Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.

"The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests
and to his imagination for his facts."
-- Sheridan
"Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully."
-- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse
Nandi: Truth is, I expected a whole lot more of you to be takin' payment in our
trade.
Mal: Well, we're an odd conglomeration. Got a preacher, a married fellah, and the
doctor... well, he'd have to... relax for thirty seconds to get his play. That'd be
more or less a miracle.

-- Firefly (TV series) - None

"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!"
-- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra"
Only fools are quoted.
-- Anonymous
Check your local listings.
For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!
A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and
art into pedantry. Hence University education.
-- G. B. Shaw
... The things love can drive a man to -- the ecstasies, the
miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious
failures and the glorious victories.
-- McCoy, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5843.7
"Morality is one thing. Ratings are everything."
-- A Network 23 executive on "Max Headroom"
Sweet April showers do spring May flowers.
-- Thomas Tusser
Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
-- Benjamin Franklin.
Largest Number of Driving Test Failures
By April 1970 Mrs. Miriam Hargrave had failed her test thirty-nine
times. In the eight preceding years she had received two hundred and
twelve driving lessons at a cost of L300. She set the new record while
driving triumphantly through a set of red traffic lights in Wakefield,
Yorkshire. Disappointingly, she passed at the fortieth attempt (3 August
1970) but eight years later she showed some of her old magic when she was
reported as saying that she still didn't like doing right-hand turns.
-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
There is an old custom among my people. When a woman saves a man's
life, he is grateful.
-- Nona, the Kanuto witch woman, "A Private Little War",
stardate 4211.8.
Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist!
In a display of perverse brilliance, Carl the repairman mistakes a room
humidifier for a mid-range computer but manages to tie it into the network
anyway.
-- The 5th Wave
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws
of nature!
-- G. B. Shaw
[Still in the dune-buggy, dodging bullets.]
Mal: Prayerful group you found yourself here, Shepherd. And here I thought that
book of yours had a thing in it about not killing folks.
Book: It does. Comes a bit before the one about not stealing.
. . .
Jayne: Stop chasin' us! We don't got your damn money! Go chase the guys with the
money!!!
Zoe: Jayne, you yelling like that's only going to make them want to shoot you more.
Jayne: How you figure?
Zoe: Because it makes me want to shoot you.

-- Firefly (TV series) - Issue 1

p.s. - i'm about *this* close to running around in the server room with a
pair of bolt cutters, and a large wooden mallet, laughing like a maniac and
cutting everything i can fit the bolt cutters around. and whacking that
which i cannot. so if i seem semi-incoherent, or just really *really* nasty
at times, please forgive me. stress is not a pretty thing. };P
-- Phillip R. Jaenke
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.
The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier.
aquadextrous, adj.:
Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off
with your toes.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty
played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees
played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks,
and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity.
-- H. L. Mencken
There is perhaps in every thing of any consequence, secret history, which
it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated.
-- James Boswell
No solicitors.
Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; that smells *_____#####awful*.
Q: Why do ducks have big flat feet?
A: To stamp out forest fires.

Q: Why do elephants have big flat feet?

A: To stamp out flaming ducks.
"Israel today announced that it is giving up. The Zionist state will dissolve
in two weeks time, and its citizens will disperse to various resort communities
around the world. Said Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 'Who needs the
aggravation?'"
-- Dennis Miller, "Satuday Night Live" News
War hath no fury like a non-combatant.
-- Charles Edward Montague
Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate
it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing
cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons".
Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt,
the economy would collapse overnight. The government would have to
intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving,
which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls
and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force
jets, killing and maiming thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you
should go along with the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large
sum of money and go to a mall.
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
Death, when unnecessary, is a tragic thing.
-- Flint, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5843.7
No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he had only had good
intentions. He had money as well.
-- Margaret Thatcher
Replace with same type.
For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.
-- R. Clopton
[Flashback to Inara leasing the shuttle. Mal wonders why a registered Companion
would associate with smugglers.]
Mal: If it's Alliance trouble you got, you might want to consider another ship.
Some on board here fought for the Independents.
Inara: The Alliance has no quarrel with me. I supported unification.
Mal: Did ya? Well, I don't suppose you're the only whore that did.
Inara: [smiling] Oh, one further addendum. That's the last time you get to call me
"whore".
Mal: Absolutely. Never again.

-- Firefly (TV series) - None

Plastic... Aluminum... These are the inheritors of the Universe!
Flesh and Blood have had their day... and that day is past!
-- Green Lantern Comics
We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary
to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know.
Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition
to crave knowledge.
-- George Will
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit.
[There is no great genius without some touch of madness.]
-- Seneca
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you.
This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
I'm just as sad as sad can be!
I've missed your special date.
Please say that you're not mad at me
My tax return is late.
-- Modern Lines for Modern Greeting Cards
He who knows nothing, knows nothing.
But he who knows he knows nothing knows something.
And he who knows someone whose friend's wife's brother knows nothing,
he knows something. Or something like that.
Brandy Davis, an outfielder and teammate of mine with the Pittsburgh Pirates,
is my choice for team captain. Cincinnati was beating us 3-1, and I led
off the bottom of the eighth with a walk. The next hitter banged a hard
single to right field. Feeling the wind at my back, I rounded second and
kept going, sliding safely into third base.
With runners at first and third, and home-run hitter Ralph Kiner at
bat, our manager put in the fast Brandy Davis to run for the player at first.
Even with Kiner hitting and a change to win the game with a home run, Brandy
took off for second and made it. Now we had runners at second and third.
I'm standing at third, knowing I'm not going anywhere, and see Brandy
start to take a lead. All of a sudden, here he comes. He makes a great slide
into third, and I scream, "Brandy, where are you going?" He looks up, and
shouts, "Back to second if I can make it."
-- Joe Garagiola, "It's Anybody's Ball Game"
If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the
Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's
statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone
directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles
beginning with the word "National."
-- George Will
When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men
live content.
 -- Niccolo Machiavelli
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!
Nuclear powered vacuuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.
-- Alex Lewyt (President of the Lewyt Corporation,
manufacturers of vacuum cleaners), quoted in The New York
Times, June 10, 1955.
"The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance.
He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him.
But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are
given to administer we presently imagine we own."
-- H. G. Wells
This space intentionally left blank.
A little dog goes into a saloon in the Wild West, and beckons to
the bartender. "Hey, bartender, gimme a whiskey."
The bartender ignores him.
"Hey bartender, gimme a whiskey!"
Still ignored.
"HEY BARMAN!! GIMME A WHISKEY!!"
The bartender takes out his six-shooter and shoots the dog in the
leg, and the dog runs out the saloon, howling in pain.
Three years later, the wee dog appears again, wearing boots,
jeans, chaps, a Stetson, gun belt, and guns. He ambles slowly into the
saloon, goes up to the bar, leans over it, and says to the bartender,
"I'm here t'git the man that shot muh paw."
How can you work when the system's so crowded?
I have learned silence from the talkative,
toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind.
-- Kahlil Gibran
Do unto others before they undo you.
Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what,
exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the
other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the
wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my
wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How
about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How
about ..."
-- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
Sweater, n.:
A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly.
Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length.
One may be able to quibble about the quality of a single experiment, or
about the veracity of a given experimenter, but, taking all the supportive
experiments together, the weight of evidence is so strong as readily to
merit a wise man's reflection.
-- Professor William Tiller, parapsychologist, Standford University,
commenting on psi research
Somehow, the world always affects you more than you affect it.
Andrea's Admonition:
Never bestow profanity upon a driver who has wronged you.
If you think his window is closed and he can't hear you,
it isn't and he can.
What a misfortune to be a woman! And yet, the worst misfortune is not to
understand what a misfortune it is.
-- Kierkegaard, 1813-1855.
"On a normal ascii line, the only safe condition to detect is a 'BREAK'
- everything else having been assigned functions by Gnu EMACS."
(By Tarl Neustaedter)
* CosmicRay wishes he had some strippers here....
<CosmicRay> err, wire strippers
The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice
and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the
master calls a butterfly.
-- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
Say something you'll be sorry for, I love receiving apologies.
Software entities are more complex for their size than perhaps any other human
construct because no two parts are alike. If they are, we make the two
similar parts into a subroutine -- open or closed. In this respect, software
systems differ profoundly from computers, buildings, or automobiles, where
repeated elements abound.
-- Fred Brooks, Jr.
"Boy, life takes a long time to live."
-- Steven Wright
Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair -- It gives you something to do,
but it doesn't get you anywhere.
Ah, but the choice of dreams to live,
there's the rub.

For all dreams are not equal,

some exit to nightmare
most end with the dreamer

But at least one must be lived ... and died.

I don't think 'It's better than hurling yourself into a meat grinder'
is a good rationale for doing something.
-- Andrew Suffield in
<20030905221055.GA22354@doc.ic.ac.uk> on debian-devel
NANCY!! Why is everything RED?!
The people rule.
Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers,
etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these
things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in.
Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a
kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock. This
proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also
damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in
incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned."
Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
Many a man that can't direct you to a corner drugstore will get a respectful
hearing when age has further impaired his mind.
-- Finley Peter Dunne
#define NULL 0 /* silly thing is, we don't even use this */
-- Larry Wall in perl.c from the perl source code
If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery.
But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine,
is somehow ennobled and no-one dare criticise it.
-- Pierre Gallois
The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes
the worst cigars.
-- H. L. Mencken
"my biggest problem with RH (and especially RH contrib packages) is that
they DON'T have anything like our policy. That's one of the main reasons
why their packages are so crappy and broken. Debian has the teamwork
side of building a distribution down to a fine art."
After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new
folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or
speaker of intuitive likes".
(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X the
intuitiveness of a Mac interface.)
The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important
point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly
important thing to people.
-- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King
There are some things worth dying for.
-- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7
This file will self-destruct in five minutes.
If Dr. Seuss Were a Technical Writer.....

Here's an easy game to play.

Here's an easy thing to say:

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,

And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,

And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!

You can't say this? What a shame, sir!

We'll find you another game, sir.

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,

Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!

When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,

And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to ram your rom.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!

-- DementDJ@ccip.perkin-elmer.com (DementDJ) [rec.humor.funny]

In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket.
"What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying."
-- Nikita Khrushchev
Grub first, then ethics.
-- Bertolt Brecht
Before I knew the best part of my life had come, it had gone.
Unix is the worst operating system; except for all others.
-- Berry Kercheval
He thinks the Gettysburg Address is where Lincoln lived.
-- Wanda, "A Fish Called Wanda"
What they say: What they mean:

New Different colors from previous version.

All New Not compatible with previous version.
Exclusive Nobody else has documentation.
Unmatched Almost as good as the competition.
Design Simplicity The company wouldn't give us any money.
Fool-proof Operation All parameters are hard-coded.
Advanced Design Nobody really understands it.
Here At Last Didn't get it done on time.
Field Tested We don't have any simulators.
Years of Development Finally got one to work.
Unprecedented Performance Nothing ever ran this slow before.
Revolutionary Disk drives go 'round and 'round.
Futuristic Only runs on a next generation supercomputer.
No Maintenance Impossible to fix.
Performance Proven Worked through Beta test.
Meets Tough Quality Standards It compiles without errors.
Satisfaction Guaranteed We'll send you another pack if it fails.
Stock Item We shipped it before and can do it again.
Use in well-ventilated area.
In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks)
are to be treated as variables.
It's NO USE ... I've gone to "CLUB MED"!!
Mummy dust to make me old;
To shroud my clothes, the black of night;
To age my voice, an old hag's cackle;
To whiten my hair, a scream of fright;
A blast of wind to fan my hate;
A thunderbolt to mix it well --
Now begin thy magic spell!
-- Walter Disney, "Snow White"
Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first
these questions three, ere the other side he see!

"What is your name?"

"Sir Brian of Bell."
"What is your quest?"
"I seek the Holy Grail."
"What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments
to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?"
"I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!"
I met a wonderful new man. He's fictional, but you can't have everything.
-- Cecelia, "The Purple Rose of Cairo"
I don't want a pickle,
I just wanna ride on my motorsickle.
And I don't want to die,
I just want to ride on my motorcy.
Cle.
-- Arlo Guthrie
Nadia Comaneci, simple perfection.
-- '76 Olympics
How come wrong numbers are never busy?
One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with
Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just
to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't
be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending
to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't
understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was
renowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the
time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be
puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be
genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"