Yow! It's some people inside the wall! This is better than mopping!

Never raise your hand to your children -- it leaves your midsection

unprotected.
-- Robert Orben
Some men are heterosexual, and some are bisexual, and some men don't think
about sex at all... they become lawyers.
-- Woody Allen
Talent does what it can.
Genius does what it must.
You do what you get paid to do.
No man's ambition has a right to stand in the way of performing a simple
act of justice.
-- John Altgeld
Things are more like they are today than they ever were before.
-- Dwight Eisenhower
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips
over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."
-- Matt Groening
The choice of approaches could be made the responsibility of the
programmer.
-- Larry Wall in <199709081901.MAA20863@wall.org>
Very few modern women either like or desire marriage, especially after the
ceremony has been performed. Primarily women wish attention and affection.
Matrimony is something they accept when there is no alternative. Really,
it is a waste of time, and hazardous, to marry them. It leaves one open
to a rival. Husbands, good or bad, always have rivals. Lovers, never.
-- Helen Lawrenson, "Esquire"
Someday somebody has got to decide whether the typewriter is the machine,
or the person who operates it.
Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.
-- R. Heinlein
BEWARE! People acting under the influence of human nature.
> From MAILER-DAEMON@Think.COM Thu Mar 2 13:59:11 1989
> Subject: Returned mail: unknown mailer error 255

"Dale, your address no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?"
-- Bill Wolfe (wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu)

"Bill, Your brain no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?"
-- Karl A. Nyberg (nyberg@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu)
Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr):
The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
Bradley's Bromide:
If computers get too powerful, we can organize
them into a committee -- that will do them in.
"I am ... a woman ... and ... technically a parasitic uterine growth"
-- Sean Doran the Younger [allegedly]
Linux - Where do you want to fly today?
-- Unknown source
You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery,
are now extinct.
-- M. Somerset Maugham
"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little
Lavoris in the toilet."
-- Jay Leno
<dark> "Hey, I'm from this project called Debian... have you heard of it?
Your name seems to be on a bunch of our stuff."
Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that
you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied,
"That all depends, Sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your
mistress."
Raising pet electric eels is gaining a lot of current popularity.
Oh, I get it!! "The BEACH goes on", huh, SONNY??
Pittsburgh driver's test

(4) Exhaust gas is

(a) beneficial.
(b) not harmful.
(c) toxic.
(d) a punk band.

The correct answer is (b). The meddling Washington eco-freak communist

bureaucrats who say otherwise are liars. (Message to those who answered (d).
Go back to California where you came from. Your kind are not welcome here.)
A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
And the Master answered:
It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City
to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns
have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
And that is Fate? said the priest.
Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know
what Freight was too.
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.
-- Cartoon caption
Your business will go through a period of considerable expansion.
A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
-- Aristotle
How apt the poor are to be proud.
-- William Shakespeare, "Twelfth-Night"
"Twas bergen and the eirie road
Did mahwah into patterson: "Beware the Hopatcong, my son!
All jersey were the ocean groves, The teeth that bite, the nails
And the red bank bayonne. that claw!
Beware the bound brook bird, and shun
He took his belmar blade in hand: The kearney communipaw."
Long time the folsom foe he sought
Till rested he by a bayway tree And, as in nutley thought he stood,
And stood a while in thought. The Hopatcong with eyes of flame,
Came whippany through the englewood,
One, two, one, two, and through And garfield as it came.
and through
The belmar blade went hackensack! "And hast thou slain the Hopatcong?
He left it dead and with it's head Come to my arms, my perth amboy!
He went weehawken back. Hohokus day! Soho! Rahway!"
He caldwell in his joy.
Did mahwah into patterson:
All jersey were the ocean groves,
And the red bank bayonne.
-- Paul Kieffer
Leveraging always beats prototyping.
"Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love
you knowing nothing?"
-- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
pixel, n.:
A mischievous, magical spirit associated with screen displays.
The computer industry has frequently borrowed from mythology:
Witness the sprites in computer graphics, the demons in artificial
intelligence, and the trolls in the marketing department.
No more blah, blah, blah!
-- Kirk, "Miri", stardate 2713.6
Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for
counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business. For the
experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth
them; but in new things, abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin
of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might
have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and management of
actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly
to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few
principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not how they innovate,
which draws unknown inconveniences; and, that which doubleth all errors, will
not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop
nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little,
repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but
content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly, it is good to
compound employments of both ... because the virtues of either age may correct
the defects of both.
-- Francis Bacon, "Essay on Youth and Age"
Some of my readers ask me what a "Serial Port" is.
The answer is: I don't know.
Is it some kind of wine you have with breakfast?
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
-- John Lennon, "Beautiful Boy"
We've tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.

The arching sky is calling

Spacemen back to their trade.
All hands! Standby! Free falling!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps the race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet--

We pray for one last landing

On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
-- Robert A. Heinlein, 1941
QOTD:
"I haven't come far enough, and don't call me baby."
You have junk mail.
Americans are people who insist on living in the present, tense.
There *__##is* intelligent life on Earth, but I leave for Texas on Monday.
To craunch a marmoset.
-- Pedro Carolino, "English as She is Spoke"
An air of FRENCH FRIES permeates my nostrils!!
One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic
is our support for UNIX?
Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago.
Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our
VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand,
easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual
users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines.
And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have
good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run
out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end
up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly
check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter
what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if
you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX
is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there.
-- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984
[It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken
Olsen's brain. Ed.]
Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why.
And now your toner's toney, Disk blocks aplenty
And your paper near pure white, Await your laser drawn lines,
The smudges on your soul are gone Your intricate fonts,
And your output's clean as light.. Your pictures and signs.

We've labored with your father, Your amputative absence

The venerable XGP, Has made the Ten dumb,
But his slow artistic hand, Without you, Dover,
Lacks your clean velocity. We're system untounged-

Theses and papers DRAW Plots and TEXage

And code in a queue Have been biding their time,
Dover, oh Dover, With LISP code and programs,
We've been waiting for you. And this crufty rhyme.

Dover, oh Dover, Dover, oh Dover, arisen from dead.

We welcome you back, Dover, oh Dover, awoken from bed.
Though still you may jam, Dover, oh Dover, welcome back to the Lab.
You're on the right track. Dover, oh Dover, we've missed your clean
hand...
Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
of the way.
"I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly.
"AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly. "I THINK IT MIGHT GO
DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT."
"Why?"
"THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
Hlade's Law:
If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person --
they will find an easier way to do it.
Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
This fortune intentionally says nothing.
Carson's Consolation:
Nothing is ever a complete failure.
It can always be used as a bad example.
American by birth; Texan by the grace of God.
Just close your eyes, tap your heels together three times, and think to
yourself, `There's no place like home.'
-- Glynda the Good
Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to school
make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a car.
Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you.
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
Lack of skill dictates economy of style.
-- Joey Ramone
The Revolution aimed at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let
ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves.
----+- Max Stirner -+----
If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger hands.
Dismissed. That's a Star Fleet expression for, "Get out."
-- Capt. Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager, "The Cloud"
The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books!
When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity
for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.
-- H. L. Mencken, "Minority Report"
America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
-- Allen Ginsberg
An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.
-- Spanish proverb
knghtbrd: there may be no spoon, but can you spot the vulnerability in
eye_render_shiny_object.c?
-- rcw
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #15 -- DOGO

Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Obedience Training, DOGO

DOGO heralds a new era of computer-literate pets. DOGO commands include
SIT, STAY, HEEL, and ROLL OVER. An innovative feature of DOGO is "puppy
graphics", a small cocker spaniel that occasionally leaves a deposit as
it travels across the screen.
While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very
reassuring to know that it's still there.
I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were all
these aisles and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these
kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and
I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been
avoiding the beach.
-- Lucinda Childs "Einstein On The Beach"
I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that
either.
-- Jack Benny
Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing.
-- Walt Kelly
Lucas is the source of many of the components of the legendarily reliable
British automotive electrical systems. Professionals call the company "The
Prince of Darkness". Of course, if Lucas were to design and manufacture
nuclear weapons, World War III would never get off the ground. The British
don't like warm beer any more than the Americans do. The British drink warm
beer because they have Lucas refrigerators.
You'll be called to a post requiring ability in handling groups of people.
"It is hard to overstate the debt that we owe to men and women of genius."
-- Robert G. Ingersoll
The ultimate game show will be the one where somebody gets killed at the end.
-- Chuck Barris, creator of "The Gong Show"
If your bread is stale, make toast.
Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.
I don't know why, but first C programs tend to look a lot worse than
first programs in any other language (maybe except for fortran, but then
I suspect all fortran programs look like `firsts')
-- Olaf Kirch
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from
acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
-- W. Somerset Maugham
"Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin."
-- Michael O'Donohugh
The greatest danger of bombs is in the explosion of stupidity that they provoke.
----+- Octave Mirbeau -+----
Beam me up, Scotty!
Each of you hungry tramps who read these lines, avail yourselves of those little
methods of warfare which science has placed in the hands of the poor man, and you
will become a power in this or any other land. Learn the use of explosives!
----+- Lucy Parsons -+----
> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping
> : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will
> : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff.
> : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so
> : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed.
>
> It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there
> really is a god.
-- Anthony Lovell, to Linus's remarks about porting
The Angels want to wear my red shoes.
-- E. Costello
Slurm, n.:
The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when
it sits in the dish too long.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
An efficient and a successful administration manifests itself equally in
small as in great matters.
-- W. Churchill
Fatal Error: Found [MS-Windows] System -> Repartitioning Disk for Linux...
(By cbbrown@io.org, Christopher Browne)
RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED
(1) Never eat on an empty stomach.
(2) Never leave the table hungry.
(3) When traveling, never leave a country hungry.
(4) Enjoy your food.
(5) Enjoy your companion's food.
(6) Really taste your food. It may take several portions to
accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned.
(7) Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare,
for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a
brownie. Which feels better against your cheeks?
(8) Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal.
(9) Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You
can always eat it later.
(10) Avoid any wine with a childproof cap.
(11) Avoid blue food.
-- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet"
Another dream that failed. There's nothing sadder.
-- Kirk, "This side of Paradise", stardate 3417.3
Common sense is the most evenly distributed quantity in the world.
Everyone thinks he has enough.
-- Descartes, 1637
Norm: Gentlemen, start your taps.
-- Cheers, The Coach's Daughter
Coach: How's life treating you, Norm?
Norm: Like it caught me in bed with his wife.
-- Cheers, Any Friend of Diane's

Coach: How's life, Norm?

Norm: Not for the squeamish, Coach.
-- Cheers, Friends, Romans, and Accountants
They will die of hunger at the proprietor's door, on the edge of that property
which was their birthright; and the proprietor, watching them die, will exclaim,
"So perish idlers and vagrants!"
----+- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon -+----
learning curve, n.:
An astonishing new theory, discovered by management consultants
in the 1970's, asserting that the more you do something the
quicker you can do it.
The average woman must inevitably view her actual husband with a certain
disdain; he is anything but her ideal. In consequence, she cannot help
feeling that her children are cruelly handicapped by the fact that he is
their father.
-- H. L. Mencken
..you could spend *all day* customizing the title bar. Believe me. I
speak from experience.
-- Matt Welsh
"Oh my! An `inflammatory attitude' in alt.flame? Never heard of such
a thing..."
-- Allen Gwinn, allen@sulaco.Sigma.COM
Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade
themselves that they have a better idea.
-- John Ciardi
Indecision is the true basis for flexibility.
Wedding is destiny, and hanging likewise.
-- John Heywood
Common sense is the most evenly distributed quantity in the world.
Everyone thinks he has enough.
-- Descartes, 1637
Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis.

It makes sense, when you don't think about it.

RAM wasn't built in a day.
You do not have mail.
Every cloud engenders not a storm.
-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something
to do with a shortage of flowers.
-- Doug Larson

[Not to mention, butterfly would be flutterby. Ed.]

(1) A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane.
(2) An inclined plane is a slope up.
(3) A slow pup is a lazy dog.

QED: A sheet of paper is a lazy dog.

-- Willard Espy, "An Almanac of Words at Play"
I suppose one could claim that an undocumented feature has no
semantics. :-(
-- Larry Wall in <199710290036.QAA01818@wall.org>
Not responsible for lost or stolen articles.
Stupid, n.:
 Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay.
... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter.
"I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers
words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him.
He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see
them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time.
Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he
knows them in the naming.
-- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"
"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!"
-- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra"
The state idea means something quite different from the idea of government.
----+- Peter Kropotkin -+----
A good reputation is more valuable than money.
-- Publilius Syrus
You ain't learning nothing when you're talking.
Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.
-- Jawaharlal Nehru
You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
-- Dean Martin
<KatanaJ> Note on a chem lab fridge- "This refrigerator is not explosion-
proof".
"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development
That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you."
(By Vance Petree, Virginia Power)
C:\> WIN
Bad command or filename

C:\> LOSE
Loading Microsoft Windows ...
Every day it's the same thing -- variety. I want something different.
Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to
a new town.
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects
such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern
art.
-- Tom Stoppard
* CosmicRay wishes he had some strippers here....
<CosmicRay> err, wire strippers
Better tried by twelve than carried by six.
-- Jeff Cooper
Every program has (at least) two purposes:
the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.
While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is
admission to someone else.
Ginsburg's Law:
At the precise moment you take off your shoe in a shoe store, your
big toe will pop out of your sock to see what's going on.
If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.
-- Miguel de Cervantes
I was appalled by this story of the destruction of a member of a valued
endangered species. It's all very well to celebrate the practicality of
pigs by ennobling the porcine sibling who constructed his home out of
bricks and mortar. But to wantonly destroy a wolf, even one with an
excessive taste for porkers, is unconscionable in these ecologically
critical times when both man and his domestic beasts continue to maraud
the earth.
Sylvia Kamerman, "Book Reviewing"
You recoil from the crude; you tend naturally toward the exquisite.
"What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying."
-- Nikita Khrushchev
Said the attractive, cigar-smoking housewife to her girl-friend: "I got
started one night when George came home and found one burning in the ashtray."
Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?
-- Pink Floyd
Democracy becomes a government of bullies, tempered by editors.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life is a POPULARITY CONTEST! I'm REFRESHINGLY CANDID!!
He who has might has right... is this wisdom so hard to attain?
----+- Max Stirner -+----
"Morality is one thing. Ratings are everything."
-- A Network 23 executive on "Max Headroom"
Everybody is given the same amount of hormones, at birth, and
if you want to use yours for growing hair, that's fine with me.
He who has a shady past knows that nice guys finish last.
The Worst Prison Guards
The largest number of convicts ever to escape simultaneously from a
maximum security prison is 124. This record is held by Alcoente Prison,
near Lisbon in Portugal.
During the weeks leading up to the escape in July 1978 the prison
warders had noticed that attendances had fallen at film shows which
included "The Great Escape", and also that 220 knives and a huge quantity
of electric cable had disappeared. A guard explained, "Yes, we were
planning to look for them, but never got around to it." The warders had
not, however, noticed the gaping holes in the wall because they were
"covered with posters". Nor did they detect any of the spades, chisels,
water hoses and electric drills amassed by the inmates in large quantities.
The night before the breakout one guard had noticed that of the 36
prisoners in his block only 13 were present. He said this was "normal"
because inmates sometimes missed roll-call or hid, but usually came back
the next morning.
"We only found out about the escape at 6:30 the next morning when
one of the prisoners told us," a warder said later. [...] When they
eventually checked, the prison guards found that exactly half of the gaol's
population was missing. By way of explanation the Justice Minister, Dr.
Santos Pais, claimed that the escape was "normal" and part of the
"legitimate desire of the prisoner to regain his liberty."
-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
Q: Why does Washington have the most lawyers per capita and
New Jersey the most toxic waste dumps?
A: God gave New Jersey first choice.
You definitely intend to start living sometime soon.
A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly.
If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.
-- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars
There are new messages.
Any man can work when every stroke of his hand brings down the fruit
rattling from the tree to the ground; but to labor in season and out of
season, under every discouragement, by the power of truth -- that
requires a heroism which is transcendent.
-- Henry Ward Beecher
We love to have agents provocateurs in the party, because they always propose the
most revolutionary motions.
----+- Louise Michel -+----
Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood.
-- Louise Beal
People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.
 -- Bokonon, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.
Yes, I've now got this nice little apartment in New York, one of those
L-shaped ones. Unfortunately, it's a lower case l.
-- Rita Rudner
BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-
McDonald's -- Because you're worth it.
While walking down a crowded
City street the other day,
I heard a little urchin
To a comrade turn and say,
"Say, Chimmey, lemme tell youse,
I'd be happy as a clam
If only I was de feller dat
Me mudder t'inks I am.

"She t'inks I am a wonder, My friends, be yours a life of toil

An' she knows her little lad Or undiluted joy,
Could never mix wit' nuttin' You can learn a wholesome lesson
Dat was ugly, mean or bad. From that small, untutored boy.
Oh, lot o' times I sit and t'ink Don't aim to be an earthly saint
How nice, 'twould be, gee whiz! With eyes fixed on a star:
If a feller was de feller Just try to be the fellow that
Dat his mudder t'inks he is." Your mother thinks you are.
-- Will S. Adkin, "If I Only Was the Fellow"
Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of
us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of the
smaller prime numbers.

2: The Odd Prime --

It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED.
3: The True Prime --
Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true."
31: The Arbitrary Prime --
Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime in
case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91 received
the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most.
However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all.
41: The Female Prime --
The polynomial X**2 - X + 41 is
prime for integer values from 1 to 40.
43: The Male Prime - they form a prime pair.

Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities
are derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd
but true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers.
Sam: What's the good word, Norm?
Norm: Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.
Sam: Oh no, not the Hungry Heifer...
Norm: Yeah, yeah, yeah...
Sam: One heartburn cocktail coming up.
-- Cheers, I'll Gladly Pay You Tuesday

Sam: Whaddya say, Norm?

Norm: Well, I never met a beer I didn't drink. And down it goes.
-- Cheers, Love Thy Neighbor

Woody: What's your pleasure, Mr. Peterson?

Norm: Boxer shorts and loose shoes. But I'll settle for a beer.
 -- Cheers, The Bar Stoolie
There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon,
however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable.
Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be
discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator
on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is
even highly probable.
-- H. L. Mencken, 1930
"The porcupine with the sharpest quills gets stuck on a tree more often."
"If I do not return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go
to hell."
-- Jimmy Swaggart, 5/20/88
If a man slept by day, he had little time to work. That was a
satisfying notion to Escargot.
-- "The Stone Giant", James P. Blaylock
Noncombatant: A dead Quaker.
-- Ambrose Bierce
When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I
think it was a Tuesday.
Tax, title, tag, and dealer handling not included.
The Emperor's New Mall:
The popular notion that shopping malls exist on the insides only
and have no exterior. The suspension of visual disbelief engendered
by this notion allows shoppers to pretend that the large, cement
blocks thrust into their environment do not, in fact, exist.
-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture"
I know you think you thought you knew what you thought I said,
but I'm not sure you understood what you thought I meant.
The Rabbits The Cow
Here is a verse about rabbits The cow is of the bovine ilk;
That doesn't mention their habits. One end is moo, the other, milk.
-- Ogden Nash
A serious public debate about the validity of astrology? A serious believer
in the White House? Two of them? Give me a break. What stifled my laughter
is that the image fits. Reagan has always exhibited a fey indifference toward
science. Facts, like numbers, roll off his back. And we've all come to
accept it. This time it was stargazing that became a serious issue....Not
that long ago, it was Reagan's support of Creationism....Creationists actually
got equal time with evolutionists. The public was supposed to be open-minded
to the claims of paleontologists and fundamentalists, as if the two were
scientific colleagues....It has been clear for a long time that the president
is averse to science...In general, these attitudes fall onto friendly American
turf....But at the outer edges, this skepticism about science easily turns
into a kind of naive acceptance of nonscience, or even nonsense. The same
people who doubt experts can also believe any quackery, from the benefits of
laetrile to eye of newt to the movement of planets. We lose the capacity to
make rational -- scientific -- judgments. It's all the same.
-- Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company-Washington Post Writers
Group
Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up
the pillow was gone.
-- Tommy Cooper
Research is the best place to be: you work your buns off, and if it works
you're a hero; if it doesn't, well -- nobody else has done it yet either,
so you're still a valiant nerd.
Oh, the Slithery Dee, he crawled out of the sea.
He may catch all the others, but he won't catch me.
No, he won't catch me, stupid ol' Slithery Dee.
He may catch all the others, but AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!
-- The Smothers Brothers
We have not inherited the earth from our parents, we've borrowed it from
our children.
Victory or defeat!
Hold the MAYO & pass the COSMIC AWARENESS ...
Has the great art and mystery of politics no apparent utility? Does it
appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene and low down,
and its salient virtuosi a gang of umitigated scoundrels? Then let us
not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickel the midriff, its
incomparable services as a maker of entertainment.
-- H. L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe"
Voter's Block:
The attempt, however futile, to register dissent with the
current political system by simply not voting.
-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture"
I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means
it's going to be up all night.
-- Steven Wright
Visit beautiful Wisconsin Dells.
I never expected to see the day when girls would get sunburned in the
places they do today.
-- Will Rogers
Griffin's Thought:
When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last.
I know how to do SPECIAL EFFECTS!!
This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.
-- Winston Churchill
QFM:
Quelle fashion mistake. "It was really QFM. I mean painter
pants? That's 1979 beyond belief."
-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture"
FROM THE DESK OF
Dorothy Gale

Auntie Em:
Hate you.
Hate Kansas.
Taking the dog.
Dorothy
The girl who remembers her first kiss now has a daughter who can't even
remember her first husband.
Never use "etc." -- it makes people think there is more where there is not
or that there is not space to list it all, etc.
(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained,
"Only one man ever understood me." He fell silent for a while and then added,
"And he didn't understand me."
... faster BogoMIPS calculations (yes, it now boots 2 seconds faster than
it used to: we're considering changing the name from "Linux" to "InstaBOOT"
-- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.26
Old age is too high a price to pay for maturity.
I've got a very bad feeling about this.
-- Han Solo
There's such a thing as too much point on a pencil.
-- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"
Money is its own reward.
Those who have some means think that the most important thing in the
world is love. The poor know that it is money.
-- Gerald Brenan
So we follow our wandering paths, and the very darkness acts as our guide and
our doubts serve to reassure us.
-- Jean-Pierre de Caussade, eighteenth-century Jesuit priest
A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad.
-- Emerson
I don't kill flies, but I like to mess with their minds. I hold them above
globes. They freak out and yell "Whooa, I'm *way* too high."
-- Bruce Baum
Such a fine first dream!
But they laughed at me; they said
I had made it up.
> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping
> : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will
> : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff.
> : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so
> : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed.
>
> It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there
> really is a god.
-- Anthony Lovell, to Linus's remarks about porting
A selection from the Taoist Writings:

"Lao-Tan asked Confucius: `What do you mean by benevolence and righteousness?'

Confucius said: `To be in one's inmost heart in kindly sympathy with all
things; to love all men and allow no selfish thoughts: this is the nature
of benevolence and righteousness.'"
-- Kwang-tzu
Westheimer's Discovery:
A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a
couple of hours in the library.
Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to work.
Merchandise can be shipped only upon receipt of payment.
With the news that Nancy Reagan has referred to an astrologer when planning
her husband's schedule, and reports of Californians evacuating Los Angeles
on the strength of a prediction from a sixteenth-century physician and
astrologer Michel de Notredame, the image of the U.S. as a scientific and
technological nation has taking a bit of a battering lately. Sadly, such
happenings cannot be dismissed as passing fancies. They are manifestations
of a well-established "anti-science" tendency in the U.S. which, ultimately,
could threaten the country's position as a technological power. . . . The
manifest widespread desire to reject rationality and substitute a series
of quasirandom beliefs in order to understand the universe does not augur
well for a nation deeply concerned about its ability to compete with its
industrial equals. To the degree that it reflects the thinking of a
significant section of the public, this point of view encourages ignorance
of and, indeed, contempt for science and for rational methods of approaching
truth. . . . It is becoming clear that if the U.S. does not pick itself up
soon and devote some effort to educating the young effectively, its hope of
maintaining a semblance of leadership in the world may rest, paradoxically,
with a new wave of technically interested and trained immigrants who do not
suffer from the anti-science disease rampant in an apparently decaying society.
-- Physicist Tony Feinberg, in "New Scientist," May 19, 1988
Cache:
A very expensive part of the memory system of a computer that no one
is supposed to know is there.
Going the speed of light is bad for your age.
Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
 I muck with indices and structs all day
And when it works, I shout hoo-ray
Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
Packages should build-depend on what they should build-depend.
-- Santiago Vila on debian-devel
Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And plunged it deep into the VAX;
Don't you envy people who
Do all the things ___###YOU want to do?
Besides, REAL computers have a rename() system call. :-)
-- Larry Wall in <7937@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Happiness isn't having what you want, it's wanting what you have.
Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these
days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate
with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't communicate, children
who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in
these books and plays and so on (and in real life, I might add) spend hours
bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't
communicate, the very _____#####least he can do is to shut up!
-- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was"
Halley's Comet: It came, we saw, we drank.
JOHN PAUL ELECTED POPE!!

(George and Ringo miffed.)

Keep the phase, baby.
Zero Mostel: That's it baby! When you got it, flaunt it! Flaunt it!
-- Mel Brooks, "The Producers"
All things are either sacred or profane.
The former to ecclesiasts bring gain;
The latter to the devil appertain.
-- Dumbo Omohundro
Everyone wants results, but no one is willing to do what it takes to get them.
-- Dirty Harry
It is better to have loved and lost than just to have lost.
Agree with them now, it will save so much time.
Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best way
they can. I'm sick of the job. It's a thankless one and full of grief.
-- Al Capone
Please remain calm, it's no use both of us being hysterical at the same time.
Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse.
-- Oscar Wilde

Most UNIX programmers are great masters of style.

-- The Unnamed Usenetter
Never make any mistaeks.
-- Anonymous, in a mail discussion about to a kernel bug report
BYTE editors are people who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then
carefully print the chaff.
The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
-- William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing"
You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.
Moishe Margolies, who weighed all of 105 pounds and stood an even five feet
in his socks, was taking his first airplane trip. He took a seat next to a
hulking bruiser of a man who happened to be the heavyweight champion of
the world. Little Moishe was uneasy enough before he even entered the plane,
but now the roar of the engines and the great height absolutely terrified him.
So frightened did he become that his stomach turned over and he threw up all
over the muscular giant siting beside him. Fortunately, at least for Moishe,
the man was sound asleep. But now the little man had another problem. How in
the world would he ever explain the situation to the burly brute when he
awakened? The sudden voice of the stewardess on the plane's intercom, finally
woke the bruiser, and Moishe, his heart in his mouth, rose to the occasion.
"Feeling better now?" he asked solicitously.
There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't aggravate.
A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to
govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures
on armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins
itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and
manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain.
-- Anatole France
When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity
for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.
-- H. L. Mencken, "Minority Report"
Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is
they charge fifteen cents for them.
Miksch's Law:
If a string has one end, then it has another end.
When license fees are too high,
users do things by hand.
When the management is too intrusive,
users lose their spirit.

Hack for the user's benefit.

Trust them; leave them alone.
You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going,
because you might not get there.
-- Yogi Berra
It's the good girls who keep the diaries, the bad girls never have the time.
-- Tallulah Bankhead
Barbara's Rules of Bitter Experience:
(1) When you empty a drawer for his clothes
and a shelf for his toiletries, the relationship ends.
(2) When you finally buy pretty stationary
to continue the correspondence, he stops writing.
Heaven, n.:
A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of
their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you
expound your own.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Thyme's Law:
Everything goes wrong at once.
All great discoveries are made by mistake.
-- Young
(1) Everything depends.
(2) Nothing is always.
(3) Everything is sometimes.
Whenever people agree with me, I always think I must be wrong.
-- Oscar Wilde
If you are going to run a rinky-dink distro made by a couple of
volunteers, why not run a rinky-dink distro made by a lot of volunteers?
-- Jaldhar H. Vyas on debian-devel
Alcoholics Anonymous is when you get to drink under someone else's name.
Colors may fade.
Positive, adj.:
Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Dreams are free, but there's a small charge for alterations.
Love makes fools, marriage cuckolds, and patriotism malevolent imbeciles.
 -- Paul Leautaud, "Passe-temps"
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
-- Milton Friendman
The great secret in life ... [is] not to open your letters for a fortnight.
At the expiration of that period you will find that nearly all of them have
answered themselves.
-- Arthur Binstead
If you don't do it, you'll never know what would have happened if you
had done it.
May you have warm words on a cold evening,
a full mooon on a dark night,
and a smooth road all the way to your door.
A MODERN FABLE

Aesop's fables and other traditional children's stories involve allegory

far too subtle for the youth of today. Children need an updated message
with contemporary circumstance and plot line, and short enough to suit
today's minute attention span.

The Troubled Aardvark

Once upon a time, there was an aardvark whose only pleasure in life was
driving from his suburban bungalow to his job at a large brokerage house
in his brand new 4x4. He hated his manipulative boss, his conniving and
unethical co-workers, his greedy wife, and his snivelling, spoiled
children. One day, the aardvark reflected on the meaning of his life and
his career and on the unchecked, catastrophic decline of his nation, its
pathetic excuse for leadership, and the complete ineffectiveness of any
personal effort he could make to change the status quo. Overcome by a
wave of utter depression and self-doubt, he decided to take the only
course of action that would bring him greater comfort and happiness: he
drove to the mall and bought imported consumer electronics goods.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Invest in foreign consumer electronics manufacturers.

-- Tom Annau
So I'm ugly. So what? I never saw anyone hit with his face.
-- Yogi Berra
It's so beautifully arranged on the plate -- you know someone's fingers
have been all over it.
-- Julia Child on nouvelle cuisine.
You are fairminded, just and loving.
War isn't a good life, but it's life.
-- Kirk, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8
Dealer prices may vary.
E = MC ** 2 +- 3db
Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence.
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives.
I have no right, by anything I do or say, to demean a human being in his
own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him; it is what he thinks
of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be
visually distinct.
-- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE

Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely

unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are.
Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE
programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at parties.
"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one idiot.
Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's sometimes hard
to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all of the hassle and
pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, caustic twits."
-- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@apple.com, about Usenet
A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in
the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the
rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between
the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be
penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such
uncontrollable physical phenomena.
-- Donald A. Metz
Stupidity is its own reward.
Old programmers never die, they just become managers.
Turnaucka's Law:
The attention span of a computer is only as long as its
electrical cord.
"Flight Reservation systems decide whether or not you exist. If your information
isn't in their database, then you simply don't get to go anywhere."
-- Arthur Miller
_-^--^=-_
_.-^^ -~_
_-- --_
< >)
| |
\._ _./
```--. . , ; .--'''
| | |
.-=|| | |=-.
`-=#$%&%$#=-'
| ; :|
_____.,-#%&$@%#&#~,._____
Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner.
Limited time offer, call now to ensure prompt delivery.
You dialed 5483.
1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty
1929 The high sign of refreshment
1929 The pause that refreshes
1930 It had to be good to get where it is
1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing
1935 The pause that brings friends together
1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed
1938 The best friend thirst ever had
1939 Thirst stops here
1942 It's the real thing
1947 Have a Coke
1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING
1963 Things go better with Coke
1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand
1979 Have a Coke and a smile
1982 Coke is it!
-- Coca-Cola slogans
Default, n.:
The hardware's, of course.
Love sometimes expresses itself in sacrifice.
-- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3220.3
In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle
a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order
to get her attention.
I have a box of telephone rings under my bed. Whenever I get lonely, I
open it up a little bit, and I get a phone call. One day I dropped the
box all over the floor. The phone wouldn't stop ringing. I had to get
it disconnected. So I got a new phone. I didn't have much money, so I
had to get an irregular. It doesn't have a five. I ran into a friend
of mine on the street the other day. He said why don't you give me a
call. I told him I can't call everybody I want to anymore, my phone
doesn't have a five. He asked how long had it been that way. I said I
didn't know -- my calendar doesn't have any sevens.
-- Steven Wright
Every country has the government it deserves.
-- Joseph De Maistre
He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry
attacks democracy itself.
-- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS
Adult, n.:
One old enough to know better.
Small is beautiful.
-- Schumacher's Dictum
Go slowly to the entertainments of thy friends, but quickly to their
misfortunes.
-- Chilo
<Culus> "Hello?" "Hi baybee" "Are you Johnie Ingram?" "For you I'll be
anyone" "Ermm.. Do you sell slink CD's?" "I love slinkies"
"Wish not to seem, but to be, the best."
-- Aeschylus
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving,
Whatever gods may be,
That no life lives forever,
That dead men rise up never,
That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.
-- Swinburne
Women can keep a secret just as well as men, but it takes more of them
to do it.
Normal times may possibly be over forever.
When someone makes a move We'll send them all we've got,
Of which we don't approve, John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Who is it that always intervenes? Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
U.N. and O.A.S., To the shores of Tripoli,
They have their place, I guess, But not to Mississippoli,
But first, send the Marines! What do we do? We send the Marines!

For might makes right, Members of the corps

And till they've seen the light, All hate the thought of war:
They've got to be protected, They'd rather kill them off by
peaceful means.
All their rights respected, Stop calling it aggression--
Till somebody we like can be elected. We hate that expression!
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo;
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt, send the Marines!
-- Tom Lehrer, "Send The Marines"
The linuX Files -- The Source is Out There.
 -- Sent in by Craig S. Bell, goat@aracnet.com
What does it mean if there is no fortune for you?
VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel
entrances; others cannot.
This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least
it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to
trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical
space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to
follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not
of science.
VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives
might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed,
accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be
destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate,
elongate, snap back, or solidify.
IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance.
This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to
the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of
watching it happen to a duck instead.
X. Everything falls faster than an anvil.
Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons.
-- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980
DISCLAIMER:
Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement
of Western industrial civilization.
Rome was not built in one day.
-- John Heywood
The reward for working hard is more hard work.
"The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of
assembly language with the power of assembly language."
The salesman and the system analyst took off to spend a weekend in the
forest, hunting bear. They'd rented a cabin, and, when they got there, took
their backpacks off and put them inside. At which point the salesman turned
to his friend, and said, "You unpack while I go and find us a bear."
Puzzled, the analyst finished unpacking and then went and sat down
on the porch. Soon he could hear rustling noises in the forest. The noises
got nearer -- and louder -- and suddenly there was the salesman, running like
hell across the clearing toward the cabin, pursued by one of the largest and
most ferocious grizzly bears the analyst had ever seen.
"Open the door!", screamed the salesman.
The analyst whipped open the door, and the salesman ran to the door,
suddenly stopped, and stepped aside. The bear, unable to stop, continued
through the door and into the cabin. The salesman slammed the door closed
and grinned at his friend. "Got him!", he exclaimed, "now, you skin this
one and I'll go rustle us up another!"
Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be
surprised at how little you have.
-- Ernest Haskins
Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before.
Don't stop to stomp ants when the elephants are stampeding.
"It's in process":
So wrapped up in red tape that the situation is almost hopeless.
Life, like beer, is merely borrowed.
-- Don Reed
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
A Severe Strain on the Credulity
As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the
highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket
is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the
multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt...
for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its
flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the
charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in
Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not
know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something
better than a vacuum against which to react... Of course he only seems to
lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
-- New York Times Editorial, 1920
<Knghtbrd> hardcopy is for wussies
<Topher> computer program listings....next, on HardCopy
<pv2b> oh, besides, whats the best approach if i want to make a Quake
level designed from an existing building?
<Knghtbrd> Get a floorplan of Brian's office? =)
<pv2b> Knghtbrd: im considering my school.
<Knghtbrd> Oh great
<Knghtbrd> That's ALL we need
Never trust an operating system.
"If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage."
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples of
outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, but
they prevailed with irrefutable data. More often, egregious findings that
contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts. I have
argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, "cosmic consciousness,"
and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of
neuroscience. Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid
handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena
than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves
offer more plausible alternatives.
- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi
Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171
Official Project Stages:
(1) Uncritical Acceptance
(2) Wild Enthusiasm
(3) Dejected Disillusionment
(4) Total Confusion
(5) Search for the Guilty
(6) Punishment of the Innocent
(7) Promotion of the Non-participants
The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality
of functions performed by private citizens.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville
Uh... deity is a word, and diety isn't.

Or is it supposed to be one of those recursive acronyms? Diety Is

Excellent To You. Deity Eats Icecream That's Yellow. Diety Is
Eloping To Yokohama. I'll stop now.
-- Guy Maor
Yinkel, n.:
A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one
will notice.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.
-- F. Dostoyevski
The very remembrance of my former misfortune proves a new one to me.
-- Miguel de Cervantes
"Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?"
-- Ronald Reagan
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I'll cry in anguish, "Mistake!! Mistake!!"
He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE inside me
like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER! Or maybe he'd like to
PSYCHOLIGICALLY TERRORISE ME until I have no objection to a RIGHT-WING
MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!! I guess I should call AL PACINO!
You don't move to Edina, you achieve Edina.
-- Guindon
But has any little atom,
While a-sittin' and a-splittin',
Ever stopped to think or CARE
That E = m c**2 ?
And all that the Lorax left here in this mess
was a small pile of rocks with the one word, "unless."
Whatever THAT meant, well, I just couldn't guess.
That was long, long ago, and each day since that day,
I've worried and worried and worried away.
Through the years as my buildings have fallen apart,
I've worried about it with all of my heart.

"BUT," says the Oncler, "now that you're here,

the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear!
UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better - it's not.
So... CATCH!" cries the Oncler. He lets something fall.
"It's a truffula seed. It's the last one of all!

"You're in charge of the last of the truffula seeds.

And truffula trees are what everyone needs.
Plant a new truffula -- treat it with care.
Give it clean water and feed it fresh air.
Grow a forest -- protect it from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back!"
Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
"The geeks shall inherit the earth."
-- Karl Lehenbauer
Terrorism is tempting with its tremendous possibilities. It offers a mechanical
solution, as it were, in hopeless situations.
----+- Alexander Berkman -+----
The `loner' may be respected, but he is always resented by his colleagues,
for he seems to be passing a critical judgment on them, when he may be
simply making a limiting statement about himself.
-- Sidney Harris
This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
Everye nighte and alle,
Fire and sleet and candlelyte,
And Christe receive thy saule.
-- The Lykewake Dirge
By all means marry: If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you
get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
-- Socrates
* This is complicated. Has to do with interrupts. Thus, I am
* scared witless. Therefore I refuse to write this function. :-P
-- From the maclinux patch
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of
absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness
within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.
Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and
doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone
of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
-- Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House"
"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."
-- Mark Twain
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
-- Milton Friendman
I had an errand there: gathering water-lilies,
green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady,
the last ere the year's end to keep them from the winter,
to flower by her pretty feet till the snows are melted.

Each year at summer's end I go to find them for her,

in a wide pool, deep and clear, far down Withywindle;
there they open first in spring and there they linger latest.

By that pool long ago I found the River-daughter,

fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes.
Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating!

And that proved well for you--for now I shall no longer

go down deep again along the forest-water,
no while the year is old. Nor shall I be passing
Old Man Willow's house this side of spring-time,
not till the merry spring, when the River-daughter
dances down the withy-path to bathe in the water.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
Falling rock.
* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
<Knghtbrd> m2 - that's a bad sign
Where you stand depends on where you sit.
-- Rufus Miles, HEW
Execution

If people were not afraid of death,

Then what would be the use of an executioner?
If people were only afraid of death,
And you executed everyone who did not obey,
No one would dare to disobey you.
Then what would be the use of an executioner?
People fear death because death is an instrument of fate.
When people are killed by execution rather than by fate,
This is like carving wood in the place of a carpenter.
Those who carve wood in place of a carpenter
Often injure their hands.
-- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching"
Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.
Absurdity, n.:
A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Now's the time to have some big ideas
Now's the time to make some firm decisions
We saw the Buddha in a bar down south
Talking politics and nuclear fission
We see him and he's all washed up --
Moving on into the body of a beetle
Getting ready for a long long crawl
He ain't nothing -- he ain't nothing at all...

Death and Money make their point once more

In the shape of Philosophical assassins
Mark and Danny take the bus uptown
Deadly angels for reality and passion
Have the courage of the here and now
Don't taking nothing from the half-baked buddhas
When you think you got it paid in full
You got nothing -- you got nothing at all...
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha.
We know his name and he mustn't get away.
We're on the road and we're gunning for the Buddha.
It would take one shot -- to blow him away...
-- Shriekback, "Gunning for the Buddah"
Q: What's tan and black and looks great on a lawyer?
A: A doberman.
But they went to MARS around 1953!!
<tausq> if (cb) ((cb->obj)->*(cb->ui_func))();
<knghtbrd> tausq: who the HELL wrote that ?
<tausq> me :)
* knghtbrd flogs tausq
"Well, social relevance is a schtick, like mysteries, social relevance,
science fiction..."
-- Art Spiegelman
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is
whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling
is that it is not crazy enough.
-- Niels Bohr
God help those who do not help themselves.
-- Wilson Mizner
If Machiavelli were a hacker, he'd have worked for the CSSG.
-- Phil Lapsley
If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder.
-- Pope John Paul I
That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it,
that will be the kind of government which they will have.
----+- Henry David Thoreau -+----