects at random
7039 with heavy wrenches, after which the "professional" returns and gives
7040 you a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run a
7041 successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.
7042 And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself.
7043 You figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. How
7044 difficult can it be?"
7045 Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible,
7046 which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying
7047 other people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up
7048 yourself for far less money. This article can help you.
7049 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
7050 %
7051 If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
7052 %
7053 If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory.
7054 -- Benjamin Disraeli
7055 %
7056 If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%?
7057 %
7058 "If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round
7059 it off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the
7060 universe?"
7061 %
7062 If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all.
7063 -- Ronald Reagan
7064 %
7065 Ignisecond, n.:
7066 The overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car
7067 door even as the brain is saying, "my keys are in there!"
7068 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
7069 %
7070 Il brilgue: les t^oves libricilleux
7071 Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave,
7072 Enm^im'es sont les gougebosquex,
7073 Et le m^omerade horgrave.
7074 -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass"
7075 %
7076 Iles's Law:
7077 There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directly
7078 at the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it.
7079 Neither will Iles.
7080 %
7081 Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the
7082 land He's trying to ignore.
7083 %
7084 Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
7085 -- Jules de Gaultier
7086 %
7087 "Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
7088 usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody
7089 thinks of complaining."
7090 -- Jeff Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal
7091 %
7092 Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has
7093 a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk
7094 storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on
7095 voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300.
7096 What's the first question that the computer community asks?
7097
7098 "Is it PC compatible?"
7099 %
7100 Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
7101 -- Jack Paar
7102 %
7103 Immortality -- a fate worse than death.
7104 -- Edgar A. Shoaff
7105 %
7106 Impartial, adj.:
7107 Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from
7108 espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two
7109 conflicting opinions.
7110 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7111 %
7112 Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the
7113 mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the
7114 Boss is reading it.
7115 %
7116 Impossible, adj.:
7117 (1) I wouldn't like it and when it happens I won't approve;
7118 (2) I can't be bothered; (3) God can't be bothered. Meaning (3) may
7119 perhaps be valid but the others are 101% whaledreck.
7120 -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"
7121 %
7122 In 1750 Issac Newton became discouraged when he fell up a flight of
7123 stairs.
7124 %
7125 In 1869 the waffle iron was invented for people who had wrinkled
7126 waffles.
7127 %
7128 In 1880 the French captured Detroit but gave it back ... they couldn't
7129 get parts.
7130 %
7131 In 1914, the first crossword puzzle was printed in a newspaper. The
7132 creator received $4000 down ... and $3000 across.
7133 %
7134 In 1915 pancake make-up was invented but most people still preferred
7135 syrup.
7136 %
7137 In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only
7138 we can't control when the five year period will begin.
7139 %
7140 In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi,
7141 junior, what are you up to?"
7142 "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the
7143 rabbit.
7144 "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!"
7145 "Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the
7146 rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied
7147 expression on his face.
7148 Comes along a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?"
7149 "I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits
7150 devour wolves."
7151 "Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?"
7152 "Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes
7153 out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw.
7154 Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody
7155 should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion sitting
7156 next to some bloody and furry remnants of the wolf and the fox.
7157
7158 The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important --
7159 it's your PhD advisor that really counts.
7160 %
7161 In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth"
7162 Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex.
7163 -- Frank Mankiewicz
7164 %
7165 In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus,
7166 "one when he was a boy and one when he was a man."
7167 -- Mark Twain
7168 %
7169 In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground
7170 with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call
7171 this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf.
7172 %
7173 In America today ... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become so
7174 sophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow. All
7175 those who think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where the
7176 devil gets her pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing up
7177 as a human sperm, please raise your hands. Thank you.
7178 -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
7179 %
7180 In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one
7181 of the risks he takes.
7182 -- Adlai Stevenson
7183 %
7184 In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own
7185 incompetency
7186 -- The Peter Principle
7187 %
7188 In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks)
7189 are to be treated as variables.
7190 %
7191 "In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of
7192 nations -- it's cold, half-French, and difficult to stir."
7193 -- Stuart Keate
7194 %
7195 In Blythe, California, a city ordinance declares that a person must own
7196 at least two cows before he can wear cowboy boots in public.
7197 %
7198 In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs.
7199 %
7200 In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools
7201 will be temporarily canceled.
7202 %
7203 In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and
7204 make it better.
7205 %
7206 In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle
7207 a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order
7208 to get her attention.
7209 %
7210 In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride
7211 in any motor vehicle.
7212 %
7213 "In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable."
7214 -- Winston Churchill, of Montgomery
7215 %
7216 In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door
7217 neighbor.
7218 %
7219 In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset.
7220 %
7221 In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last
7222 resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but
7223 inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
7224 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7225 %
7226 In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our
7227 programming languages.
7228 %
7229 In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on
7230 the sidewalks when a concert is on.
7231 %
7232 In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come
7233 into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish
7234 between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which
7235 will only make it mushy.
7236 -- Mark Twain
7237 %
7238 In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your
7239 pocket.
7240 %
7241 In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any
7242 pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while
7243 either flying or waiting to board a plane.
7244 %
7245 In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless
7246 there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red
7247 flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians.
7248 %
7249 In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as
7250 to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the
7251 speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00.
7252 %
7253 "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the
7254 universe."
7255 -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
7256 %
7257 In our civilization, and under our republican form of government,
7258 intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from
7259 the cares of office.
7260 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7261 %
7262 In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds
7263 and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane.
7264 %
7265 In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying
7266 of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public
7267 view."
7268 %
7269 In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
7270 Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
7271 Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
7272 We shall encounter, counting, face to face.
7273 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
7274 %
7275 In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that
7276 is over six feet in length.
7277 %
7278 In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way.
7279 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
7280 %
7281 "In short, _N is Richardian if, and only if, _N is not Richardian."
7282 %
7283 In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's.
7284 %
7285 In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a
7286 moving automobile.
7287 %
7288 [In the 60's] there was madness in any direction, at any hour ... You
7289 could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense
7290 that whatever we were doing was `right', that we were winning ...
7291
7292 And that, I think, was the handle -- the sense of inevitable victory
7293 over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we
7294 didn't need that. Our energy would simply `prevail'. There was no
7295 point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum;
7296 we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ....
7297
7298 So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in
7299 Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost
7300 ___see the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and
7301 rolled back.
7302 -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
7303 %
7304 In the beginning was the word.
7305 But by the time the second word was added to it,
7306 there was trouble.
7307 For with it came syntax ...
7308 -- John Simon
7309 %
7310 In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat
7311 hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am
7312 training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is the
7313 net wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any
7314 preconceptions of how to play." Minsky shut his eyes. "Why do you
7315 close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher. "So the room will be
7316 empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
7317 %
7318 In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in
7319 the proper order then why can't he?
7320 %
7321 In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful
7322 Dead.
7323 -- Egyptian Book of the Dead
7324 %
7325 In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
7326 -- Alan Perlis
7327 %
7328 In the olden days in England, you could be hung for stealing a sheep or
7329 a loaf of bread. However, if a sheep stole a loaf of bread and gave it
7330 to you, you would only be tried for receiving, a crime punishable by
7331 forty lashes with the cat or the dog, whichever was handy. If you
7332 stole a dog and were caught, you were punished with twelve rabbit
7333 punches, although it was hard to find rabbits big enough or strong
7334 enough to punch you.
7335 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
7336 %
7337 In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has
7338 shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the
7339 Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million
7340 three hundred thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years
7341 from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long.
7342 ... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such
7343 wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of
7344 fact.
7345 -- Mark Twain
7346 %
7347 In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to
7348 drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at
7349 discotheques.
7350 -- Art Linkletter
7351 %
7352 In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used to frequently take
7353 my advice.
7354 -- Winston Churchill
7355 %
7356 In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without
7357 the supervision of a licensed engineer.
7358 %
7359 In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse
7360 along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months.
7361 %
7362 Incumbent, n.:
7363 Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents.
7364 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7365 %
7366 ... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leaves
7367 smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is
7368 not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery.
7369 -- Stephen Crane
7370 %
7371 Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
7372 %
7373 Individualists unite!
7374 %
7375 Infancy, n.:
7376 The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven
7377 lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon
7378 afterward.
7379 -- Ambrose Bierce
7380 %
7381 Information Center, n.:
7382 A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is
7383 to tell you why you cannot have the information you require.
7384 %
7385 Ingrate, n.:
7386 A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of
7387 indigestion.
7388 %
7389 Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
7390 -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
7391 %
7392 Ink, n.:
7393 A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and
7394 water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote
7395 intellectual crime.
7396 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7397 %
7398 Innovation is hard to schedule.
7399 -- Dan Fylstra
7400 %
7401 Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.
7402 %
7403 Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the
7404 salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon.
7405 %
7406 Interpreter, n.:
7407 One who enables two persons of different languages to
7408 understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to
7409 the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
7410 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7411 %
7412 Intolerance is the last defense of the insecure.
7413 %
7414 INVENTORY
7415 Four be the things I am wiser to know:
7416 Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
7417
7418 Four be the things I'd been better without:
7419 Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
7420
7421 Three be the things I shall never attain:
7422 Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
7423
7424 Three be the things I shall have till I die:
7425 Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
7426 %
7427 Iron Law of Distribution:
7428 Them that has, gets.
7429 %
7430 "Irrationality is the square root of all evil"
7431 -- Douglas Hofstadter
7432 %
7433 Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is
7434 meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a
7435 soap bubble?
7436 %
7437 Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the
7438 beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get
7439 out, and such as are out wish to get in?
7440 -- Ralph Emerson
7441 %
7442 Is your job running? You'd better go catch it!
7443 %
7444 Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
7445 listen to weather forecasts and economists?
7446 -- Kelvin Throop III
7447 %
7448 Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune
7449 tellers take economists seriously?
7450 %
7451 Issawi's Laws of Progress:
7452
7453 The Course of Progress:
7454 Most things get steadily worse.
7455
7456 The Path of Progress:
7457 A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.
7458 %
7459 It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself working
7460 as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he found that he
7461 had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one he asked,
7462 "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They discussed
7463 Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second new arrival
7464 came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's IQ. The answer
7465 this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell me, how did the
7466 Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half an hour or so.
7467 To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the question, "What's
7468 your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", Einstein smiled and asked,
7469 "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?"
7470 %
7471 It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown
7472 came out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and
7473 applauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I
7474 think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the
7475 wits, who believe that it is a joke.
7476 %
7477 It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is
7478 thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have
7479 drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
7480 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7481 %
7482 It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself
7483 that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *____only* by amusing oneself that
7484 one can learn."
7485 -- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman
7486 %
7487 It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have
7488 been searching for evidence which could support this.
7489 -- Bertrand Russell
7490 %
7491 It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
7492 %
7493 It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to
7494 program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in
7495 organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be
7496 self-critical?
7497 -- Alan Perlis
7498 %
7499 It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of
7500 Urbana, Illinois.
7501 %
7502 It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your parents will
7503 not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselves
7504 and because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act like
7505 mature human beings ...
7506 -- Playboy, January 1983
7507 %
7508 It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a
7509 pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the
7510 sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color.
7511 -- Voltaire
7512 %
7513 It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what
7514 they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed
7515 that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so
7516 much -- the wheel, New York wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins
7517 had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But
7518 conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more
7519 intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.
7520
7521 Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending
7522 destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to
7523 alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were
7524 misinterpreted ...
7525 -- Douglas Admas "The Hitch-Hikers' Guide To The
7526 Galaxy"
7527 %
7528 It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be
7529 coming up it.
7530 -- Henry Allen
7531 %
7532 It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck?
7533 One in a million, perhaps.
7534 %
7535 It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark
7536 %
7537 It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three
7538 benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never
7539 to use either.
7540 -- Mark Twain
7541 %
7542 It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both
7543 incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by
7544 twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
7545 -- Rod Serling
7546 %
7547 "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is
7548 lightly greased."
7549 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
7550 %
7551 It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its
7552 proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community
7553 a better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to
7554 treat your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the
7555 focus of attention, the harder the task.
7556 -- Sydney J. Harris
7557 %
7558 It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice
7559 versa.
7560 %
7561 It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
7562 %
7563 It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct
7564 one.
7565 %
7566 It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because
7567 if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of
7568 people.
7569 -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
7570 %
7571 It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood
7572 Boulevard at one time.
7573 %
7574 It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia.
7575 %
7576 It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry
7577 a tune.
7578 -- Woody Allen
7579 %
7580 It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so
7581 ingenious.
7582 %
7583 It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not
7584 desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
7585 -- Woody Allen
7586 %
7587 It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our
7588 offense consists in doubting it.
7589 -- Justice Robert H. Jackson
7590 %
7591 It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the
7592 problem.
7593 %
7594 It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be
7595 privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to
7596 corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles.
7597 -- George Bernard Shaw
7598 %
7599 It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
7600 -- Gore Vidal
7601 %
7602 It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it's one
7603 damn thing over and over.
7604 -- Edna St. Vincent Millay
7605 %
7606 It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is?
7607 -- Elizabeth Carpenter
7608 %
7609 It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a
7610 pit.
7611 %
7612 It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that
7613 virginity could be a virtue.
7614 -- Voltaire
7615 %
7616 It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their
7617 dignity.
7618 %
7619 It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared
7620 to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.
7621 -- Havelock Ellis
7622 %
7623 It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to
7624 students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential
7625 programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of
7626 regeneration.
7627 -- Dijkstra
7628 %
7629 It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the
7630 lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as
7631 high as the eagle?
7632 %
7633 It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a
7634 statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more
7635 glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through
7636 which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the
7637 day, that is the highest of arts.
7638 -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live"
7639 %
7640 It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroad
7641 crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed
7642 until the other has gone.
7643 %
7644 It is the business of little minds to shrink.
7645 -- Carl Sandburg
7646 %
7647 It is the business of the future to be dangerous.
7648 -- Hawkwind
7649 %
7650 It is true that if your paperboy throws your paper into the bushes for
7651 five straight days it can be explained by Newton's Law of Gravity. But
7652 it takes Murphy's law to explain why it is happening to you.
7653 %
7654 It is very difficult to prophesy, especially when it pertains to the
7655 future.
7656 %
7657 It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out.
7658 %
7659 It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn't too
7660 good either if you speak when your head is empty.
7661 %
7662 It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a
7663 warning to others.
7664 %
7665 "It runs like _x, where _x is something unsavory"
7666 -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435
7667 %
7668 It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the
7669 flag.
7670 %
7671 It shall be unlawful for any suspicious person to be within the
7672 municipality.
7673 -- Local ordinance, Euclid Ohio
7674 %
7675 "It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
7676 but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous."
7677 -- Robert Benchly
7678 %
7679 It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead.
7680 %
7681 "It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set
7682 foot."
7683 %
7684 It was one of those perfect summer days -- the sun was shining, a
7685 breeze was blowing, the birds were singing, and the lawn mower was
7686 broken ...
7687 -- James Dent
7688 %
7689 "It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps
7690 I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I
7691 don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and
7692 the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual
7693 charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its
7694 novelty .... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but
7695 yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable
7696 man a lifetime."
7697 -- Thomas Aldrich
7698 %
7699 It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east
7700 laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. The
7701 thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle,
7702 nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying
7703 for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's.
7704 Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating
7705 under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting
7706 icepacks.
7707 -- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
7708 %
7709 It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more like
7710 the rose and the teeth were in the same glass.
7711 %
7712 It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on
7713 the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work.
7714 %
7715 It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human
7716 nature and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant
7717 examples.
7718 -- Charles Dickens
7719 %
7720 It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing
7721 warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or
7722 two things still safe to eat.
7723 -- Robert Fuoss
7724 %
7725 It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
7726 -- Andrew Jackson
7727 %
7728 "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone
7729 underwear."
7730 %
7731 It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.
7732 %
7733 "It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it."
7734 -- Steven Wright
7735 %
7736 "It's a summons."
7737 "What's a summons?"
7738 "It means summon's in trouble."
7739 -- Rocky and Bullwinkle
7740 %
7741 It's a very *__UN*lucky week in which to be took dead.
7742 -- Churchy La Femme
7743 %
7744 It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black.
7745 %
7746 "It's bad luck to be superstitious."
7747 -- Andrew W. Mathis
7748 %
7749 It's better to be wanted for murder that not to be wanted at all.
7750 -- Marty Winch
7751 %
7752 "It's easier said than done."
7753
7754 ... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than
7755 said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than
7756 said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than
7757 done".
7758 %
7759 It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
7760 %
7761 It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for
7762 being right.
7763 %
7764 "It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an
7765 hour!"
7766 -- Macy's
7767 %
7768 It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse.
7769 %
7770 It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
7771 is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
7772 isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
7773 -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News
7774 %
7775 It's just a jump to the left
7776 And then a step to the right.
7777 Put your hands on your hips
7778 And pull your knees in tight.
7779 But it's the pelvic thrust
7780 That really drives you insa-a-a-a-a-ane!
7781
7782 LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!
7783
7784 -- Rocky Horror Picture Show
7785 %
7786 "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
7787 -- Walt Disney
7788 %
7789 "It's Like This"
7790
7791 Even the samurai
7792 have teddy bears,
7793 and even the teddy bears
7794 get drunk.
7795 %
7796 It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong
7797 direction.
7798 %
7799 "It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name."
7800 %
7801 It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre.
7802 -- Sam Goldwyn
7803 %
7804 It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how
7805 to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair.
7806 -- George Burns
7807 %
7808 It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one.
7809 -- Phil White
7810 %
7811 "It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either."
7812 -- Kevin White, mayor of Boston
7813 %
7814 It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too.
7815 -- Alexander Korda
7816 %
7817 "It's not just a computer -- it's your ass."
7818 -- Cal Keegan
7819 %
7820 It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it's
7821 what you're taking for it...
7822 %
7823 It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off
7824 the ground.
7825 -- Daniel B. Luten
7826 %
7827 It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it
7828 happens.
7829 -- Woody Allen
7830 %
7831 It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips.
7832 -- Garfield
7833 %
7834 It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that
7835 English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many
7836 other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case.
7837 -- Sydney J. Harris
7838 %
7839 It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
7840 %
7841 It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
7842 %
7843 It's so stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the
7844 Devil when he is the only explanation of it.
7845 %
7846 It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which
7847 raises the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody
7848 not to.
7849 -- Franklin P. Jones
7850 %
7851 It's the thought, if any, that counts!
7852 %
7853 JACK AND THE BEANSTACK
7854 by Mark Isaak
7855
7856 Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL
7857 character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their
7858 hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices
7859 are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some
7860 BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it
7861 to him.
7862 So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path,
7863 he met the traveling salesman.
7864 "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman
7865 in high-level language.
7866 "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips
7867 and Apples," commented Jack.
7868 "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue
7869 there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now."
7870 Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when
7871 he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she
7872 started thrashing.
7873 "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these
7874 kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the
7875 window ...
7876 %
7877 Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government:
7878 No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the
7879 legislature is in session.
7880 %
7881 James Joyce -- an essentially private man who wished his total
7882 indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.
7883 -- Tom Stoppard
7884 %
7885 Jenkinson's Law:
7886 It won't work.
7887 %
7888 Jesus Saves,
7889 Moses Invests,
7890 But only Buddha pays Dividends.
7891 %
7892 Job Placement, n.:
7893 Telling your boss what he can do with your job.
7894 %
7895 Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes!
7896 %
7897 Johnson's First Law:
7898 When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the
7899 most inconvenient possible time.
7900 %
7901 Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called
7902 "Bureaucracy". Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do
7903 anything loses.
7904 %
7905 Join the march to save individuality!
7906 %
7907 Jone's Law:
7908 The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone
7909 to blame it on.
7910 %
7911 Jone's Motto:
7912 Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
7913 %
7914 Jones's First Law:
7915 Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of
7916 endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction
7917 to its progress -- in direct proportion to the importance of their
7918 original contribution.
7919 %
7920 Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac
7921 (and nobody cares about it).
7922 -- Bill Joy 6/21/85
7923 %
7924 Just as most issues are seldom black or white, so are most good
7925 solutions seldom black or white. Beware of the solution that requires
7926 one side to be totally the loser and the other side to be totally the
7927 winner. The reason there are two sides to begin with usually is
7928 because neither side has all the facts. Therefore, when the wise
7929 mediator effects a compromise, he is not acting from political
7930 motivation. Rather, he is acting from a deep sense of respect for the
7931 whole truth.
7932 -- Stephen R. Schwambach
7933 %
7934 Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has
7935 changed.
7936 -- Irene Peter
7937 %
7938 Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you.
7939 %
7940 Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he
7941 knows what it is.
7942 %
7943 Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you
7944 get a prompt, type like hell.
7945 %
7946 "Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't
7947 immune to bullets"
7948 -- The Brigader, "Dr. Who"
7949 %
7950 "Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some
7951 of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?"
7952 -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa (a] killer.DALLAS.TX.US
7953 %
7954 Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to
7955 twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty!
7956 %
7957 `Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried,
7958 As he landed his crew with care;
7959 Supporting each man on the top of the tide
7960 By a finger entwined in his hair.
7961
7962 'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
7963 That alone should encourage the crew.
7964 Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
7965 What I tell you three times is true.'
7966 %
7967 Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes a
7968 faster rat!!!
7969 %
7970 Justice always prevails ... three times out of seven!
7971 -- Michael J. Wagner
7972 %
7973 Justice is incidental to law and order.
7974 -- J. Edgar Hoover
7975 %
7976 Justice, n.:
7977 A decision in your favor.
7978 %
7979 K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining;
7980 Cobol's wordy and confining;
7981 KOBOLDS topple when you strike them;
7982 Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them.
7983 -- The Roguelet's ABC
7984 %
7985 Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to
7986 wear tail lights.
7987 %
7988 Katz' Law:
7989 Man and nations will act rationally when all other
7990 possibilities have been exhausted.
7991 %
7992 Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans.
7993 %
7994 Keep Cool, but Don't Freeze
7995 - Hellman's Mayonnaise
7996 %
7997 Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis.
7998 %
7999 Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo.
8000 %
8001 Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee:
8002 (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc
8003 straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this
8004 force is technically termed "car suck").
8005 (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive
8006 than "Watch this!"
8007 %
8008 Keep you Eye on the Ball,
8009 Your Shoulder to the Wheel,
8010 Your Nose to the Grindstone,
8011 Your Feet on the Ground,
8012 Your Head on your Shoulders.
8013 Now ... try to get something DONE!
8014 %
8015 Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most
8016 automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the
8017 numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the
8018 driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the
8019 dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know
8020 what's wrong."
8021 %
8022 Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College:
8023 Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex for the students,
8024 and parking for the faculty.
8025 %
8026 Kids have *_____never* taken guidance from their parents. If you could
8027 travel back in time and observe the original primate family in the
8028 original tree, you would see the primate parents yelling at the primate
8029 teenager for sitting around and sulking all day instead of hunting for
8030 grubs and berries like dad primate. Then you'd see the primate
8031 teenager stomp up to his branch and slam the leaves.
8032 -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly
8033 Do"
8034 %
8035 Kin, n.:
8036 An affliction of the blood
8037 %
8038 Kinkler's First Law:
8039 Responsibility always exceeds authority.
8040
8041 Kinkler's Second Law:
8042 All the easy problems have been solved.
8043 %
8044 "Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack."
8045 %
8046 Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through
8047 any of its streets.
8048 %
8049 Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic.
8050 %
8051 Kiss your keyboard goodbye!
8052 %
8053 Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within.
8054 %
8055 Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within.
8056 %
8057 Kleptomaniac, n.:
8058 A rich thief.
8059 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8060 %
8061 Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A.
8062 %
8063 Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions.
8064 -- Henry N. Camp
8065 %
8066 Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr):
8067 The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards.
8068 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
8069 %
8070 Labor, n.:
8071 One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
8072 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8073 %
8074 Lackland's Laws:
8075 (1) Never be first.
8076 (2) Never be last.
8077 (3) Never volunteer for anything
8078 %
8079 Lactomangulation, n.:
8080 Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly
8081 that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side.
8082 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
8083 %
8084 Ladybug, ladybug,
8085 Look to your stern!
8086 Your house is on fire,
8087 Your children will burn!
8088 So jump ye and sing, for
8089 The very first time
8090 The four lines above
8091 Have been put into rhyme.
8092 -- Walt Kelly
8093 %
8094 Laetrile is the pits
8095 %
8096 Langsam's Laws:
8097 (1) Everything depends.
8098 (2) Nothing is always.
8099 (3) Everything is sometimes.
8100 %
8101 Larkinson's Law:
8102 All laws are basically false.
8103 %
8104 Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived with
8105 was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always getting
8106 pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to the
8107 farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their
8108 sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do
8109 you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her?
8110 What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead
8111 of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under
8112 the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops
8113 whatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, which
8114 Lassie filed the applications for.
8115 -- Dave Barry
8116 %
8117 "Last night, I came home and realized that everything in my apartment
8118 had been stolen and replaced with an exact duplicate. I told this to
8119 my friend -- he said, `Do I know you?'"
8120 -- Steven Wright
8121 %
8122 "Last week a cop stopped me in my car. He asked me if I had a police
8123 record. I said, no, but I have the new DEVO album. Cops have no sense
8124 of humor."
8125 %
8126 Last yeer I kudn't spel Engineer. Now I are won.
8127 %
8128 Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.
8129 %
8130 "Laughter is the closest distance between two people."
8131 -- Victor Borge
8132 %
8133 Law of Communications:
8134 The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications
8135 between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of
8136 misunderstanding.
8137 %
8138 Law of Probable Dispersal:
8139 Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly
8140 distributed.
8141 %
8142 Law of Selective Gravity:
8143 An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
8144
8145 Jenning's Corollary:
8146 The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is
8147 directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
8148 %
8149 Law of the Perversity of Nature:
8150 You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the
8151 bread to butter.
8152 %
8153 Laws of Serendipity:
8154
8155 (1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for
8156 something.
8157 (2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already
8158 be engaged in making an inferior one.
8159 %
8160 Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom:
8161 No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats --
8162 approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
8163 %
8164 Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads.
8165 %
8166 Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and
8167 everything else follows in the same way.
8168 -- Alan J. Perlis
8169 %
8170 Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
8171 %
8172 Legalize free-enterprise murder: why should governments have all the
8173 fun?
8174 %
8175 Legislation proposed in the Illinois State Legislature, May, 1907:
8176 "Speed upon county roads will be limited to ten miles an hour
8177 unless the motorist sees a bailiff who does not appear to have had a
8178 drink in 30 days, when the driver will be permitted to make what he
8179 can."
8180 %
8181 Leibowitz's Rule:
8182 When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you
8183 hold the hammer with both hands.
8184 %
8185 LEO (July 23 - Aug 22)
8186 You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are
8187 pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike
8188 honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people
8189 are thieves.
8190 %
8191 LEO (July 23 - Aug 22)
8192 Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore.
8193 Your ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because
8194 you've got a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of
8195 fact, if you can laugh at what happens to you today, you've got
8196 a sick sense of humor.
8197 %
8198 Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday.
8199 %
8200 "Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a
8201 number. You're two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash
8202 and another number."
8203 -- James Estes
8204 %
8205 Let us live!!!
8206 Let us love!!!
8207 Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!!
8208
8209 You first.
8210 %
8211 Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In every
8212 relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If you
8213 really care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's the
8214 end. For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the
8215 qualities I most admired in myself I gave up. I stopped being loud and
8216 bossy ... Oh, all right. I was still loud and bossy, but only behind
8217 his back."
8218 -- Kate Hepburn, on Tracy and Hepburn
8219 %
8220 Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick
8221 your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as
8222 Mental Anguish. You would sue:
8223
8224 * The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions
8225 section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand
8226 into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls
8227 in there".
8228
8229 * The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious
8230 cretin like yourself.
8231
8232 * Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this
8233 case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you
8234 a large cash settlement anyway.
8235 -- Dave Barry
8236 %
8237 Let's talk about how to fill out your 1984 tax return. Here's an often
8238 overlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands of
8239 dollars: For several days before you put it in the mail, carry your
8240 tax return around under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want to
8241 spend hours poring over a sweat-stained document. So even if you owe
8242 money, you can put in for an enormous refund and the agent will
8243 probably give it to you, just to avoid an audit. What does he care?
8244 It's not his money.
8245 -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
8246 %
8247 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London)
8248
8249 Dear Sir,
8250
8251 I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or
8252 to the office. We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in
8253 public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result
8254 in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn
8255 will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed
8256 agricultural industry.
8257
8258 Yours faithfully,
8259 Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J. P.
8260 Sevenoaks
8261 %
8262 Lewis's Law of Travel:
8263 The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to
8264 anyone, ever.
8265 %
8266 Liar, n.:
8267 A lawyer with a roving commission.
8268 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8269 %
8270 Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
8271 -- Harry Emerson Fosdick
8272 %
8273 LIBRA (Sep. 23 to Oct. 22)
8274 Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your
8275 desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and
8276 polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that.
8277 %
8278 LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22)
8279 You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with
8280 reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay.
8281 Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most
8282 Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal
8283 disease.
8284 %
8285 Lie, n.:
8286 A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one
8287 discovered to date.
8288 %
8289 Lieberman's Law:
8290 Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
8291 %
8292 Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.
8293 %
8294 Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string.
8295 %
8296 "Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to
8297 eat it nevertheless."
8298 -- Flaubert
8299 %
8300 "Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it."
8301 %
8302 Life is like a simile.
8303 %
8304 Life is like an analogy
8305 %
8306 Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find
8307 there is nothing in it.
8308 %
8309 "Life is too important to take seriously."
8310 -- Corky Siegel
8311 %
8312 "Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of
8313 which I disapprove."
8314 %
8315 "Life to you is a bold and dashing responsibility"
8316 -- a Mary Chung's fortune cookie
8317 %
8318 "Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if it
8319 weren't for other people"
8320 -- Blore
8321 %
8322 Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.
8323 %
8324 "Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."
8325 -- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
8326 %
8327 Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made
8328 sense from things she found in gift shops.
8329 -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
8330 %
8331 Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
8332 for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.
8333 -- Alan McKay
8334 %
8335 Limericks are art forms complex,
8336 Their topics run chiefly to sex.
8337 They usually have virgins,
8338 And masculine urgin's,
8339 And other erotic effects.
8340 %
8341 Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations.
8342 %
8343 Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe
8344 we should think only about today.
8345 Charlie Brown:
8346 No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get
8347 better.
8348 %
8349 Living in LA is like not having a date on Saturday night.
8350 -- Candice Bergen
8351 %
8352 Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip
8353 around the Sun.
8354 %
8355 Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted
8356 before.
8357 %
8358 Lizzie Borden took an axe,
8359 And plunged it deep into the VAX;
8360 Don't you envy people who
8361 Do all the things ___YOU want to do?
8362 %
8363 Loan-department manager: "There isn't any fine print. At these
8364 interest rates, we don't need it."
8365 %
8366 Lobster:
8367 Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are
8368 squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the
8369 only proper method of preparing them. Frankly, the easiest way to
8370 eliminate your guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial
8371 before they're cooked. The fact is, lobsters are among the most
8372 ferocious predators on the sea floor, and you're helping reduce crime
8373 in the reefs. Grasp the lobster behind the head, look it right in its
8374 unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say, "Where were you on the night of
8375 the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a scallop or a sole and shout,
8376 "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural apparatus you call a
8377 memory!" The lobster will squirm noticeably. It may even take a swipe
8378 at you with one of its claws. Incorrigible. Pop it into the pot.
8379 Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will be,
8380 too.
8381 -- "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and Utensils
8382 into Excuses and Apologies"
8383 %
8384 Lockwood's Long Shot:
8385 The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street aren't
8386 one in a million, but once would be enough.
8387 %
8388 Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; that smells *_____awful*.
8389 %
8390 ... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, and
8391 legally ... impeccable!
8392 %
8393 Logicians have but ill defined
8394 As rational the human kind.
8395 Logic, they say, belongs to man,
8396 But let them prove it if they can.
8397 -- Oliver Goldsmith
8398 %
8399 Look out! Behind you!
8400 %
8401 Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us
8402 to pay income taxes, too?
8403 -- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox
8404 %
8405 Loose bits sink chips.
8406 %
8407 Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA,
8408 BOOGA!"
8409 %
8410 Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy.
8411 %
8412 Loud burping while walking around the airport is prohibited in
8413 Halstead, Kansas.
8414 %
8415 Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
8416 %
8417 Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
8418 %
8419 Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the
8420 world has ever seen.
8421 %
8422 Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder.
8423 -- Sigmund Freud
8424 %
8425 "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it
8426 flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."
8427 -- Matt Groening
8428 %
8429 Love is a word that is constantly heard,
8430 Hate is a word that is not.
8431 Love, I am told, is more precious than gold.
8432 Love, I have read, is hot.
8433 But hate is the verb that to me is superb,
8434 And Love but a drug on the mart.
8435 Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,
8436 But Hating, my boy, is an Art.
8437 -- Ogden Nash
8438 %
8439 "Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with
8440 the ideal never goes unpunished."
8441 -- Goethe
8442 %
8443 Love is sentimental measles.
8444 %
8445 Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
8446 -- H. L. Mencken
8447 %
8448 Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes.
8449 %
8450 Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood.
8451 -- Louise Beal
8452 %
8453 Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up
8454 to.
8455 %
8456 Love's Drug
8457
8458 My love is like an iron wand
8459 That conks me on the head,
8460 My love is like the valium
8461 That I take before my bed,
8462 My love is like the pint of scotch
8463 That I drink when I be dry;
8464 And I shall love thee still, my dear,
8465 Until my wife is wise.
8466 %
8467 Lowery's Law:
8468 If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing
8469 anyway.
8470 %
8471 LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand.
8472 %
8473 Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology:
8474 There's always one more bug.
8475 %
8476 Lunatic Asylum, n.:
8477 The place where optimism most flourishes.
8478 %
8479 Lysistrata had a good idea.
8480 %
8481 "MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into
8482 the smallest amount of thoughts."
8483 -- Winston Churchill
8484 %
8485 Machine-Independent, adj.:
8486 Does not run on any existing machine.
8487 %
8488 Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate,
8489 and play games -- but not with pleasure.
8490 -- Leo Rosten
8491 %
8492 Mad, adj.:
8493 Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ...
8494 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8495 %
8496 Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them
8497 first for seven hours, they always come out tender.
8498 -- W. C. Fields
8499 %
8500 MAFIA, n:
8501 [Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced Insurance
8502 Accounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshore
8503 subsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS. MAFIA documentation is
8504 rather scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testy
8505 reluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DP
8506 operations. From the little that has seeped out, it would appear that
8507 MAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lipped
8508 variant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complex
8509 security functions. The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to a
8510 more than usually autocratic operating system. Screen prompts carry an
8511 imperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YES
8512 options, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay.
8513 Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using a
8514 powerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, and
8515 entire nodal aggravations.
8516 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
8517 %
8518 Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism
8519
8520 Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet.
8521
8522 The two definition immediately foregoing are condensed from the works
8523 of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject
8524 with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human
8525 knowledge.
8526 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8527 %
8528 Magnocartic, adj.:
8529 Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping
8530 carts.
8531 -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
8532 %
8533 Magpie, n.:
8534 A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it
8535 might be taught to talk.
8536 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8537 %
8538 Maier's Law:
8539 If the facts don't conform to the theory, they must be disposed
8540 of.
8541
8542 Corollaries:
8543 (1) The bigger the theory, the better.
8544 (2) The experiment may be considered a success if no more than
8545 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to
8546 obtain a correspondence with the theory.
8547 %
8548 Main's Law:
8549 For every action there is an equal and opposite government
8550 program.
8551 %
8552 Maintainer's Motto:
8553 If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.
8554 %
8555 Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly
8556 as one man.
8557
8558 Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds.
8559
8560 Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
8561 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8562 %
8563 Majority, n.:
8564 That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law.
8565 %
8566 Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist!
8567 %
8568 Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users
8569 tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It
8570 has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is
8571 the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files.
8572 -- System V.2 administrator's guide
8573 %
8574 Malek's Law:
8575 Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.
8576 %
8577 Man 1: Ask me the what the most important thing about telling a good
8578 joke is.
8579
8580 Man 2: OK, what is the most impo --
8581
8582 Man 1: ______TIMING!
8583 %
8584 "Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain."
8585 -- Lily Tomlin
8586 %
8587 Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called
8588 upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
8589 -- Oscar Wilde
8590 %
8591 Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the
8592 only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.
8593 -- Wernher von Braun
8594 %
8595 Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
8596 -- Mark Twain
8597 %
8598 Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the
8599 victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
8600 -- Samuel Butler
8601 %
8602 Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the
8603 victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
8604 -- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
8605 %
8606 Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it
8607 is an enemy.
8608 -- Albert Einstein
8609 %
8610 Man, n.:
8611 An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks
8612 he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief
8613 occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which,
8614 however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole
8615 habitable earth and Canada.
8616 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8617 %
8618 Mandrell: "You know what I think?"
8619 Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you
8620 don't think, right?"
8621 -- Dr. Who
8622 %
8623 Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history,
8624 dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive
8625 man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the
8626 air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first
8627 primitive umpire.
8628
8629 What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as
8630 mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers.
8631 -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
8632 %
8633 Manual, n.:
8634 A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a
8635 given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The
8636 information you need is in the others.
8637 -- Ray Simard
8638 %
8639 Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon,
8640 there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he
8641 was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how
8642 completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ...
8643 -- Walt Kelly
8644 %
8645 Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery:
8646 Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a
8647 simple yes or no answer.
8648 %
8649 Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
8650 -- Voltaire
8651 %
8652 Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people on
8653 the dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slam
8654 dancing.
8655 -- Ransford, Chicago Reader 10/7/83
8656 %
8657 Maternity pay? Now every Tom, Dick and Harry will get pregnant.
8658 -- Malcolm Smith
8659 %
8660 Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated.
8661 -- R. Drabek
8662 %
8663 Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they
8664 translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something
8665 entirely different.
8666 -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
8667 %
8668 Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is
8669 described as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number can
8670 play.
8671 -- Dr. Thor Wald, in "Beep/The Quincunx of Time", by
8672 James Blish
8673 %
8674 "Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence."
8675 %
8676 Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a
8677 receipt.
8678 %
8679 Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
8680 -- Jules Feiffer
8681 %
8682 May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts
8683 %
8684 May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual!
8685 %
8686 May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones.
8687 %
8688 May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a
8689 Thousand Caramels.
8690 %
8691 Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology.
8692 -- R. S. Barton
8693 %
8694 Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge
8695 it.
8696 %
8697 McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom:
8698 If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not
8699 $19.95.
8700 %
8701 Meader's Law:
8702 Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to
8703 everyone you know, only more so.
8704 %
8705 Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.
8706 %
8707 Meeting, n.:
8708 An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or
8709 department not represented in the room must solve a problem.
8710 %
8711 Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures
8712 from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from Alpha
8713 Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man
8714 had split before. Thus was the Empire forged.
8715 -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams
8716 %
8717 Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and
8718 it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin
8719 very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently
8720 tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ...
8721 [EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important
8722 world events such as agriculture, we're going to delete the
8723 next few square feet of the woman's skin. Thank you.]
8724 ... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your
8725 cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of
8726 billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is even
8727 more interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is a
8728 fact. Your skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the
8729 older veteran cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and
8730 obtained offices with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the
8731 window head first, without so much as a pension plan, by younger
8732 hotshot cells moving up from below.
8733 -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
8734 %
8735 Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American:
8736 The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife.
8737 %
8738 Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American:
8739 The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the
8740 cork makes when it is popped.
8741 %
8742 Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American:
8743 All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards.
8744 %
8745 Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American:
8746 Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that
8747 is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can
8748 never hope to acquire it.
8749 %
8750 Menu, n.:
8751 A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of.
8752 %
8753 Meskimen's Law:
8754 There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to
8755 do it over.
8756 %
8757 MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched.
8758 %
8759 Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it.
8760 %
8761 methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutamin-
8762 ylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolyl-
8763 phenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglu-
8764 taminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanyl-
8765 glycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylala-
8766 nylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylgluta-
8767 minylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylgly-
8768 cylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionyl-
8769 leucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleu-
8770 cylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylva-
8771 lylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyro-
8772 sylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleu-
8773 cylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphe-
8774 nylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylala-
8775 nylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylas-
8776 partylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosyl-
8777 glycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycyl-
8778 valylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleu-
8779 cylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagi-
8780 nylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylse-
8781 rylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl-
8782 glycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalylly-
8783 sylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpro-
8784 lylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalyl-
8785 glutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine, n.:
8786 The chemical name for tryptophan synthetase A protein, a
8787 1,913-letter enzyme with 267 amino acids.
8788 -- Mrs. Bryne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and
8789 %
8790 Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch.
8791 %
8792 Micro Credo:
8793 Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.
8794 %
8795 "Microwave oven? Whaddya mean, it's a microwave oven? I've been
8796 watching Channel 4 on the thing for two weeks."
8797 %
8798 "Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you
8799 out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles."
8800 %
8801 Mike: "The Fourth Dimension is a shambles?"
8802 Bernie: "Nobody ever empties the ashtrays. People are SO
8803 inconsiderate."
8804 -- Gary Trudeau, "Doonesbury"
8805 %
8806 Miksch's Law:
8807 If a string has one end, then it has another end.
8808 %
8809 Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
8810 -- Groucho Marx
8811 %
8812 Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
8813 -- Groucho Marx
8814 %
8815 Millihelen, adj:
8816 The amount of beauty required to launch one ship.
8817 %
8818 Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with
8819 themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
8820 -- Susan Ertz
8821 %
8822 Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede that
8823 politics is almost always the choice of the lesser evil. "Tweedledum
8824 and Tweedledee," they say, "I will not vote." Having abstained, they
8825 are presented with a President who appoints the people who are going to
8826 rummage around in their lives for the next four years. Consider all
8827 the people who sat home in a stew in 1968 rather than vote for Hubert
8828 Humphrey. They showed Humphrey. Those people who taught Hubert
8829 Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the Nixon Supreme Court when
8830 Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among the gold and the
8831 black.
8832 -- Russel Baker, "Ford without Flummery"
8833 %
8834 Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there
8835 is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined,
8836 myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in
8837 the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my
8838 unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You
8839 will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as
8840 dead as a door-nail.
8841 %
8842 Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner.
8843 %
8844 Minors in Kansas City, Missouri, are not allowed to purchase cap
8845 pistols; they may buy shotguns freely, however.
8846 %
8847 Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate.
8848 %
8849 Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.
8850 -- Russell Baker
8851 %
8852 Misfortune, n.:
8853 The kind of fortune that never misses.
8854 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8855 %
8856 Miss, n.:
8857 A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that
8858 they are in the market.
8859 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8860 %
8861 Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure.
8862 %
8863 Mitchell's Law of Committees:
8864 Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are
8865 held to discuss it.
8866 %
8867 MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed)
8868
8869 Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers
8870 2 cups water 2 cups sugar
8871 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice
8872 Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine
8873 Cinnamon
8874
8875 Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break
8876 RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar
8877 and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon
8878 juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously
8879 with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top
8880 crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let
8881 steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust
8882 is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices.
8883 -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box
8884 %
8885 Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.
8886 %
8887 Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly. An aide once asked
8888 him how he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just
8889 last week. The great man replied that it was because this week he knew
8890 better.
8891 %
8892 Molecule, n.:
8893 The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished
8894 from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a
8895 closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of
8896 matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the
8897 atom in that it is an ion ...
8898 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8899 %
8900 Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis:
8901 If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented
8902 it wasn't worth doing.
8903 %
8904 Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life.
8905 %
8906 Monday, n.:
8907 In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
8908 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8909 %
8910 Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
8911 %
8912 Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots
8913 %
8914 Money is the root of all wealth.
8915 %
8916 Moon, n.:
8917 1. A celestial object whose phase is very important to
8918 hackers. See PHASE OF THE MOON. 2. Dave Moon (MOON@MC).
8919 %
8920 Mophobia, n.:
8921 Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian.
8922 %
8923 MORE SPORTS RESULTS:
8924 The Beverly Hills Freudians tied the Chicago Rogerians 0-0 last
8925 Saturday night. The match started with a long period of silence while
8926 the Freudians waited for the Rogerians to free associate and the
8927 Rogerians waited for the Freudians to say something they could
8928 paraphrase. The stalemate was broken when the Freudians' best player
8929 took the offensive and interpreted the Rogerians' silence as reflecting
8930 their anal-retentive personalities. At this the Rogerians' star player
8931 said "I hear you saying you think we're full of ka-ka." This started a
8932 fight and the match was called by officials.
8933 %
8934 More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One
8935 path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total
8936 extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
8937 -- Woody Allen
8938 %
8939 Mosher's Law of Software Engineering:
8940 Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd
8941 be out of a job.
8942 %
8943 Most fish live underwater, which is a terrible place to have sex
8944 because virtually anywhere you lie down there will be stinging crabs
8945 and large quantities of little fish staring at you with buggy little
8946 eyes. So generally when two fish want to have sex, they swim around
8947 and around for hours, looking for someplace to go, until finally the
8948 female gets really tired and has a terrible headache, and she just
8949 dumps her eggs right on the sand and swims away. Then the male, driven
8950 by some timeless, noble instinct for survival, eats the eggs. So the
8951 truth is that fish don't reproduce at all, but there are so many of
8952 them that it doesn't make any difference.
8953 -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
8954 Teen Should Know"
8955 %
8956 Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently
8957 than they do.
8958 -- Turgenev
8959 %
8960 Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.
8961 -- Frank Zappa
8962 %
8963 Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.
8964 -- Arnold Bennett
8965 %
8966 Mother is the invention of necessity.
8967 %
8968 Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before.
8969 %
8970 Mr. Cole's Axiom:
8971 The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the
8972 population is growing.
8973 %
8974 "Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams)
8975 "365,365,365,365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365. He [ten-year-old
8976 Truman Henry Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his
8977 pantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes
8978 in their sockets, sometimes smiling and talking, and then seeming to be
8979 in an agony, until, in not more than one minute, said he,
8980 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,255!" An electronic
8981 computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be as much
8982 fun to watch.
8983 -- James R. Newman (The World of Mathematics)
8984 %
8985 Murphy's Discovery:
8986 Do you know Presidents talk to the country the way men talk to
8987 women? They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and everything
8988 will be all right." And what happens? Nine months later, you're in
8989 trouble!
8990 %
8991 Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't
8992 work.
8993 %
8994 Murphy's Law of Research:
8995 Enough research will tend to support your theory.
8996 %
8997 "Murphy's Law, that brash proletarian restatement of Godel's Theorem ..."
8998 -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
8999 %
9000 Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring
9001 Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping
9002 pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret
9003 military installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray and
9004 Esther and hustle them off to prison.
9005 They can't prove who they are because they've left their
9006 passports in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day
9007 and night to get them to name their contacts in the liberation
9008 movement.. Finally they're hauled in front of a military court,
9009 charged with espionage, and sentenced to death.
9010 The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where
9011 they'll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them
9012 if they have any lasts requests. Esther wants to know if she can call
9013 her daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not
9014 possible, and turns to Murray.
9015 "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he
9016 spits in the sergeants face.
9017 "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble."
9018 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
9019 %
9020 Mustgo, n.:
9021 Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so
9022 long it has become a science project.
9023 -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
9024 %
9025 "My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on
9026 it."
9027 -- "Grendel", by John Gardner
9028 %
9029 My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I
9030 threw my amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste.
9031 First we checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the
9032 frame, using the belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked up
9033 the amplifier and backed up to my bedroom door. Then we rushed
9034 forward, shouting "The WHO! The WHO!" and we launched my amplifier
9035 perfectly, as though we had been doing it all our lives, clean through
9036 the window and down onto the sidewalk, where a small but appreciative
9037 crowd had gathered. I would like to be able to say that this was a
9038 symbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away from one state
9039 in my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper and I
9040 really just wanted to find out what it would sound like. It sounded
9041 OK.
9042 -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
9043 %
9044 "My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless
9045 there are three other people."
9046 -- Orson Welles
9047 %
9048 My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand
9049 times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and
9050 sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right
9051 through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever
9052 listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just
9053 log out again.
9054 %
9055 "My life is a soap opera, but who has the rights?"
9056 -- MadameX
9057 %
9058 My love runs by like a day in June,
9059 And he makes no friends of sorrows.
9060 He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
9061 In the pathway or the morrows.
9062 He'll live his days where the sunbeams start
9063 Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
9064 My own dear love, he is all my heart --
9065 And I wish somebody'd shoot him.
9066 -- Dorothy Parker
9067 %
9068 My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet,
9069 And a wild young wood-thing bore him!
9070 The ways are fair to his roaming feet,
9071 And the skies are sunlit for him.
9072 As sharply sweet to my heart he seems
9073 As the fragrance of acacia.
9074 My own dear love, he is all my dreams --
9075 And I wish he were in Asia.
9076 -- Dorothy Parker
9077 %
9078 My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been
9079 one.
9080 -- Groucho Marx
9081 %
9082 My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
9083 %
9084 My own dear love, he is strong and bold
9085 And he cares not what comes after.
9086 His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
9087 And his eyes are lit with laughter.
9088 He is jubilant as a flag unfurled --
9089 Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
9090 My own dear love, he is all my world --
9091 And I wish I'd never met him.
9092 -- Dorothy Parker
9093 %
9094 ... My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling
9095 Alley!!
9096 %
9097 "My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling
9098 Alley!!"
9099 -- Zippy the Pinhead
9100 %
9101 My pen is at the bottom of a page,
9102 Which, being finished, here the story ends;
9103 'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done,
9104 But stories somehow lengthen when begun.
9105 -- Byron
9106 %
9107 My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not
9108 signed.
9109 -- Christopher Morley
9110 %
9111 "My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies"
9112 %
9113 Mythology, n.:
9114 The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its
9115 origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished
9116 from the true accounts which it invents later.
9117 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
9118 %
9119 n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa);
9120 n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc);
9121 n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0);
9122 n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00);
9123 n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000);
9124
9125 -- C code which reverses the bits in a word.
9126 %
9127 Naeser's Law:
9128 You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it
9129 damnfoolproof.
9130 %
9131 NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he
9132 says is wrong.
9133 GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says
9134 will be right.
9135 -- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny"
9136 %
9137 Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant
9138 said "My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next
9139 time he goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone
9140 might steal it."
9141 %
9142 Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the
9143 villagers gathered around to hear what had passed. "At this time,"
9144 said Nasrudin, "I only want to say that the King spoke to me." All the
9145 villagers but the stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news. The
9146 remaining villager asked, "What did the King say to you?" "What he
9147 said -- and quite distinctly, for everyone to hear -- was 'Get out of
9148 my way!'" The simpleton was overjoyed; he had heard words actually
9149 spoken by the King, and seen the very man they were spoken to.
9150 %
9151 Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to
9152 serve him. Nasrudin said, "First things first. Did you see me walk
9153 into your shop?" "Of course." "Have you ever seen me before?"
9154 "Never." "Then how do you know it was me?"
9155 %
9156 Nasrudin walked into a teahouse and declaimed, "The moon is more useful
9157 than the sun." "Why?", he was asked. "Because at night we need the
9158 light more."
9159 %
9160 Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liver
9161 pie. Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece of
9162 meat from his hand. As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it,
9163 "Foolish bird! You have the liver, but what can you do with it without
9164 the recipe?"
9165 %
9166 Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of
9167 conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the
9168 fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he
9169 is most likely to be creamed?
9170 -- Solomon Short
9171 %
9172 Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night,
9173 God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light.
9174
9175 It did not last; the devil howling "Ho!
9176 Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo.
9177 %
9178 Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it
9179 cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs.
9180 -- Fran Leibowitz
9181 %
9182 Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
9183 character, give him power.
9184 -- Abraham Lincoln
9185 %
9186 Necessity is a mother.
9187 %
9188 Neckties strangle clear thinking.
9189 -- Lin Yutang
9190 %
9191 Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.
9192 %
9193 Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him.
9194 %
9195 Never call a man a fool; borrow from him.
9196 %
9197 Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you.
9198 %
9199 Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off
9200 %
9201 Never drink coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled
9202 with the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to
9203 change into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually
9204 fly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators
9205 have windows.
9206 %
9207 Never eat more than you can lift.
9208 -- Miss Piggy
9209 %
9210 Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
9211 %
9212 Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
9213 %
9214 Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
9215 -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"
9216 %
9217 Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to
9218 make it complex and wonderful.
9219 %
9220 Never offend people with style when you can offend them with
9221 substance.
9222 -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977
9223 %
9224 Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together.
9225 %
9226 Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a
9227 law against it by that time.
9228 %
9229 Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower.
9230 %
9231 Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.
9232 %
9233 Never try to outstubborn a cat.
9234 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
9235 %
9236 Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes.
9237 -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS
9238 %
9239 "Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon."
9240 %
9241 Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's
9242 supposed to do.
9243 -- R. A. Heinlein
9244 %
9245 New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt.
9246 %
9247 New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or in
9248 any way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe.
9249 %
9250 New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of
9251 Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within.
9252 %
9253 New members urgently required for SUICIDE CLUB, Watford area.
9254 -- Monty Python's Big Red Book
9255 %
9256 New systems generate new problems.
9257 %
9258 New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and
9259 his wife most often reminds him to act it.
9260 -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary
9261 %
9262 New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors.
9263 %
9264 New York's got the ways and means;
9265 Just won't let you be.
9266 -- The Grateful Dead
9267 %
9268 Newlan's Truism:
9269 An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government
9270 economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
9271 %
9272 NEWS FLASH!!
9273 Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West
9274 German pole-vault champion.
9275 %
9276 *** NEWSFLASH ***
9277 Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven!
9278 %
9279 Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction.
9280 %
9281 Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law:
9282 A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.
9283 %
9284 Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't
9285 have a lucky day this year.
9286 %
9287 Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying
9288 as an income tax refund.
9289 -- F. J. Raymond
9290 %
9291 "Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice."
9292 -- Foghorn Leghorn
9293 %
9294 Nihilism should commence with oneself.
9295 %
9296 Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name
9297 correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into
9298 (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but
9299 Americans call him by value.
9300 %
9301 Nine megs for the secretaries fair,
9302 Seven megs for the hackers scarce,
9303 Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,
9304 Three megs for system source;
9305
9306 One disk to rule them all,
9307 One disk to bind them,
9308 One disk to hold the files
9309 And in the darkness grind 'em.
9310 %
9311 Nine-track tapes and seven-track tapes
9312 And tapes without any tracks;
9313 Stretchy tapes and snarley tapes
9314 And tapes mixed up on the racks --
9315 Take hold of the tape
9316 And pull off the strip,
9317 And then you'll be sure
9318 Your tape drive will skip.
9319
9320 -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes
9321 %
9322 "Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they
9323 would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect
9324 that much."
9325 -- Augustine
9326 %
9327 Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
9328 The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
9329 the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
9330 %
9331 "Nirvana? Thats the place where the powers that be and their friends
9332 hang out.
9333 -- Zonker Harris
9334 %
9335 No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless
9336 absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation.
9337 -- Fran Lebowitz
9338 %
9339 No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a
9340 camel -- anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform
9341 effectively under such difficult conditions.
9342 -- Laurence J. Peter
9343 %
9344 No good deed goes unpunished.
9345 -- Clare Boothe Luce
9346 %
9347 No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after
9348 eating one peanut.
9349 -- Channing Pollock
9350 %
9351 No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.
9352 %
9353 No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will
9354 seriously cramp his style.
9355 %
9356 No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
9357 immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.
9358 %
9359 No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
9360 -- Eleanor Roosevelt
9361 %
9362 "No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid."
9363 %
9364 No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrieval
9365 system, or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness of
9366 the author.
9367 -- Chris Shaw
9368 %
9369 No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff --
9370 He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough.
9371 Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame
9372 And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame.
9373 CHORUS:
9374 Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
9375 And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
9376 Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
9377 And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
9378 Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails
9379 And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail.
9380 All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff
9381 But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!"
9382 (chorus)
9383 Puff used more resources than DCS could spare.
9384 The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care.
9385 A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end,
9386 But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again!
9387 (chorus)
9388 %
9389 No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.
9390 %
9391 No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere.
9392 %
9393 "No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied
9394 occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an
9395 indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining
9396 occurrence different from the one identified by the given indication as
9397 an indication-applied occurrence."
9398 -- ALGOL 68 Report
9399 %
9400 "No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of
9401 paper."
9402 -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was
9403 taken over by Rupert Murdoch
9404 %
9405 No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider
9406 the furniture!
9407 -- Sherlock Holmes
9408 %
9409 "No, `Eureka' is Greek for `This bath is too hot.'"
9410 -- Dr. Who
9411 %
9412 Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing
9413 it.
9414 -- Tallulah Bankhead
9415 %
9416 NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION
9417 %
9418 Nobody said computers were going to be polite.
9419 %
9420 Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in
9421 order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the
9422 substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young
9423 and rob the old.
9424 -- Lewis Lapham
9425 %
9426 Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with
9427 constructive praise.
9428 %
9429 Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations:
9430 Negative expectations yield negative results.
9431 Positive expectations yield negative results.
9432 %
9433 Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades.
9434 %
9435 Noncombatant, n.:
9436 A dead Quaker.
9437 -- Ambrose Bierce
9438 %
9439 Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
9440 %
9441 "Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong."
9442 %
9443 Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
9444 %
9445 Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the
9446 Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats
9447 in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the
9448 moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a
9449 dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every
9450 respect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside
9451 it, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms,
9452 then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they
9453 chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine ...
9454 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
9455 %
9456 "Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none."
9457 -- Shakespeare
9458 %
9459 "Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper
9460 is from the wrong kind of tree."
9461 -- Professor W.
9462 %
9463 Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter
9464 of wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund
9465 is astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman --
9466 unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who is
9467 careful not to make any poultry jokes ...
9468 -- Woody Allen
9469 %
9470 Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
9471 %
9472 Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up.
9473 %
9474 Nothing is faster than the speed of light ...
9475
9476 To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the
9477 light comes on.
9478 %
9479 Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.
9480 -- Andrew Young
9481 %
9482 Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires
9483 tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
9484 -- Nero Wolfe
9485 %
9486 Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.
9487 Conscience makes egotists of us all.
9488 -- Oscar Wilde
9489 %
9490 Nothing recedes like success.
9491 -- Walter Winchell
9492 %
9493 Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited
9494 love.
9495 -- Charlie Brown
9496 %
9497 November, n.:
9498 The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
9499 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
9500 %
9501 Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature.
9502 %
9503 Now I lay me down to sleep
9504 I pray the double lock will keep;
9505 May no brick through the window break,
9506 And, no one rob me till I awake.
9507 %
9508 "Now is the time for all good men to come to."
9509 -- Walt Kelly
9510 %
9511 Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next
9512 time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV
9513 to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for
9514 eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself
9515 the following questions:
9516
9517 (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a
9518 food?
9519 (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich
9520 exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me?
9521 (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as
9522 prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with
9523 double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living
9524 right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like
9525 longer.)
9526
9527 That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick.
9528 %
9529 "Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called
9530 Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that
9531 were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..."
9532 -- "The Begatting of a President"
9533 %
9534 "Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a
9535 smurfette."
9536 -- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354
9537 %
9538 ... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to
9539 get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in
9540 the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs
9541 on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage
9542 children emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a
9543 snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn
9544 to love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about
9545 a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an
9546 outcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does
9547 he ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect
9548 Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks
9549 Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some
9550 kind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want your
9551 children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop
9552 quickly.
9553 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
9554 %
9555 Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home
9556 tool sets for under $4?" An excellent question.
9557 Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell
9558 plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where
9559 they have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of
9560 Raisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon
9561 administration. In either the hardware or housewares department,
9562 you'll find an item imported from an obscure Oriental country and
9563 described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of a little handle with
9564 interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental notions of tools
9565 that Americans might use around the home. Buy it.
9566 This is the kind of tool set professionals use. Not only is it
9567 inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the
9568 so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off
9569 if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to
9570 direct sunlight.
9571 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
9572 %
9573 "Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile."
9574 -- Karl Lehenbauer
9575 %
9576 "Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption of
9577 normal routines, for children and adults alike."
9578 -- Willard F. Libby, "You *Can* Survive Atomic Attack"
9579 %
9580 "Nuclear war would really set back cable."
9581 -- Ted Turner
9582 %
9583 [Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable.
9584 -- Edwin Meese III
9585 %
9586 Nudists are people who wear one-button suits.
9587 %
9588 (null cookie; hope that's ok)
9589 %
9590 Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're
9591 guessing.
9592 %
9593 O give me a home,
9594 Where the buffalo roam,
9595 Where the deer and the antelope play,
9596 Where seldom is heard
9597 A discouraging word,
9598 'Cause what can an antelope say?
9599 %
9600 O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
9601 Murphy was an optimist.
9602 %
9603 "Of ______course it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a
9604 fake?"
9605 %
9606 Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the
9607 reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest
9608 amount of hot air.
9609 -- Thomas L. Martin
9610 %
9611 Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
9612 -- Plato
9613 %
9614 Of all the words of witch's doom
9615 There's none so bad as which and whom.
9616 The man who kills both which and whom
9617 Will be enshrined in our Who's Whom.
9618 -- Fletcher Knebel
9619 %
9620 "Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power
9621 tools aren't soluble in alcohol ..."
9622 -- Crazy Nigel
9623 %
9624 Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy.
9625 %
9626 Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%.
9627 And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a
9628 blazer.
9629 %
9630 Office Automation, n.:
9631 The use of computers to improve efficiency by removing anyone
9632 you would want to talk with over coffee.
9633 %
9634 Ogden's Law:
9635 The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch
9636 up.
9637 %
9638 Oh Dad! We're ALL Devo!
9639 %
9640 Oh don't the days seem lank and long
9641 When all goes right and none goes wrong,
9642 And isn't your life extremely flat
9643 With nothing whatever to grumble at!
9644 %
9645 Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
9646 I muck with indices and structs all day
9647 And when it works, I shout hoo-ray
9648 Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
9649 %
9650 Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd
9651 be irresponsible, too.
9652 -- Lichty & Wagner
9653 %
9654 Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
9655 And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;
9656 Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
9657 Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
9658 You have not dreamed of --
9659 Wheeled and soared and swung
9660 High in the sunlit silence.
9661 Hovering there
9662 I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
9663 My eager craft through footless halls of air.
9664 Up, up along delirious, burning blue
9665 I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
9666 Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
9667 And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
9668 The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
9669 Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
9670 -- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight"
9671 %
9672 Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes.
9673 %
9674 Oh, when I was in love with you,
9675 Then I was clean and brave,
9676 And miles around the wonder grew
9677 How well did I behave.
9678
9679 And now the fancy passes by,
9680 And nothing will remain,
9681 And miles around they'll say that I
9682 Am quite myself again.
9683 -- A. E. Housman
9684 %
9685 Oh, wow! Look at the moon!
9686 %
9687 "OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard."
9688 -- Dr. Joy
9689 %
9690 OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything.
9691 %
9692 Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
9693 -- Trotsky
9694 %
9695 Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address.
9696 %
9697 Old soldiers never die. Young ones do.
9698 %
9699 Oliver's Law:
9700 Experience is something you don't get until just after you need
9701 it.
9702 %
9703 Omnibiblious, adj.:
9704 Indifferent to type of drink. "Oh, you can get me anything.
9705 I'm omnibiblious."
9706 %
9707 OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS of
9708 JELL-O and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th' WRENCH in the JELL-O
9709 as if it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... or ... I ... um ...
9710 WHERE'S the WASHING MACHINES?
9711 %
9712 On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:
9713
9714 "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."
9715 -- Wolfgang Pauli
9716 %
9717 On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only
9718 nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter
9719 what it does.
9720 -- Will Rogers
9721 %
9722 On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in
9723 receipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day's
9724 income was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than
9725 $283 on the desk before the cashier.
9726 "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. That
9727 route never brought in money like this! What happened?"
9728 "Well, after three days on that cockamamie route, I figured
9729 business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and
9730 worked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!"
9731 %
9732 On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are
9733 created jerks.
9734 -- Avery
9735 %
9736 On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are
9737 created jerks.
9738 -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"
9739 %
9740 On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a
9741 POINT ...
9742 %
9743 On the subject of C program indentation:
9744
9745 "In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be
9746 indented six feet downward and covered with dirt."
9747 -- Blair P. Houghton
9748 %
9749 "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], `Pray,
9750 Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right
9751 answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of
9752 confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
9753 -- Charles Babbage
9754 %
9755 On-line, adj.:
9756 The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a
9757 computer.
9758 %
9759 Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were
9760 forced to live on nothing but food and water for days.
9761 -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee"
9762 %
9763 Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that
9764 each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his
9765 choice.
9766
9767 In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians
9768 called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka"
9769 and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People
9770 passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy
9771 Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!"
9772 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
9773 %
9774 Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict,
9775 Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease".
9776 Disraeli replied, "That all depends upon whether I embrace your
9777 principals or your mistress".
9778 %
9779 Once Law was sitting on the bench
9780 And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
9781 "Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
9782 Nor come before me creeping.
9783 Upon your knees if you appear,
9784 'Tis plain you have no standing here."
9785
9786 Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
9787 "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!"
9788 "Amica curiae," she replied --
9789 "Friend of the court, so please you."
9790 "Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door --
9791 I never saw your face before!"
9792 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
9793 %
9794 Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human
9795 beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by
9796 side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them
9797 which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the
9798 sky.
9799 -- Rainer Rilke
9800 %
9801 Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a
9802 great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to
9803 the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of
9804 life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But
9805 one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is
9806 going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I
9807 shall die of boredom."
9808 The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that
9809 current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the
9810 rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"
9811 But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go,
9812 and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
9813 Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current
9814 lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
9815 And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried,
9816 "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the
9817 Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current
9818 said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us
9819 free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this
9820 adventure.
9821 But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to
9822 the rocks, making legends of a Saviour.
9823 %
9824 Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of
9825 us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of
9826 the smaller prime numbers.
9827
9828 2: The Odd Prime --
9829 It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED.
9830 3: The True Prime --
9831 Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you three times, it's true."
9832 31: The Arbitrary Prime --
9833 Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime
9834 in case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91
9835 received the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the
9836 next most. However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none
9837 at all.
9838
9839 Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities are
9840 derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd but
9841 true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers.
9842 %
9843 ... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to you
9844 with ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them. Holiday
9845 shoppers have been whipped into a frenzy by months of holiday
9846 advertisements, and they will buy anything small enough to stuff into a
9847 shopping bag. If your children object to being tied, threaten to take
9848 them to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them up.
9849 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
9850 %
9851 Once, adv.:
9852 Enough.
9853 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
9854 %
9855 One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least
9856 somebody's listening.
9857 -- Franklin P. Jones
9858 %
9859 "One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative."
9860
9861 Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
9862 The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
9863 -- Chuq Von Rospach
9864 %
9865 One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
9866 %
9867 One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing
9868 how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette.
9869 -- Professor Charles P. Issawi
9870 %
9871 One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell
9872 the truth. A gallows was erected in front of the city gates. A herald
9873 announced, "Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to
9874 a question which will be put to him." Nasrudin was first in line. The
9875 captain of the guard asked him, "Where are you going? Tell the truth
9876 -- the alternative is death by hanging." "I am going," said Nasrudin,
9877 "to be hanged on that gallows." "I don't believe you." "Very well, if
9878 I have told a lie, then hang me!" "But that would make it the truth!"
9879 "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth."
9880 %
9881 One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet
9882 when well oiled.
9883 %
9884 One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they
9885 never have to stop and answer the phone.
9886 %
9887 One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
9888 -- Chateaubriand (1768-1848)
9889 %
9890 One learns to itch where one can scratch.
9891 -- Ernest Bramah
9892 %
9893 One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as
9894 one man would have produced alone. These two plus two more will
9895 produce half again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin to
9896 represent a creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter as
9897 many ...
9898 -- Anthony Chevins
9899 %
9900 One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
9901 %
9902 One monk said to the other, "The fish has flopped out of the net! How
9903 will it live?" The other said, "When you have gotten out of the net,
9904 I'll tell you."
9905 %
9906 One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
9907 %
9908 One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible
9909 from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at
9910 least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts
9911 are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but
9912 when He's good, nobody can touch Him.
9913 -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983
9914 %
9915 One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to
9916 do and always a clever thing to say.
9917 -- Will Durant
9918 %
9919 "... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
9920 lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
9921 their C programs."
9922 -- Robert Firth
9923 %
9924 One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God
9925 create goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "________somebody has to buy
9926 retail."
9927 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
9928 %
9929 One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How
9930 enthusiastic is our support for UNIX?
9931 Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many
9932 years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines.
9933 Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple
9934 language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for
9935 students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for
9936 interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of
9937 its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on
9938 VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
9939 It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will
9940 run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and
9941 will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
9942 With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and
9943 quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With
9944 VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of
9945 documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the
9946 difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS
9947 is that it's all there.
9948 -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984
9949 %
9950 One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your
9951 seat to another passenger. This may seem callous, but it is the best
9952 way, really. If one passenger were to give a seat to someone who
9953 fainted in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would become
9954 disoriented and imagine they were in Topeka, Kansas.
9955 %
9956 The Seventh Commandments for Technicians
9957 Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy
9958 fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in
9959 other ways.
9960 %
9961 The First Commandment for Technicians:
9962 Beware the lightening that lurketh in the undischarged
9963 capacitor, lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most
9964 untechnician-like manner.
9965 %
9966 One Page Principle:
9967 A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch
9968 paper cannot be understood.
9969 -- Mark Ardis
9970 %
9971 "One planet is all you get."
9972 %
9973 One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could
9974 manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that
9975 they be installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips. Let's
9976 say your congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding
9977 study on how the French government handles diseases transmitted by
9978 sherbet. Just when he got to the plane, his mandatory air bag,
9979 strapped around his waist, would inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus
9980 rendering him too large to fit through the plane door. It could also
9981 be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman proposed a law. ("Mr.
9982 Speaker, people ask me, why should October be designated as Cuticle
9983 Inspection Month? And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.") This would save
9984 millions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public would violently
9985 support a law requiring airbags on congressmen. The problem is that
9986 your potential market is very small: there are only around 500 members
9987 of Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil, are
9988 already too large to fit on normal aircraft.
9989 -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
9990 %
9991 One reason why George Washington
9992 Is held in such veneration:
9993 He never blamed his problems
9994 On the former Administration.
9995 -- George O. Ludcke
9996 %
9997 One seldom sees a monument to a committee.
9998 %
9999 One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh
10000 paint.
10001 %
10002 "One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that
10003 sometimes you must work under adverse conditions ... like a state of
10004 sheer terror."
10005 -- W. K. Hartmann
10006 %
10007 One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a
10008 new model.
10009 %
10010 One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him.
10011 %
10012 One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned
10013 at the stake while the votes were being counted.
10014 -- Thomas B. Reed
10015 %
10016 One-Shot Case Study, n.:
10017 The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which
10018 it is concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes
10019 green.
10020 %
10021 Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps.
10022 %
10023 Only God can make random selections.
10024 %
10025 Only presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to
10026 use the editorial "we."
10027 %
10028 Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer.
10029 %
10030 Optimization hinders evolution.
10031 %
10032 Optimization hinders evolution.
10033 %
10034 Oregano, n.:
10035 The ancient Italian art of pizza folding.
10036 %
10037 Oregon, n.:
10038 Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday
10039 night.
10040 %
10041 Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry
10042 is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.
10043 -- Mike Adams
10044 %
10045 Osborn's Law:
10046 Variables won't; constants aren't.
10047 %
10048 Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your
10049 nails.
10050 %
10051 Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is
10052 they charge fifteen cents for them.
10053 %
10054 Our documentation manager was showing her two year old son around the
10055 office. He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we
10056 were both holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of
10057 juice. But only *__he* had a lollipop.
10058
10059 He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?"
10060
10061 Her reply:
10062
10063 "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's what it
10064 means to be a programmer."
10065 %
10066 Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name.
10067 Thy programs run, thy syscalls done,
10068 In kernel as it is in user!
10069 %
10070 Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing.
10071 -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president Litton Industries
10072 %
10073 ... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce
10074 Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One
10075 thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If
10076 somebody gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it
10077 on his legal stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what
10078 a lesser person would do, such as get it changed or kill himself.
10079 -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!"
10080 %
10081 "Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it."
10082 -- Alex Schure
10083 %
10084 "Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it."
10085 -- Alex Schure
10086 %
10087 Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
10088 -- General Omar N. Bradley
10089 %
10090 OUTCONERR
10091 Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes
10092 Did logzerneg the ifthen block
10093 All kludgy were the function flows
10094 And subroutines adhoc.
10095
10096 Beware the runtime-bug my friend
10097 squrooneg, the false goto
10098 Beware the infiniteloop
10099 And shun the inprectoo.
10100 %
10101 "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog,
10102 it's too dark to read."
10103 -- Groucho Marx
10104 %
10105 Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now
10106 I can remember things that *have* happened before ...
10107 %
10108 Overdrawn? But I still have checks left!
10109 %
10110 Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket.
10111 %
10112 Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated.
10113 %
10114 Ozman's Laws:
10115 (1) If someone says he will do something "without fail," he
10116 won't.
10117 (2) The more people talk on the phone, the less money they
10118 make.
10119 (3) People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't.
10120 (4) Pizza always burns the roof of your mouth.
10121 %
10122 Painting, n.:
10123 The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and
10124 exposing them to the critic.
10125 -- Ambrose Bierce
10126 %
10127 panic: can't find /
10128 %
10129 panic: kernel trap (ignored)
10130 %
10131 Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much
10132 better.
10133 -- Laurie Anderson
10134 %
10135 Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
10136 %
10137 Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.
10138 %
10139 Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.
10140 %
10141 Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to
10142 criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.
10143 -- D. J. Hicks
10144 %
10145 Pardo's First Postulate:
10146 Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or
10147 fattening.
10148
10149 Arnold's Addendum:
10150 Everything else causes cancer in rats.
10151 %
10152 Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction.
10153 %
10154 Parker's Law:
10155 Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
10156 %
10157 Parkinson's Fifth Law:
10158 If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good
10159 bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
10160 %
10161 Parkinson's Fourth Law:
10162 The number of people in any working group tends to increase
10163 regardless of the amount of work to be done.
10164 %
10165 Parsley
10166 is gharsley.
10167 -- Ogden Nash
10168 %
10169 Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
10170 %
10171 "Pascal is not a high-level language."
10172 -- Steven Feiner
10173 %
10174 "Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat."
10175 -- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340
10176 %
10177 Pascal Users:
10178 To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the
10179 death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half speed.
10180 %
10181 Pascal, n.:
10182 A programming language named after a man who would turn over in
10183 his grave if he knew about it.
10184 %
10185 Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
10186 -- Eric Hoffer
10187 %
10188 Patageometry, n.:
10189 The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant
10190 under brain transplants.
10191 %
10192 Paul Revere was a tattle-tale
10193 %
10194 Paul's Law:
10195 In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you
10196 save.
10197 %
10198 Paul's Law:
10199 You can't fall off the floor.
10200 %
10201 Peace, n.:
10202 In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
10203 periods of fighting.
10204 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
10205 %
10206 Peanut Blossoms
10207
10208 4 cups sugar 16 tbsp. milk
10209 4 cups brown sugar 4 tsp. vanilla
10210 4 cups shortening 14 cups flour
10211 8 eggs 4 tsp. soda
10212 4 cups peanut butter 4 tsp. salt
10213
10214 Shape dough into balls. Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookie
10215 sheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes. Immediately top each cookie with a
10216 Hershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie. Makes a
10217 hell of a lot.
10218 %
10219 Pecor's Health-Food Principle:
10220 Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in
10221 it.
10222 %
10223 Pedaeration, n.:
10224 The perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under the
10225 sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed.
10226 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
10227 %
10228 Penguin Trivia #46:
10229 Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were.
10230 -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
10231 %
10232 People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.
10233 -- Bokonon, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
10234 %
10235 People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of
10236 the future.
10237 %
10238 "People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense."
10239 -- Ken Kesey
10240 %
10241 People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed.
10242 %
10243 People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better
10244 press than people who are just funny and smart.
10245 -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post"
10246 %
10247 People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never
10248 slept in a room with a single mosquito.
10249 %
10250 People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who
10251 haven't what they want that they don't want it.
10252 -- Ogden Nash
10253 %
10254 People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that
10255 Benjamin Franklin said it first.
10256 %
10257 People will buy anything that's one to a customer.
10258 %
10259 People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they
10260 did yesterday.
10261 %
10262 Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
10263 "Confound those who have said our remarks before us."
10264 -- Aelius Donatus
10265 %
10266 Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.
10267 %
10268 Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but
10269 when there is no longer anything to take away.
10270 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
10271 %
10272 Personifiers Unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!
10273 %
10274 Peter's Law of Substitution:
10275 Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after
10276 themselves.
10277 %
10278 Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to
10279 exciting Camden, New Jersey.
10280 %
10281 Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny.
10282 %
10283 Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
10284 -- John Keats
10285 %
10286 Pick another fortune cookie.
10287 %
10288 "Picture the sun as the origin of two intersecting 6-dimensional
10289 hyperplanes from which we can deduce a certain transformational
10290 sequence which gives us the terminal velocity of a rubber duck ..."
10291 %
10292 Pig, n.:
10293 An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race
10294 by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is
10295 inferior in scope, for it balks at pig.
10296 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
10297 %
10298 PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20)
10299 You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being
10300 followed by the CIA or FBI. You have minor influence over your
10301 associates and people resent your flaunting of your power. You lack
10302 confidence and you are generally a coward. Pisces people do terrible
10303 things to small animals.
10304 %
10305 PISCES (Feb. 19 to Mar. 20)
10306 Take the high road, look for the good things, carry the
10307 American Express card and a weapon. The world is yours today, as
10308 nobody else wants it. Your mortgage will be foreclosed. You will
10309 probably get run over by a bus.
10310 %
10311 Pittsburgh Driver's Test
10312
10313 (7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light
10314 but a steady left tail light. This means
10315
10316 (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn
10317 to call the problem to the driver's attention.
10318 (b) the driver is signaling a right turn.
10319 (c) the driver is signaling a left turn.
10320 (d) the driver is from out of town.
10321
10322 The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign
10323 countries to signal turns.
10324 %
10325 Pittsburgh Driver's Test
10326
10327 (8) Pedestrians are
10328
10329 (a) irrelevant.
10330 (b) communists.
10331 (c) a nuisance.
10332 (d) difficult to clean off the front grille.
10333
10334 The correct answer is (a). Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are
10335 totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely.
10336 %
10337 Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
10338 -- Don Marquis
10339 %
10340 PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem set than to the
10341 solution set.
10342 -- E. W. Dijkstra
10343 %
10344 "Plaese porrf raed."
10345 -- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase
10346 %
10347 Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia
10348 because they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosophers
10349 couldn't compete successfully with poets.
10350 -- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer) "Venus on the Half
10351 Shell"
10352 %
10353 Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill
10354 them.
10355 %
10356 Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic
10357 table.
10358 -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
10359 %
10360 Please ignore previous fortune.
10361 %
10362 Please take note:
10363 %
10364 Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas"
10365 until you are told that those rooms are "punched out". Once punched
10366 out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas,
10367 and such.
10368 -- N. Meyrowitz
10369 %
10370 Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means?
10371 %
10372 Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities,
10373 requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm
10374 into a clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing
10375 problems, such as annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the
10376 radio. But before we get into specific techniques, let's look at how
10377 plumbing works.
10378 A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system,
10379 except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires,
10380 it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets
10381 and toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at
10382 all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can
10383 kill you.
10384 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
10385 %
10386 PLUNDERER'S THEME
10387 (to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius)
10388
10389 Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
10390 If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation.
10391 Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations.
10392 Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
10393 %
10394 Pohl's law:
10395 Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.
10396 %
10397 Police: Good evening, are you the host?
10398 Host: No.
10399 Police: We've been getting complaints about this party.
10400 Host: About the drugs?
10401 Police: No.
10402 Host: About the guns, then? Is somebody complaining about the guns?
10403 Police: No, the noise.
10404 Host: Oh, the noise. Well that makes sense because there are no guns
10405 or drugs here. (An enormous explosion is heard in the
10406 background.) Or fireworks. Who's complaining about the noise?
10407 The neighbors?
10408 Police: No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago. Most of the recent
10409 complaints have come from Pittsburgh. Do you think you could
10410 ask the host to quiet things down?
10411 Host: No Problem. (At this point, a Volkswagon bug with primitive
10412 religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living
10413 room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the
10414 lawn, where it smashes into a tree. Eight guests tumble out
10415 onto the grass, moaning.) See? Things are starting to wind
10416 down.
10417 %
10418 Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell
10419 all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds.
10420 %
10421 Politician, n.:
10422 An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of
10423 organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the
10424 agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared
10425 with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.
10426 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
10427 %
10428 Politician, n.:
10429 From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tete" ("head" or
10430 "face," as in "tete-a-tete": head to head or face to face). Hence
10431 "polytetien", a person of two or more faces.
10432 -- Martin Pitt
10433 %
10434 Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even
10435 where there is no river.
10436 -- Nikita Khrushchev
10437 %
10438 Politics is like coaching a football team. you have to be smart enough
10439 to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.
10440 %
10441 Polymer physicists are into chains.
10442 %
10443 Pope Goestheveezl was the shortest reigning pope in the history of the
10444 Church, reigning for two hours and six minutes on 1 April 1866. The
10445 white smoke had hardly faded into the blue of the Vatican skies before
10446 it dawned on the assembled multitudes in St. Peter's Square that his
10447 name had hilarious possibilities. The crowds fell about, helpless with
10448 laughter, singing
10449 Half a pound of tuppenny rice
10450 Half a pound of treacle
10451 That's the way the chimney smokes
10452 Pope Goestheveezl
10453 The square was finally cleared by armed carabineri with tears of
10454 laughter streaming down their faces. The event set a record for
10455 hilarious civic functions, smashing the previous record set when Baron
10456 Hans Neizant B"ompzidaize was elected Landburgher of K"oln in 1653.
10457 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
10458 %
10459 Portable, adj.:
10460 Survives system reboot.
10461 %
10462 Positive, adj.:
10463 Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
10464 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
10465 %
10466 Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
10467 %
10468 "Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat"
10469 -- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy 1981-1987
10470 %
10471 Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically.
10472 %
10473 Power, n:
10474 The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA.
10475 %
10476 Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little
10477 more time for dreaming.
10478 -- J. P. McEvoy
10479 %
10480 Predestination was doomed from the start.
10481 %
10482 President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and
10483 forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax.
10484 %
10485 President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the
10486 vote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting.
10487 -- The Washington Post
10488 %
10489 Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist!
10490 %
10491 Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning:
10492 It's on the other side.
10493 %
10494 [Prime Minister Joseph] Chamberlain loves the working man -- he loves
10495 to see him work.
10496 -- Winston Churchill
10497 %
10498 Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.
10499 %
10500 Probable-Possible, my black hen,
10501 She lays eggs in the Relative When.
10502 She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
10503 Because she's unable to postulate how.
10504 -- Frederick Winsor
10505 %
10506 Probably the question asked most often is: Do one-celled animals have
10507 orgasms? The answer is yes, they have orgasms almost constantly, which
10508 is why they don't mind living in pools of warm slime.
10509 -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
10510 Teen Should Know"
10511 %
10512 Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data
10513 encryption standard and they came up with ...
10514 Student: EBCDIC!"
10515 %
10516 Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem.
10517 Eng. 130 midterm. Once again no student received a single point on
10518 his exam. Newell has now tossed five shutouts this quarter. Newell's
10519 earned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%
10520 %
10521 Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction.
10522
10523 This technique is used on equations with "_n" in them. Induction
10524 techniques are very popular, even the military used them.
10525
10526 SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction.
10527
10528 We know it's true for _n equal to 1. Now assume that it's true
10529 for every natural number less than _n. _N is arbitrary, so we can take _n
10530 as large as we want. If _n is sufficiently large, the case of _n+1 is
10531 trivially equivalent, so the only important _n are _n less than _n. We
10532 can take _n = _n (from above), so it's true for _n+1 because it's just
10533 about _n.
10534 QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?")
10535 %
10536 Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity.
10537 SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs.
10538 (1) Horses have an even number of legs.
10539 (2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front.
10540 (3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of
10541 legs for a horse.
10542 (4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity.
10543 (5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs.
10544
10545 Topics is be covered in future issues include proof by:
10546 Intimidation
10547 Gesticulation (handwaving)
10548 "Try it; it works"
10549 Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...)
10550 Blatant assertion
10551 Changing all the 2's to _n's
10552 Mutual consent
10553 Lack of a counterexample, and
10554 "It stands to reason"
10555 %
10556 Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
10557
10558 BBW Branch Both Ways
10559 BEW Branch Either Way
10560 BBBF Branch on Bit Bucket Full
10561 BH Branch and Hang
10562 BMR Branch Multiple Registers
10563 BOB Branch On Bug
10564 BPO Branch on Power Off
10565 BST Backspace and Stretch Tape
10566 CDS Condense and Destroy System
10567 CLBR Clobber Register
10568 CLBRI Clobber Register Immediately
10569 CM Circulate Memory
10570 CMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programming
10571 CPPR Crumple Printer Paper and Rip
10572 CRN Convert to Roman Numerals
10573 %
10574 Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
10575
10576 DC Divide and Conquer
10577 DMPK Destroy Memory Protect Key
10578 DO Divide and Overflow
10579 EMPC Emulate Pocket Calculator
10580 EPI Execute Programmer Immediately
10581 EROS Erase Read Only Storage
10582 EXCE Execute Customer Engineer
10583 HCF Halt and Catch Fire
10584 IBP Insert Bug and Proceed
10585 INSQSW Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out])
10586 PBC Print and Break Chain
10587 PDSK Punch Disk
10588 %
10589 Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
10590
10591 PI Punch Invalid
10592 POPI Punch Operator Immediately
10593 PVLC Punch Variable Length Card
10594 RASC Read And Shred Card
10595 RPM Read Programmers Mind
10596 RSSC reduce speed, step carefully (for improved accuracy)
10597 RTAB Rewind tape and break
10598 RWDSK rewind disk
10599 RWOC Read Writing On Card
10600 SCRBL scribble to disk - faster than a write
10601 SLC Search for Lost Chord
10602 SPSW Scramble Program Status Word
10603 SRSD Seek Record and Scar Disk
10604 STROM Store in Read Only Memory
10605 TDB Transfer and Drop Bit
10606 WBT Water Binary Tree
10607 %
10608 "Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller
10609 than the both put together."
10610 %
10611 Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check
10612 three friends. If they're OK, you're it.
10613 %
10614 Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well
10615 anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.
10616 -- H. L. Mencken
10617 %
10618 Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves
10619 to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way
10620 to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the
10621 cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in
10622 fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a
10623 lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of
10624 the first day even if they have plenty of food and water.
10625 -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
10626 %
10627 Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off of the TV screen.
10628 %
10629 Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen.
10630 %
10631 Pushing 40 is exercise enough.
10632 %
10633 Put no trust in cryptic comments.
10634 %
10635 Put your Nose to the Grindstone!
10636 -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd.
10637 %
10638 Putt's Law:
10639 Technology is dominated by two types of people:
10640 Those who understand what they do not manage.
10641 Those who manage what they do not understand.
10642 %
10643 Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is?
10644 A: One per person.
10645 %
10646 Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence?
10647 A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.
10648 %
10649 Q: How many DEC repairmen does it take to fix a flat ?
10650 A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.
10651 %
10652 Q: How many DEC repairmen does it take to fix a flat?
10653 A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.
10654
10655 Q: How long does it take?
10656 A: It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've
10657 brought with them.
10658
10659 Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats?
10660 A: They replace your generator.
10661 %
10662 Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
10663 A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb
10664 itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective
10665 reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a
10666 maudlin cosmos of nothingness.
10667 %
10668 Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb
10669 in San Francisco?
10670 A: Both of them.
10671 %
10672 Q: How many IBM cpu's does it take to do a logical right shift?
10673 A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register.
10674 %
10675 Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job?
10676 A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.
10677 %
10678 Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?
10679 A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001,
10680 Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of
10681 the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20%
10682 of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences
10683 of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
10684 %
10685 Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
10686 A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring
10687 light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government
10688 plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a pulitzer
10689 prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb
10690 assassin to break the bulb in the first place.
10691 %
10692 Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
10693 A: One and a half.
10694 %
10695 Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
10696 A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem
10697 to the earlier joke.
10698 %
10699 Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
10700 A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those
10701 Californians trying to share the experience.
10702 %
10703 Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
10704 A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub
10705 with brightly colored machine tools.
10706 %
10707 Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
10708 A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
10709 of the way.
10710 %
10711 Q: What's a light-year?
10712 A: One-third less calories than a regular year.
10713 %
10714 Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
10715 A: Because it was on the other side.
10716 %
10717 Q: Why do ducks have flat feet?
10718 A: To stamp out forest fires.
10719
10720 Q: Why do elephants have flat feet?
10721 A: To stamp out flaming ducks.
10722 %
10723 Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
10724 A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home.
10725 %
10726 Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What
10727 should I do?
10728
10729 A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on
10730 believing that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be
10731 the only one to make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No
10732 time to lose, so certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if
10733 somebody else has made the correction.
10734
10735 And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're
10736 the only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have
10737 to inform the whole net right away!
10738
10739 -- Brad Templeton, "Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions
10740 on Netiquette"
10741 %
10742 Quality Control, n.:
10743 The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off
10744 a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100 works.
10745 %
10746 Question:
10747 Man Invented Alcohol,
10748 God Invented Grass.
10749 Who do you trust?
10750 %
10751 Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!
10752 %
10753 Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!!
10754 %
10755 Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
10756
10757 (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
10758 %
10759 Quigley's Law:
10760 Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will
10761 atttempt to use it.
10762 %
10763 QUOTE OF THE DAY:
10764
10765 `
10766
10767 %
10768 "Qvid me anxivs svm?"
10769 %
10770 QWERT (kwirt), n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth]:
10771 1. a unit of weight equal to 13 poiuyt avoirdupois (or 1.69
10772 kiloliks), commonly used in structural engineering; 2. [colloq.] one
10773 thirteenth the load that a fully grown sligo can carry; 3. [anat.] a
10774 painful irritation of the dermis in the region of the anus; 4. [slang]
10775 person who excites in others the symptoms of a qwert.
10776 -- Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed.
10777 %
10778 Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.
10779 %
10780 Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something
10781 I saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of
10782 computer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport
10783 store. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told
10784 all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how all
10785 the lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are
10786 they taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the current
10787 rate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions on
10788 Information Theory" at the A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be
10789 impressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the saying
10790 goes, giving away the store?
10791 -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President
10792 %
10793 Ray's Rule of Precision:
10794 Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.
10795 %
10796 Razors pain you;
10797 Rivers are damp;
10798 Acids stain you;
10799 And drugs cause cramp.
10800 Guns aren't lawful;
10801 Nooses give;
10802 Gas smells awful;
10803 You might as well live.
10804 -- Dorothy Parker
10805 %
10806 Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe
10807 the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described
10808 with pictures.
10809 %
10810 Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of
10811 Congress. But I repeat myself.
10812 -- Mark Twain
10813 %
10814 Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic
10815 value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is
10816 much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice
10817 this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA.
10818 %
10819 Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware
10820 has limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing
10821 machines are so poor at I/O.
10822 %
10823 Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are
10824 so long they can't afford the disk space.
10825 %
10826 Real computer scientists don't program in assembler. They don't write
10827 in anything less portable than a number two pencil.
10828 %
10829 Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker
10830 with `programming systems', but those are so high level that they
10831 hardly count (and rarely count accurately; precision is for
10832 applications.)
10833 %
10834 Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run
10835 on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo
10836 sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet.
10837 %
10838 Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured
10839 programming is for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet-
10840 trained. They wear neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise
10841 clear desks.
10842 %
10843 Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine
10844 doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell
10845 quiche.
10846 %
10847 Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it
10848 should be hard to understand.
10849 %
10850 Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the
10851 illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how
10852 much good it did them.
10853 %
10854 Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires
10855 you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers
10856 wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly
10857 spring up in the middle of the machine room.
10858 %
10859 Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write
10860 in BASIC after reaching puberty.
10861 %
10862 Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress
10863 freaks and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who
10864 wear white socks.
10865 %
10866 Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who
10867 can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN.
10868 %
10869 Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue.
10870 %
10871 Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use
10872 functions for scratch space after they are finished calling them?
10873 %
10874 Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness.
10875 This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a
10876 computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package.
10877 %
10878 Real software engineers don't like the idea of some inexplicable and
10879 greasy hardware several aisles away that may stop working at any
10880 moment. They have a great distrust of hardware people, and wish that
10881 systems could be virtual at *___all* levels. They would like personal
10882 computers (you know no one's going to trip over something and kill your
10883 DFA in mid-transit), except that they need 8 megabytes to run their
10884 Correctness Verification Aid packages.
10885 %
10886 Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the
10887 job is described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like
10888 using an undocumented external procedure.
10889 %
10890 Real Time, adj.:
10891 Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there
10892 and then.
10893 %
10894 Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never
10895 afraid to break your face.
10896 %
10897 Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shuts
10898 down the system for days.
10899 %
10900 Real Users hate Real Programmers.
10901 %
10902 Real Users know your home telephone number.
10903 %
10904 Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your
10905 program doesn't deliver it.
10906 %
10907 Real Users never use the Help key.
10908 %
10909 Real World, The n.:
10910 1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may
10911 be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. To
10912 programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related
10913 to programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and
10914 tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5. 4.
10915 The location of the status quo. 5. Anywhere outside a university.
10916 "Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world." Used
10917 pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking
10918 of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a
10919 deceased person.
10920 %
10921 Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs.
10922 %
10923 Reality is an obstacle to hallucination.
10924 %
10925 Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth?
10926 -- Patrick Sky
10927 %
10928 Reality is for people who lack imagination.
10929 %
10930 Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
10931 %
10932 Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity.
10933 -- Alvy Ray Smith
10934 %
10935 "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go
10936 away".
10937 -- Philip K. Dick
10938 %
10939 "Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!"
10940 %
10941 Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than
10942 being flat broke and having a stomach ache.
10943 -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
10944 %
10945 Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you
10946 lose your job. These economic downturns are very difficult to predict,
10947 but sophisticated econometric modeling houses like Data Resources and
10948 Chase Econometrics have successfully predicted 14 of the last 3
10949 recessions.
10950 %
10951 Reclaimer, spare that tree!
10952 Take not a single bit!
10953 It used to point to me,
10954 Now I'm protecting it.
10955 It was the reader's CONS
10956 That made it, paired by dot;
10957 Now, GC, for the nonce,
10958 Thou shalt reclaim it not.
10959 %
10960 "Reflections on Ice-Breaking"
10961 Candy
10962 Is dandy
10963 But liquor
10964 Is quicker.
10965 -- Ogden Nash
10966 %
10967 "Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universe
10968 again ..." An unusually long pause followed, "... but I don't know
10969 which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A
10970 spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the
10971 starfield surrounding the ship.
10972
10973 "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC
10974 announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they
10975 are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been
10976 intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and
10977 transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown.
10978 Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious."
10979 -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star"
10980 %
10981 Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia:
10982 If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
10983 %
10984 Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
10985 -- Anatole France
10986 %
10987 "Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used
10988 it."
10989 -- Dave Barry
10990 %
10991 Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be
10992 worse in Cleveland.
10993 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
10994 %
10995 Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a good
10996 offense!
10997 %
10998 Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat.
10999 %
11000 Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU.
11001 %
11002 Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.
11003 -- Dave Butler
11004 %
11005 Renning's Maxim:
11006 Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying.
11007 %
11008 Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western
11009 Civilization?
11010 Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.
11011 %
11012 Reporter, n.:
11013 A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a
11014 tempest of words.
11015 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
11016 %
11017 REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system?
11018
11019 SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying that
11020 the country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You can
11021 carry a pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away."
11022 I have no idea why the country folk say this. Maybe there's some kind
11023 of chemical pollutant in their drinking water. That is why I pledge to
11024 do all that I can to protect the environment of this great nation of
11025 ours, and put prayer back in the schools, where it belongs. What we
11026 need is jobs, not empty promises. I realize I'm risking my political
11027 career be being so outspoken on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but
11028 that's just the kind of straight-talking honest person I am, and I
11029 can't help it.
11030 -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
11031 %
11032 Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
11033 -- Wernher von Braun
11034 %
11035 Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get
11036 another chance later on.
11037 %
11038 Review Questions
11039
11040 (1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH,
11041 and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before
11042 he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the
11043 Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship?
11044
11045 (2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks
11046 twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks
11047 every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off
11048 his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week?
11049
11050 (3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers
11051 the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a
11052 pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King
11053 Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice?
11054 %
11055 Rhode's Law:
11056 When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening,
11057 circumstance, or result can in no way be directly, indirectly,
11058 empirically, or circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred,
11059 induced, deducted, estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always
11060 for the purpose of convenience, expediency, political advantage,
11061 material gain, or personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or
11062 none of the above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed,
11063 proclaimed, and adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably,
11064 universally, immutably, and infinitely so, until such time as it
11065 becomes advantageous to assume otherwise, maybe.
11066 %
11067 "Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time."
11068 -- Steven Wright
11069 %
11070 Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention
11071 Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will
11072 reject the proposal.
11073 %
11074 Romeo wasn't bilked in a day.
11075 -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With
11076 Pogo"
11077 %
11078 ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
11079 MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-
11080 door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.
11081 %
11082 Rudin's Law:
11083 If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it
11084 every time.
11085 %
11086 Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London:
11087 Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall
11088 be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person
11089 shall be deemed to be a cat.
11090 %
11091 Rule of Creative Research:
11092 (1) Never draw what you can copy.
11093 (2) Never copy what you can trace.
11094 (3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down.
11095 %
11096 Rule of Defactualization:
11097 Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
11098 %
11099 Rule of Feline Frustration:
11100 When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
11101 content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.
11102 %
11103 Rule of the Great:
11104 When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep
11105 thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.
11106 %
11107 Rules for Academic Deans:
11108 (1) HIDE!!!!
11109 (2) If they find you, LIE!!!!
11110 -- Father Damian C. Fandal
11111 %
11112 Rules for driving in New York:
11113 (1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal.
11114 (2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers
11115 on.
11116 (3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the
11117 intersection.
11118 %
11119 RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED
11120 (1) Never eat on an empty stomach.
11121 (2) Never leave the table hungry.
11122 (3) When traveling, never leave a country hungry.
11123 (4) Enjoy your food.
11124 (5) Enjoy your companion's food.
11125 (6) Really taste your food. It may take several portions to
11126 accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned.
11127 (7) Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare,
11128 for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a
11129 brownie. Which feels better against your cheeks?
11130 (8) Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal.
11131 (9) Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You
11132 can always eat it later.
11133 (10) Avoid any wine with a childproof cap.
11134 (11) Avoid blue food.
11135 -- Richard Smit, "The Bronx Diet"
11136 %
11137 Rules:
11138 (1) The boss is always right.
11139 (2) When the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1.
11140 %
11141 Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence
11142 Tip #1: How to tell when you are dead.
11143
11144 (1) Little things start bothering you: little things like worms, bugs,
11145 ants.
11146 (2) Something is missing in your personal relationships.
11147 (3) Your dog becomes overly affectionate.
11148 (4) You have a hard time getting a waiter.
11149 (5) Exotic birds flock around you.
11150 (6) People ignore you at parties.
11151 (7) You have a hard time getting up in the morning.
11152 (8) You no longer get off on cocaine.
11153 %
11154 Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence
11155 (1) Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear
11156 bomb; use the stairs.
11157 (2) When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit
11158 the ground.
11159 (3) If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials.
11160 (4) Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to
11161 psychological problems.
11162 (5) Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to
11163 recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed
11164 potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc.
11165 (6) Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs
11166 will be scarce in the post-nuclear age.
11167 (7) Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles.
11168 (8) Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be
11169 staggering illegally.
11170 (9) Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more
11171 sanitary due to limited circulation.
11172 (10) Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on
11173 D-Day.
11174 %
11175 SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21)
11176 You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless
11177 tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority
11178 of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People
11179 laugh at you a great deal.
11180 %
11181 San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was.
11182 -- Herb Caen
11183 %
11184 San Francisco, n.:
11185 Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse.
11186 %
11187 Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.
11188 -- Mark Harrold
11189 %
11190 Santa Claus wears a Red Suit,
11191 He must be a communist.
11192 And a beard and long hair,
11193 Must be a pacifist.
11194
11195 What's in that pipe that he's smoking?
11196 -- Arlo Guthrie
11197 %
11198 Satellite Safety Tip #14:
11199 If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck.
11200 %
11201 Sattinger's Law:
11202 It works better if you plug it in.
11203 %
11204 Saturday night in Toledo Ohio,
11205 Is like being nowhere at all,
11206 All through the day how the hours rush by,
11207 You sit in the park and you watch the grass die.
11208 -- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio"
11209 %
11210 Sauron is alive in Argentina!
11211 %
11212 Save energy: be apathetic.
11213 %
11214 Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda.
11215 %
11216 Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
11217 %
11218 "Saw a sign on a restaurant that said Breakfast, any time -- so I
11219 ordered French Toast in the Renaissance.
11220 -- Steven Wright
11221 %
11222 SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!
11223 -- Ken Thompson
11224 %
11225 Schapiro's Explanation:
11226 The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's
11227 because they use more manure.
11228 %
11229 Schizophrenia beats being alone.
11230 %
11231 Schlattwhapper, n.:
11232 The window shade that allows itself to be pulled down,
11233 hesitates for a second, then snaps up in your face.
11234 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11235 %
11236 Schnuffel, n.:
11237 A dog's practice of continuously nuzzling in your crotch in
11238 mixed company.
11239 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11240 %
11241 Schwiggle, n.:
11242 The amusing rotation of one's bottom while sharpening a
11243 pencil.
11244 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11245 %
11246 Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made
11247 of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts
11248 is not necessarily science.
11249 -- Henri Poincair'e
11250 %
11251 Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.
11252 %
11253 Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.
11254 -- William Buckley
11255
11256 %
11257 SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21)
11258 You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will
11259 achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of
11260 ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered.
11261 %
11262 Scott's first Law:
11263 No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.
11264 %
11265 Scott's second Law:
11266 When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found
11267 to have been wrong in the first place.
11268
11269 Corollary:
11270 After the correction has been found in error, it will be
11271 impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation.
11272 %
11273 Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!
11274 Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock?
11275 Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.
11276 Kirk: Then it's of external origin?
11277 Spock: Affirmative.
11278 Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.
11279 Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.
11280 %
11281 Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else.
11282 %
11283 Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the
11284 Presidency.
11285 -- Richard Nixon
11286 %
11287 Second Law of Business Meetings:
11288 If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you
11289 will pick the wrong one.
11290
11291 Corollary:
11292 If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it
11293 wrong, anyway.
11294 %
11295 "Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State).
11296 In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a
11297 multiline message byte.
11298 In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message
11299 must be sent passive true.
11300 The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter:
11301 (1) The ANRS if DAV is false
11302 (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither:
11303 (a) The LADS is active
11304 (b) Nor LACS is active"
11305
11306 -- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for
11307 Programmable Instrumentation
11308 %
11309 Security check: INTRUDER ALERT!
11310 %
11311 Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
11312 She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
11313 Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
11314 Silently scheming,
11315 Sightlessly seeking
11316 Some savage, spectacular suicide.
11317 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
11318 %
11319 "See - the thing is - I'm an absolutist. I mean, kind of ... in a way ..."
11320 %
11321 Seleznick's Theory of Holistic Medicine:
11322 Ice Cream cures all ills.
11323 %
11324 Self Test for Paranoia:
11325 You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's
11326 your own fault.
11327 %
11328 Seminars, n.:
11329 From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion.
11330 %
11331 Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would
11332 notify you if the record has pornographics material or
11333 material glorifying violence?"
11334 Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me."
11335 Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's
11336 legs on the album cover is good indication that it's
11337 not for little Johnny."
11338
11339 -- The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock
11340 lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985
11341 %
11342 Senate, n.:
11343 A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and
11344 misdemeanors.
11345 -- Ambrose Bierce
11346 %
11347 Serenity through viciousness.
11348 %
11349 Serocki's Stricture:
11350 Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.
11351 %
11352 Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence.
11353 %
11354 "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated
11355 thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY
11356 advice, I'd have said `Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now."
11357 "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly.
11358 "Too proud?" the other enquired.
11359 Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean,"
11360 she said, "that one can't help growing older."
11361 "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With
11362 proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
11363 -- Lewis Carroll
11364 %
11365 Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a
11366 big store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at
11367 reasonable prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with that, let's
11368 build a home center. And before long home centers were springing up
11369 like crabgrass all over the United States.
11370 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
11371 %
11372 Sex is a natural bodily process, like a stroke.
11373 %
11374 Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
11375 -- Swami X
11376 %
11377 Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated.
11378 -- M. C. Reed.
11379 %
11380 Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go,
11381 it's one of the best.
11382 -- Woody Allen
11383 %
11384 Shamus, n. [Yiddish]:
11385 A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the
11386 temple, and makes sure everything is in working order.
11387 A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagog
11388 functionaries, and there's a joke about that:
11389 A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the
11390 middle of a service, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The cantor, not to be
11391 bested, also cries out, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!"
11392 The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, "Oh, Lord, I
11393 am nobody!" The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, "Look who thinks
11394 he's nobody!"
11395 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
11396 %
11397 Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off
11398 during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.
11399 -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
11400 Teen Should Know"
11401 %
11402 Shaw's Principle:
11403 Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will
11404 want to use it.
11405 %
11406 "She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to."
11407 -- Gypsy Rose Lee
11408 %
11409 She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot.
11410 -- Mark Twain
11411 %
11412 She liked him; he was a man of many qualities, even if most of them
11413 were bad.
11414 %
11415 She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could
11416 have poured on a waffle ...
11417 %
11418 "She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing,
11419 you should hear me play piano.'"
11420 -- Morrisey
11421 %
11422 She's genuinely bogus.
11423 %
11424 "Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have
11425 taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an
11426 excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature."
11427 -- Samuel Johnson
11428 %
11429 SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT!
11430 POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE!
11431 %
11432 Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is
11433 playing golf with his boss.
11434 %
11435 Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change.
11436 %
11437 Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help.
11438 -- from the Brown Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet
11439 %
11440 Silverman's Law:
11441 If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
11442 %
11443 Simon's Law:
11444 Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.
11445 %
11446 Since I hurt my pendulum
11447 My life is all erratic.
11448 My parrot, who was cordial,
11449 Is now transmitting static.
11450 The carpet died, a palm collapsed,
11451 The cat keeps doing poo.
11452 The only thing that keeps me sane
11453 Is talking to my shoe.
11454 -- My Shoe
11455 %
11456 Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're
11457 alive.
11458 -- John Sloan
11459 %
11460 Since we're all here, we must not be all there.
11461 -- Bob "Mountain" Beck
11462 %
11463 [Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the
11464 vices I admire.
11465 -- Winston Churchill
11466 %
11467 Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the Vulgate
11468 Bible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automatically
11469 excommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text.
11470 This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personally
11471 examined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the published
11472 Vulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to be
11473 printed and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wry
11474 comments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus had
11475 no recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy.
11476 %
11477 Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor):
11478 That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to,
11479 or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should
11480 have gotten.
11481 %
11482 Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes
11483 to work.
11484 %
11485 Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not,
11486 when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and
11487 apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I
11488 neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a
11489 tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension: they
11490 were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of
11491 souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a
11492 testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from
11493 chains.
11494 -- Frederick Douglass
11495 %
11496 Slick's Three Laws of the Universe:
11497 (1) Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad
11498 check.
11499 (2) A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat.
11500 (3) There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is
11501 attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is
11502 attracted to dark objects.
11503 %
11504 Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ...
11505 %
11506 Slurm, n.:
11507 The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when
11508 it sits in the dish too long.
11509 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11510 %
11511 Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
11512 -- Fletcher Knebel
11513 %
11514 Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
11515 -- Fletcher Knebel
11516 %
11517 Snacktrek, n.:
11518 The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly
11519 returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have
11520 materialized.
11521 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11522 %
11523 So as your consumer electronics adviser, I am advising you to donate
11524 your current VCR to a grate resident, who will laugh sardonically and
11525 hurl it into a dumpster. Then I want you to go out and purchase a vast
11526 array of 8-millimeter video equipment.
11527
11528 ... OK! Got everything? Well, *too bad, sucker*, because while you
11529 were gone the electronics industry came up with an even newer format
11530 that makes your 8-millimeter VCR look as technologically advanced as
11531 toenail dirt. This format is called "3.5 hectare" and it will not be
11532 made available until it is outmoded, sometime early next week, by a
11533 format called "Elroy", so *order yours now*.
11534 -- Dave Barry, "No Surrender in the Electronics
11535 Revolution"
11536 %
11537 So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in
11538 praise of intelligence.
11539 -- Bertrand Russell
11540 %
11541 ... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those
11542 who wish to tyrranize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent,
11543 and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious
11544 and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.
11545 -- Voltarine de Cleyre
11546 %
11547 So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
11548 With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
11549 maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
11550 corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
11551 flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward
11552 it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and --
11553 I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in
11554 the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us.
11555 Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and
11556 I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our
11557 heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're
11558 unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water
11559 up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the
11560 opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of
11561 our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all
11562 the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers
11563 cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen
11564 these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked
11565 into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.
11566 -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
11567 %
11568 "So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple
11569 pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops
11570 its head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very
11571 imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies,
11572 and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top,
11573 and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the
11574 gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots."
11575 -- Samuel Foote
11576 %
11577 ... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their
11578 procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as
11579 to infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of
11580 sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making
11581 documentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly
11582 listless. The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another
11583 documentary." So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking,
11584 under the guise of Scientific Research. "We know very little about the
11585 effect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeply
11586 scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White
11587 in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers keep this kind of
11588 thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and
11589 then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very
11590 dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all
11591 along.
11592 -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
11593 %
11594 So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway? And why can't he ever
11595 remember his Bible?
11596 %
11597 Sodd's Second Law:
11598 Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is
11599 bound to occur.
11600 %
11601 Software, n.:
11602 Formal evening attire for female computer analysts.
11603 %
11604 Some don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit.
11605 %
11606 Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.
11607 -- Ed Howe
11608 %
11609 Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to
11610 celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around
11611 stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on
11612 "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind
11613 of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The
11614 government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level
11615 Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and
11616 billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which
11617 it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming
11618 thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with
11619 the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money
11620 and go to a mall.
11621 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
11622 %
11623 Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some
11624 people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
11625 -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
11626 %
11627 Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have only
11628 one life to live, let me live it as a jerk."
11629 %
11630 Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit
11631 them on the head.
11632 %
11633 Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic.
11634 %
11635 Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but when
11636 you finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be even
11637 worse.
11638 -- Avery
11639 %
11640 Some points to remember [about animals]:
11641
11642 (1) Don't go to sleep under big animals, e.g., elephants, rhinoceri,
11643 hippopotamuses;
11644 (2) Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the
11645 front of your clothes;
11646 (3) Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or dogs
11647 you have just kicked.
11648 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
11649 %
11650 Some primal termite knocked on wood.
11651 And tasted it, and found it good.
11652 And that is why your Cousin May
11653 Fell through the parlor floor today.
11654 -- Ogden Nash
11655 %
11656 Some programming languages manage to absorb change but withstand
11657 progress.
11658 %
11659 Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand
11660 progress.
11661 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
11662 %
11663 Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the
11664 pens will multiply instead of disappear.
11665 %
11666 Someone will try to honk your nose today.
11667 %
11668 "Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm
11669 the only ashtray."
11670 %
11671 Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
11672 -- Lily Tomlin
11673 %
11674 "Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the
11675 Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then
11676 intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men
11677 and women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our
11678 best, with good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are
11679 we not God's Machineries of Joy?"
11680
11681 "If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin."
11682 -- R. Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy"
11683 %
11684 Somewhere, just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering.
11685 %
11686 Song Title of the Week:
11687 "They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change
11688 in me."
11689 %
11690 Sooner or later you must pay for your sins. (Those who have already
11691 paid may disregard this fortune).
11692 %
11693 Sorry, no fortune this time.
11694 %
11695 Sorry. I forget what I was going to say.
11696 %
11697 Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-
11698 bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the
11699 road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.
11700 -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
11701 %
11702 "Spare no expense to save money on this one."
11703 -- Samuel Goldwyn
11704 %
11705 Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers:
11706 If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as
11707 if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question
11708 back at him.
11709 %
11710 Speak roughly to your little boy,
11711 And beat him when he sneezes:
11712 He only does it to annoy
11713 Because he knows it teases.
11714
11715 Wow! wow! wow!
11716
11717 I speak severely to my boy,
11718 And beat him when he sneezes:
11719 For he can thoroughly enjoy
11720 The pepper when he pleases!
11721
11722 Wow! wow! wow!
11723 -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"
11724 %
11725 Speak roughly to your little VAX,
11726 And boot it when it crashes;
11727 It knows that one cannot relax
11728 Because the paging thrashes!
11729
11730 Wow! Wow! Wow!
11731
11732 I speak severely to my VAX,
11733 And boot it when it crashes;
11734 In spite of all my favorite hacks
11735 My jobs it always thrashes!
11736
11737 Wow! Wow! Wow!
11738 %
11739 Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword.
11740 %
11741 Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman.
11742 -- Dave Millman
11743 %
11744 Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am
11745 sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging,
11746 cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free
11747 the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a
11748 bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a
11749 controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before
11750 passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same
11751 memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well,
11752 no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously
11753 designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use?
11754 %
11755 Speaking of Godzilla and other things that convey horror:
11756
11757 With a purposeful grimace and a Mongo-like flair
11758 He throws the spinning disk drives in the air!
11759 And he picks up a Vax and he throws it back down
11760 As he wades through the lab making terrible sounds!
11761 Helpless users with projects due
11762 Scream "My God!" as he stomps on the tape drives, too!
11763
11764 Oh, no! He says Unix runs too slow! Go, go, DECzilla!
11765 Oh, yes! He's gonna bring up VMS! Go, go, DECzilla!"
11766
11767 * VMS is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation
11768 * DECzilla is a trademark of Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death, Inc.
11769 -- Curtis Jackson
11770 %
11771 Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently
11772 these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people
11773 to communicate with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't
11774 communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so
11775 on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on (and in real
11776 life, I might add) spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't
11777 communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very _____least
11778 he can do is to Shut Up!
11779 -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was"
11780 %
11781 "Speed is subsittute fo accurancy."
11782 %
11783 Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading:
11784 The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the
11785 number of times you have looked at it.
11786 %
11787 Spelling is a lossed art.
11788 %
11789 Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers.
11790 %
11791 Spirtle, n.:
11792 The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in
11793 your eye.
11794 -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
11795 %
11796 Spouse, n.:
11797 Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you
11798 wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single.
11799 %
11800 "Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist
11801 drivel; Star Trek can turn your brains to pur'ee of bat guano; and the
11802 greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll
11803 take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up!"
11804 -- Harlan Ellison
11805 %
11806 Stay away from flying saucers today.
11807 %
11808 Stay away from hurricanes for a while.
11809 %
11810 "Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly."
11811 %
11812 Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy:
11813 Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have
11814 another drink.
11815 %
11816 Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming:
11817 Never test for an error condition you don't know how to
11818 handle.
11819 %
11820 Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you.
11821 %
11822 Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if they'd only
11823 take a bath ...
11824 %
11825 Stult's Report:
11826 Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is
11827 fight the solutions.
11828 %
11829 Stupid, n.:
11830 Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay.
11831 %
11832 Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?
11833 %
11834 Sturgeon's Law:
11835 90% of everything is crud.
11836 %
11837 Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your
11838 editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
11839 -- Mark Twain
11840 %
11841 Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way
11842 before it is understood.
11843 %
11844 Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring.
11845 %
11846 Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar
11847 without his duck ...
11848 %
11849 (Sung to the tune of "The Impossible Dream" from MAN OF LA MANCHA)
11850
11851 To code the impossible code,
11852 To bring up a virgin machine,
11853 To pop out of endless recursion,
11854 To grok what appears on the screen,
11855
11856 To right the unrightable bug,
11857 To endlessly twiddle and thrash,
11858 To mount the unmountable magtape,
11859 To stop the unstoppable crash!
11860 %
11861 Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!
11862 %
11863 Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy.
11864 %
11865 Support your local police force -- steal!!
11866 %
11867 Support your local Search and Rescue unit -- get lost.
11868 %
11869 Sure he's sharp as a razor ... he's a two-dimensional pinhead!
11870 %
11871 Surprise due today. Also the rent.
11872 %
11873 Surprise your boss. Get to work on time.
11874 %
11875 Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just type
11876 in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving
11877 the room is punishable under law:
11878
11879 Name #
11880 %
11881 Swahili, n.:
11882 The language used by the National Enquirer to print their
11883 retractions.
11884 -- Johnny Hart
11885 %
11886 Sweater, n.:
11887 A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly.
11888 %
11889 Swipple's Rule of Order:
11890 He who shouts the loudest has the floor.
11891 %
11892 Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
11893 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
11894 %
11895 System/3! System/3!
11896 See how it runs! See how it runs!
11897 Its monitor loses so totally!
11898 It runs all its programs in RPG!
11899 It's made by our favorite monopoly!
11900 System/3!
11901 %
11902 Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad
11903 infinitum -- which is why we're always starting over.
11904 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
11905 %
11906 _
11907 _ / \ o
11908 / \ | | o o o
11909 | | | | _ o o o o
11910 | \_| | / \ o o o
11911 \__ | | | o o
11912 | | | | ______ ~~~~ _____
11913 | |__/ | / ___--\\ ~~~ __/_____\__
11914 | ___/ / \--\\ \\ \ ___ <__ x x __\
11915 | | / /\\ \\ )) \ ( " )
11916 | | -------(---->>(@)--(@)-------\----------< >-----------
11917 | | // | | //__________ / \ ____) (___ \\
11918 | | // __|_| ( --------- ) //// ______ /////\ \\
11919 // | ( \ ______ / <<<< <>-----<<<<< / \\
11920 // ( ) / / \` \__ \\
11921 //-------------------------------------------------------------\\
11922
11923 Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels
11924 start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and
11925 then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the
11926 music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.
11927 -- H.S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
11928 %
11929 T: One big monster, he called TROLL.
11930 He don't rock, and he don't roll;
11931 Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies.
11932 He just Love To Eat Them Roguies.
11933 -- The Roguelet's ABC
11934 %
11935 Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a
11936 hole in his head.
11937 %
11938 Tact, n.:
11939 The unsaid part of what you're thinking.
11940 %
11941 Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way.
11942 %
11943 Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting
11944 enough cheese
11945 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
11946 %
11947 Take it easy, we're in a hurry.
11948 %
11949 Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it
11950 needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.
11951 -- Kipling
11952 %
11953 Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content to sit
11954 back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good
11955 beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up
11956 drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a
11957 nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves
11958 and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" So
11959 Coca-Cola was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw
11960 no need to improve ...
11961 -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
11962 %
11963 Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to
11964 your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms,
11965 and they'll call you crazy.
11966 -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul"
11967 %
11968 Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
11969 -- Euripides
11970 %
11971 Talkers are no good doers.
11972 -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
11973 %
11974 Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
11975 -- Friedrich Nietzsche
11976 %
11977 TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20)
11978 You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged
11979 determination and work like hell. Most people think you are
11980 stubborn and bull headed. You are a Communist.
11981 %
11982 Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind
11983 the tree."
11984 -- Russell Long
11985 %
11986 Taxes are going up so fast, the government is likely to price itself
11987 out of the market.
11988 %
11989 Taxes, n.:
11990 Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get
11991 an extension.
11992 %
11993 Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he
11994 grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway.
11995 %
11996 Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else.
11997 %
11998 Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means
11999 for going backwards.
12000 -- Aldous Huxley
12001 %
12002 Telephone, n.:
12003 An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the
12004 advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
12005 -- Ambrose Bierce
12006 %
12007 Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,
12008 Is those things arms, or is they legs?
12009 I marvel at thee, Octopus;
12010 If I were thou, I'd call me us.
12011 -- Ogden Nash
12012 %
12013 Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop
12014 writing.
12015 -- R. Geis
12016 %
12017 "Terence, this is stupid stuff:
12018 You eat your victuals fast enough;
12019 There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
12020 To see the rate you drink your beer.
12021 But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
12022 It gives a chap the belly-ache.
12023 The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
12024 It sleeps well the horned head:
12025 We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
12026 To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
12027 Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
12028 Your friends to death before their time.
12029 Moping, melancholy mad:
12030 Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."
12031 -- A. E. Housman
12032 %
12033 "Termiter's argument that God is His own grandmother generated a
12034 surprising amount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one
12035 hand considered the argument unsupported by scripture but on the other
12036 hand were unwilling to risk offending God's grandmother."
12037 -- Len Cool, "American Pie"
12038 %
12039 Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a
12040 pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city
12041 until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him is
12042 ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe
12043 because it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historical
12044 fact, for he merely said:
12045
12046 "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because
12047 it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain
12048 because it is impossible."
12049
12050 Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of
12051 philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it.
12052 -- C. G. Jung, in Psychological Types
12053
12054 (Teruillian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church).
12055 %
12056 Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones.
12057 %
12058 Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession.
12059 %
12060 "Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even
12061 one which cannot be justified on any other grounds."
12062 -- J. Finnegan, USC.
12063 %
12064 Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future.
12065 -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly
12066 %
12067 "That boy's about as sharp as a pound of wet liver"
12068 -- Foghorn Leghorn
12069 %
12070 "That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all."
12071 %
12072 That secret you've been guarding, isn't.
12073 %
12074 That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them.
12075 -- Dorothy Parker
12076 %
12077 The 80's -- when you can't tell hairstyles from chemotherapy.
12078 %
12079 The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by
12080 people who want some.
12081 -- Dwight MacDonald
12082 %
12083 The Abrams' Principle:
12084 The shortest distance between two points is off the wall.
12085 %
12086 The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper
12087 -- Thomas Jefferson
12088 %
12089 The Advertising Agency Song:
12090
12091 When your client's hopping mad,
12092 Put his picture in the ad.
12093 If he still should prove refractory,
12094 Add a picture of his factory.
12095 %
12096 "The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug
12097 someone with it."
12098 -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340
12099 %
12100 ... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that
12101 consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune
12102 of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to
12103 listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it.
12104 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
12105 %
12106 The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas
12107 River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little
12108 Rock.
12109 %
12110 The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion.
12111 Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed
12112 and color, but also on ability.
12113 -- T. Lehrer
12114 %
12115 The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe.
12116 -- Bill Murray
12117 %
12118 The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use
12119 in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the
12120 Declaration not for that, but for future use.
12121 -- Abraham Lincoln
12122 %
12123 The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m.
12124 %
12125 The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the
12126 average man can see better than he can think.
12127 %
12128 "The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by
12129 people who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried
12130 anything."
12131 -- Jim Joyce, owner of Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore
12132 %
12133 The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than
12134 cities. Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and
12135 difficult to park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots,
12136 which are also dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but --
12137 here is the big difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO
12138 RULES. You're allowed to do anything. You can drive as fast as you
12139 want in any direction you want. I was once driving in a mall parking
12140 lot when my car was struck by a pickup truck being driven backward by a
12141 squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" on his forearm, who got out
12142 and explained to me, in great detail, why the accident was my fault,
12143 his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, whereas I was
12144 neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall parking
12145 lots.
12146 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
12147 %
12148 The basic menu item, in fact the ONLY menu item, would be a food unit
12149 called the "patty," consisting of -- this would be guaranteed in
12150 writing -- "100 percent animal matter of some kind." All patties would
12151 be heated up and then cooled back down in electronic devices
12152 immediately before serving. The Breakfast Patty would be a patty on a
12153 bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, egg, Ba-Ko-Bits, Cheez Whiz, a Special
12154 Sauce made by pouring ketchup out of a bottle and a little slip of
12155 paper stating: "Inspected by Number 12". The Lunch or Dinner Patty
12156 would be any Breakfast Patties that didn't get sold in the morning.
12157 The Seafood Lover's Patty would be any patties that were starting to
12158 emit a serious aroma. Patties that were too rank even to be Seafood
12159 Lover's Patties would be compressed into wads and sold as "Nuggets."
12160 -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
12161 %
12162 The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland";
12163 but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
12164 %
12165 The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
12166 -- W. C. Fields
12167 %
12168 The best defense against logic is ignorance.
12169 %
12170 The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time.
12171 %
12172 "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and
12173 blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.
12174 You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
12175 night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only
12176 love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or
12177 know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only
12178 one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what
12179 wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust,
12180 never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never
12181 dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a
12182 lot of things there are to learn."
12183 -- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King"
12184 %
12185 The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them
12186 is a match.
12187 -- Will Rogers
12188 %
12189 The bigger the theory the better.
12190 %
12191 The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse
12192 time.
12193 -- Merrick Furst
12194 %
12195 The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss
12196 Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public.
12197
12198 It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has been
12199 known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and,
12200 in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two
12201 under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight of
12202 people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a
12203 city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking
12204 umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of
12205 activity that frightens the horses on the street ...
12206 %
12207 "The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch."
12208 %
12209 The bogosity meter just pegged.
12210 %
12211 The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up
12212 in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school.
12213 %
12214 The Briggs/Chase Law of Program Development:
12215 To determine how long it will take to write and debug a
12216 program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and
12217 convert to the next higher units.
12218 %
12219 The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be.
12220 Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in
12221 automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo.
12222 -- Art Buchwald
12223 %
12224 The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding
12225 bureaucracy.
12226 %
12227 The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the
12228 flexibility and power of assembly language with the readability
12229 of assembly language.
12230 %
12231 The camel has a single hump;
12232 The dromedary two;
12233 Or else the other way around.
12234 I'm never sure. Are you?
12235 -- Ogden Nash
12236 %
12237 The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly
12238 greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed
12239 inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner
12240 party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics.
12241 -- H. L. Mencken
12242 %
12243 "The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain."
12244 -- G. Fitch
12245 %
12246 The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up
12247 at the steam fitters' picnic.
12248 %
12249 The chief cause of problems is solutions.
12250 %
12251 The chief danger in life is that you may take too may precautions.
12252 -- Alfred Adler
12253 %
12254 The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will
12255 walk carefully.
12256 -- Russian Proverb
12257 %
12258 "The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live
12259 elsewhere."
12260 %
12261 "The Computer made me do it."
12262 %
12263 The computing field is always in need of new cliches.
12264 -- Alan Perlis
12265 %
12266 The confusion of a staff member is measured by the length of his
12267 memos.
12268 -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
12269 %
12270 The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other
12271 subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up
12272 every bird watcher in the country.
12273 -- John Mitchell, Atty. General 1969-1972
12274 %
12275 The Consultant's Curse:
12276 When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him
12277 what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong
12278 medicine, and is normally only required once.
12279 %
12280 The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is
12281 none of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but."
12282 Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period.
12283 Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you
12284 talked about.
12285 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
12286 %
12287 The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
12288 %
12289 The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going
12290 down.
12291 %
12292 The cow is nothing but a machine which makes grass fit for us people to
12293 eat.
12294 -- John McNulty
12295 %
12296 The Crown is full of it!
12297 -- Nate Harris, 1775
12298 %
12299 The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should
12300 therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could
12301 hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to
12302 declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny ... In war,
12303 then, as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press.
12304 Cling to this as the bulwark of all our rights and privileges.
12305 -- William Ellery Channing
12306 %
12307 The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
12308 %
12309 The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of
12310 us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching
12311 Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe.
12312 %
12313 The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary?
12314 %
12315 The devil finds work for idle circuits to do.
12316 %
12317 "The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell
12318 into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him
12319 out again, it would be a calamity."
12320 -- Benjamin Disraeli
12321 %
12322 The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science
12323 requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require
12324 scholarship.
12325 -- Robert Heinlein
12326 %
12327 The distinction between Jewish and goyish can be quite subtle, as the
12328 following quote from Lenny Bruce illustrates:
12329
12330 "I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish.
12331 Eddie Cantor's goyish. The B'nai Brith is goyish. The Hadassah is
12332 Jewish. Marine Corps -- heavy goyish, dangerous.
12333 "Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish.
12334 Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish.
12335 Instant potatoes -- goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish.
12336 Macaroons are ____very Jewish. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is
12337 goyish. Lime soda is ____very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that
12338 Jews won't go near them ..."
12339 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
12340 %
12341 The District of Columbia has a law forbidding you to exert pressure on
12342 a balloon and thereby cause a whistling sound on the streets.
12343 %
12344 The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man
12345 really clever who has not found that he is stupid.
12346 -- Gilbert K. Chesterson
12347 %
12348 The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show
12349 off this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his
12350 next hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the
12351 duck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the
12352 duck and returned it to his master.
12353 "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly.
12354 "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't
12355 swim."
12356 %
12357 The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in late
12358 and owns the worm farm.
12359 -- Travis McGee
12360 %
12361 The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier.
12362 %
12363 The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and
12364 add ten percent.
12365 %
12366 The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on
12367 weather forecasters.
12368 -- Jean-Paul Kauffmann
12369 %
12370 "The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not
12371 Compute' -- I forget which."
12372 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
12373 %
12374 The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of
12375 civilization.
12376 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
12377 %
12378 The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, with
12379 symposium to follow.
12380 %
12381 The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach
12382 their children to speak it.
12383 -- G. B. Shaw
12384 %
12385 The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a
12386 remarkable Christian forbearance among men.
12387 -- Ambrose Bierce
12388 %
12389 The fact that it works is immaterial.
12390 -- L. Ogborn
12391 %
12392 The faster we go, the rounder we get.
12393 -- The Grateful Dead
12394 %
12395 The Fifth Rule:
12396 You have taken yourself too seriously.
12397 %
12398 The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
12399 -- Abbie Hoffman
12400 %
12401 The first Great Steward, Parrafin the Climber, was employed in King
12402 Chloroplast's kitchen as second scullery boy when the old King met a
12403 tragic death. He apparently fell backward by accident on a dozen salad
12404 forks. Simultaneously the true heir, his son Carotene, mysteriously
12405 fled the city, complaining of some sort of plot and a lot of
12406 threatening notes left on his breakfast tray. At the time, this looked
12407 suspicious what with his father's death, and Carotene was suspected of
12408 foul play. Then the rest of the King's relatives began to drop dead
12409 one after the other in an odd fashion. Some were found strangled with
12410 dishrags and some succumbed to food poisoning. A few were found
12411 drowned in the soup vats, and one was attacked by assailants unknown
12412 and beaten to death with a pot roast. At least three appear to have
12413 thrown themselves backward on salad forks, perhaps in a noble gesture
12414 of grief over the King's untimely end. Finally there was no one left
12415 in Minas Troney who was either eligible or willing to wear the accursed
12416 crown, and the rule of Twodor was up for grabs. The scullery slave
12417 Parrafin bravely accepted the Stewardship of Twodor until that day when
12418 a lineal descendant of Carotene's returns to reclaim his rightful
12419 throne, conquer Twodor's enemies, and revamp the postal system.
12420 -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
12421 %
12422 The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of
12423 management is that success equals skill.
12424 -- Robert Heller
12425 %
12426 The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish
12427 child, was propounded to me by my father:
12428 "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and
12429 whistles?"
12430 I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity
12431 gave up.
12432 "A herring," said my father.
12433 "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!"
12434 "So hang it there."
12435 "But a herring isn't green!" I protested.
12436 "Paint it."
12437 "But a herring isn't wet."
12438 "If it's just painted it's still wet."
12439 "But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring
12440 doesn't whistle!!"
12441 "Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it
12442 hard."
12443 -- Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish"
12444 %
12445 "The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your
12446 hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do."
12447 -- McCloctnik the Lucid
12448 %
12449 The First Rule of Program Optimization:
12450 Don't do it.
12451
12452 The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!):
12453 Don't do it yet.
12454 -- Michael Jackson
12455 %
12456 The first time, it's a KLUDGE!
12457 The second, a trick.
12458 Later, it's a well-established technique!
12459 -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics
12460 %
12461 The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions
12462 Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals:
12463
12464 As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of
12465 logical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more
12466 appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the
12467 four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector.
12468 . . .
12469 Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible
12470 blocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line moves
12471 parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge
12472 of the hyper-cube.
12473 %
12474 The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by
12475 a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities.
12476 %
12477 "The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and
12478 vinyl."
12479 -- Dave Barry
12480 %
12481 The full impact of parenthood doesn't hit you until you multiply the
12482 number of your kids by 32 teeth.
12483 %
12484 The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to
12485 chance.
12486 %
12487 The gentlemen looked one another over with microscopic carelessness.
12488 %
12489 The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the
12490 center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South
12491 Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South
12492 End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.
12493 %
12494 The giraffe you thought you offended last week is willing to be nuzzled
12495 today.
12496 %
12497 The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at
12498 least until we've finished building it.
12499 %
12500 The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature
12501 is to build better mice.
12502 %
12503 The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him
12504 love and he invented marriage.
12505 %
12506 THE GOLDEN RULE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
12507 The one who has the gold makes the rules.
12508 %
12509 "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who
12510 make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians
12511 have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine
12512 man in the bonds of Hell."
12513 -- St. Augustine
12514 %
12515 The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got
12516 to be good.
12517 %
12518 "The Good Ship Enterprise" (to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop")
12519
12520 On the good ship Enterprise
12521 Every week there's a new surprise
12522 Where the Romulans lurk
12523 And the Klingons often go berserk.
12524
12525 Yes, the good ship Enterprise
12526 There's excitement anywhere it flies
12527 Where Tribbles play
12528 And Nurse Chapel never gets her way.
12529
12530 See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge,
12531 Mr. Spock is at his side.
12532 The weekly menace, ooh-ooh
12533 It gets fried, scattered far and wide.
12534
12535 It's the good ship Enterprise
12536 Heading out where danger lies
12537 And you live in dread
12538 If you're wearing a shirt that's red.
12539 -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics
12540 %
12541 The government [is] extremely fond of amassing great quantities of
12542 statistics. These are raised to the _nth degree, the cube roots are
12543 extracted, and the results are arranged into elaborate and impressive
12544 displays. What must be kept ever in mind, however, is that in every
12545 case, the figures are first put down by a village watchman, and he puts
12546 down anything he damn well pleases.
12547 -- Sir Josiah Stamp
12548 %
12549 The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
12550 who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
12551 -- Benjamin Franklin.
12552 %
12553 The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog:
12554 The Gerat Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in
12555 courtship, his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk
12556 clerks. Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods
12557 of time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp
12558 Hedgehog Eater.
12559 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
12560 %
12561 The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
12562 of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
12563 -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
12564 %
12565 The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
12566 -- Albert Einstein
12567 %
12568 The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a custom
12569 whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary,
12570 nohow.
12571 %
12572 The Heineken Uncertainty Principle:
12573 You can never be sure how many beers you had last night.
12574 %
12575 The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent
12576 thinkers.
12577 %
12578 The hieroglyphics are all unreadable except for a notation on the back,
12579 which reads "Genuine authentic Egyptian papyrus. Guaranteed to be at
12580 least 5000 years old."
12581 %
12582 The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for
12583 lists of "Ten Best".
12584 -- H. Allen Smith
12585 %
12586 "The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and
12587 has gills through which it can see."
12588 -- Monty Python
12589 %
12590 The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity
12591 -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.
12592 %
12593 The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange
12594 protein -- it rejects it.
12595 -- P. Medawar
12596 %
12597 The human race has been fascinated by sharks for as long as I can
12598 remember. Just like the bluebird feeding its young, or the spider
12599 struggling to weave its perfect web, or the buttercup blooming in
12600 spring, the shark reveals to us yet another of the infinite and
12601 wonderful facets of nature, namely the facet that it can bite your head
12602 off. This causes us humans to feel a certain degree of awe.
12603 -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
12604 %
12605 The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
12606 -- Mark Twain
12607 %
12608 The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that
12609 procession but carrying a banner.
12610 -- Mark Twain
12611 %
12612 The idea is to die young as late as possible.
12613 -- Ashley Montagu
12614 %
12615 The idea there was that consumers would bring their broken electronic
12616 devices, such as television sets and VCR's, to the destruction centers,
12617 where trained personnel would whack them (the devices) with
12618 sledgehammers. With their devices thus permanently destroyed,
12619 consumers would then be free to go out and buy new devices, rather than
12620 have to fritter away years of their lives trying to have the old ones
12621 repaired at so-called "factory service centers," which in fact consist
12622 of two men named Lester poking at the insides of broken electronic
12623 devices with cheap cigars and going, "Lookit all them WIRES in there!"
12624 -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
12625 %
12626 "The identical is equal to itself, since it is different."
12627 -- Franco Spisani
12628 %
12629 "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit
12630 longer."
12631 -- Henry Kissinger
12632 %
12633 The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf
12634 has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
12635 when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
12636 -- Will Rogers
12637 %
12638 The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important
12639 point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly
12640 important thing to people.
12641 -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King
12642 %
12643 The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the
12644 number of participants.
12645 -- Adam Walinsky
12646 %
12647 The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided
12648 by the number of people in the group.
12649 %
12650 The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free
12651 information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a
12652 dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a
12653 real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless.
12654
12655 So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business never
12656 pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big
12657 consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes...
12658 -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
12659 %
12660 The Kennedy Constant:
12661 Don't get mad -- get even.
12662 %
12663 The Killer Ducks are coming!!!
12664 %
12665 The ladies men admire, I've heard,
12666 Would shudder at a wicked word.
12667 Their candle gives a single light;
12668 They'd rather stay at home at night.
12669 They do not keep awake till three,
12670 Nor read erotic poetry.
12671 They never sanction the impure,
12672 Nor recognize an overture.
12673 They shrink from powders and from paints ...
12674 So far, I've had no complaints.
12675 -- Dorothy Parker
12676 %
12677 "The last time somebody said, `I find I can write much better with a
12678 word processor.', I replied, `They used to say the same thing about
12679 drugs.'
12680 -- Roy Blount, Jr.
12681 %
12682 The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the
12683 law free.
12684 -- Henry David Thoreau
12685 %
12686 The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the
12687 poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
12688 bread.
12689 -- Anatole France
12690 %
12691 "The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all
12692 men should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the
12693 universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we
12694 presently imagine we own."
12695 -- H.G. Wells
12696 %
12697 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE
12698
12699 SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language
12700 Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for
12701 Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code
12702 with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,
12703 END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make
12704 a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus
12705 they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without
12706 the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
12707 %
12708 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP
12709
12710 This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of
12711 an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said
12712 to be useful in protheththing lithtth.
12713 %
12714 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL
12715
12716 SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler.
12717 Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they
12718 compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the
12719 coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom
12720 sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to
12721 compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but
12722 infinitely faster) language, COCAINE.
12723 %
12724 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE
12725
12726 Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely
12727 unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just
12728 are. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions.
12729 SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at
12730 parties.
12731 %
12732 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: C-
12733
12734 This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he
12735 submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is
12736 best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the
12737 language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code
12738 statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very
12739 similar to COBOL.
12740 %
12741 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18a: FIFTH
12742
12743 FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types
12744 refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and
12745 JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and
12746 BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY,
12747 CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND.
12748
12749 The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and
12750 financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include
12751 VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH
12752 and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers
12753 who end up using this language.
12754 %
12755 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE
12756
12757 Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene
12758 DesCartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The
12759 language is being developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics
12760 and Programming under a grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A
12761 spokesman described the language as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of
12762 ours."
12763
12764 The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they have
12765 almost succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the
12766 organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to
12767 exist.
12768 %
12769 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #5: VALGOL
12770 From its modest beginnings in Southern California's San Fernando Valley,
12771 VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the industry.
12772
12773 Here is a sample program:
12774 LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START
12775 IF PIZZA = LIKE BITCHEN AND GUY = LIKE TUBULAR AND
12776 VALLEY GIRL = LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 THEN
12777 FOR I = LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100
12778 DO*WAH - (DITTY**2)
12779 BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT)
12780 SURE
12781 LIKE BAG THIS PROGRAM
12782 REALLY
12783 LIKE TOTALLY (Y*KNOW)
12784 IM*SURE
12785 GOTO THE MALL
12786
12787 When the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the message:
12788
12789 GAG ME WITH A SPOON!!
12790 %
12791 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK
12792
12793 This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi,
12794 Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to
12795 the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley.
12796
12797 The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs
12798 while they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there
12799 because the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and
12800 Perrier.
12801
12802 Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle
12803 and non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower
12804 case. For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the
12805 message:
12806 "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can
12807 you find the time to try it again?"
12808 %
12809 The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching
12810 train.
12811 %
12812 The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon.
12813 %
12814 The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get
12815 much sleep.
12816 -- Woody Allen
12817 %
12818 The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
12819 -- Henry Kissinger
12820 %
12821 "The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as
12822 we could with both of them."
12823 -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
12824 %
12825 The makers may make
12826 and the users may use,
12827 but the fixers must fix
12828 with but minimal clues
12829 %
12830 The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the
12831 crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no
12832 one has ever been.
12833 -- Alan Ashley-Pitt
12834 %
12835 The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that
12836 will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
12837 -- Mark Twain.
12838 %
12839 The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a
12840 soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which
12841 when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years.
12842 %
12843 "... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic ..."
12844 -- Dave Barry
12845 %
12846 The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.
12847 %
12848 The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the
12849 klutz said, "Life is like a bowl of sour cream."
12850
12851 "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?"
12852
12853 "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?"
12854 %
12855 The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to
12856 devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation.
12857 -- Lew Mammel, Jr.
12858 %
12859 The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might
12860 be general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the
12861 law that any field that had the word "science" in its name was
12862 guaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examples
12863 Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Homemaking
12864 Science, Social Science, and Computer Science. Discuss the generality
12865 of this law, and possible reasons for its predictive
12866 power.
12867 -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems
12868 Thinking."
12869 %
12870 The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything.
12871 -- Laurence J. Peter
12872 %
12873 The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me.
12874 -- Nicol Williamson
12875 %
12876 The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader.
12877 %
12878 The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away.
12879 %
12880 "The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the
12881 lower the mailing cost."
12882 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
12883 %
12884 The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and
12885 robbers there will be.
12886 -- Lao Tsu
12887 %
12888 The more things change, the more they stay insane.
12889 %
12890 The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us
12891 is right.
12892 %
12893 The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey.
12894 -- Andy Warhol
12895 %
12896 "The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and
12897 to watch someone else do it wrong without comment."
12898 -- Theodore H. White
12899 %
12900 The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
12901 discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
12902 -- Isaac Asimov
12903 %
12904 The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on.
12905 %
12906 ... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!!
12907 %
12908 "... The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!"
12909 "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to
12910 feel interested.
12911 "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little
12912 vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, 'The Aged
12913 Aged Man.'"
12914 "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?"
12915 Alice corrected herself.
12916 "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is
12917 called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!"
12918 "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this time
12919 completely bewildered.
12920 "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is
12921 "A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention."
12922 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
12923 %
12924 "The National Association of Theater Concessionaires reported that in
12925 1986, 60% of all candy sold in movie theaters was sold to Roger Ebert."
12926 -- D. Letterman
12927 %
12928 The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says:
12929 Support your right to bare arms!
12930 %
12931 The net of law is spread so wide,
12932 No sinner from its sweep may hide.
12933 Its meshes are so fine and strong,
12934 They take in every child of wrong.
12935 O wondrous web of mystery!
12936 Big fish alone escape from thee!
12937 -- James Jeffrey Roche
12938 %
12939 The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I
12940 hope I don't get run over again.
12941 %
12942 The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory,
12943 in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system.
12944
12945 But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for
12946 whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
12947 -- Matthew 5:37
12948 %
12949 "The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The
12950 Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country.
12951 The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive
12952 and running the country ..."
12953 -- Robert J Woodhead
12954 %
12955 The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to
12956 choose from.
12957 -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
12958 %
12959 The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the
12960 80-column card.
12961 -- Dennis M. Ritchie
12962 %
12963 The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should
12964 serve the state is essentially a Communist notion ... In a free society
12965 these institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their
12966 function is to serve as checks upon the state.
12967 -- Alan Barth
12968 %
12969 The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are
12970 correct.
12971 -- Ralph Hartley
12972 %
12973 The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughly
12974 analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their
12975 occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve
12976 these problems when called upon.
12977
12978 However, When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to
12979 remind yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp.
12980 %
12981 The Official MBA Handbook on business cards:
12982 Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm,
12983 Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate
12984 Planning."
12985 %
12986 The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy.
12987 %
12988 The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age
12989 brings wisdom.
12990 -- H. L. Mencken
12991 %
12992 The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader
12993 catch his own breath.
12994 -- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart
12995 %
12996 The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when
12997 to cringe.
12998 %
12999 The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the
13000 `social sciences' is: some do, some don't.
13001 -- Ernest Rutherford
13002 %
13003 The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop
13004 and take a rest.
13005 %
13006 "The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon."
13007 -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and
13008 Over and Over"
13009 %
13010 The only really decent thing to do behind a person's back is pat it.
13011 %
13012 The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber
13013 has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture,
13014 finished, and put inside boxes.
13015 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
13016 %
13017 The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any
13018 use to oneself.
13019 -- Oscar Wilde
13020 %
13021 "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from
13022 history."
13023 -- Hegel
13024
13025 "I know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking the
13026 long view."
13027 -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar"
13028 %
13029 The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
13030 -- Oscar Wilde
13031 %
13032 The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up
13033 until 5 or 6 p.m.
13034 %
13035 The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
13036 -- Bohr
13037 %
13038 The optimum committee has no members.
13039 -- Norman Augustine
13040 %
13041 The optimum committee has no members.
13042 -- Norman Augustine
13043 %
13044 "The other day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven ... I almost
13045 went back in time."
13046 -- Steven Wright
13047 %
13048 The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because
13049 it isn't here.
13050 -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley)
13051 %
13052 The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it
13053 were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
13054 -- H. L. Mencken
13055 %
13056 The people of Halifax invented the trampoline. During the
13057 Victorian period the tripe-dressers of Halifax stretched tripe across a
13058 large wooden frame and jumped up and down on it to `tender and dress'
13059 it. The tripoline, as they called it, degenerated into becoming the
13060 apparatus for a spectator sport.
13061
13062 The people of Halifax also invented the harmonium, a device for
13063 castrating pigs during Sunday service.
13064 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
13065 %
13066 The Pig, if I am not mistaken,
13067 Gives us ham and pork and Bacon.
13068 Let others think his heart is big,
13069 I think it stupid of the Pig.
13070 -- Ogden Nash
13071 %
13072 The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter
13073 swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the
13074 batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The
13075 center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute
13076 his eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it.
13077 -- Dizzy Dean
13078 %
13079 The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose.
13080 -- David Lardner
13081 %
13082 The polite thing to do has always been to address people as they wish
13083 to be addressed, to treat them in a way they think dignified. But it
13084 is equally important to accept and tolerate different standards of
13085 courtesy, not expecting everyone else to adapt to one's own
13086 preferences. Only then can we hope to restore the insult to its proper
13087 social function of expressing true distaste.
13088 -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to
13089 Excruciatingly Correct Behavior"
13090 %
13091 "The porcupine with the sharpest quills gets stuck on a tree more
13092 often."
13093 %
13094 The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher,
13095 Were each of them once a kiddie.
13096 A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature.
13097 Do I want one? God Forbiddie!
13098 -- Ogden Nash
13099 %
13100 The President publicly apologized today to all those offended by his
13101 brother's remark, "There's more Arabs in this country than there is
13102 Jews!". Those offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers.
13103 -- Baltimore, Channel 11 News, on Jimmy Carter
13104 %
13105 The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday
13106 they might force their beliefs on us.
13107 -- Mario Cuomo
13108 %
13109 The primary cause of failure in electrical appliances is an expired
13110 warranty. Often, you can get an appliance running again simply by
13111 changing the warranty expiration date with a 15/64-inch felt-tipped
13112 marker.
13113 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
13114 %
13115 The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to
13116 constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every
13117 appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA
13118 statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This
13119 also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.
13120 -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers
13121 %
13122 The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough
13123 voters to win the next election.
13124 %
13125 The primary theme of SoupCon is communication. The acronym "LEO"
13126 represents the secondary theme:
13127
13128 Law Enforcement Officials
13129
13130 The overall theme of SoupCon shall be:
13131
13132 Avoiding Communication with Law Enforcement Officials
13133 %
13134 ... the privileged being which we call human is distinguished from
13135 other animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in
13136 charity we can only call "inhuman."
13137 -- R. A. Lafferty
13138 %
13139 The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the
13140 stupidity of your action.
13141 %
13142 The problem ... is that we have run out of dinosaurs to form oil with.
13143 Scientists working for the Department of Energy have tried to form oil
13144 using other animals; they've piled thousands of tons of sand and Middle
13145 Eastern countries on top of cows, raccoons, haddock, laboratory rats,
13146 etc., but so far all they have managed to do is run up an enormous
13147 bulldozer-rental bill and anger a lot of Middle Eastern persons. None
13148 of the animals turned into oil, although most of the laboratory rats
13149 developed cancer.
13150 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
13151 %
13152 The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go
13153 to erase it.
13154 -- Glaser and Way
13155 %
13156 The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to get
13157 results.
13158
13159 The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy
13160 problems in order to get results.
13161
13162 The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at toy
13163 problems in order to get results.
13164 %
13165 The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be
13166 pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
13167 -- Elizabeth Taylor
13168 %
13169 The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
13170 %
13171 The Psblurtex is an 18-inch long anaconda that hides in the gentlemen's
13172 outfitting departments of Amazonian stores and is often bought by
13173 mistake since its colors are those of the London Reform Club. Once
13174 tied around its victim's neck, it strangles him gently and then claims
13175 the insurance before running off to Germany where it lives in hiding.
13176 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
13177 %
13178 "The pyramid is opening!"
13179 "Which one?"
13180 "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!"
13181 -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At
13182 Once When You're Not Anywhere At All"
13183 %
13184 The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's:
13185 "My brain is paged out to my liver"
13186 %
13187 The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is
13188 it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television,
13189 that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of
13190 industrial waste?
13191 -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
13192 %
13193 The rain it raineth on the just
13194 And also on the unjust fella,
13195 But chiefly on the just, because
13196 The unjust steals the just's umbrella.
13197 %
13198 The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is
13199 cursed.
13200 %
13201 The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much.
13202 %
13203 The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose",
13204 which is also sometimes called "grape sugar", and also because "Grape
13205 Nuts" is catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between Gerbil
13206 Food and Gravel", which is what it tastes like.
13207 -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
13208 %
13209 The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
13210 persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
13211 progress depends on the unreasonable man.
13212 -- George Bernard Shaw
13213 %
13214 The revolution will not be televised.
13215 %
13216 The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
13217 -- Emerson
13218 %
13219 The rhino is a homely beast,
13220 For human eyes he's not a feast.
13221 Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros,
13222 I'll stare at something less prepoceros.
13223 -- Ogden Nash
13224 %
13225 The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This
13226 means that only left handed people are in their right mind.
13227 %
13228 "The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests
13229 and to his imagination for his facts."
13230 -- Sheridan
13231 %
13232 The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.
13233 -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
13234 %
13235 "The rights you have are the rights given you by this Committee [the
13236 House Un-American Activities Committee]. We will determine what rights
13237 you have and what rights you have not got."
13238 -- J. Parnell Thomas
13239 %
13240 The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And littered with
13241 sloppy analysis!
13242 %
13243 The Roman Rule
13244 The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the
13245 one who is doing it.
13246 %
13247 The Ruffed Pandanga of Borneo and Rotherham spreads out his feathers in
13248 his courtship dance and imitates Winston Churchill and Tommy Cooper on
13249 one leg. The padanga is dying out because the female padanga doesn't
13250 take it too seriously.
13251 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
13252 %
13253 The rule on staying alive as a forcaster is to give 'em a number or
13254 give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once.
13255 -- Jane Bryant Quinn
13256 %
13257 "The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography"
13258 %
13259 The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100
13260 showed that all had these things in common:
13261
13262 (1) They all had moderate appetites.
13263 (2) They all came from middle class homes
13264 (3) All but two of them were dead.
13265 %
13266 The scum also rises.
13267 -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
13268 %
13269 The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes,
13270 respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones
13271 from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the
13272 milestones are lifted.
13273 -- George Bernard Shaw
13274 %
13275 The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood
13276 as he reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all.
13277 The Gray Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in
13278 the palace of Gilpkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts in
13279 twenty-five of him are dead, he is alive.
13280
13281 "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached
13282 everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a
13283 fierce host which out-numbers Lankhmar's inhabitants by fifty to one --
13284 and equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city."
13285
13286 "How?" demanded Fafhrd.
13287
13288 Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know."
13289 -- Fritz Leiber, from "The Swords of Lankhmar"
13290 %
13291 The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land.
13292 %
13293 The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
13294 -- Noelie Alito
13295 %
13296 The Sixth Commandment of Frisbee:
13297 The greatest single aid to distance is for the disc to be going
13298 in a direction you did not want. (Goes the wrong way = Goes a long
13299 way.)
13300 -- Dan Roddick
13301 %
13302 "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity
13303 and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted
13304 activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ...
13305 neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."
13306 %
13307 "The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find their
13308 money."
13309 -- Ed Bluestone, "The National Lampoon"
13310 %
13311 "The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up!"
13312 %
13313 The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the sooner you will be
13314 able to correct them.
13315 -- Nicolaides
13316 %
13317 The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
13318 %
13319 The Soviet pre-eminence in chess can be traced to the average Russian's
13320 readiness to brood obsessively over anything, even the arrangement of
13321 some pieces of wood. Indeed, the Russians' predisposition for quiet
13322 reflection followed by sudden preventive action explains why they led
13323 the field for many years in both chess and ax murders. It is well
13324 known that as early as 1970, the U.S.S.R., aware of what a defeat at
13325 Reykjavik would do to national prestige, implemented a vigorous program
13326 of preparation and incentive. Every day for an entire year, a team of
13327 psychologists, chess analysts and coaches met with the top three
13328 Russian grand masters and threatened them with a pointy stick. That
13329 these tactics proved fruitless is now a part of chess history and a
13330 further testament to the American way, which provides that if you want
13331 something badly enough, you can always go to Iceland and get it from
13332 the Russians.
13333 -- Marshall Brickman, Playboy, April, 1973
13334 %
13335 The STAR WARS Song
13336 Sung to the tune of "Lola", by the Kinks:
13337
13338 I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah
13339 Where it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda
13340 S-O-D-A soda
13341 I saw the little runt sitting there on a log
13342 I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda
13343 Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
13344
13345 Well I've been around but I ain't never seen
13346 A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green
13347 Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
13348 Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand
13349 How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand
13350 Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
13351 %
13352 The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub.
13353 %
13354 The steady state of disks is full.
13355 -- Ken Thompson
13356 %
13357 THE STORY OF CREATION
13358 or
13359 THE MYTH OF URK
13360
13361 In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null,
13362 and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM
13363 was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be
13364 registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried;
13365 and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data
13366 Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening
13367 and there was morning, one interrupt ...
13368 -- Rico Tudor
13369 %
13370 The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make
13371 them unsafe.
13372 -- Mayor Frank Rizzo
13373 %
13374 "The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and
13375 is an emerging underachiever."
13376 %
13377 The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant
13378 biology.
13379 %
13380 "The subspace _W inherits the other 8 properties of _V. And there aren't
13381 even any property taxes."
13382 -- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b
13383 %
13384 The sum of the Universe is zero.
13385 %
13386 The sun was shining on the sea,
13387 Shining with all his might:
13388 He did his very best to make
13389 The billows smooth and bright --
13390 And this was very odd, because it was
13391 The middle of the night.
13392 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
13393 %
13394 The superfluous is very necessary.
13395 -- Voltaire
13396 %
13397 The surest protection against temptation is cowardice.
13398 -- Mark Twain
13399 %
13400 The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our
13401 authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as
13402 the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as
13403 the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much
13404 radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much
13405 as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we
13406 receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the
13407 Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will
13408 heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to
13409 the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much
13410 heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for
13411 radiation, (_H/_E)^4 = 50, where _E is the absolute temperature of the
13412 earth (-300K), gives _H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell
13413 cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the
13414 fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which
13415 burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means
13416 that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We
13417 have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
13418 -- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972
13419 %
13420 The Third Law of Photography:
13421 If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined
13422 when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark
13423 leaks out.
13424 %
13425 The Three Laws of Thermodynamics:
13426
13427 The First Law: You can't get anything without working for it.
13428 The Second Law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break
13429 even.
13430 The Third Law: You can only break even at absolute zero.
13431 %
13432 The Three Major Kind of Tools
13433
13434 * Tools for hittings things to make them loose or to tighten them up or
13435 jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a
13436 manner that they function perfectly. (These are your hammers, maces,
13437 bludgeons, and truncheons.)
13438
13439 * Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot. (Awls)
13440
13441 * Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far
13442 greater than the value of any project that could possibly result.
13443 (Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses
13444 any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.)
13445 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
13446 %
13447 The trouble with a kitten is that
13448 When it grows up, it's always a cat
13449 -- Ogden Nash.
13450 %
13451 The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
13452 %
13453 The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate
13454 it.
13455 -- Franklin P. Jones
13456 %
13457 The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing
13458 more important to do.
13459 %
13460 The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody
13461 appreciates how difficult it was.
13462 %
13463 The trouble with superheros is what to do between phone booths.
13464 -- Ken Kesey
13465 %
13466 The truth is what is; what should be is a dirty lie.
13467 -- Lenny Bruce
13468 %
13469 The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And
13470 vice versa.
13471 %
13472 The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
13473 Which practically conceal its sex.
13474 I think it clever of the turtle
13475 In such a fix to be so fertile.
13476 -- Ogden Nash
13477 %
13478 "The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and
13479 stupidity."
13480 %
13481 The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more
13482 annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
13483 -- Oscar Wilde
13484 %
13485 The United States also has its native Fascists who say that they are
13486 "100 percent American"...
13487 -- U. S. Army (1945)
13488 %
13489 The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to
13490 everybody and still nobody likes him.
13491 -- Jim Samuels
13492 %
13493 The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be
13494 broken.
13495 %
13496 The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but the
13497 combination is locked up in the safe.
13498 -- Peter DeVries
13499 %
13500 The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie
13501 Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said
13502 to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his
13503 decision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride."
13504 %
13505 The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and
13506 religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging
13507 from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its
13508 yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of the
13509 world put together.
13510 -- Sir Peter Medawar
13511 %
13512 The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
13513 regarded as a criminal offense.
13514 -- E. W. Dijkstra
13515 %
13516 The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes
13517 the worst cigars.
13518 -- H. L. Mencken
13519 %
13520 The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid
13521 prejudice.
13522 -- Mark Twain
13523 %
13524 The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.
13525 Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts
13526 to fit their views ... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to
13527 be one of the facts that needs altering.
13528 -- Doctor Who, "Face of Evil"
13529 %
13530 "The voters have spoken, the bastards ..."
13531 %
13532 "The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes,
13533 it's just a tired feeling:"
13534 %
13535 The wages of sin are high but you get your money's worth.
13536 %
13537 "The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity
13538 that would be clearly understood."
13539 -- Alexander Haig
13540 %
13541 "The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start
13542 with a large fortune."
13543 %
13544 The wind doth taste so bitter sweet,
13545 Like Jaspar wine and sugar,
13546 It must have blown through someone's feet,
13547 Like those of Caspar Weinberger.
13548 -- P. Opus
13549 %
13550 THE WOMBAT
13551
13552 The wombat lives across the seas,
13553 Among the far Antipodes.
13554 He may exist on nuts and berries,
13555 Or then again, on missionaries;
13556 His distant habitat precludes
13557 Conclusive knowledge of his moods.
13558 But I would not engage the wombat
13559 In any form of mortal combat.
13560 %
13561 The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!
13562 %
13563 The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books!
13564 %
13565 The world is coming to an end. Please log off.
13566 %
13567 The world's as ugly as sin,
13568 And almost as delightful
13569 -- Frederick Locker-Lampson
13570 %
13571 The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages of
13572 four and eighteen. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all
13573 the answers.
13574 %
13575 Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations.
13576
13577 He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the Jordan,
13578 then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an open
13579 market.
13580
13581 If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he should
13582 not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of himself.
13583
13584 Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree.
13585 Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg.
13586 Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower.
13587 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
13588 %
13589 Then here's to the City of Boston,
13590 The town of the cries and the groans.
13591 Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks,
13592 And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns.
13593 -- Franklin Pierce Adams
13594 %
13595 THEORY
13596 Into love and out again,
13597 Thus I went and thus I go.
13598 Spare your voice, and hold your pen:
13599 Well and bitterly I know
13600 All the songs were ever sung,
13601 All the words were ever said;
13602 Could it be, when I was young,
13603 Someone dropped me on my head?
13604 -- Dorothy Parker
13605 %
13606 There *__is* intelligent life on Earth, but I leave for Texas on Monday.
13607 %
13608 There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable,
13609 and praiseworthy ...
13610 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
13611 %
13612 There are many intelligent species in the universe. They all own
13613 cats.
13614 %
13615 There are no data that cannot be plotted on a straight line if the axis
13616 are chosen correctly.
13617 %
13618 There are no games on this system.
13619 %
13620 There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the
13621 existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any
13622 marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat
13623 engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is
13624 obviously impossible.
13625 -- Richard Davisson
13626 %
13627 There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the
13628 truth without lying.
13629 %
13630 There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a
13631 vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone.
13632 -- Gloria Steinem
13633 %
13634 There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that
13635 someone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew named
13636 Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or
13637 Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that
13638 every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is
13639 this?
13640 Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for
13641 centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think ___you
13642 can find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it's
13643 forbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster
13644 -- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don't
13645 even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover
13646 why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance.
13647 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
13648 %
13649 "There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both
13650 plants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis;
13651 and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again,
13652 don't we all?"
13653 %
13654 "There are those who claim that magic is like the tide; that it swells
13655 and fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentrated
13656 pools here and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leaving
13657 them parched for wonder. There are also those who believe that if you
13658 stick your fingers up your nose and blow, it will increase your
13659 intelligence."
13660 -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII
13661 %
13662 There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
13663 -- Disraeli
13664 %
13665 "There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away
13666 from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; or someone
13667 loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor."
13668 %
13669 There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be
13670 offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin
13671 a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount
13672 of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of
13673 affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately.
13674 When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating.
13675 Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.
13676 -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
13677 %
13678 "There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and
13679 engineers. While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far
13680 the more certain."
13681 -- Baron Rothschild, ca. 1800
13682 %
13683 There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring
13684 the changes on its corollaries; that's philosophy. Two: Record many
13685 facts. Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next
13686 fact; that's science. Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolent
13687 Universe controlled by Murphy's Law, sometimes offset by Brewster's
13688 Factor; that's engineering.
13689 %
13690 There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I
13691 can't remember.
13692 -- Italo Svevo
13693 %
13694 There are three ways to get something done:
13695 (1) Do it yourself.
13696 (2) Hire someone to do it for you.
13697 (3) Forbid your kids to do it.
13698 %
13699 There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire
13700 someone, or forbid your kids to do it.
13701 %
13702 There are times when truth is stranger than fiction and lunch time is
13703 one of them.
13704 %
13705 There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect
13706 the sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the
13707 sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too.
13708 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
13709 %
13710 There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good
13711 sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
13712 -- Woody Allen
13713 %
13714 "There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
13715 make is so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
13716 other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
13717 deficiencies."
13718 -- C. A. R. Hoare
13719 %
13720 "There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the
13721 other is to read Pope."
13722 -- Oscar Wilde
13723 %
13724 There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one
13725 works.
13726 %
13727 There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a
13728 suitable application of high explosives.
13729 %
13730 There can be no twisted thought without a twisted molecule.
13731 -- R. W. Gerard
13732 %
13733 There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
13734 -- Henry Kissinger
13735 %
13736 There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than 10 men or fewer
13737 than 100.
13738 -- Steele's Law
13739 %
13740 There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know
13741 nothing about.
13742 %
13743 There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an
13744 opinion.
13745 -- Anatole France
13746 %
13747 There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of
13748 paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write.
13749 %
13750 There is a green, multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.
13751 %
13752 There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs
13753 tied during the month of April.
13754 %
13755 There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish.
13756 -- Walt Disney
13757 %
13758 "There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor,
13759 Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and
13760 love of the Fatherland."
13761 -- Adolf Hitler
13762 %
13763 There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
13764 what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
13765 disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and
13766 inexplicable.
13767
13768 There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
13769
13770 -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
13771 %
13772 "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a
13773 vacuum."
13774 -- Arthur C. Clarke
13775 %
13776 There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
13777 -- Mark Twain
13778 %
13779 There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the
13780 tools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not
13781 abuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and
13782 war hold him in check. And also the wife who wants him home by five,
13783 of course.
13784 -- Encyclopedia Apocryphia, 1990 ed.
13785 %
13786 "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
13787 home."
13788 -- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
13789 Convention, 1977
13790 %
13791 There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it
13792 -- G. B. Shaw
13793 %
13794 There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast
13795 reflexes.
13796 %
13797 There is no such thing as fortune. Try again.
13798 %
13799 There is no time like the pleasant.
13800 %
13801 There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be
13802 doing.
13803 %
13804 There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY.
13805 There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS I'm very probably wrong.
13806 %
13807 "There is nothing which cannot be answered by means of my doctrine,"
13808 said a monk, coming into a teahouse where Nasrudin sat. "And yet just
13809 a short time ago, I was challenged by a scholar with an unanswerable
13810 question," said Nasrudin. "I could have answered it if I had been
13811 there." "Very well. He asked, 'Why are you breaking into my house in
13812 the middle of the night?'"
13813 %
13814 There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the
13815 ocean level wouldn't cure.
13816 -- Ross MacDonald
13817 %
13818 There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and
13819 that is not being talked about.
13820 -- Oscar Wilde
13821 %
13822 There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
13823 returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
13824 -- Mark Twain
13825 %
13826 There once was a girl named Irene
13827 Who lived on distilled kerosene
13828 But she started absorbin'
13829 A new hydrocarbon
13830 And since then has never benzene.
13831 %
13832 There once was a member of Mensa
13833 Who was a most excellent fencer.
13834 The sword that he used
13835 Was his -- (line is refused,
13836 And has now been removed by the censor).
13837 %
13838 There once was an old man from Esser,
13839 Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser.
13840 It at last grew so small,
13841 He knew nothing at all,
13842 And now he's a College Professor.
13843 %
13844 "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved
13845 it."
13846 -- C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia
13847 %
13848 There was a plane crash over mid-ocean, and only three survivors were
13849 left in the life-raft: the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley.
13850 Unfortunately, it was a one-man life-raft, and quickly sinking, so they
13851 started debating who should be allowed to stay.
13852
13853 The Pope pointed out that he was the spiritual leader of millions all
13854 over the world, the President explained that if he died then America
13855 would be stuck with the Vice-President, and so forth. Then Mayor Daley
13856 said, "Look! We're not solving anything like this! The only fair
13857 thing to do is to vote on it." So they did, and Mayor Daley won by 97
13858 votes.
13859 %
13860 There was a young lady from Hyde
13861 Who ate a green apple and died.
13862 While her lover lamented
13863 The apple fermented
13864 And made cider inside her inside.
13865 %
13866 There was a young man who said "God,
13867 I find it exceedingly odd,
13868 That the willow oak tree
13869 Continues to be,
13870 When there's no one about in the Quad."
13871
13872 "Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd,
13873 For I'm always about in the Quad;
13874 And that's why the tree,
13875 Continues to be,"
13876 Signed "Yours faithfully, God."
13877 %
13878 There was a young poet named Dan,
13879 Whose poetry never would scan.
13880 When told this was so,
13881 He said, "Yes, I know.
13882 %
13883 There was a young poet named Dan,
13884 Whose poetry never would scan.
13885 When told this was so,
13886 He said, "Yes, I know.
13887 It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that last line that I can."
13888 %
13889 "There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial:
13890 both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed to
13891 talk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed him
13892 during the trial."
13893 -- David Letterman
13894 %
13895 There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of
13896 the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double-
13897 digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the
13898 8-cent postcard. The second was responsible for such things as the
13899 transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity
13900 stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative
13901 feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching
13902 systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the
13903 first electrical digital computer, and the first communications
13904 satellite. Guess which one got to tell the other how to run the
13905 telephone business?
13906 %
13907 There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not
13908 a fence.
13909 %
13910 There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to.
13911 %
13912 There's little in taking or giving,
13913 There's little in water or wine:
13914 This living, this living, this living,
13915 Was never a project of mine.
13916 Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
13917 The gain of the one at the top,
13918 For art is a form of catharsis,
13919 And love is a permanent flop,
13920 And work is the province of cattle,
13921 And rest's for a clam in a shell,
13922 So I'm thinking of throwing the battle --
13923 Would you kindly direct me to hell?
13924 -- Dorothy Parker
13925 %
13926 There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through our
13927 whole lives, win, lose, or draw.
13928 -- Walt Kelly
13929 %
13930 There's no future in time travel
13931 %
13932 There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
13933 -- Dr. Who
13934 %
13935 There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get
13936 any worse.
13937 %
13938 There's no room in the drug world for amateurs.
13939 %
13940 There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government
13941 working for you.
13942 -- Will Rodgers
13943 %
13944 "There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead
13945 armadillos."
13946 -- Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner
13947 %
13948 "There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't
13949 aggravate."
13950 %
13951 There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn
13952 what it is I'll get married again.
13953 -- Clint Eastwood
13954 %
13955 There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is
13956 becoming an endangered synthetic.
13957 -- Lily Tomlin
13958 %
13959 "These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!"
13960 "These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!"
13961 "These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP
13962 out of MEGATON MAN!"
13963 %
13964 These days the necessities of life cost you about three times what they
13965 used to, and half the time they aren't even fit to drink.
13966 %
13967 They also surf who only stand on waves.
13968 %
13969 "They make a desert and call it peace."
13970 -- Tacitus (55?-120?)
13971 %
13972 They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners
13973 always spell better than they pronounce.
13974 -- Mark Twain
13975 %
13976 "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
13977 safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
13978 -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
13979 %
13980 "They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!"
13981 %
13982 They told me you had proven it When they discovered our results
13983 About a month before. Their hair began to curl
13984 The proof was valid, more or less Instead of understanding it
13985 But rather less than more. We'd run the thing through PRL.
13986
13987 He sent them word that we would try Don't tell a soul about all this
13988 To pass where they had failed For it must ever be
13989 And after we were done, to them A secret, kept from all the rest
13990 The new proof would be mailed. Between yourself and me.
13991
13992 My notion was to start again
13993 Ignoring all they'd done
13994 We quickly turned it into code
13995 To see if it would run.
13996 %
13997 They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid!
13998 %
13999 "They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really. They'd be difficult
14000 to like."
14001 -- Avon
14002 %
14003 Things are more like they used to be than they are now.
14004 %
14005 Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face.
14006 %
14007 Think big. Pollute the Mississippi.
14008 %
14009 Think honk if you're a telepath.
14010 %
14011 Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!
14012 %
14013 Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer
14014 crashes.
14015 %
14016 Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click".
14017 %
14018 "Thirty days hath Septober,
14019 April, June, and no wonder.
14020 all the rest have peanut butter
14021 except my father who wears red suspenders."
14022 %
14023 This Fortue Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14
14024 %
14025 This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need,
14026 please use the program "________randchar". This program generates random
14027 characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with
14028 something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be
14029 more profound than THIS program has ever been.
14030 %
14031 This fortune intentionally not included.
14032 %
14033 This fortune is false.
14034 %
14035 This fortune is inoperative. Please try another.
14036 %
14037 "This is a country where people are free to practice their religion,
14038 regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling
14039 keys ..."
14040 %
14041 "This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT
14042 DOG."
14043 -- Bob Violence
14044 %
14045 "This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an
14046 actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you?"
14047 %
14048 This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly,
14049 because the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under
14050 which it recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has
14051 "deregulated" the airline industry. What this means for you, the
14052 consumer, is that the airlines are no longer required to follow any
14053 rules whatsoever. They can show snuff movies. They can charge for
14054 oxygen. They can hire pilots right out of Vending Machine Refill
14055 Person School. They can conserve fuel by ejecting husky passengers
14056 over water. They can ram competing planes in mid-air. These
14057 innovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which have been
14058 passed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights with
14059 amazingly low fares, such as $29. Of course, certain restrictions do
14060 apply, the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark,
14061 and you must pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out.
14062 -- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations"
14063 %
14064 This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement.
14065 %
14066 This is for all ill-treated fellows
14067 Unborn and unbegot,
14068 For them to read when they're in trouble
14069 And I am not.
14070 -- A. E. Housman
14071 %
14072 "This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back
14073 to one."
14074 -- Prof. Seager, C&O 351
14075 %
14076 This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week.
14077 %
14078 THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM
14079
14080 If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your
14081 contribution of a pithy fortune, clean or obscene? We cannot continue
14082 without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are
14083 contributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We
14084 can't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money
14085 for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the
14086 difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight
14087 and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to
14088 "fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now before
14089 you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week.
14090 Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute
14091 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The
14092 Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or
14093 more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug ....
14094 %
14095 This is the ____LAST time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury!
14096 %
14097 This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the
14098 power of computers:
14099
14100 Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct
14101 the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a
14102 minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The
14103 results are that one should eat each day:
14104
14105 1/2 chicken
14106 1 egg
14107 1 glass of skim milk
14108 27 heads of lettuce.
14109 -- Rev. Adrian Melott
14110 %
14111 This is the story of the bee
14112 Whose sex is very hard to see
14113
14114 You cannot tell the he from the she
14115 But she can tell, and so can he
14116
14117 The little bee is never still
14118 She has no time to take the pill
14119
14120 And that is why, in times like these
14121 There are so many sons of bees.
14122 %
14123 This is your fortune.
14124 %
14125 This land is full of trousers!
14126 this land is full of mausers!
14127 And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down!
14128 -- Firesign Theater
14129 %
14130 This land is made of mountains,
14131 This land is made of mud,
14132 This land has lots of everything,
14133 For me and Elmer Fudd.
14134
14135 This land has lots of trousers,
14136 This land has lots of mousers,
14137 And pussycats to eat them
14138 When the sun goes down.
14139 %
14140 This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life,
14141 you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where
14142 to go.
14143 %
14144 This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88
14145 %
14146 This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with
14147 great force.
14148 -- Dorothy Parker
14149 %
14150 This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of
14151 the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many
14152 solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were
14153 largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper,
14154 which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of
14155 paper that were unhappy.
14156 -- Douglas Adams
14157 %
14158 "This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does
14159 something child-like."
14160 -- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454
14161 %
14162 This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland
14163 student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87.
14164
14165 One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use
14166 Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one
14167 computer language to another and has a built-in editing system
14168 which identifies errors in the original program.
14169 %
14170 This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't.
14171 -- Hofstadter
14172 %
14173 ... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal lives
14174 as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as
14175 determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people
14176 buy imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80s
14177 couple goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three
14178 weeks in advance, and they are informed that their table is available,
14179 they stalk out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent
14180 restaurant. If it were, it would have an enormous crowd of
14181 excellence-oriented people like themselves waiting, their beepers going
14182 off like crickets in the night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't have
14183 a table ready immediately for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli.
14184 -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
14185 %
14186 This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget
14187 it.
14188 %
14189 Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire
14190 rainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better
14191 than he does.
14192 As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about
14193 it. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily
14194 sane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we
14195 consider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is
14196 being eaten alive by tinhorn politicians.
14197 The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can
14198 do for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his
14199 honor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can
14200 be as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public
14201 relations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter
14202 Thompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes.
14203 This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease.
14204 -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt
14205 from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear
14206 and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72"
14207 %
14208 Those of you who think you know everything are very annoying to those
14209 of us who do.
14210 %
14211 Those who can't write, write manuals.
14212 %
14213 Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
14214 %
14215 "Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics."
14216 -- French Proverb
14217 %
14218 Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
14219 -- Henry Spencer
14220 %
14221 Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents,
14222 for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
14223 -- Aristotle
14224 %
14225 Those who express random thoughts to legislative committees are often
14226 surprised and appalled to find themselves the instigators of law.
14227 -- Mark B. Cohen
14228 %
14229 Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.
14230 %
14231 Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
14232 revolution inevitable.
14233 -- John F. Kennedy
14234 %
14235 Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are
14236 men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean
14237 without the roar of its many waters.
14238 -- Frederick Douglass
14239 %
14240 Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are
14241 the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with
14242 Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether --
14243 whose existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation ... A
14244 fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any
14245 more about the matter than the others.
14246 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
14247 %
14248 Time flies like an arrow
14249 Fruit flies like a banana
14250 %
14251 Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.
14252 %
14253 Time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so.
14254 -- Ford Prefect
14255 %
14256 Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at
14257 once.
14258 %
14259 'Tis the dream of each programmer,
14260 Before his life is done,
14261 To write three lines of APL,
14262 And make the damn things run.
14263 %
14264 (to "The Caissons Go Rolling Along")
14265 Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug
14266 Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug
14267 And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.
14268 Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all,
14269 Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall
14270 And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.
14271 And we've also found Just flip one switch
14272 When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch
14273 You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble
14274 in a flash.
14275 Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU
14276 Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo,"
14277 And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash.
14278 %
14279 To A Quick Young Fox:
14280 Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp,
14281 Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice?
14282 Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp --
14283 Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice.
14284 -- Lazy Dog
14285 %
14286 To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.
14287 %
14288 To be is to do.
14289 -- I. Kant
14290 To do is to be.
14291 -- A. Sartre
14292 Yabba-Dabba-Doo!
14293 -- F. Flinstone
14294 %
14295 "To be responsive at this time, though I will simply say, and therefore
14296 this is a repeat of what I said previously, that which I am unable to
14297 offer in response is based on information available to make no such
14298 statement."
14299 %
14300 To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit,
14301 call it the target.
14302 %
14303 To err is human, to forgive is Not Company Policy.
14304 %
14305 "To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System"
14306 %
14307 To err is human, to moo bovine.
14308 %
14309 To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D.
14310 -- B. Duggan
14311 %
14312 To generalize is to be an idiot.
14313 -- William Blake
14314 %
14315 To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three
14316 men, two of them absent.
14317 %
14318 To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
14319 -- Thomas Edison
14320 %
14321 To iterate is human, to recurse, divine.
14322 %
14323 To the best of my recollection, Senator, I can't recall.
14324 %
14325 To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide
14326 a test load.
14327 %
14328 To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional
14329 system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy,
14330 inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence:
14331 precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel,
14332 uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar,
14333 well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures
14334 of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very
14335 secure ecological niche.
14336 -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers"
14337 %
14338 To understand this important story, you have to understand how the
14339 telephone company works. Your telephone is connected to a local
14340 computer, which is in turn connected to a regional computer, which is
14341 in turn connected to a loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the
14342 lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of Lawrence, Kan.
14343
14344 Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it
14345 suspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the
14346 computer above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the
14347 one above it, until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe
14348 break down in tears and tell your closest friend about a sordid
14349 incident from your past involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse,
14350 an entire religious order, a garden hose and six quarts of tapioca
14351 pudding, the top computer feeds your conversation into Edna's
14352 loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on the porch to listen
14353 and drink gin and laugh themselves silly.
14354 -- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own
14355 Phones?"
14356 %
14357 "To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?"
14358 %
14359 "To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."
14360 -- Woody Allen
14361 %
14362 Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official.
14363 %
14364 Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.
14365 %
14366 Today is the first day of the rest of the mess
14367 %
14368 Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage.
14369 %
14370 Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday
14371 %
14372 Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity?
14373
14374 And where does it go after it leaves the toaster?
14375 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
14376 %
14377 "Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new
14378 cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more
14379 spectacular adventure starring ... Tippy, the Wonder Dog."
14380 -- Bob & Ray
14381 %
14382 "Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-word
14383 except in major motion pictures."
14384 -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
14385 %
14386 Toilet Toup'ee, n.:
14387 Any shag carpet that causes the lid to become top-heavy, thus
14388 creating endless annoyance to male users.
14389 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
14390 %
14391 Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest.
14392 %
14393 Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
14394 %
14395 Too clever is dumb.
14396 -- Ogden Nash
14397 %
14398 Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL.
14399 -- Mae West
14400 %
14401 Too much of everything is just enough.
14402 -- Bob Wier
14403 %
14404 Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available
14405 briefcases.
14406 -- Governor Jerry Brown
14407 %
14408 Top scientists agree that with the present rate of consumption, the
14409 earth's supply of gravity will be exhausted before the 24th century.
14410 As man struggles to discover cheaper alternatives, we need your help.
14411 Please...
14412
14413 CONSERVE GRAVITY
14414
14415 Follow these simple suggestions:
14416
14417 (1) Walk with a light step. Carry helium balloons if possible.
14418 (2) Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights.
14419 (3) Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like
14420 curling.
14421 (4) Avoid showers .. take baths instead.
14422 (5) Don't hang all your clothes in the closet ... Keep them in one big
14423 pile.
14424 (6) Stop flipping pancakes
14425 %
14426 Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow.
14427 %
14428 Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and live
14429 in eucalyptus trees.
14430 %
14431 Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant
14432 intelligence.
14433 -- Henrik Tikkanen
14434 %
14435 Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it.
14436 -- Mark Twain
14437 %
14438 Truth will be out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.)
14439 %
14440 Truthful, adj.:
14441 Dumb and illiterate.
14442 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
14443 %
14444 Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational.
14445 -- Charles Schulz
14446 %
14447 Try to be the best of whatever you are, even if what you are is no
14448 good.
14449 %
14450 Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done,
14451 is it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written
14452 in four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and
14453 pretense. Watch for novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmer),
14454 defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and the
14455 absolutely perfect future.
14456 -- Amrom Katz
14457 %
14458 Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.
14459 %
14460 Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only
14461 specification is that it should run noiselessly.
14462 %
14463 Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
14464 -- Alan Watts
14465 %
14466 Trying to establish voice contact ... please ____yell into keyboard.
14467 %
14468 Turnaucka's Law:
14469 The attention span of a computer is only as long as its
14470 electrical cord.
14471 %
14472 Tussman's Law:
14473 Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
14474 %
14475 TV is chewing gum for the eyes.
14476 -- Frank Lloyd Wright
14477 %
14478 'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks
14479 Did gyre and gimble in their cave
14480 All mimsy was the CS-VAX
14481 And Cory raths outgrabe.
14482
14483 "Beware the software rot, my son!
14484 The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash!
14485 Beware the broken pipe, and shun
14486 The frumious system crash!"
14487 %
14488 'Twas the Night before Crisis
14489
14490 'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house,
14491 Not a program was working not even a browse.
14492 The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care,
14493 Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer.
14494 The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
14495 While visions of inquiries danced in their heads.
14496 When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter,
14497 I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter.
14498 And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
14499 But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear.
14500 More rapid than eagles, his programs they came,
14501 And he whistled and shouted and called them by name;
14502 On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete!
14503 On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete!
14504 His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean,
14505 From Weekends and nights in front of a screen.
14506 A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
14507 Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread...
14508 %
14509 'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period
14510 preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And
14511 throughout our place of residence,
14512 Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the
14513 possessors of this potential, including that
14514 species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.
14515 Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward
14516 edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus,
14517 Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an
14518 imminent visitation from an eccentric
14519 philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations
14520 is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ...
14521 %
14522 Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing.
14523 -- Walt Kelly
14524 %
14525 Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long.
14526 -- Howard Kandel
14527 %
14528 Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate. The first man
14529 said, "This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." The
14530 second man said, "He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to his
14531 chambers, and spent an hour trying to bite his own ear. He succeeded
14532 only in falling over and bruising his forehead. Returning to the
14533 courtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the man whose ear was bitten.
14534 If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and the case is
14535 dismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it and
14536 must pay three silver pieces."
14537 %
14538 Two percent of zero is almost nothing.
14539 %
14540 "Two sure ways to tell a sexy male; the first is, he has a bad memory.
14541 I forget the second."
14542 %
14543 Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
14544 %
14545 U: There's a U -- a Unicorn!
14546 Run right up and rub its horn.
14547 Look at all those points you're losing!
14548 UMBER HULKS are so confusing.
14549 -- The Roguelet's ABC
14550 %
14551 "Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex."
14552
14553 (Where there is no police, there is no speed limit.)
14554 -- Roman Law, trans. Petr Beckmann (1971)
14555 %
14556 UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist.
14557 %
14558 "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?"
14559
14560 "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food,
14561 right?"
14562 -- MacNelley, "Shoe"
14563 %
14564 Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb:
14565 Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a
14566 hammer or get a splinter in it.
14567 %
14568 Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb:
14569 Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a
14570 hammmer or get a splinter in it.
14571 %
14572 Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
14573 just man is also a prison.
14574 -- Henry David Thoreau
14575 %
14576 Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
14577 just man is also in prison.
14578 -- Henry David Thoreau
14579 %
14580 Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it
14581 can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic ...
14582 %
14583 Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics:
14584 Superiority is recessive.
14585 %
14586 Unfair animal names:
14587
14588 -- tsetse fly -- bullhead
14589 -- booby -- duck-billed platypus
14590 -- sapsucker -- Clarence
14591 -- Gary Larson
14592 %
14593 United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of the
14594 Christmas season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of
14595 all the military forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of
14596 all the patriots of every persuasion.
14597
14598 Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time low over the
14599 world.
14600 -- Isaac Asimov
14601 %
14602 Universe, n.:
14603 The problem.
14604 %
14605 University, n.:
14606 Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's
14607 usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to
14608 fix it, and ...
14609 %
14610 unix soit qui mal y pense
14611 %
14612 UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on
14613 Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch).
14614 -- Andy Tannenbaum
14615 %
14616 Unnamed Law:
14617 If it happens, it must be possible.
14618 %
14619 Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out
14620 twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
14621 -- H. L. Mencken
14622 %
14623 Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir
14624 %
14625 User n.:
14626 A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
14627 %
14628 USER, n.:
14629 The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot."
14630 -- Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top"
14631 %
14632 Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
14633 -- S. C. Johnson
14634 %
14635 Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two,
14636 opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none.
14637 -- Doug Larson
14638 %
14639 Vail's Second Axiom:
14640 The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the
14641 amount of work already completed.
14642 %
14643 Valerie: Aww, Tom, you're going maudlin on me ...
14644 Tom: I reserve the right to wax maudlin as I wane eloquent ...
14645 -- Tom Chapin
14646 %
14647 Van Roy's Law:
14648 An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
14649 %
14650 Vanilla, adj.:
14651 Ordinary flavor, standard. See FLAVOR. When used of food,
14652 very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla
14653 extract! For example, "vanilla-flavored won ton soup" (or simply
14654 "vanilla won ton soup") means ordinary won ton soup, as opposed to hot
14655 and sour won ton soup.
14656 %
14657 Velilind's Laws of Experimentation:
14658 (1) If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only
14659 once.
14660 (2) If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data
14661 points.
14662 %
14663 Veni, Vidi, Visa.
14664 %
14665 "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past
14666 year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley
14667 reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their
14668 artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue
14669 moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon
14670 Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the
14671 entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the
14672 sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips."
14673
14674 "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito.
14675
14676 "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made
14677 good copy."
14678 -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
14679 %
14680 Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
14681 %
14682 Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life."
14683 Orac: "It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater mistakes
14684 waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it."
14685 %
14686 Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
14687 -- Salvor Hardin
14688 %
14689 Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the
14690 yard.
14691 %
14692 VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
14693 Learn something new today, like how to spell or how to count to
14694 ten without using your fingers. Be careful dressing this
14695 morning. You may be hit by a car later in the day and you
14696 wouldn't want to be taken to the doctor's office in some of
14697 that old underwear you own.
14698 %
14699 VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
14700 You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is
14701 sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and
14702 sometimes fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus
14703 drivers.
14704 %
14705 "Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from.
14706 %
14707 Virtue is its own punishment.
14708 %
14709 Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving
14710 from where you left them to where you can't find them.
14711 %
14712 Vitamin C deficiency is apauling
14713 %
14714 VMS is like a nightmare about RXS-11M.
14715 %
14716 Vote anarchist
14717 %
14718 Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and
14719 TAX-DEFERRED!
14720 %
14721 VYARZERZOMANIMORORSEZASSEZANSERAREORSES?
14722 %
14723
14724 *** System shutdown message from root ***
14725
14726 System going down in 60 seconds
14727
14728
14729 %
14730 "Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
14731 -- Mark Twain
14732 %
14733 Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?"
14734 1st customer: "I'll have tea."
14735 2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!"
14736 (Waiter exits, returns)
14737 Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?"
14738 %
14739 Walk softly and carry a megawatt laser.
14740 %
14741 War hath no fury like a non-combatant.
14742 -- Charles Edward Montague
14743 %
14744 War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable.
14745 %
14746 WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:
14747
14748 Firings will continue until morale improves.
14749 %
14750 WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:
14751
14752 Firings will continue until morale improves.
14753 %
14754 WARNING:
14755 Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your
14756 mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth of hair on
14757 your palms, and make a difference in the outcome of your favorite war.
14758 %
14759 Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for
14760 those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking
14761 up.
14762 -- Chicago Reader 4/22/83
14763 %
14764 Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with.
14765 %
14766 Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
14767 -- John F. Kennedy
14768 %
14769 Waste not, get your budget cut next year.
14770 %
14771 Wasting time is an important part of living.
14772 %
14773 Watson's Law:
14774 The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the
14775 number and significance of any persons watching it.
14776 %
14777 We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which
14778 divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being
14779 correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
14780 -- Niels Bohr
14781 %
14782 We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
14783 -- Oscar Wilde
14784 %
14785 We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm.
14786 -- Winston Churchill
14787 %
14788 We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it.
14789 -- Whole Earth Catalog
14790 %
14791 We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.
14792 -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo"
14793 %
14794 We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to
14795 socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The
14796 bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its ... Did I say
14797 socialism?
14798 -- Fidel Castro
14799 %
14800 "We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last
14801 theorem."
14802 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
14803 %
14804 "We are upping our standards ... so up yours."
14805 -- Pat Paulsen for President, 1988.
14806 %
14807 We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved.
14808 %
14809 We can predict everything, except the future.
14810 %
14811 We cannot put the face of a person on a stamp unless said person is
14812 deceased. My suggestion, therefore, is that you drop dead.
14813 -- James E. Day, Postmaster General
14814 %
14815 "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
14816 -- Vroomfondel
14817 %
14818 "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."
14819 %
14820 We don't know who discovered water, but we're certain it wasn't a
14821 fish.
14822 %
14823 We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the
14824 hardware, but we can *___see* the blinking lights!
14825 %
14826 We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids?
14827 -- I. I. Rabi to the Atomic Energy Commission
14828 %
14829 "We had it tough ... I had to get up at 9 o'clock at night, half an
14830 hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours down
14831 mill, and when we came home our Dad would kill us, and dance about on
14832 our grave singing Haleleuia ..."
14833 -- Monty Python
14834 %
14835 We have met the enemy, and he is us.
14836 -- Walt Kelly
14837 %
14838 We have only two things to worry about: That things will never get
14839 back to normal, and that they already have.
14840 %
14841 "We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his
14842 hands for masturbation."
14843 -- Lily Tomlin
14844 %
14845 We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an
14846 official name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death
14847 Flu". You may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish
14848 you had another setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that
14849 said "ELECTROCUTION".
14850
14851 Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) your
14852 teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing
14853 process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a
14854 couple of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways
14855 out of your mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste
14856 stalagmites that would bond your head permanently to the bathroom
14857 floor, which is how the police would find you.
14858
14859 You know the kind of flu I'm talking about.
14860 -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"
14861 %
14862 We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all
14863 purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start
14864 with? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the
14865 playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is
14866 best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can
14867 buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English.
14868 -- Alan M. Turing
14869 %
14870 We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always
14871 respect their good judgement.
14872 %
14873 We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass
14874 no matter how self-seeking.
14875 -- F. G. Withington
14876 %
14877 We ought to be very grateful that we have tools. Millions of years ago
14878 people did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult.
14879 For example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he had
14880 to drive the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his bare
14881 fist, so generally the paneling wound up getting spattered with
14882 primitive blood, which isn't really all that bad when you consider how
14883 ugly paneling is to begin with.
14884 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
14885 %
14886 We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best
14887 friends are trying to kill us.
14888 %
14889 We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.
14890 But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle
14891 Haggard song at a French restaurant. ...
14892 I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of
14893 her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I
14894 had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone
14895 told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was
14896 lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he
14897 fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing
14898 what men must do. ...
14899 "Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible
14900 sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew
14901 not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a
14902 quiet and peace I will never forget.
14903 "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the
14904 tollway belle's for thee."
14905 The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was
14906 a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I
14907 poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day.
14908 -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway
14909 Competition
14910 %
14911 We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one
14912 technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter.
14913 %
14914 we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love,
14915 we will cry over things we used to laugh &
14916 our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentile
14917 creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then &
14918 in the end a summer with wild winds &
14919 new friends will be.
14920 %
14921 We wish you a Hare Krishna
14922 We wish you a Hare Krishna
14923 We wish you a Hare Krishna
14924 And a Sun Myung Moon!
14925 -- Maxwell Smart
14926 %
14927 "We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later."
14928 %
14929 We're deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell from
14930 the fact that everywhere you look, you see jolly old St. Nick urging
14931 you to purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him right
14932 in his bowl full of jelly.
14933 -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
14934 %
14935 We're only in it for the volume.
14936 -- Black Sabbath
14937 %
14938 We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center
14939 of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week,
14940 but for some reason nobody's ever done it.
14941 -- Andy Rooney
14942 %
14943 Weiler's Law:
14944 Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it
14945 himself.
14946 %
14947 Weinberg's First Law:
14948 Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
14949 %
14950 Weinberg's Principle:
14951 An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while
14952 sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
14953 %
14954 Weinberg's Second Law:
14955 If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
14956 then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
14957 %
14958 Weiner's Law of Libraries:
14959 There are no answers, only cross references.
14960 %
14961 Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if
14962 you run out of food.
14963 -- Dean McLaughlin.
14964 %
14965 Well, here it is, 1983, so it won't be long before you start reading a
14966 lot of boring stories about people like Vance Hartke. Hartke is a
14967 governor or mayor or something from one of the flatter states, and the
14968 reason you'll be reading about him is that he's one of the 50 top
14969 contenders for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. These men
14970 will spend the next 18 months going around the country engaging in the
14971 most degrading activities imaginable, such as wearing idiot hats and
14972 appearing on "Meet the Press". "Meet the Press" is one of those Sunday
14973 morning public interest shows that the public is not the least bit
14974 interested in. It features a panel of reporters who ask questions of a
14975 guest politician, who wins an Amana home freezer if he can get through
14976 the entire show without answering a single question ...
14977 -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
14978 %
14979 Well, I would -- if they realized that we -- again if -- if we led them
14980 back to that stalemate only because our retaliatory power, our seconds,
14981 or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive they
14982 they couldn't afford it, that would hold them off.
14983 -- President Ronald Reagan, on the MX missile
14984 %
14985 "Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can*
14986 you believe?!"
14987 -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]
14988 %
14989 Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail,
14990 And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail;
14991 I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues,
14992 I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
14993
14994 If you think that it's nice that you get what you C,
14995 Then go : illogical statement with your whole family,
14996 'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views.
14997 I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
14998
14999 On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze,
15000 But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze.
15001 Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse,
15002 I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
15003 -- Core Dumped Blues
15004 %
15005 "Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?"
15006
15007 "Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection ...
15008 coefficient of relevance to Key of Time: zero."
15009 -- Dr. Who
15010 %
15011 "Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool is
15012 no wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand five
15013 hundred."
15014 -- The Mahabharata.
15015 %
15016 Westheimer's Discovery:
15017 A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a
15018 couple of hours in the library.
15019 %
15020 Wethern's Law:
15021 Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
15022 %
15023 "What are we going to do?"
15024
15025 "Me, I'm examining the major Western religions. I'm looking for
15026 something that's soft on morality, generous with holidays, and has a
15027 short initiation period."
15028 %
15029 "What are you doing?"
15030
15031 "Examining the world's major religions. I'm looking for something
15032 that's light on morals, has lots of holidays, and with a short
15033 initiation period."
15034 %
15035 What color is a chameleon on a mirror?
15036 %
15037 "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty
15038 teenager asked her mother.
15039 "Encouragement, dear," she replied.
15040 %
15041 What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"?
15042 %
15043 What does it mean if there is no fortune for you?
15044 %
15045 What garlic is to food, insanity is to art.
15046 %
15047 What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.
15048 %
15049 "What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so
15050 that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our
15051 country. Nice try anyway, George."
15052 -- D.J. on KSFO/KYA
15053 %
15054 What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the
15055 entrance?
15056 %
15057 What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow
15058 in his footsteps?
15059 %
15060 What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I hop into the shower
15061 stall. Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped in I landed
15062 barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot character
15063 from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off of
15064 while he showers. Then I hop right back into the stall because our
15065 dog, Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building up
15066 powerful dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into the
15067 bathroom and wants to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, any
15068 one of which -- bear in mind that I am naked and, without my contact
15069 lenses, essentially blind -- could result in the kind of injury where
15070 you have to learn a whole new part if you want to sing the "Messiah",
15071 if you get my drift. Then I hop right back out, because Robert, with
15072 that uncanny sixth sense some children have -- you cannot teach it;
15073 they either have it or they don't -- has chosen exactly that moment to
15074 flush one of the toilets. Perhaps several of them.
15075 -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
15076 %
15077 What I tell you three times is true.
15078 %
15079 "What I think is that the F-word is basically just a convenient nasty-
15080 sounding word that we tend to use when we would really like to come up
15081 with a terrifically witty insult, the kind Winston Churchill always
15082 came up with when enormous women asked him stupid questions at
15083 parties.
15084 -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
15085 %
15086 What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility.
15087 %
15088 "What I've done, of course, is total garbage."
15089 -- R. Willard, Pure Math 430a
15090 %
15091 What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I
15092 definitely overpaid for my carpet.
15093 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
15094 %
15095 What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's
15096 worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
15097 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
15098 %
15099 What is a magician but a practising theorist?
15100 -- Obi-Wan Kenobi
15101 %
15102 What is mind? No matter.
15103 What is matter? Never mind.
15104 -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875
15105 %
15106 What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern
15107 computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest
15108 and the establishment of a Hilton on its peak.
15109 %
15110 "What is the Nature of God?"
15111
15112 CLICK...CLICK...WHIRRR...CLICK...=BEEP!=
15113 1 QT. SOUR CREAM
15114 1 TSP. SAUERKRAUT
15115 1/2 CUT CHIVES.
15116 STIR AND SPRINKLE WITH BACON BITS.
15117
15118 "I've just GOT to start labeling my software..."
15119 -- Bloom County
15120 %
15121 "What is the robbing of a bank compared to the FOUNDING of a bank?"
15122 -- Bertold Brecht
15123 %
15124 "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out,
15125 which is the exact opposite."
15126 -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical_Essays", 1928
15127 %
15128 What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do.
15129 %
15130 What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing
15131 to compare it with.
15132 %
15133 What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism.
15134 It's corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell books
15135 and magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, Scotch, cigarettes
15136 and, most important, corporate America's message, which runs: "Yes,
15137 women were discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunate
15138 mistake has been remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestige
15139 and power by dint of individual rather than collective effort."
15140 -- Susan Gordon
15141 %
15142 What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
15143 -- Ursula K. LeGuin
15144 %
15145 What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket.
15146 %
15147 What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
15148 %
15149 What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener.
15150 %
15151 What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent
15152 bagel.
15153 %
15154 What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel.
15155 %
15156 What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING!
15157 %
15158 What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer.
15159 %
15160 What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.
15161 %
15162 What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon.
15163 %
15164 What this world needs is a good five-dollar plasma weapon.
15165 %
15166 What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn?
15167 -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"
15168 %
15169 What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which
15170 nobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday
15171 Morning Time, whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-
15172 launch-style "hold" for two to three hours, during which it just
15173 remains 7 a.m. This way we could all wake up via a civilized gradual
15174 process of stretching and belching and scratching, and it would still
15175 be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually emerge from bed.
15176 -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
15177 %
15178 What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it.
15179 %
15180 "What's another word for Thesaurus?"
15181 -- Steven Wright
15182 %
15183 "What's that thing?"
15184 "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in
15185 computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what
15186 it does. We call it a two-by-four."
15187 -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe"
15188 %
15189 "What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?"
15190 -- Dr. Who
15191 %
15192 Whatever became of eternal truth?
15193 %
15194 Whatever became of Strange de Jim? Well, he found a substitute for
15195 cocaine: "You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrils
15196 as far as they will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shredding
15197 hundred dollar bills."
15198 -- Herb Caen
15199 %
15200 Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not
15201 nailed down.
15202 -- Collis P. Huntingdon
15203 %
15204 "Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not
15205 cockroaches!"
15206 -- Mom
15207 %
15208 When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the
15209 money is.
15210 -- Robespierre
15211 %
15212 When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the
15213 thing," it's the money.
15214 -- Kim Hubbard
15215 %
15216 When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half
15217 loop?
15218 %
15219 When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is
15220 not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space
15221 travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
15222 -- Robert Heinlein
15223 %
15224 When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see the
15225 sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain
15226 relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten.
15227 -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
15228 Maintenance"
15229 %
15230 When all other means of communication fail, try words.
15231 %
15232 "When are you BUTTHEADS gonna learn that you can't oppose Gestapo
15233 tactics *with* Gestapo tactics?"
15234 -- Reuben Flagg
15235 %
15236 When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before
15237 the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours."
15238 -- Vine Deloria, Jr.
15239 %
15240 When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I
15241 think it was a Tuesday.
15242 %
15243 When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to
15244 guarantee them.
15245 %
15246 "When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great
15247 parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if
15248 I'm leaving."
15249 -- Steven Wright
15250 %
15251 When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a
15252 year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire
15253 winter with slightly over half that quantity of beer.
15254 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
15255 %
15256 When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young
15257 ladies, and, of course, the goat.
15258 %
15259 When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now
15260 I'm beginning to believe it.
15261 -- Clarence Darrow
15262 %
15263 When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will you
15264 take me to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them come
15265 and get you."
15266 -- Jerry Lewis
15267 %
15268 "When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any
15269 firearms with me. I said, `Well, what do you need?'"
15270 -- Steven Wright
15271 %
15272 When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into
15273 the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
15274 -- Woody Allen
15275 %
15276 When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an
15277 act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A
15278 group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a
15279 six-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do things
15280 together which not one of you would think of doing alone." ...
15281 Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collective
15282 responsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The military
15283 establishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to have
15284 been expressly designed to make it possible for people to do things
15285 together which nobody in his right mind would do alone.
15286 -- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope"
15287 %
15288 When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened
15289 or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I
15290 cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to
15291 go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.
15292 -- Mark Twain
15293 %
15294 When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess.
15295 %
15296 "When in doubt, tell the truth."
15297 -- Mark Twain
15298 %
15299 When in doubt, use brute force.
15300 -- Ken Thompson
15301 %
15302 When in panic, fear and doubt,
15303 Drink in barrels, eat, and shout.
15304 %
15305 When love is gone, there's always justice.
15306 And when justice is gone, there's always force.
15307 And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
15308 Hi, Mom!
15309 -- Laurie Anderson
15310 %
15311 When Marriage is Outlawed,
15312 Only Outlaws will have Inlaws.
15313 %
15314 When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment
15315 results.
15316 -- Calvin Coolidge
15317 %
15318 When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony
15319 concerts, she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years --
15320 and I find I mind it less and less."
15321 -- Louise Andrews Kent
15322 %
15323 When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity:
15324 for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when
15325 your boss is away and you get twice as much done.
15326 -- Daniel B. Luten
15327 %
15328 When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only
15329 say what I wish done," give him a lollipop.
15330 %
15331 "When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical"
15332 -- Jon Carroll
15333 %
15334 When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, you
15335 modify the problem, not the remedy.
15336 %
15337 When the Ngdanga tribe of West Africa hold their moon love ceremonies,
15338 the men of the tribe bang their heads on sacred trees until they get a
15339 nose bleed, which usually cures them of ____that.
15340 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
15341 %
15342 When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that is
15343 metaphysics.
15344 -- Voltaire
15345 %
15346 When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the
15347 stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them
15348 from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones
15349 were set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the
15350 corners as bodies of a lower grade ...
15351 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
15352 %
15353 When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the
15354 plane will fly.
15355 -- Donald Douglas
15356 %
15357 When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most
15358 insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are
15359 required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and
15360 exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.
15361 -- George Bernard Shaw
15362 %
15363 When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is
15364 not hereditary.
15365 -- Thomas Paine
15366 %
15367 When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before --
15368 except our fingertips will have been singed.
15369 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
15370 %
15371 When you are about to do an objective and scientific piece of
15372 investigation of a topic, it is well to gave the answer firmly in hand,
15373 so that you can proceed forthrightly, without being deflected or
15374 swayed, directly to the goal.
15375 -- Amrom Katz
15376 %
15377 "When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut."
15378 %
15379 When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
15380 %
15381 When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
15382 -- Harry Truman
15383 %
15384 When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure
15385 clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer
15386 to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively.
15387 In a way, the next move is up to him.
15388 -- R. A. Lafferty
15389 %
15390 "When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."
15391 -- Winston Churchill, On formal declarations of war
15392 %
15393 When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by
15394 asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't
15395 know the answer either.
15396 -- Edgar R. Fiedler
15397 %
15398 When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers.
15399 -- The Wall Street Journal
15400 %
15401 When you try to make an impression, the chances are that is the
15402 impression you will make.
15403 %
15404 When you're away, I'm restless, lonely,
15405 Wretched, bored, dejected; only
15406 Here's the rub, my darling dear
15407 I feel the same when you are near.
15408 -- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away"
15409 %
15410 When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN.
15411 %
15412 Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they really mean, "not really".
15413 -- Dave Parnas
15414 %
15415 Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to
15416 see it tried on him personally.
15417 -- A. Lincoln
15418 %
15419 Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
15420 -- Oscar Wilde
15421 %
15422 Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last
15423 you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his
15424 Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
15425 -- Mark Twain
15426 "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"
15427 %
15428 Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
15429 to reform.
15430 -- Mark Twain
15431 %
15432 WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE
15433
15434 Oh, dear, where can the matter be
15435 When it's converted to energy?
15436 There is a slight loss of parity.
15437 Johnny's so long at the fair.
15438 %
15439 Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what
15440 is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.
15441 -- John Kenneth Galbraith
15442 %
15443 Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax.
15444 %
15445 Whether you can hear it or not
15446 The Universe is laughing behind your back
15447 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
15448 %
15449 Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
15450 %
15451 While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is
15452 admission to someone else.
15453 %
15454 While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
15455 The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
15456 While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
15457 And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
15458 Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
15459 The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
15460 -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman",
15461 November 26, 1792
15462 %
15463 While having never invented a sin, I'm trying to perfect several.
15464 %
15465 While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't
15466 keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove.
15467 -- Edward Stevenson
15468 %
15469 While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own
15470 form of misery.
15471 %
15472 While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining
15473 position.
15474 %
15475 While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their
15476 correctness never does.
15477 %
15478 While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very
15479 reassuring to know that it's still there.
15480 %
15481 While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are
15482 safe, for you can watch both of his.
15483 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
15484 %
15485 Whistler's Law:
15486 You never know who is right, but you always know who is in
15487 charge.
15488 %
15489 "Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new
15490 Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..."
15491 %
15492 Who made the world I cannot tell;
15493 'Tis made, and here am I in hell.
15494 My hand, though now my knuckles bleed,
15495 I never soiled with such a deed.
15496 -- A. E. Housman
15497 %
15498 Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?
15499 %
15500 Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink?
15501 %
15502 Who's on first?
15503 %
15504 "Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school.
15505 -- George Ade
15506 %
15507 Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
15508 %
15509 Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
15510 %
15511 "Why are we importing all these highbrow plays like `Amadeus'? I could
15512 have told you Mozart was a jerk for nothing."
15513 -- Ian Shoales
15514 %
15515 "Why be a man when you can be a success?"
15516 -- Bertold Brecht
15517 %
15518 Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones we
15519 have?
15520 %
15521 Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else?
15522 %
15523 Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to
15524 avoid responsibility with?
15525 %
15526 Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office
15527 automation?
15528 %
15529 Why do we have two eyes? To watch 3-D movies with.
15530 %
15531 Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently
15532 there must be a beverage.
15533 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
15534 %
15535 Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have
15536 more lawyers?
15537
15538 New Jersey had first choice.
15539 %
15540 Why don't elephants eat penguins ?
15541
15542 Because they can't get the wrappers off ...
15543 %
15544 Why I Can't Go Out With You:
15545
15546 I'd LOVE to, but ...
15547 -- I have to floss my cat.
15548 -- I've dedicated my life to linguini.
15549 -- I need to spend more time with my blender.
15550 -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People.
15551 -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish.
15552 -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves.
15553 -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products.
15554 -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise.
15555 -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist.
15556 -- I have some really hard words to look up.
15557 -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting.
15558 -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps.
15559 %
15560 "Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is
15561 because we are not the person involved"
15562 -- Mark Twain
15563 %
15564 Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
15565 %
15566 "Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?"
15567 -- Lily Tomlin
15568 %
15569 "Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love
15570 you knowing nothing?"
15571 -- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
15572 %
15573 Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year?
15574 Just picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as your
15575 children open their old-fashioned presents.
15576
15577 Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?"
15578
15579 You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it
15580 falls down. What fun! Ha, ha!"
15581
15582 Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer
15583 with two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory,
15584 and I get this cretin TOP?"
15585
15586 Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this."
15587
15588 You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!"
15589
15590 Daughter: "It looks like goat barf."
15591 -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
15592 %
15593 "Why was I born with such contemporaries?"
15594 -- Oscar Wilde
15595 %
15596 Why You Can't Run When There's Trouble in the Office:
15597 No matter where you stand, no matter how far or fast you flee,
15598 when it hits the fan, as much as possible will be propelled in your
15599 direction, and almost none will be returned to the source.
15600 -- John L. Shelton
15601 %
15602 Wiker's Law:
15603 Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
15604 %
15605 William Safire's Rules for Writers:
15606
15607 Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never
15608 be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to
15609 agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words
15610 out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal
15611 of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must
15612 not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a
15613 conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a
15614 sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as
15615 close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more
15616 words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles
15617 must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a
15618 linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing
15619 metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should
15620 be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their
15621 writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows
15622 the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek
15623 viable alternatives.
15624 %
15625 Williams and Holland's Law:
15626 If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by
15627 statistical methods.
15628 %
15629 Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as
15630 it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.
15631 %
15632 Wit, n.:
15633 The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery
15634 ... by leaving it out.
15635 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
15636 %
15637 With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I
15638 try to be a fraud and a half.
15639 -- Otto von Bismark
15640 %
15641 With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
15642 -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
15643 %
15644 With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once
15645 build a nuclear balm?
15646 %
15647 With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand
15648 miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and
15649 still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no
15650 such thing as progress.
15651 -- Ransom K. Ferm
15652 %
15653 Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless.
15654 %
15655 Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection:
15656 (1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it.
15657 (2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete.
15658 (3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2)
15659 (4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a
15660 VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator.
15661 (5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless.
15662 -- Rich Kulawiec
15663 %
15664 Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If
15665 you cut down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut
15666 down the new tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that
15667 tree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a mutation with
15668 long, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it will sit
15669 there in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when you
15670 come back.
15671
15672 Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago,
15673 when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot.
15674 Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the
15675 cavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood
15676 heat!" The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately
15677 beat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made,
15678 and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed,
15679 although their insurance rates went way up.
15680 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
15681 %
15682 Work Rule: Leave of Absence (for an Operation):
15683 We are no longer allowing this practice. We wish to discourage
15684 any thoughts that you may not need all of whatever you have, and you
15685 should not consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are,
15686 and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we
15687 bargained for.
15688 %
15689 Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your
15690 chairs.
15691 %
15692 World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced
15693 dress code!
15694 %
15695 Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing:
15696 August. The lines are the shortest, though.
15697 -- Steve Rubenstein
15698 %
15699 Worst Month of the Year:
15700 February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if
15701 you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't
15702 get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible.
15703 -- Steve Rubenstein
15704 %
15705 Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985:
15706 From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved
15707 in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs
15708 damage my videotapes?"
15709 %
15710 Worst Vegetable of the Year:
15711 The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next
15712 year.
15713 -- Steve Rubenstein
15714 %
15715 "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
15716
15717 "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat
15718 -- Lewis Carrol
15719 %
15720 "Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish
15721 and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer
15722 if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and
15723 and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and
15724 and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?"
15725 %
15726 Write-Protect Tab, n.:
15727 A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly
15728 left by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error
15729 message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the
15730 momentary inconvenience.
15731 -- Robb Russon
15732 %
15733 Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
15734 -- Frank Zappa
15735 %
15736 "Wrong," said Renner.
15737
15738 "The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree with
15739 the Senator would be to say, `That turns out not to be the case.'"
15740 %
15741 X-rated movies are all alike ... the only thing they leave to the
15742 imagination is the plot.
15743 %
15744 Xerox does it again and again and again and ...
15745 %
15746 Xerox never comes up with anything original.
15747 %
15748 XIIdigitation, n.:
15749 The practice of trying to determine the year a movie was made
15750 by deciphering the Roman numerals at the end of the credits.
15751 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
15752 %
15753 "Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have
15754 goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in
15755 their endless search for "one more feature". Their irritating
15756 unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my
15757 doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right.
15758 -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements"
15759 %
15760 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall
15761 fear no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic
15762 operators together.
15763 -- Steve Higgins
15764 %
15765 "Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context."
15766 %
15767 Year, n.:
15768 A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
15769 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
15770 %
15771 Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache.
15772 %
15773 Yes, but which self do you want to be?
15774 %
15775 Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
15776 be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
15777 -- Snoopy
15778 %
15779 Yesterday upon the stair
15780 I met a man who wasn't there.
15781 He wasn't there again today --
15782 I think he's from the CIA.
15783 %
15784 Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again.
15785 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
15786 %
15787 Yinkel, n.:
15788 A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one
15789 will notice.
15790 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
15791 %
15792 You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are.
15793 %
15794 You are here:
15795 ***
15796 ***
15797 *********
15798 *******
15799 *****
15800 ***
15801 *
15802
15803 But you're not all there.
15804 %
15805 "You are old, Father William," the young man said,
15806 "All your papers these days look the same;
15807 Those William's would be better unread --
15808 Do these facts never fill you with shame?"
15809
15810 "In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
15811 "I wrote wonderful papers galore;
15812 But the great reputation I found that I'd won,
15813 Made it pointless to think any more."
15814 %
15815 "You are old, father William," the young man said,
15816 "And your hair has become very white;
15817 And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
15818 Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
15819
15820 "In my youth," father William replied to his son,
15821 "I feared it might injure the brain;
15822 But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
15823 Why, I do it again and again."
15824 -- Lewis Carrol
15825 %
15826 "You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers
15827 That your lectures bore people to death.
15828 Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year --
15829 Don't you think that you should save your breath?"
15830
15831 "I have answered three questions and that is enough,"
15832 Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs!
15833 Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
15834 Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"
15835 %
15836 "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
15837 For anything tougher than suet;
15838 Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
15839 Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
15840
15841 "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
15842 And argued each case with my wife;
15843 And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
15844 Has lasted the rest of my life."
15845 -- Lewis Carrol
15846 %
15847 "You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run,
15848 And there isn't one language you like;
15849 Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none --
15850 Have you thought about taking a hike?"
15851
15852 "Since I never write programs," his father replied,
15853 "Every language looks equally bad;
15854 Yet the people keep paying to read all my books
15855 And don't realize that they've been had."
15856 %
15857 "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
15858 And have grown most uncommonly fat;
15859 Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
15860 Pray what is the reason of that?"
15861
15862 "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
15863 "I kept all my limbs very supple
15864 By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box --
15865 Allow me to sell you a couple?"
15866 -- Lewis Carrol
15867 %
15868 "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
15869 And make errors few people could bear;
15870 You complain about everyone's English but yours --
15871 Do you really think this is quite fair?"
15872
15873 "I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared,
15874 "But my stature these days is so great
15875 That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared,
15876 And to stop me it's now far too late."
15877 %
15878 "You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
15879 That your eye was as steady as ever;
15880 Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
15881 What made you so awfully clever?"
15882
15883 "I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
15884 Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
15885 Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
15886 Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"
15887 -- Lewis Carrol
15888 %
15889 You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
15890 %
15891 You are the only person to ever get this message.
15892 %
15893 You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading
15894 this sort of trash.
15895 %
15896 You buttered your bread, now lie in it.
15897 %
15898 You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting
15899 incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail.
15900 Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable
15901 to find a way to damage them. They last forever, largely because
15902 nobody ever eats them. In fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes
15903 they receive and send them back to the original givers the next year;
15904 some fruitcakes have been passed back and forth for hundreds of years.
15905
15906 The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then
15907 pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear
15908 safety glasses.
15909 -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
15910 %
15911 "You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it
15912 doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on."
15913 -- Hepler, Systems Design 182
15914 %
15915 You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior
15916 executive.
15917 %
15918 "You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them.
15919 Why do you find that funny?"
15920 -- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350
15921 %
15922 You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you
15923 can with just a kind word.
15924 -- Bumper Sticker
15925 %
15926 You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have,
15927 for instance.
15928 -- Franklin P. Jones
15929 %
15930 You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.
15931 %
15932 You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on
15933 the continuing viability of FORTRAN.
15934 -- Alan Perlis
15935 %
15936 You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
15937 %
15938 You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding
15939 decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left
15940 over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart.
15941 -- F. Allen
15942 %
15943 You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of
15944 supercomputers.
15945 -- Steven Feiner
15946 %
15947 You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.
15948 %
15949 "You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename."
15950 -- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454
15951 %
15952 You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks.
15953 %
15954 "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"
15955 -- Steven Wright
15956 %
15957 You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
15958 -- Booker T. Washington
15959 %
15960 You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
15961 %
15962 "You can't make a program without broken egos."
15963 %
15964 You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic
15965 enough worrying about what's happening now.
15966 -- Lauren Bacall
15967 %
15968 "You can't survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten."
15969 -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and
15970 Over and Over"
15971 %
15972 "You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they
15973 don't."
15974 -- Dagwood Bumstead
15975 %
15976 You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.
15977 %
15978 You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.
15979 %
15980 You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.
15981 %
15982 You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first
15983 and last month in advance.
15984 %
15985 You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable
15986 doubt.
15987 -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict
15988 %
15989 You do not have mail.
15990 %
15991 You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.
15992 -- J. D. Salinger
15993 %
15994 You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting
15995 needles.
15996 -- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food
15997 %
15998 You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form.
15999 The short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified",
16000 which means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears
16001 tax-preparation expert to distinguish between their first and last
16002 names. Here's the complete text:
16003
16004 "(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT)
16005 "(2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT)
16006 "(3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to
16007 send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF
16008 THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME)
16009 household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way
16010 you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST
16011 NAME), that it pays to file the short form!"
16012
16013 The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your
16014 money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long
16015 form.
16016 -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
16017 %
16018 You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers.
16019 %
16020 You have acquired a scroll entitled 'irk gleknow mizk'(n).--More--
16021
16022 This is an IBM Manual scroll.--More--
16023
16024 You are permanently confused.
16025 -- Dave Decot
16026 %
16027 You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close to
16028 metal objects which are not fastened down.
16029 %
16030 You have junk mail.
16031 %
16032 You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it gets
16033 wrinkled.
16034 %
16035 You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot
16036 today.
16037 %
16038 You know it's going to be a bad day when you want to put on the clothes
16039 you wore home from the party and there aren't any.
16040 %
16041 You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens
16042 anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night,
16043 you can always change the channel.
16044 -- Jim Ignatowski
16045 %
16046 You know you have a small apartment when Rice Krispies echo.
16047 -- S. Rickly Christian
16048 %
16049 You know you're a little fat if you have stretch marks on your car.
16050 -- Cyrus, Chicago Reader 1/22/82
16051 %
16052 You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your
16053 friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it.
16054 %
16055 You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi.
16056 %
16057 "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon
16058 airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in
16059 deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me
16060 when I was young!"
16061 "Why, what did she tell you?"
16062 "I don't know, I didn't listen!"
16063 -- Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
16064 %
16065 You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.
16066 %
16067 You may be recognized soon. Hide.
16068 %
16069 You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," he
16070 is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing.
16071 -- Sydney Harris
16072 %
16073 You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue -- agree with
16074 him.
16075 -- Ed Howe
16076 %
16077 You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog.
16078 -- Alfred Kahn
16079 %
16080 You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for
16081 success. You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits
16082 or white plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume
16083 party disguised as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World.
16084 -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success"
16085 %
16086 You might have mail
16087 %
16088 "You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable
16089 proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do."
16090 %
16091 You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll
16092 be dead.
16093 %
16094 You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a
16095 reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
16096 the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for
16097 independence.
16098 -- Charles A. Beard
16099 %
16100 You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the
16101 beach.
16102 %
16103 You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were
16104 you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare
16105 yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the
16106 company.
16107 -- J. Wellington Wells
16108 %
16109 You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.
16110 %
16111 You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could
16112 know how seldom they do.
16113 -- Olin Miller.
16114 %
16115 You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially
16116 if they are dead.
16117 %
16118 You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than
16119 about 10^12 to 1.
16120 -- Ernest Rutherford
16121 %
16122 You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for
16123 freedom and liberty.
16124 -- Henrik Ibsen
16125 %
16126 You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that,
16127 contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from
16128 houses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many
16129 scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the
16130 summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day,
16131 you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist
16132 sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily.
16133 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
16134 %
16135 You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name,
16136 another $2 if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you and
16137 another $2 for each "special" he describes involving confusing terms
16138 such as "shallots," and $4 if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In
16139 many restaurants, this means the waiter will actually owe you money.
16140 If you are traveling with a child aged six months to three years, you
16141 should leave an additional amount equal to twice the bill to compensate
16142 for the fact that they will have to take the banquette out and burn it
16143 because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets made of partially
16144 chewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit.
16145
16146 In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention his
16147 hemorrhoids.
16148 -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
16149 %
16150 "You should, without hesitation, pound your typewriter into a
16151 plowshare, your paper into fertilizer, and enter agriculture"
16152 -- Business Professor, University of Georgia
16153 %
16154 You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother.
16155 %
16156 YOU TOO CAN MAKE BIG MONEY IN THE EXCITING FIELD OF
16157 PAPER SHUFFLING!
16158
16159 Mr. TAA of Muddle, Mass. says: "Before I took this course I used to be
16160 a lowly bit twiddler. Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feel
16161 really important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best."
16162
16163 Mr. MARC had this to say: "Ten short days ago all I could look forward
16164 to was a dead-end job as a engineer. Now I have a promising future and
16165 make really big Zorkmids."
16166
16167 MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but when
16168 you earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter.
16169
16170 SEND FOR OUR FREE BROCHURE TODAY!
16171 %
16172 You too can wear a nose mitten.
16173 %
16174 You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old.
16175 %
16176 You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of
16177 a lion, and the face of Donald Duck.
16178 %
16179 You will be surprised by a loud noise.
16180 %
16181 You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself.
16182 %
16183 You will feel hungry again in another hour.
16184 %
16185 You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door
16186 mayonnaise salesman.
16187 %
16188 You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the
16189 Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the
16190 parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
16191 -- Sherlock Holmes
16192 %
16193 You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes.
16194 %
16195 You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You're not paid enough to
16196 worry.
16197 %
16198 You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a
16199 taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a
16200 minute and a huff.
16201 -- Groucho Marx
16202 %
16203 "You'll never be the man your mother was!"
16204 %
16205 You're at the end of the road again.
16206 %
16207 You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days.
16208 %
16209 You're never too old to become younger.
16210 -- Mae West
16211 %
16212 You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
16213 -- Dean Martin
16214 %
16215 You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!!
16216 %
16217 You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture.
16218 %
16219 "You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks."
16220 -- Gary Giddens
16221 %
16222 "You've got to think about tomorrow!"
16223
16224 "TOMORROW! I haven't even prepared for *_________yesterday* yet!"
16225 %
16226 Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a
16227 thing he tells you.
16228 %
16229 Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you
16230 from enjoying it.
16231 %
16232 Your fault: core dumped
16233 %
16234 Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that
16235 bring electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a
16236 chance to kill you. This is called a "circuit". The most common home
16237 electrical problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit
16238 breaker"; this causes the electricity to back up in one of the wires
16239 until it bursts out of an outlet in the form of sparks, which can
16240 damage your carpet. The best way to avoid broken circuits is to change
16241 your fuses regularly.
16242 Another common problem is that the lights flicker. This
16243 sometimes means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more
16244 often it means that your home is possessed by demons, in which case
16245 you'll need to get a caulking gun and some caulking. If you're not
16246 sure whether your house is possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a
16247 fine documentary film based on an actual book. Or call in a licensed
16248 electrician, who is trained to spot the signs of demonic possession,
16249 such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous cats on the dinette
16250 table, etc.
16251 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
16252 %
16253 Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret.
16254 %
16255 Your lucky color has faded.
16256 %
16257 Your lucky number has been disconnected.
16258 %
16259 Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.
16260 %
16261 Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.
16262 %
16263 "Yow! Am I having fun yet?"
16264 -- Zippy the Pinhead
16265 %
16266 YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL!"
16267 %
16268 Zero Defects, n.:
16269 The result of shutting down a production line.
16270 %
16271 Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words
16272 since I first called my brother's father dad.
16273 -- William Shakespeare, "King John"
16274 %
16275 Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor:
16276 People are always available for work in the past tense.
16277 %
16278 THE LAST BUG
16279
16280 "But you're out of your mind," It still wasn't perfect,
16281 They said with a shrug. As year followed year,
16282 "The customer's happy; And strangers would comment,
16283 What's one little bug?" "Is that guy still here?"
16284
16285 But he was determined. He died at the console,
16286 The others went home. Of hunger and thirst.
16287 He spread out the program, Next day he was buried,
16288 Deserted, alone. Face down, nine-edge first.
16289
16290 The cleaning men came, And the last bug in sight,
16291 The whole room was cluttered An ant passing by,
16292 With memory-dumps, punch cards. Saluted his tombstone,
16293 "I'm close," he muttered. And whispered, "Nice try."
16294
16295 The mumbling got louder,
16296 Simple deduction,
16297 "I've got it, it's right,
16298 Just change one instruction."
16299 %
16300 Speaking of the philosophy involved in moving humanity into space:
16301
16302 Furniture will be a largely obsolete concept. Take for example the dresser my
16303 mom bought for me when I was a kid. I still have it, and by the standards of
16304 its era, it's an admirable household fixture. It is a massive construction of
16305 maple wood, expertly joined with cunningly fit pieces, fitted and glued with
16306 the strength of iron. It is set with massive brass fixtures, and looks today
16307 -- discounting the dust -- as new as the day it was purchased, a quarter
16308 century ago. So far, so good; a fine piece of furniture, you might say. But
16309 let's look at it objectively, as a machine, as an object with a purpose. Here
16310 sit a hundred pounds of hardwood with a compressive strength of 1500 psi,
16311 jointed by an expert craftsman into a rigid box that would easily support a
16312 bull elephant. And what is the sole purpose of this massive crate, this
16313 monument to a dead tree? -- it holds my socks.
16314
16315 Not only is it blind engineering overkill of epic proportions, it is also an
16316 environmental disaster. The home to generations of squirrels, a sentinel post
16317 for falcons, an autumnal banner of golden glory, a living creature, was chopped
16318 down to enshrine some underwear. This, my friends, is no way to run a planet.
16319 -- Marshall T. Savage, from The Millennial Project:
16320 Colonizing the Galaxy -- In Eight Easy Steps
16321 %
16322 Nearly every software professional has heard the term spaghetti code as a
16323 pejorative description for complicated, difficult to understand, and impossible
16324 to maintain, software. However, many people may not know the other two
16325 elements of the complete Pasta Theory of Software.
16326
16327 Lasagna code is used to describe software that has a simple, understandable,
16328 and layered structure. Lasagna code, although structured, is unfortunately
16329 monolithic and not easy to modify. An attempt to change one layer conceptually
16330 simple, is often very difficult in actual practice.
16331
16332 The ideal software structure is one having components that are small and
16333 loosely coupled; this ideal structure is called ravioli code. In ravioli
16334 code, each of the components, or objects, is a package containing some meat
16335 or other nourishment for the system; any component can be modified or replaced
16336 without significantly affecting other components.
16337
16338 We need to go beyond the condemnation of spaghetti code to the active
16339 encouragement of ravioli code.
16340 -- Raymond J. Rubey, in a letter to the editor of Crosstalk
16341 magazine
16342 %
16343 63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
16344 ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
16345 now there's 63,005 bugs in the code!!
16346