...

the HIGHWAY is made out of LIME JELLO and my HONDA is a barbequeued

OYSTER! Yum!
Free Speech Is The Right To Shout 'Theater' In A Crowded Fire.
-- A Yippie Proverb
She liked him; he was a man of many qualities, even if most of them were bad.
Programming is an unnatural act.
"I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never came back."
Do not preach the straight and narrow way while going joyously upon the wide one.
Preach the wide one, or do not preach at all; but do not fool yourself by saying
you would like to help usher in a free society, but you cannot sacrifice an
armchair for it.
-- Voltairine de Cleyre
The Pig, if I am not mistaken,
Gives us ham and pork and Bacon.
Let others think his heart is big,
I think it stupid of the Pig.
-- Ogden Nash
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
-- C. G. Jung
One day,
A mad meta-poet,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-poem
That started: "One day,
A mad meta-poet,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-poem
That started: "One day,
[...]
sort of close".
Were the words that the poet,
Finally chose,
To bring his mad poem,
To some sort of close".
Were the words that the poet,
Finally chose,
To bring his mad poem,
To some sort of close".
I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's;
I will not Reason and Compare; my business is to Create.
-- William Blake, "Jerusalem"
A person is strong only when he stands upon his own truth, when he speaks and acts
from his deepest convictions.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
I know not how I came into this, shall I call it a dying life or a
living death?
-- St. Augustine
Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic.
Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more
"user-friendly". ... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all
the old brochures, and stamp the words, "user-friendly" on the cover.
-- Bill Gates, Microsoft, Inc.
[Pot. Kettle. Black.]
It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students
that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are
mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5
The Revolution aimed at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let
ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves.
-- Max Stirner
... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers.
The Ranger isn't gonna like it, Yogi.
The state, therefore, is the most flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete
negation of humanity.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
If computers take over (which seems to be their natural tendency), it will
serve us right.
-- Alistair Cooke
If he should ever change his faith, it'll be because he no longer thinks
he's God.
However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional
manner ... sulking and nausea.
-- Tom K. Ryan
Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing.
-- Roy L. Ash, ex-president, Litton Industries
If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away.
Emacs, n.:
A slow-moving parody of a text editor.
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge."
Speak roughly to your little VAX,
And boot it when it crashes;
It knows that one cannot relax
Because the paging thrashes!
Wow! Wow! Wow!

I speak severely to my VAX,

And boot it when it crashes;
In spite of all my favorite hacks
My jobs it always thrashes!
Wow! Wow! Wow!
-- Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minikin.
-- Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate.
-- Surveillance should precede saltation.
-- Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.
-- It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed
lacteal fluid.
-- Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude.
-- It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated
canine with innovative maneuvers.
-- Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion.
-- The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly
galled saucepan does not reach 212 degrees Farenheit.
17th Rule of Friendship:
A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of
life insurance coverage you did for half the price when yours is
noncancellable.
-- Esquire, May 1977
The world is no nursery.
-- Sigmund Freud
Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure
that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing,
all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third?
Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the
result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure
parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different
types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a
recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language
so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use?
Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to
mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry.
-- H. L. Mencken
A paranoid is a man who knows a little of what's going on.
-- William S. Burroughs
I am unique. My flesh is not their flesh, my mind is not their mind.
-- Max Stirner
Everyone complains about politicians. Everyone says they suck. But where do people
think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky; they don't pass
through a membrane from a separate reality. They come from American homes, American
families, American schools, American churches, and American businesses. And they're
elected by American voters. This is what our system produces, folks. This is the
best we can do.
-- George Carlin
Ten of the meanest cons in the state pen met in the corner of the yard to
shoot some craps. The stakes were enormous, the tension palpable.
When his turn came to shoot, Dutsky nervously plunked down his
entire wad, shook the dice and rolled. A smile crossed his face as a
seven showed up, but it quickly changed to horror as third die slipped out
of his sleeve and fell to the ground with the two others. No one said a
word. Finally, Killer Lucci picked up the third die, put it in his pocket
and handed the others to Dutsky.
"Roll 'em," Lucci said. "Your point is thirteen."
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
-- Isaac Asimov
That should probably be written:
no !@#$%^&*:@!semicolon
-- Larry Wall in <199710161841.LAA13208@wall.org>
My notion of a husband at forty is that a woman should be able to change him,
like a bank note, for two twenties.
All the troubles you have will pass away very quickly.
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"
X-Manoj-Position-Advisory: Please note that Manoj Srivastava likely doubts
any facts posited and opposes any conclusions reached in this message.

-- Seen in the headers of a mail from Branden Robinson

Four fifths of the perjury in the world is expended on tombstones, women
and competitors.
-- Lord Thomas Dewar
To weaken authority and criticize its acts is not enough. A negation, in order to
be absolute, needs to complete itself with an affirmation. That is why I affirm
liberty, why I deduce its consequences.
-- Joseph Dejacque
Am I SHOPLIFTING?
Does biff in bo work
coz it biffin doesn't beep
an if biff in bo is broke
then biff in bo I will delete

I've tried biff in bo with 'y'

I've tried biff in bo with '-y'
no biffin output does it show
so poor wee biff is gonna go.
-- John Spence <jspence@lynx.net.au> on debian-user
You can move the world with an idea, but you have to think of it first.
"Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the
Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then
intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men and
women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our best, with
good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are we not God's
Machineries of Joy?"
"If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin."
-- R. Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy"
Yow! And then we could sit on the hoods of cars at stop lights!
Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children!
They took some of the Van Goghs, most of the jewels, and all of the Chivas!
Why don't you ever enter any CONTESTS, Marvin?? Don't you know your
own ZIPCODE?
Never ask two questions in a business letter. The reply will discuss
the one you are least interested, and say nothing about the other.
Sex dumps core
(Sex is a Simple editor for X11)
-- Seen on debian bugtracking
Adde parvum parvo manus acervus erit.
[Add little to little and there will be a big pile.]
-- Ovid
If some people didn't tell you, you'd never know they'd been away on vacation.
He missed an invaluable opportunity to hold his tongue.
-- Andrew Lang
Anti-Sabbatical:
A job taken with the sole intention of staying only for a
limited period of time (often one year). The intention is usually to
raise enough funds to partake in another, more meaningful activity
such as watercolor sketching in Crete, or designing computer knit
sweaters in Hong Kong. Employers are rarely informed of intentions.
-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture"
When people say nothing, they don't necessarily mean nothing.
Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
Victory uber allies!
Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just
makes the manuals thicker.
I might have gone to West Point, but I was too proud to speak to a congressman.
-- Will Rogers
Sally: C'mon, Ted, all I'm asking you to do is share your feelings
 with me.
Ted: ALL? Do you realize what you're asking? Men aren't trained
to share. We're trained to protect ourselves by not
letting anyone too close. Good grief, if I go around
sharing everything with you, you could hang me out to dry.
Sally: It's called "trust," Ted.
Ted: "Sharing"? "Trust"? You're really asking me to sail into
uncharted waters here.
-- Sally Forth
(6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting
purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church.
(7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the
office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible
and other good books.
(8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly
sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years,
so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters.
(9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink
in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets
shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect
his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty.
(10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and
without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of
five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the
business permit it.
-- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872
You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads
lead down.
-- Stanislaw Lem, "The Cyberiad"
<Elric> no BSD fans ?
<EvilTypeGuy> Elric: it's hard to be a gamer and a bsd fan :p
Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them.
-- Arman de Caillavet, 1913
Remember, God could only create the world in 6 days because he didn't
have an established user base.
When you speak to others for their own good it's advice;
when they speak to you for your own good it's interference.
The Ruffed Pandanga of Borneo and Rotherham spreads out his feathers in
his courtship dance and imitates Winston Churchill and Tommy Cooper on
one leg. The padanga is dying out because the female padanga doesn't
take it too seriously.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
I've been in more laps than a napkin.
-- Mae West
The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.
-- Max Stirner
An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows
absolutely everything about nothing.
Do not seek death; death will find you. But seek the road which makes death
a fulfillment.
-- Dag Hammarskjold
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
-- The Wizard Of Oz
Alright, you!! Imitate a WOUNDED SEAL pleading for a PARKING SPACE!!
momentum, n.:
What you give a person when they are going away.
You are an insult to my intelligence! I demand that you log off immediately.
What's page one, a preemptive strike?
-- Professor Freund, Communication, Ramapo State College
Just don't create a file called -rf. :-)
-- Larry Wall in <11393@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
I fill MY industrial waste containers with old copies of the "WATCHTOWER"
and then add HAWAIIAN PUNCH to the top ... They look NICE in the yard ...
Your present plans will be successful.
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
-- La Rochefoucauld
There is nothing wrong with abstinence, in moderation.
Living in New York City gives people real incentives to want things that
nobody else wants.
-- Andy Warhol
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself.
What's so funny?
Monitored by the American Human Association.
All that which is not liberty is against liberty. Liberty is not a thing that can
be allocated.
-- Joseph Dejacque
A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure
that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with
vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying
'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new
names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an
unnatural entity exist?"
The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are
disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from
its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming
beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?"
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by
the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to
large numbers and prospered.
One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far
as the eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that
was to reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ...
until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox.
The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge
structure reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed
out from under the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when
they began to speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not
understand each other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought
amongst themselves and each went about their own way. To this day the
Topologists remain the original Mathematicians.
-- The Story of Babel
I just remembered something about a TOAD!
QOTD:
"It seems to me that your antenna doesn't bring in too many
stations anymore."
The state is nothing but this domination and this exploitation, well regulated and
systematised.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing
that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker
watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm
myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself
and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?"
"To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process
to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed.
Indiana is a state dedicated to basketball. Basketball, soybeans, hogs and
basketball. Berkeley, needless to say, is not nearly as athletic. Berkeley
is dedicated to coffee, angst, potholes and coffee.
-- Carolyn Jones
Some of them want to use you,
Some of them want to be used by you,
...Everybody's looking for something.
-- Eurythmics
It's as BAD as you think, and they ARE out to get you.
If your aim in life is nothing, you can't miss.
Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.
No prisoner's dilemma here. Over the long term, symbiosis is more
useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria.
-- Larry Wall in <199705102042.NAA00851@wall.org>
My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as
Africa. Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31.
We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in
Africa. Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule: Up at
6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00. Pretty soon we were back in bed by
6:30. Now Africa is full of big game. The first day I shot two bucks. That
was the biggest game we had. Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose
and Knights of Pithiests.
The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their
annual conventions. And you should see them gathered around the water hole,
which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water. They
weren't looking for a water hole. They were looking for an alck hole.
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my
pajamas, I don't know. Then we tried to remove the tusks. That's a tough
word to say, tusks. As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were
imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out. But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa,
but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying.
We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.
So we're going back in a few years...
-- Julius H. Marx [Groucho]
"... I should explain that I was wearing a black velvet cape that was
supposed to make me look like the dashing, romantic Zorro but which actually
made me look like a gigantic bat wearing glasses ..."
-- Dave Barry, "The Wet Zorro Suit and Other Turning
Points in l'Amour"
If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet.
<LIM> mmmm, multitextured donuts....
<knghtbrd> LIM: with fruit filling?
<LIM> knghtbrd: chocolate cream...
Peace

If you offer music and food

Strangers may stop with you;
But if you accord with the Way
All the people of the world will keep you
In safety, health, community, and peace.
The Way lacks art and flavour;
It can neither be seen nor heard,
But its benefit cannot be exhausted.
-- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching"
In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying
of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public view."
I've spent almost all of my life with highly intelligent men. They're not
like other men. Their spirit is great and stimulating. They hate strife;
indeed they reject it. Their inventive gifts are boundless. They demand
devotion and obedience. And a sense of humor. I happily gave all of this.
I was lucky to be chosen and clever enough to understand them.
-- Marlene Dietrich, on her friendship with Ernest Hemingway
Fortune finishes the great quotations, #3

Birds of a feather flock to a newly washed car.

Do not clog intellect's sluices with bits of knowledge of questionable uses.
I think I'm schizophrenic. One half of me's paranoid and the other half's
out to get him.
Given some of the recent threads, the interactive discussions might
need to be conducted on canvas, in the presence of a referee, while
wearing padded gloves. ;-)
-- Phil Hands
If you took all of the grains of sand in the world, and lined
them up end to end in a row, you'd be working for the government!
-- Mr. Interesting
Intel CPUs are not defective, they just act that way.
-- Henry Spencer
Unity is the great goal toward which humanity moves irresistibly.
-- Mikhail Bakunin
God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh.
People love high ideals, but they got to be about 33-percent plausible.
-- The Best of Will Rogers
If you want to know how old a man is, ask his brother-in-law.
MS-DOS, you can't live with it, you can live without it.
-- from Lars Wirzenius' .sig
new, adj.:
Different color from previous model.
Confidant, confidante, n:
One entrusted by A with the secrets of B, confided to himself by C.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from
the vexation of thinking.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1831
When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.
You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.
"I'm a mean green mother from outer space"
-- Audrey II, The Little Shop of Horrors
<JHM> Somehow I have more respect for 14 year old Debian developers than
14 year old Certified Microsoft Serfs.
A CODE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR FOR PATIENTS:

7. PAY YOUR MEDICAL BILLS PROMPTLY AND WILLINGLY.

You should consider it a privilege to contribute, however modestly,
to the well-being of physicians and other humanitarians.

8. DO NOT SUFFER FROM AILMENTS THAT YOU CANNOT AFFORD.

It is sheer arrogance to contract illnesses that are beyond your means.

9. NEVER REVEAL ANY OF THE SHORTCOMINGS THAT HAVE COME TO LIGHT IN THE COURSE
OF TREATMENT BY YOUR DOCTOR.
The patient-doctor relationship is a privileged one, and you have a
sacred duty to protect him from exposure.

10. NEVER DIE WHILE IN YOUR DOCTOR'S PRESENCE OR UNDER HIS DIRECT CARE.
This will only cause him needless inconvenience and embarrassment.
Must be under 48 inches in height.
Do you know the difference between a yankee and a damyankee?

A yankee comes south to *_____#####visit*.

"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug
someone with it."
-- M. Devine, Computer Science 340
Most people want either less corruption or more of a chance to
participate in it.
If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel
in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary
qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted.
-- Marguerite Emmons
There is no such thing as fortune. Try again.
When nothing can possibly go wrong, it will.
Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man --
who has no gills.
-- Ambrose Bierce
Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers.
-- Larry Wall in <199708252256.PAA00105@wall.org>
The FIELD GUIDE to NORTH AMERICAN MALES

SPECIES: Cranial Males

SUBSPECIES: The Hacker (homo computatis)
Courtship & Mating:
Due to extreme deprivation, HOMO COMPUTATIS maintains a near perpetual
state of sexual readiness. Courtship behavior alternates between
awkward shyness and abrupt advances. When he finally mates, he
chooses a female engineer with an unblinking stare, a tight mouth, and
a complete collection of Campbell's soup-can recipes.
Track:
Trash cans full of pale green and white perforated paper and old
copies of the Allen-Bradley catalog.
Comments:
Extremely fond of bad puns and jokes that need long explanations.
He's just like Capistrano, always ready for a few swallows.
There are some potentates I would kill by any and all means at my disposal. They
are ignorance, superstition, and bigotry -- the most sinister and tyrannical rulers
on earth.
-- Emma Goldman
List each check separately by bank number.
<Espy> we need to split main into"core" and "wtf-uses-this"
"Irrationality is the square root of all evil"
-- Douglas Hofstadter
Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying
as an income tax refund.
-- F. J. Raymond
We don't smoke and we don't chew, and we don't go with girls that do.
-- Walter Summers
The meek don't want it.
"How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows."
A witty saying proves nothing.
-- Voltaire
Preserve the old, but know the new.
Air is water with holes in it.
The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later
you're hungry again.
-- George Miller
Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being
that a belch is more satisfying.
 -- Ingmar Bergman
If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.
-- Albert Einstein
Mid-Twenties Breakdown:
A period of mental collapse occurring in one's twenties,
often caused by an inability to function outside of school or
structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential
aloneness in the world. Often marks induction into the ritual of
pharmaceutical usage.
-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture"
The hieroglyphics are all unreadable except for a notation on the back,
which reads "Genuine authentic Egyptian papyrus. Guaranteed to be at
least 5000 years old."
A man was kneeling by a grave in a cemetery, crying and praying very loudly,
"Oh why..eeeee did you die...eeeeee, Oh Why..eeeeee,
why did you Di......eeee"
The caretaker walks up, pardons himself and asks politely,
"Excuse me, sir, but I've been seeing you for hours now,
carrying on at this grave. You must have been very close to the deceased."
"No, I never met him. Oh why....eeeee did you dieeeeee,
why....eeeee did you.."
"Sir, you say you never met this person, yet you carry on so?
Tell, me who is buried here?"
"My wife's first husband."
No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks,
however false.
-- Alexander Hamilton
acme-cannon (3.1415) unstable; urgency=low

* Added safety to prevent operator dismemberment, closes: bug #98765,

bug #98713, #98714.
* Added manpage. closes: #98725.

-- Wile E. Coyote <genius@debian.org> Sun, 31 Jan 1999 07:49:57 -0600

A pickup with three guys in it pulls into the lumber yard. One of the men
gets out and goes into the office.
"I need some four-by-two's," he says.
"You must mean two-by-four's" replies the clerk.
The man scratches his head. "Wait a minute," he says, "I'll go
check."
Back, after an animated conversation with the other occupants of the
truck, he reassures the clerk, that, yes, in fact, two-by-fours would be
acceptable.
"OK," says the clerk, writing it down, "how long you want 'em?"
The guy gets the blank look again. "Uh... I guess I better go
check," he says.
He goes back out to the truck, and there's another animated
conversation. The guy comes back into the office. "A long time," he says,
"we're building a house".
The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
-- William Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing"
...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead
sit in front of your linux computer playing with the all-new-and-improved
linux kernel version.
-- Linus Torvalds
Human resources are human first, and resources second.
-- J. Garbers
Of course, you UNDERSTAND about the PLAIDS in the SPIN CYCLE --
Dammit Jim, I'm an actor, not a doctor.
A fool and his money are soon popular.
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. :-)
-- Larry Wall in <8571@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.
-- Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than
complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.
But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move
mountains.
-- Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
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"
Many are cold, but few are frozen.
"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new
Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..."
Well, he thought, since neither Aristotelian Logic nor the disciplines
of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them...
Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced
only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely,
able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed,
undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no longer
inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished.
All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important,
became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships
not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads strung on a string of their own
meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by
all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming
all others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem,
destroying Subject-Object by becoming them.
Time passed, unheeded.
Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and
Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes.
-- Wayfarer
Your temporary financial embarrassment will be relieved in a surprising manner.
If this were Ada, I suppose we'd just constant fold 1/0 into

die "Illegal division by zero"

-- Larry Wall in <199711100226.SAA12549@wall.org>
"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass."
-- Cal Keegan
I smell like a wet reducing clinic on Columbus Day!
"Send lawyers, guns and money..."
-- Lyrics from a Warren Zevon song
Prerecorded for this time zone.
It is my job in life to travel all roads, so that some may take the road
less travelled, and others the road more travelled, and all have a
pleasant day.
-- Larry Wall in <199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org>
Computers don't actually think.
You just think they think.
(We think.)
The difference between a good haircut and a bad one is seven days.
"Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around,
I'd rather lie around. No contest."
-- Eric Clapton
CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude...
There's amnesia in a hangknot,
And comfort in the ax,
But the simple way of poison will make your nerves relax.
There's surcease in a gunshot,
And sleep that comes from racks,
But a handy draft of poison avoids the harshest tax.
You find rest on the hot squat,
Or gas can give you pax,
But the closest corner chemist has peace in packaged stacks.
There's refuge in the church lot
When you tire of facing facts,
And the smoothest route is poison prescribed by kindly quacks.
Chorus: With an *ugh!* and a groan, and a kick of the heels,
Death comes quiet, or it comes with squeals --
But the pleasantest place to find your end
Is a cup of cheer from the hand of a friend.
-- Jubal Harshaw, "One For The Road"
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-- Carl Sagan
It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.
-- Benjamin Disraeli
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know
how bad I am.
-- Samuel Johnson
Fortune finishes the great quotations, #9

A word to the wise is often enough to start an argument.

Patriotism: a willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
-- Bertrand Russell
Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!!
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn, But ranged as infantry,
We should have sat us down to wet And staring face to face,
Right many a nipperkin! I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because --
Because he was my foe, He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Just so: my foe of course he was; Off-hand-like -- just as I --
That's clear enough; although Was out of work -- had sold his traps
No other reason why.
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is
Or help to half-a-crown."
-- Thomas Hardy
There is no need to think in terms of destroying everything in the belief that
things will look after themselves.
-- Errico Malatesta
... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ...
Without coffee he could not work, or at least he could not have worked in the
way he did. In addition to paper and pens, he took with him everywhere as an
indispensable article of equipment the coffee machine, which was no less
important to him than his table or his white robe.
-- Stefan Zweigs, Biography of Balzac
* knghtbrd is gone - zzz - messages will be snapped like wet towels at all
of the people who have stolen the trademark knghtbrd away message
<Coderjoe> ack
* Coderjoe prepares to defend himself from wet messages
Poverty Jet Set:
A group of people given to chronic traveling at the expense of
long-term job stability or a permanent residence. Tend to have doomed
and extremely expensive phone-call relationships with people named
Serge or Ilyana. Tend to discuss frequent-flyer programs at parties.
-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture"
MMM-MM!! So THIS is BIO-NEBULATION!
guru, n.:
A person in T-shirt and sandals who took an elevator ride with
a senior vice-president and is ultimately responsible for the
phone call you are about to receive from your boss.
Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to
be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
Granted, Win95's look wasn't all that new either - Apple tried to sue
Microsoft for copying the Macintosh UI / trash can icon, until Microsoft
pointed out that Apple got many of its Mac ideas (including the trash can
icon) from Xerox ParcPlace. Xerox is probably still wondering why
everyone is interested in their trash cans.
-- Danny Thorpe, Borland Delphi R&R
It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how
to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair.
-- George Burns
"Oh, 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments such prosperi-ty?"
"Oh, didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,

Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"
"Yes: That's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

"At home in the barton you said `thee' and `thou,'

And `thik oon' and `theas oon' and `t'other;' but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for compa-ny!"
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit like as on any la-dy!"
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,

And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.

"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,

And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
"My dear--a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.
-- Thomas Hardy
To save a single life is better than to build a seven story pagoda.
Tis man's perdition to be safe, when for the truth he ought to die.
We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.
-- Dr. Konrad Adenauer
Do not pick the flowers.
Depart in pieces, i.e., split.
If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
Mater artium necessitas.
[Necessity is the mother of invention].
Don't smoke the next cigarette. Repeat.
Hop along my little friends, up the Withywindle!
Tom's going on ahead candles for to kindle.
Down west sinks the Sun; soon you will be groping.
When the night-shadows fall, then the door will open,
Out of the winfow-panes light will twinkle yellow.
Fear no alder black! Heed no hoary willow!
Fear neither root nor bough! Tom goes on before you.
Hey now! merry dol! We'll be waiting for you!
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
You can't play your friends like marks, kid.
-- Henry Gondorf, "The Sting"
Famous last words:
Old mail has arrived.
If parents would only realize how they bore their children.
-- G. B. Shaw
Peace be to this house, and all that dwell in it.
Ozmosis:
The inability of one's job to live up to one's self-image.
-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture"
Women have no government. Men have organized a government, and they maintain it to
the utter exclusion of women.
-- Victoria Woodhull
"... freedom ... is a worship word..."
"It is our worship word too."
-- Cloud William and Kirk, "The Omega Glory", stardate unknown
PARDON me, am I speaking ENGLISH?
Collaboration, n.:
A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the
other fellow can spell.
The Kosher Dill was invented in 1723 by Joe Kosher and Sam Dill. It is
the single most popular pickle variety today, enjoyed throughout the free
world by man, woman and child alike. An astounding 350 billion kosher
dills are eaten each year, averaging out to almost 1/4 pickle per person
per day. New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton says "The kosher dill
really changed my life. I used to enjoy eating McDonald's hamburgers and
drinking Iron City Lite, and then I encountered the kosher dill pickle.
I realized that there was far more to haute cuisine then I'd ever imagined.
And now, just look at me."
Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.
-- Emma Goldman
As a goatherd learns his trade by goat, so a writer learns his trade by wrote.
Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely,
if ever, do they forgive them.
-- Oscar Wilde
Where crime exists, force must exist to repress it. Who denies it? Certainly not
liberty; certainly not the anarchists.
-- Benjamin Tucker
Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy.
-- Publilius Syrus
Hildebrant's Principle:
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
What is now proved was once only imagin'd.
-- William Blake
Our cause cannot expect me to become a nun and the movement will not be turned into
a cloister.
-- Emma Goldman
Individualist anarchism and communist anarchism are the same, or nearly so, in
terms of moral motivations and ultimate goals.
-- Errico Malatesta
Hiccuping & trembling into the WASTE DUMPS of New Jersey like some
drunken CABBAGE PATCH DOLL, coughing in line at FIORUCCI'S!!
I suppose some of the variation between Boston drivers and the rest of the
country is due to the progressive Massachusetts Driver Education Manual which
I happen to have in my top desk drawer. Some of the Tips for Better Driving
are worth considering, to wit:

[173.15b]:
"When competing for a section of road or a parking space, remember
that the vehicle in need of the most body work has the right-of-way."

[141.2a]:
"Although it is altogether possible to fit a 6' car into a 6'
parking space, it is hardly ever possible to fit a 6' car into
a 5' parking space."

[105.31]:
"Teenage drivers believe that they are immortal, and drive accordingly.
Nevertheless, you should avoid the temptation to prove them wrong."
If the master dies and the disciple grieves, the lives of both have
been wasted.
No one likes us.
I don't know why.
We may not be perfect, We give them money,
But heaven knows we try. But are they grateful?
But all around, No, they're spiteful,
Even our old friends put us down. And they're hateful.
Let's drop the big one, They don't respect us,
And see what happens. So let's surprise them
We'll drop the big one,
And pulverize 'em.
Asia's crowded,
Europe's too old,
Africa is far too hot, We'll save Australia.
And Canada's too cold. Don't wanna hurt no kangaroos.
And South America stole our name We'll build an All-American amusement
Let's drop the big one, park there--
There'll be no one left to blame us. They got surfin', too!

Boom! goes London,

And Boom! Paree.
More room for you,
And more room for me,
And every city,
The whole world round,
Oh, how peaceful it'll be!
We'll set everybody free!
You'll wear a Japanese kimono, babe;
There'll be Italian shoes for me!
Will just be another American town. They all hate us anyhow,
So, let's drop the big one now.
Let's drop the big one now!
-- Randy Newman, "Drop the Big One"
There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous
transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not
been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under
no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: "for
reasons of state."
-- Mikhail Bakunin
Expansion means complexity; and complexity decay.
Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your program
doesn't deliver it.
Serfs up!
-- Spartacus
The greatest danger of bombs is in the explosion of stupidity that they provoke.
-- Octave Mirbeau
Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #25:

Q: You say you had three men punching at you, kicking you, raping you,
and you didn't scream?
A: No ma'am.
Q: Does that mean you consented?
A: No, ma'am. That means I was unconscious.
MARTA WAS WATCHING THE FOOTBALL GAME with me when she said, "You know most
of these sports are based on the idea of one group protecting its
territory from invasion by another group."

"Yeah," I said, trying not to laugh. Girls are funny.

-- Jack Handey, The New Mexican, 1988.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact...
-- Wm. Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is
wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits
that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant?
Is it not a spectacle to make the angels laugh? We are a company of
ignorant beings, feeling our way through mists and darkness, learning only
be incessantly repeated blunders, obtaining a glimmering of truth by
falling into every conceivable error, dimly discerning light enough for
our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe
the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures
to declare that we don't know the map of the universe as well as the map
of our infinitesimal parish, he is hooted, reviled, and perhaps told that
he will be damned to all eternity for his faithlessness...
-- Leslie Stephen, "An agnostic's Apology", Fortnightly Review, 1876
If you look like your driver's license photo -- see a doctor.
If you look like your passport photo -- it's too late for a doctor.
In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because it
usually is. :-)
-- Larry Wall in <1991Jul31.174523.9447@netlabs.com>
"One day I woke up and discovered that I was in love with tripe."
-- Tom Anderson
The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary two;
Or else the other way around.
I'm never sure. Are you?
-- Ogden Nash
Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mice ran up the clock,
The clock struck one,
The others escaped with minor injuries.
I think there's a world market for about five computers.
-- attr. Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, IBM), 1943
Natural laws have no pity.
I'd rather laugh with the sinners,
Than cry with the saints,
The sinners are much more fun!
-- Billy Joel, "Only The Good Die Young"
Heisenberg may have been here.
Cleanliness is next to impossible.
: And it goes against the grain of building small tools.
Innocent, Your Honor. Perl users build small tools all day long.
-- Larry Wall in <1992Aug26.184221.29627@netlabs.com>
The trouble with computers is that they do what you tell them, not what
you want.
-- D. Cohen
If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
-- Louis Armstrong
Do not write below this line.
Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who
can't talk for people who can't read.
-- Frank Zappa
Without Action

Not praising the worthy prevents contention,

Not esteeming the valuable prevents theft,
Not displaying the beautiful prevents desire.
In this manner the sage governs people:
Emptying their minds,
Filling their bellies,
Weakening their ambitions,
And strengthening their bones.
If people lack knowledge and desire
Then they can not act;
If no action is taken
Harmony remains.
-- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching"
Don't get mad, get even.
-- Joseph P. Kennedy

Don't get even, get jewelry.

-- Anonymous
/*
* Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to
* terminate things with extreme prejudice.
*/
die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code);
(From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c)
"Most people would like to be delivered from
temptation but would like it to keep in touch."
-- Robert Orben
Base 8 is just like base 10, if you are missing two fingers.
-- Tom Lehrer
6 oz. orange juice
1 oz. vodka
1/2 oz. Galliano
Harvey Wallbangers
The way some people find fault, you'd think there was some kind of reward.
[He] took me into his library and showed me his books, of which he had
a complete set.
-- Ring Lardner
Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of
interest is easy.
I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can
understand it.
-- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.
-- Publilius Syrus
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
Captain Penny's Law:
You can fool all of the people some of the
time, and some of the people all of the
time, but you can't fool mom.
Go away! Stop bothering me with all your "compute this ... compute that"!
I'm taking a VAX-NAP.

logout#
If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire
deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading
are precisely those that challenge our convictions.
You are scrupulously honest, frank, and straightforward. Therefore you
have few friends.
Zeus gave Leda the bird.
"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a
cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." - H. L. Mencken
There's another way to survive. Mutual trust -- and help.
-- Kirk, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown
Porsche: there simply is no substitute.
-- Risky Business
When a child is taught ... its programmed with simple instructions --
and at some point, if its mind develops properly, it exceeds the sum of
what it was taught, thinks independently.
-- Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer",
stardate 4731.3.
Antonio Antonio
Was tired of living alonio
He thought he would woo Antonio Antonio
Miss Lucamy Lu, Rode of on his polo ponio
Miss Lucamy Lucy Molonio. And found the maid
In a bowery shade,
Sitting and knitting alonio.
Antonio Antonio
Said if you will be my ownio
I'll love tou true Oh nonio Antonio
And buy for you You're far too bleak and bonio
An icery creamry conio. And all that I wish
You singular fish
Is that you will quickly begonio.
Antonio Antonio
Uttered a dismal moanio
And went off and hid
Or I'm told that he did
In the Antartical Zonio.
To use violence is to already be defeated.
-- Chinese proverb
polygon:
Dead parrot.
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3

0. integrated 0. management 0. options

1. total 1. organizational 1. flexibility
2. systematized 2. monitored 2. capability
3. parallel 3. reciprocal 3. mobility
4. functional 4. digital 4. programming
5. responsive 5. logistical 5. concept
6. optional 6. transitional 6. time-phase
7. synchronized 7. incremental 7. projection
8. compatible 8. third-generation 8. hardware
9. balanced 9. policy 9. contingency

The procedure is simple. Think of any three-digit number, then select

the corresponding buzzword from each column. For instance, number 257 produces
"systematized logistical projection," a phrase that can be dropped into
virtually any report with that ring of decisive, knowledgeable authority. "No
one will have the remotest idea of what you're talking about," says Broughton,
"but the important thing is that they're not about to admit it."
-- Philip Broughton, "How to Win at Wordsmanship"
Dijkstra probably hates me
(Linus Torvalds, in kernel/sched.c)
Bubble Memory, n.:
A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence.
See also "vacuum tube".
...you might as well skip the Xmas celebration completely, and instead
sit in front of your linux computer playing with the all-new-and-improved
linux kernel version.
-- Linus Torvalds
Too Late
A large number of turkies [sic] went to San Francisco yesterday by
the two o'clock boats. If their object in going down was to participate in
the Thanksgiving festivities of that city, they would arrive "the day after
the affair," and of course be sadly disappointed thereby.
-- Sacramento Daily Union, November 29, 1861
I never take work home with me; I always leave it in some bar along the way.
You can fool all the people all of the time if the advertising is right
and the budget is big enough.
-- Joseph E. Levine
It's very glamorous to raise millions of dollars, until it's time for the
venture capitalist to suck your eyeballs out.
-- Peter Kennedy, chairman of Kraft & Kennedy.
<cas> Mercury: gpm isn't a very good web browser. fix it.
If you want to be ruined, marry a rich woman.
-- Michelet
You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery,
are now extinct.
-- M. Somerset Maugham
-- I have seen the FUN --
You two ought to be more careful--your love could drag on for years and years.
Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one
young woman and another.
-- George Bernard Shaw, "Major Barbara"
I'm sure that VMS is completely documented, I just haven't found the
right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the document
library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to go), so I
should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember what it
was by the time I find it.
I had this idea for a new horror film, "VMS Manuals from Hell" or maybe
"The Paper Chase : IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds", except
that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of binder
pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally left
blank."
-- Alex Crain
Be consistent.
-- Larry Wall in the perl man page
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish,
and he'll invite himself over for dinner.
-- Calvin Keegan
The surest protection against temptation is cowardice.
-- Mark Twain
I don't know WHY I said that ... I think it came from the FILLINGS in
my rear molars ...
The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and
not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could
have materialized -- and never knowing.
-- David Viscott
Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
When you're dining out and you suspect something's wrong, you're probably right.
pessimist:
A man who spends all his time worrying about how he can keep the
wolf from the door.

optimist:
A man who refuses to see the wolf until he seizes the seat of
his pants.

opportunist:
A man who invites the wolf in and appears the next day in a fur coat.
Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced.
-- John Keats
17th Rule of Friendship:
A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of
life insurance coverage you did for half the price when yours is
noncancellable.
-- Esquire, May 1977
A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.
-- Whitney Balliett
To be awake is to be alive. -- Henry David Thoreau, in "Walden"
"It is better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try, but
the result's the same."
-- Mike Dennison
Is it clean in other dimensions?
When a child is taught ... its programmed with simple instructions --
and at some point, if its mind develops properly, it exceeds the sum of
what it was taught, thinks independently.
-- Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer",
stardate 4731.3.
One evening he spoke. Sitting at her feet, his face raised to her,
he allowed his soul to be heard. "My darling, anything you wish, anything
I am, anything I can ever be... That's what I want to offer you -- not the
things I'll get for you, but the thing in me that will make me able to get
them. That thing -- a man can't renounce it -- but I want to renounce it -- so
that it will be yours -- so that it will be in your service -- only for you."
The girl smiled and asked: "Do you think I'm prettier than Maggie
Kelly?"
He got up. He said nothing and walked out of the house. He never
saw that girl again. Gail Wynand, who prided himself on never needing a
lesson twice, did not fall in love again in the years that followed.
-- Ayn Rand, "The Fountainhead"
"Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par."
-- Dave Mack (mack@inco.UUCP)

"Yours is."
-- Allen Gwinn (allen@sulaco.sigma.com), in alt.flame
QOTD:
"I drive my car quietly, for it goes without saying."
Opposition

To reduce someone's influence, first expand it;

To reduce someone's force, first increase it;
To overthrow someone, first exalt them;
To take from someone, first give to them.
This is the subtlety by which the weak overcome the strong:
Fish should not leave their depths,
And swords should not leave their scabbards.
-- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching"
Anti-Victim Device:
A small fashion accessory worn on an otherwise
conservative outfit which announces to the world that one still has a
spark of individuality burning inside: 1940s retro ties and earrings
(on men), feminist buttons, noserings (women), and the now almost
completely extinct teeny weeny "rattail" haircut (both sexes).
-- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated
Culture"
One day a student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make
a better garbage collector. We must keep a reference count of the pointers
to each cons."
Moon patiently told the student the following story -- "One day a
student came to Moon and said, "I understand how to make a better garbage
collector..."
The Following Subsume All Physical and Human Laws:
(1) You can't push on a string.
(2) Ain't no free lunches.
(3) Them as has, gets.
(4) You can't win them all, but you sure as hell can lose them all.
You will inherit millions of dollars.
K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining;
Cobol's wordy and confining;
KOBOLDS topple when you strike them;
Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them.
-- The Roguelet's ABC
There once was this swami who lived above a delicatessan. Seems one
day he decided to stop in downstairs for some fresh liver. Well, the owner
of the deli was a bit of a cheap-skate, and decided to pick up a little extra
change at his customer's expense. Turning quietly to the counterman, he
whispered, "Weigh down upon the swami's liver!"
>>> FreeOS is an english-centric name

Have you all been stuck in email, or have any of you tried
*pronouncing* that? free-oh-ess? free-ows? fritos? :-)
-- Mark Eichin
Clarity

The origin of the world is its mother;

Understand the mother, and you understand the child;
Embrace the child, and you embrace the mother,
Who will not perish when you die.
Reserve your judgments and words
And you maintain your influence;
Speak your mind and take positions
And nothing will save you.
As observing detail is clarity,
So maintaining flexibility is strength;
Use the light but shed no light,
So that you do yourself no harm,
But embrace clarity.
-- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching"
Eliminating the legal enforcement of DRM -- by criminal, mind, not civil law --
would effectively destroy all business models based on proprietary digital
information.
-- Kevin Carson
Every company complaining about Microsoft's business practices is simply a
rose bush. They look lovely and smell nice. Once a lucky company dethrones
Microsoft they will shed their petals to expose the thorns underneath. A
thorn by any other name would hurt as much.
signal(i, SIG_DFL); /* crunch, crunch, crunch */
-- Larry Wall in doarg.c from the perl source code
The bogosity meter just pegged.
You will attract cultured and artistic people to your home.
Hanged in Chicago, beheaded in Germany, garroted in Jerez, shot in Barcelona,
guillotined in Montbrison and in Paris, our dead are many; but you have not been
able to destroy anarchy.
-- Emile Henry
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save
you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not
bring forth will destroy you.
-- Jesus, "Gnostic Gospels" (Elaine Pagel)
Give me your students, your secretaries,
Your huddled writers yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your Selectric III's.
Give these, the homeless, typist-tossed to me.
I lift my disk beside the processor.
-- Inscription on a Word Processor
FORTRAN is the language of Powerful Computers.
-- Steven Feiner
Everything that you know is wrong, but you can be straightened out.
Yielding

Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water,

Yet nothing can better overcome the hard and strong,
For they can neither control nor do away with it.
The soft overcomes the hard,
The yielding overcomes the strong;
Every person knows this,
But no one can practice it.
Who attends to the people would control the land and grain;
Who attends to the state would control the whole world;
Truth is easily hidden by rhetoric.
-- Lao Tse, "Tao Te Ching"
The rate at which a disease spreads through a corn field is a precise
measurement of the speed of blight.
I give you the man who -- the man who -- uh, I forgets the man who?
-- Beauregard Bugleboy
Rincewind looked down at him and grinned slowly. It was a wide, manic, and
utterly humourless rictus. It was the sort of grin that is normally
accompanied by small riverside birds wandering in and out, picking scraps
out of the teeth.
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Lure of the Wyrm"
Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and
tries to hide behind a beard. No good. There are still too many people
and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking. He moves to the
outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap,
caretaker included. He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants,
day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored.
Nobody's cut the grass in months. What's happened to that caretaker?
What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are
start to get curious. A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper.
Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared. The senior
class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a
movie one night and stays out. The town's up in arms, but just before the
police take action, the kids turn up. They've found a purpose. They go
home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going
now. They're in a band.
-- Ira Kaplan
Don't abandon hope. Your Captain Midnight decoder ring arrives tomorrow.
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Rome was not built in one day.
-- John Heywood
Today, go blossom in the shadow of the dark and sad prisons. Go, bloom near the
somber captive, and tell them truly that we love them. Tell them that through
fleeting time, everything belongs to the future, that the livid conqueror can die
more surely than the conquered.
-- Louise Michel
MY income is ALL disposable!
I think the world is ready for the story of an ugly duckling, who grew up to
remain an ugly duckling, and lived happily ever after.
-- Chick