1 This fortune brought to you by:
4 !07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH
6 (1) Alexander the Great was a great general.
7 (2) Great generals are forewarned.
8 (3) Forewarned is forearmed.
9 (4) Four is an even number.
10 (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have.
11 (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
13 Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.
15 (1) Everything depends.
16 (2) Nothing is always.
17 (3) Everything is sometimes.
19 1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's
22 10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.
24 100 buckets of bits on the bus
26 Take one down, short it to ground
27 FF buckets of bits on the bus
29 FF buckets of bits on the bus
31 Take one down, short it to ground
32 FE buckets of bits on the bus
36 $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at
37 which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.
38 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
40 101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR
41 (1) Scarecrow for centipedes
45 (5) Self-piercing earrings
48 (8) Prosthetic dog claws
52 (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors)
56 186,282 miles per second:
58 It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!
60 2180, U.S. History question:
61 What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what
62 office did he later hold?
66 "355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible
69 3 syncs represent the trinity - init, the child and the eternal zombie
70 process. In doing 3, you're paying homage to each and I think such
71 traditions are important in this shallow, mercurial business we find
75 43rd Law of Computing:
76 Anything that can go wr
77 fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped
79 77. HO HUM -- The Redundant
81 ------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme
82 --- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife
83 ------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working
84 ---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop the
85 ---X--- (9) GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates to
86 --- --- (8) nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex.
88 Nine in the second place means:
89 The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune.
91 Six in the third place means:
92 In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue
93 Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble!
95 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
96 The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National
99 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure)
100 The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the
101 Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus.
103 99 blocks of crud on the disk,
105 You patch a bug, and dump it again:
106 100 blocks of crud on the disk!
108 100 blocks of crud on the disk,
110 You patch a bug, and dump it again:
111 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ...
113 A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
114 "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
117 A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree.
118 Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific
119 game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have
120 traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there,
121 preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass.
124 A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and
125 placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or
126 rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results
127 from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball
128 and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the
129 ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical
133 A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no
134 responsibility at the other.
136 A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.
139 A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out
143 A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining
144 and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
147 A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it
148 adds up to be real money.
149 -- Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen
151 A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.
153 A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
155 A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose.
157 ... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you
158 have turned into a pile of dust.
160 A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have
161 enlightened him with ours.
163 A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well
166 A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the
167 poor to protect them from each other.
169 A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.
171 A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not
172 mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty
173 trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators.
176 A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.
178 A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon.
179 Avoid him. He's a Commie.
181 A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but
182 won't cross the street to vote in a national election.
185 A city is a large community where people are lonesome together
188 A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody
192 A closed mouth gathers no foot.
194 A computer, to print out a fact,
195 Will divide, multiply, and subtract.
196 But this output can be
198 If the input was short of exact.
201 A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
203 A CONS is an object which cares.
206 A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it
207 is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.
209 A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper.
212 A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the
213 damned things is ample.
216 A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
219 A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison
220 And had an affair with a Saracen.
221 She was not oversexed,
223 She just wanted to make a comparison.
225 A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen
229 A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it?
231 A day without sunshine is like night.
233 A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur
236 A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
237 you will look forward to the trip.
239 A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was
240 eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality
241 test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy."
242 Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into
243 the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too".
245 A diva who specializes in risqu'
\be arias is an off-coloratura soprano ...
247 A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing
248 about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their
249 arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon
250 the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because
251 Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply
252 incredible surgical feat."
253 The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the
254 Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of
255 that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an
257 The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said,
258 "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"
260 A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
263 A dozen, a gross, and a score,
264 Plus three times the square root of four,
266 Plus five times eleven,
267 Equals nine squared plus zero, no more.
269 A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a
270 Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser.
271 Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network
272 with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the
273 Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly
274 pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while
275 simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick
276 Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened.
278 A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the
282 A fool must now and then be right by chance.
284 A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into
285 superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.
286 -- George Bernard Shaw
288 A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block
289 of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an
292 A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used.
295 "A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch
296 dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension."
297 -- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"
299 A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
302 A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than
303 he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men
304 favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter
305 facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.
308 A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding
310 -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
312 A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident.
313 A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident.
314 But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *_
\b_
\b_
\b_
\bthat _
\b_
\b_
\bhad _
\b_
\bto _
\b_
\b_
\b_
\bmean _
\b_
\b_
\b_
\b_
\b_
\b_
\b_
\b_
\bsomething*.
315 -- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers"
317 A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort
320 A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened
321 into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the
322 hope of greening the landscape of idea.
325 A good sysadmin always carries around a few feet of fiber. If he ever
326 gets lost, he simply drops the fiber on the ground, waits ten minutes,
327 then asks the backhoe operator for directions.
328 -- Bill Bradford <mrbill@mrbill.net>
330 A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
331 rearranging their prejudices.
334 A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest
337 A hypothetical paradox:
338 What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security
339 team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of
340 Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet?
343 A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears.
344 C is for Clair who wasted away, D is for Desmond thrown out of the sleigh.
345 E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech.
346 G is for George, smothered under a rug, H is for Hector, done in by a thug.
347 I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, J is for James who took lye, by mistake.
348 K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks.
349 M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, N is for Nevil who died of enui.
350 O is for Olive, run through with an awl, P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl
351 Q is for Quinton who sank in a mire, R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire.
352 S is for Susan who parished of fits, T is for Titas who flew into bits.
353 U is for Una who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train.
354 W is for Winie, embedded in ice, X is for Xercies, devoured by mice.
355 Y is for Yoric whose head was bashed in, Z is for Zilla who drank too much gin.
356 -- Edward Gorey "The Gastly Crumb Tines"
358 A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
360 A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide
361 who has the better lawyer.
364 A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.
366 A lady with one of her ears applied
367 To an open keyhole heard, inside,
368 Two female gossips in converse free --
369 The subject engaging them was she.
370 "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks
371 That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
372 As soon as no more of it she could hear
373 The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
374 "I will not stay," she said with a pout,
375 "To hear my character lied about!"
378 A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
381 A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program
382 in than some that do.
385 A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work
386 by being declared to work.
389 A Law of Computer Programming:
390 Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you
391 will find the programmers cannot write in English.
393 A limerick packs laughs anatomical
394 Into space that is quite economical.
395 But the good ones I've seen
397 And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
399 A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of
402 A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
405 A long memory is the most subversive idea in America.
407 A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any
410 A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in
411 his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and
412 exceptional ability in that particular field."
414 A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths.
417 A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I
418 believe everything positively stinks.
421 A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The
422 first thing he notices is that the arms are too long.
423 "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow
424 and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine."
425 "But the collar is up around my ears!"
426 "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a
427 little more ... that's it."
428 "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation.
429 "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you
430 go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly."
431 So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the
432 street. Reba and Florence see him go by.
433 "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!"
434 "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit."
435 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
437 A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!"
439 "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a
440 sense of obligation."
443 A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.
445 A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his
446 novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how
447 insignificant," said the master.
449 "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
451 "It is," came the reply.
453 "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
455 "It is even in a video game," said the master.
457 "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?"
459 The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The
460 lesson is over for today," he said.
461 -- "The Tao of Programming"
463 A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.
465 A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
466 on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
467 game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
468 pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
469 along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
470 heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
471 around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
472 direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the
473 paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
474 colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
475 fall over gently onto their backs.
476 -- Audobon Society Magazine
478 2001-02-02, from http://new.bbc.co.uk:
480 For five weeks, a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
481 monitored 1,000 king penguins on the island of South Georgia as
482 Lynx helicopters passed overhead.
484 "Not one king penguin fell over when the helicopters came over,"
485 said team leader Dr Richard Stone.
487 "As the aircraft approached, the birds went quiet and stopped
488 calling to each other, and adolescent birds that were not associated
489 with nests began walking away from the noise. Pure animal instinct,
492 The conclusion, said Dr Stone, is that flights over 305 metres
493 (1,000 feet) caused "only minor and transitory ecological effects"
496 A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at
497 the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the
498 pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite
499 nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if ..."
500 "If what?" asked the composer.
501 "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"
503 A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out
504 on loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed
505 loudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom
506 do you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?"
508 A new dramatist of the absurd
509 Has a voice that will shortly be heard.
510 I learn from my spies
512 An unprintable three-letter word.
516 If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you.
518 If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you.
520 It is an ice cream koan.
522 A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary.
523 Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now
524 has no excuse for further procrastination.
526 A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies
527 insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the
528 right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them.
530 A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the
531 rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion.
533 A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, which
534 removes most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted to
535 doing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendous
536 amounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardware
537 limitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in the
538 larger systems which require a more involved & less efficient
540 An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for the
541 building, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth has
542 bugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beer
545 A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power
546 off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly:
547 "You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no
548 understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off
549 and on. The machine worked.
551 A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.
553 A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
556 A penny saved is ridiculous.
558 A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.
560 A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.
563 A pig is a jolly companion,
564 Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
565 A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
566 Though mountains may topple and tilt.
567 When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,
568 When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
569 Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover,
570 You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
571 You'll never go wrong with a pig!
572 -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
574 A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
577 For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped
578 to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer
579 be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained
580 would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2
581 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the
582 same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with
583 "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
584 Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
585 with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12
586 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
587 Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi
588 ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz
589 ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
590 Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
591 hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
593 "A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!"
594 -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra"
596 A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
600 It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
602 It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
604 It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City
605 upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come
606 to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
608 And that is Fate? said the priest.
610 Fate ... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
612 That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was
614 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
616 A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came
617 upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope.
618 "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow
620 As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well,
621 he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing."
623 A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
625 "A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis
626 of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite
627 series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric
628 precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from
629 inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical
630 accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality
631 for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly
632 defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the
633 information in the first place."
634 -- IEEE Grid news magazine
636 A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that
637 your wife will give you for free.
639 A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be
640 too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which
641 was intended for her preservation.
644 A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as
645 "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if
646 the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants
647 to make a travesty of the game.
650 "A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked
651 out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon."
654 "A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives."
656 A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:
658 Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying,
659 "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny
660 bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the
661 lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and
662 breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the
663 Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of
664 the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt
665 thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then
666 proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being
667 the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand
668 Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight,
670 -- Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
672 A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices
673 that the system works.
675 A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and
678 A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen
679 objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer
680 scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added
681 concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three
682 dimensional objects ...
684 A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may
685 not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized
688 A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man
689 contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
690 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
692 A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will
693 keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those
694 that are worth committing.
697 A Severe Strain on the Credulity
699 As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest
700 parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket
701 is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one
702 considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one
703 begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really
704 starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor
705 maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left.
706 Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing
707 of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to
708 re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum
709 against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the
710 knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
711 -- New York Times Editorial, 1920
713 A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard
716 ... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he
717 was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.
720 A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
723 A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
727 A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an
730 A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to
731 Greenblatt. As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it
732 true," asked the student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as
733 Lisp?" Almost before the student had finished his question, Greenblatt
734 shouted, "FOO!", and hit the student with a stick.
736 A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something
737 undreamed of by its author.
740 A system admin's life is a sorry one. The only advantage he has over
741 Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare. On the
742 other hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing
743 new versions of their own innards!
746 A tautology is a thing which is tautological.
748 A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention,
749 and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
750 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
752 A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by
755 A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene
758 A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.
760 A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest
764 "A University without students is like an ointment without a fly."
765 -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin
767 A UNIX saleslady, Lenore,
768 Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more.
770 To combine work and play:
771 She sells C shells by the seashore.
773 A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature
775 -- Tennessee Williams
777 A very intelligent turtle
778 Found programming UNIX a hurdle
780 Ran as slow as did he,
781 And that's not saying much for the turtle.
783 A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without
786 A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets
789 "A witty saying proves nothing."
792 "A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to
793 admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact
794 remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one
795 reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It
796 is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of
797 using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these
798 matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times."
799 -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII
801 A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe
805 An organization for drunks who drive
807 \a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\aAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!!
\a
808 You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room!
810 Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.
812 "About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the
816 Absence makes the heart go wander.
819 Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed;
823 A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove
824 himself from the sphere of exaction.
825 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
828 A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a
830 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
833 A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own
835 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
837 Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics,
838 because the stakes are so low.
842 A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of
845 Accidents cause History.
847 If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the
848 Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not
849 have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil
850 could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and
851 the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd.
852 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
854 According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person
855 shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than
856 fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening
857 of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of
860 According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least
863 According to my best recollection, I don't remember.
864 -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo
866 According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are
869 According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never
872 "According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to
873 live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came
874 in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much.
875 Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime."
879 A bagpipe with pleats.
882 The vice of being right
886 Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy
887 schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit
888 spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das
889 rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und
890 vatch das blinkenlights!!!
892 Acid -- better living through chemistry.
894 Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality.
897 A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well
899 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
901 "Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from
904 Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had
905 everyone glued in their seats!"
906 Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of
909 Actor: So what do you do for a living?
910 Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving
911 dishes for Chinese restaurants.
912 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
914 Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.
917 Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in
918 Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA
922 Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
923 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
926 The stage between puberty and adultery.
928 "Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look
933 To venerate expectantly.
934 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
937 One old enough to know better.
939 Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest
940 way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
943 Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic,
944 then at least be asceptic.
946 After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose
947 names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary
948 Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted
949 many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi
950 Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two
951 different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current
952 developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer
953 attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led
954 to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today,
955 skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously
956 injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it
957 hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact
958 that it sinks like a stone.
959 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
961 After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out.
962 It was replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life
963 more advanced than the lichen family.
964 -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly
967 After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.
969 "... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known
971 -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare
973 After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not
974 for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have
975 simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.
978 After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found
981 After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from
982 Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought,
983 and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon
985 "This is true," He replied.
986 "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly.
987 "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the
988 right to make his laws?"
989 "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to
992 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
994 "After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of
995 the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the
996 cost to others, to win advancement."
999 After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK?
1001 After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe
1002 everything. Just in case.
1004 After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access
1005 cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been
1008 Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a
1012 That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the
1015 Age before beauty; and pearls before swine.
1019 That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we
1020 still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise
1024 Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.
1026 Ah, but the choice of dreams to live,
1029 For all dreams are not equal,
1030 some exit to nightmare
1031 most end with the dreamer
1033 But at least one must be lived ... and died.
1035 "Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the
1036 Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact
1037 that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately
1038 unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep
1039 up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers."
1040 -- A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comic
1042 Air is water with holes in it
1044 Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
1045 -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed
1047 Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire
1048 telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New
1049 York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?
1050 And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
1051 receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
1054 (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause
1056 (2) Always be backlit.
1057 (3) Sit down whenever possible.
1059 Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall,
1060 Aleph-null bottles of beer,
1061 You take one down, and pass it around,
1062 Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.
1064 Alex Haley was adopted!
1066 Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting
1069 Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of
1070 them keeps paying for it.
1073 All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent
1074 upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a
1075 visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is
1076 informing, stimulating and ennobling.
1079 All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely
1083 All extremists should be taken out and shot.
1085 All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing
1088 "All flesh is grass"
1090 Smoke a friend today.
1092 All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
1094 All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own
1097 All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled
1098 by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ...
1100 All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power
1101 -- Ashleigh Brilliant
1103 All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are
1107 "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us
1110 "All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more
1114 All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
1115 -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
1117 All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of
1121 All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
1123 All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
1125 All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of
1126 every organism to live beyond its income.
1129 All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
1132 "All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right
1136 All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.
1138 All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can,
1139 too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you
1140 subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you
1141 can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S.
1142 Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax
1143 decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What
1145 -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
1147 "... all the modern inconveniences ..."
1150 All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most
1154 All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by
1155 the government in less than a second.
1158 All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
1161 All the world's a VAX,
1162 And all the coders merely butchers;
1163 They have their exits and their entrails;
1164 And one int in his time plays many widths,
1165 His sizeof being _
\bN bytes. At first the infant,
1166 Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms.
1167 And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun,
1168 And shining morning face, creeping like slug
1169 Unwillingly to school.
1170 -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11
1172 All theoretical chemistry is really physics;
1173 and all theoretical chemists know it.
1174 -- Richard P. Feynman
1176 All things are possible, except skiing thru a revolving door.
1178 All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for
1179 fun. Money's just the way we keep score.
1181 All true wisdom is found on T-shirts.
1183 All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes
1184 infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in
1189 In international politics, the union of two thieves who have
1190 their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot
1191 separately plunder a third.
1192 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1196 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1198 Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight
1199 Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
1202 Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
1204 Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios,
1205 mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have
1206 any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place
1207 to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer,
1208 Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a
1209 serious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by the
1210 same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely
1211 that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A
1212 penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job
1213 running the post office.
1214 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
1216 Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been
1217 reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the
1218 day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable
1219 interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on
1220 pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin,
1221 and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.
1222 Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous
1223 material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the
1224 management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion
1225 the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical
1227 -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959)
1229 Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid
1232 Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.
1234 "Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing
1237 Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves.
1239 AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
1241 If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end
1242 across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful.
1244 AMAZING BUT TRUE ...
1246 There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it
1247 would completely cover the Sahara Desert.
1250 Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.
1251 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1253 Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
1256 America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism
1257 to decadence without touching civilization.
1260 America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him,
1261 until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and
1262 changed its name to "America".
1263 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
1265 American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective
1266 employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for
1267 employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference
1268 between the men's room and the women's room without having little
1269 pictures on the doors.
1270 -- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister"
1272 "Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it."
1274 An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because
1275 people refuse to see it.
1276 -- James Michener, "Space"
1278 An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but
1279 is always polite to traffic cops.
1281 "An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to
1282 New Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but
1283 not new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax."
1286 An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away.
1288 An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He
1289 knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with
1291 As he designs the first work, frill after frill and
1292 embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away
1293 to be used "next time". Sooner or later the first system is finished,
1294 and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of
1295 that class of systems, is ready to build a second system.
1296 This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs.
1297 When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will
1298 confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems,
1299 and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that
1300 are particular and not generalizable.
1301 The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using
1302 all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first
1303 one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile".
1304 -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"
1306 An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it.
1308 An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree
1309 murder. "Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's
1310 mutilated body into a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border.
1311 Just north of Tijuana a cop spotted her hand sticking out of the
1312 suitcase. Now, I would like to stress that my client is *not* a
1313 murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..."
1315 An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you
1316 really care to know.
1318 An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.
1320 An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.
1322 An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded
1323 summation, leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your
1324 arguments, Sir Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey
1325 responded, "That may be, Milord, but at least you're better informed!"
1327 An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose.
1330 An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. He
1331 wears a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is
1332 advertised only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and
1333 Rich Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in
1334 incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote
1337 "The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and
1338 discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able
1339 to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting
1340 things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch
1341 parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a
1342 timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who
1343 doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful.
1344 Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high
1345 school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as
1346 successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and
1347 they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha."
1348 -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
1350 An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future.
1352 "... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often
1356 An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of these
1357 eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as
1359 -- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann"
1361 An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.
1363 An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity
1364 in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him.
1365 "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if
1366 you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like
1367 an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an
1368 hour seems like a minute."
1369 The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a
1370 moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?"
1371 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
1373 "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge."
1375 Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no
1378 And as we stand on the edge of darkness
1379 Let our chant fill the void
1380 That others may know
1382 In the land of the night
1387 -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC.
1389 ... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers.
1391 And I heard Jeff exclaim,
1392 As they strolled out of sight,
1393 "Merry Christmas to all --
1394 You take credit cards, right?"
1395 -- "Outsiders" comic
1397 ... And malt does more than Milton can
1398 To justify God's ways to man
1401 And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode.
1403 "... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of
1405 -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter
1408 And so, men, we can see that human skin is an even more complex and
1409 fascinating organ than we thought it was, and if we want to keep it
1410 looking good, we have to care for it as though it were our own. One
1411 approach is to undergo a painful surgical procedure wherein your skin
1412 is turned inside-out, so the young cells are on the outside, but then
1413 of course you have the unpleasant side effect that your insides
1414 gradually fill up with dead old cells and you explode. So this
1415 procedure is pretty much limited to top Hollywood stars for whom
1416 youthful beauty is a career necessity, such as Elizabeth Taylor and
1418 -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
1420 "...and the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely a
1423 And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a
1424 horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical
1425 columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory,
1426 ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the
1428 -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men"
1430 "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?"
1431 asked the father of his little son.
1434 And yet, seasons must be taken with a grain of salt, for they too have
1435 a sense of humor, as does history. Corn stalks comedy, comedy stalks
1436 tragedy, and this too is historic. And yet, still, when corn meets
1437 tragedy face to face, we have politics.
1438 -- Dalglish, Larsen and Sutherland, "Root Crops and
1441 Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes.
1442 Galileo: No, unhappy the land that _____
\b\b\b\b\bneeds heroes.
1443 -- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo"
1445 Angels we have heard on High
1446 Tell us to go out and Buy.
1449 Ankh if you love Isis.
1452 To grease a king or other great functionary already
1453 sufficiently slippery.
1454 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1456 Another Glitch in the Call
1457 ------- ------ -- --- ----
1458 (Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.)
1460 We don't need no indirection
1461 We don't need no flow control
1462 No data typing or declarations
1463 Did you leave the lists alone?
1465 Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
1468 All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
1469 All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
1471 Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
1473 Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but
1474 television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom
1475 and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that
1476 offers whiter teeth *___
\b\b\band* fresher breath.
1477 -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly
1480 Answers to Last Fortune's Questions:
1482 (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark).
1483 (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle.
1486 (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk,
1487 Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5.
1488 (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my
1489 book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and
1490 bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of
1493 Anthony's Law of Force:
1494 Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
1496 Anthony's Law of the Workshop:
1497 Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible
1498 corner of the workshop.
1501 On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike
1505 The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.
1507 Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.
1510 Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a
1511 representation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a
1512 representation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by anyone
1513 capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously.
1516 Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
1519 Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that
1520 this country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a
1523 Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to
1526 Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche
1527 -- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance,
1528 my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off
1529 the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was
1533 Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.
1536 Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger
1539 Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to
1540 exactly the point of most pressure.
1543 Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
1546 Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
1549 Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
1552 Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
1555 Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.
1556 -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
1558 Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry.
1560 Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is
1563 Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire.
1565 Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is
1566 supposed to be doing at the moment.
1569 Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
1572 Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with
1575 Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
1576 is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
1577 make messes in the house.
1578 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
1580 Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
1583 Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad.
1586 Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no
1587 account be allowed to do the job.
1588 -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
1590 Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never
1591 tried taking candy from a baby.
1594 Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
1596 Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the
1597 price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW"
1598 means the price went way up.
1600 Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate.
1602 Anything worth doing is worth overdoing
1604 "Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution"
1607 A concise, clever statement.
1609 A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late.
1610 -- James Alexander Thom
1612 APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of
1613 the future for the problems of the past: it creates a new generation of
1616 "APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I
1617 can't read any of them."
1621 Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off
1623 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
1625 AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
1626 You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive.
1627 You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to
1628 be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same
1629 mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid.
1631 Arbitrary systems, pl.n.:
1632 Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing
1633 general can be said."
1635 ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE --
1636 FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE
1640 "Arguments with furniture are rarely productive."
1641 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
1643 ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19)
1644 You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You
1645 are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are
1648 Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your
1653 To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle
1655 Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
1656 (1) If it should exist, it doesn't.
1657 (2) If it does exist, it's out of date.
1658 (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the
1661 Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to
1662 measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you
1663 imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long?
1664 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
1666 Art is anything you can get away with.
1667 -- Marshall McLuhan.
1669 Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
1672 Arthur's Laws of Love:
1673 (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you
1674 remind them of someone else.
1675 (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be
1676 delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of
1679 Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum.
1681 As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who are
1682 interested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sick
1683 perverted disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask,
1684 "that you make jokes about setting fire to a goat?" ...
1685 -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
1687 "As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual
1688 certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I
1689 became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can
1693 As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
1694 certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
1697 As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.
1700 As I was going up Punch Card Hill,
1701 Feeling worse and worser,
1702 There I met a C.R.T.
1703 And it drop't me a cursor.
1706 Phosphors light on you!
1707 If I had fifty hours a day
1708 I'd spend them all at you.
1710 -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes
1712 As I was passing Project MAC,
1713 I met a Quux with seven hacks.
1714 Every hack had seven bugs;
1715 Every bug had seven manifestations;
1716 Every manifestation had seven symptoms.
1717 Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks,
1718 How many losses at Project MAC?
1720 As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great
1721 industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free
1722 speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to
1723 myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a
1724 real American talk like that.
1725 -- Frank Hague (1896-1956)
1727 As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?
1729 As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its
1730 fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be
1734 As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code.
1736 "As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500
1737 programs; a process that traditionally requires some debugging."
1738 -- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover to a new
1741 As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it
1742 wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had
1743 to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized
1744 that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in
1745 finding mistakes in my own programs.
1746 -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949
1748 As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's
1749 so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
1752 As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there
1753 is always a future in Computer Maintenance.
1754 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
1756 As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free
1759 As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple
1760 memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time
1761 to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A,
1762 E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.
1763 -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion"
1765 As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would
1766 interfere with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the
1767 Wright Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure
1768 out how to get their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on
1769 Wilbur. "Orville," he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual
1770 organs!" You should have seen their original design.] As a result,
1771 birds are very, very difficult to arouse sexually. You almost never
1772 see an aroused bird. So when they want to reproduce, birds fly up and
1773 stand on telephone lines, where they monitor telephone conversations
1774 with their feet. When they find a conversation in which people are
1775 talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they are both
1776 highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant.
1777 -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
1780 As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull
1781 your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you.
1782 The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along
1783 with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall
1784 from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all
1785 over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of
1786 a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the
1787 spider is suing you for damages.
1789 As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself."
1791 ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS.
1793 Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if
1794 one went to Harvard).
1797 Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.
1799 Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only the
1800 Station-to-Station rate.
1802 Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in the
1803 bathtub, it tolls for thee.
1805 Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell"
1808 "Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-old
1809 woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, `The way I look at it,
1810 she's the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds.'"
1814 The masculine of "lass".
1816 Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve.
1817 Run with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be
1818 strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a bum.
1819 Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check
1823 "At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los
1824 Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head
1825 under the exhaust of a bus until he revived."
1827 At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is
1828 not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where
1829 it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest.
1830 -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow
1832 At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial
1833 challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
1834 -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985
1836 ... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand.
1839 "At least they're ___________
\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\bEXPERIENCED incompetents"
1841 At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his
1842 thumb with a hammer.
1845 At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will
1846 find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on
1849 Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole
1852 Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason.
1853 -- Winston Churchill
1855 Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever
1856 depths they were once able to plumb.
1860 A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down
1863 Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep.
1864 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
1866 Avoid reality at all costs.
1868 "Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but
1869 we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you."
1870 -- Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a Kent State student
1873 A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for
1875 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1878 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually
1879 intermittently. 2. adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This
1880 bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar." Usage: verges on
1881 obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting the
1882 bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS,
1885 Bagdikian's Observation:
1886 Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American
1887 newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a
1890 Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry:
1891 A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides
1894 Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
1897 The removal of bruises on a banana.
1898 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
1900 Bank error in your favor. Collect $200.
1903 An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own
1906 Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the
1907 floor -- especially in the dark.
1910 An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we
1912 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
1914 Barth's Distinction:
1915 There are two types of people: those who divide people into two
1916 types, and those who don't.
1918 Baruch's Observation:
1919 If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
1921 Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game -- it, and high
1925 Basic is a high level languish.
1926 APL is a high level anguish.
1928 "BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'."
1931 A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in
1932 that those who have it will not admit it in polite company.
1935 The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water
1936 faucet is turned on to a certain point.
1937 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
1939 Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your
1942 BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...)
1944 Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely
1945 get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your
1947 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
1949 Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
1951 Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint.
1954 Be different: conform.
1956 Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so
1959 Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake.
1961 Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and
1963 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
1965 Bees are very busy souls
1966 They have no time for birth controls
1967 And that is why in times like these
1968 There are so many Sons of Bees.
1970 Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and
1971 took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his
1973 One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and
1974 there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
1975 "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his
1976 commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your
1977 Purpose in Life, anyway?"
1978 Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The
1979 Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)
1980 Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.
1981 Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.
1982 -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"
1984 Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's
1988 A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money so
1989 you won't have to watch commercials.
1991 Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh
1994 Beifeld's Principle:
1995 The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and
1996 receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is
1997 already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better
1998 looking and richer male friend.
2000 "Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" <huff, huff>
2002 Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
2004 Bennett's Laws of Horticulture:
2005 (1) Houses are for people to live in.
2006 (2) Gardens are for plants to live in.
2007 (3) There is no such thing as a houseplant.
2009 "Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence"
2012 Berkeley had what we called "copycenter," which is "take it down
2013 to the copy center and make as many copies as you want."
2016 Besides the device, the box should contain:
2018 * Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING"
2020 * A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two
2021 club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.
2023 YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram
2026 IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your
2027 spouse and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car
2028 that can get all the way through the drive-through at Burger King
2029 without a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's
2032 WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret.
2033 -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
2035 Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon.
2040 santa claus <north pole >town
2042 cat /etc/passwd >list
2045 cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
2046 cat list | grep nice >giftlist
2047 santa claus <north pole > town
2051 who | egrep 'bad|good'
2052 for (goodness sake) {
2056 Better dead than mellow.
2058 Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson
2059 Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate.
2060 Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and
2061 great effort pushing boulders into a single word.
2063 It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow.
2064 Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin
2065 equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the
2066 destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass
2067 both Parliament and Party.
2069 It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other
2070 planets, this may be the first message received from us.
2071 -- The Realist, November, 1964.
2073 "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
2077 Beware of computerized fortune-tellers!
2079 Beware of low-flying butterflies.
2081 Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.
2082 -- Leonard Brandwein
2084 Beware of self-styled experts: an ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a
2085 drip under pressure.
2087 "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and
2088 finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of
2089 murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by
2090 their ignorance the hard way."
2091 -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"
2093 Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but
2094 nothing of interest is easy.
2097 Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes.
2099 "Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same
2103 Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo,
2107 The first and direst of all disasters.
2108 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2110 Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic
2113 The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up a
2115 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
2117 ... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ...
2119 Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.
2121 Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as
2126 Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
2128 Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier.
2131 Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is
2134 Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in
2135 plain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has
2136 it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was
2137 arrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people kept
2138 throwing up on them.
2141 If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.
2143 Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom:
2144 Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so
2145 vividly manifests their lack of progress.
2147 Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:
2148 Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
2150 BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH!
2153 You always find something in the last place you look.
2156 A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary.
2160 A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
2161 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2164 (1) When in charge, ponder.
2165 (2) When in trouble, delegate.
2166 (3) When in doubt, mumble.
2169 According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages
2170 the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss,
2171 in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an
2174 Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System. You couldn't pry
2175 that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation
2176 straightened out for a crowbar.
2180 Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for
2181 finishing second in the Irish jig competition.
2183 Boy, life takes a long time to live
2187 A noise with dirt on it.
2189 Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least
2190 when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.
2193 Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.
2196 Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the
2197 unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only
2198 (gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend
2199 to think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.'
2200 -- Mike Padlipsky, Foreword to "Elements of Networking
2204 If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a
2205 committee -- that will do them in.
2207 Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
2208 When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
2209 easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have
2212 Brain fried -- Core dumped
2215 The apparatus with which we think that we think.
2216 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2218 Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]:
2219 To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of
2220 error in an opponent.
2221 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2223 Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests,
2224 since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind.
2225 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
2228 A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
2229 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2231 Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may
2232 revitalize the corner saloon.
2235 The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of
2236 Britain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by
2237 Sargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They further
2238 believe that the future can be foretold by the measurements of the
2239 Great Pyramid, which probably means it will be big and yellow and in
2240 the hand of the Arabs. They also believe that if you sleep with your
2241 head under the pillow a fairy will come and take all your teeth.
2242 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
2244 Broad-mindedness, n.:
2245 The result of flattening high-mindedness out.
2247 Brontosaurus Principle:
2248 Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them
2249 in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when
2250 this occurs, they are an endangered species.
2251 -- Thomas K. Connellan
2254 Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
2257 Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool
2258 discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it
2262 1: Kill by nailing onto style(9); "David O'Brien was brucified"
2263 2: Annoy constantly by reminding of potential improvements
2264 [syn: {torment}, {rag}, {tantalize}, {bedevil}, {dun},
2266 3: Fix problems that were indicated in an earlier brucification
2267 (of one of the two other meanings).
2268 The word 'brucify' originally comes from the style-reviews of Bruce
2269 Evans of the FreeBSD project, but is now also sometimes used for
2270 reviews just done in his spirit.
2273 A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's
2274 intelligence. See also "vacuum tube".
2277 Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
2280 An aspect of a computer program which exists because the
2281 programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he
2284 Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed.
2288 Small living things that small living boys throw on small
2291 BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the
2293 GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?"
2294 BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive..."
2299 "All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British
2303 A person who cuts red tape sideways.
2307 A politician who has tenure.
2309 Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise.
2311 Burn's Hog Weighing Method:
2312 (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a
2314 (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank.
2315 (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again
2317 (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.
2320 ... But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can
2321 easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed
2322 and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession)
2323 upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was
2324 without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based
2325 on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court
2326 was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and
2327 sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches,
2328 human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
2329 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2331 "But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations
2334 "But I don't like Spam!!!!"
2336 ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human
2337 intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as
2338 we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues
2339 that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding
2340 of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard
2341 example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads --
2342 makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing
2343 whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a
2344 finite or an infinite number.
2345 -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"
2347 But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the
2348 system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed,
2349 analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.
2350 -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing
2353 "But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coast
2354 to the nearest gas station."
2356 But scientists, who ought to know
2357 Assure us that it must be so.
2358 Oh, let us never, never doubt
2359 What nobody is sure about.
2362 But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
2363 Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
2364 But get thee to a nunnery -- go!
2365 -- Mark "The Bard" Twain
2367 But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who
2368 was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal
2369 education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in
2370 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of
2371 American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was
2372 invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he
2373 invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant
2374 adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends
2375 electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the
2376 electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant
2377 part) sends it right back to the customer again.
2379 This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch
2380 of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since
2381 very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely.
2382 In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United
2383 States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it
2384 ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate
2386 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
2388 "But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad
2389 place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge.
2390 Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a
2391 kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs,
2392 poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I
2393 explained yet about the bytes?"
2395 ... But we've only fondled the surface of that subject.
2398 "But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable
2401 Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes
2402 Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn;
2403 Less dear than army ants in apple pies
2404 Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn,
2405 Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit;
2406 Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose
2407 They suck, and like the double-breasted suit
2408 Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose,
2409 Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed;
2410 And stem the produce of thy waspish wits:
2411 Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed;
2412 Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits.
2413 Be off, I say; go bug somebody new,
2414 Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you.
2416 By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
2417 completely overwhelm you.
2419 "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact,
2420 it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to
2421 invent. (R. Emerson)"
2422 -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program
2423 (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.")
2424 [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to
2425 misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"]
2427 "By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began
2428 to suspect 'Hungry' ..."
2429 -- Gary Larson, "The Far Side"
2431 By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's, I
2435 Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to
2436 point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very
2437 fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are
2438 often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people
2439 from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B
2440 that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____
\b\b\b\b\bthere. They often
2441 wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell
2443 -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
2446 A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more
2447 like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or
2448 anything else. It is either the best language available to the art
2453 A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as
2455 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2457 "Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception."
2458 -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989
2461 When all else fails, read the instructions.
2463 California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange.
2467 From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or
2468 Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or
2469 "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex."
2472 Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
2475 "Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target
2476 Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept."
2478 "Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle."
2479 -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth
2481 "Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth
2485 Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two
2489 Canada Bill Jone's Motto:
2490 It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.
2493 A .44 magnum beats four aces.
2495 Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents
2496 for postage and 30 cents for storage.
2497 -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial
2500 Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?
2501 Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
2502 A root or two, a torus and a node:
2503 The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
2504 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
2506 CANCER (June 21 - July 22)
2507 You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's
2508 problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things
2509 off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare
2510 recipients are Cancer people.
2513 The usual or standard state or manner of something. A true
2514 story: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some
2515 annoyance at the use of jargon. Over his loud objections, we made a
2516 point of using jargon as much as possible in his presence, and
2517 eventually it began to sink in. Finally, in one conversation, he used
2518 the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion without thinking.
2519 Steele: "Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!"
2520 Stallman: "What did he say?"
2521 Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way."
2523 CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19)
2524 You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do
2525 much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any
2526 importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as
2527 they take root and become trees.
2529 Captain Penny's Law:
2530 You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of
2531 the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.
2533 Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than
2534 expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to
2535 complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their
2536 planning to reduce the time it takes.
2538 Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and
2539 trousers that don't match.
2541 Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.:
2542 The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a
2543 dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then
2544 putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
2545 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
2548 Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer.
2550 Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.
2553 Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.
2555 CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh..
2557 Cecil, you're my final hope
2558 Of finding out the true Straight Dope
2559 For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat
2560 But none of my cats are at all like that.
2561 This unusual animal (so it is said)
2562 Is simultaneously alive and dead!
2563 What I don't understand is just why he
2564 Can't be one or the other, unquestionably.
2565 My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
2566 In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't.
2567 If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way
2568 And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
2569 But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
2570 Then I will *___
\b\b\band* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo.
2571 -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium
2572 of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams
2574 Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch.
2576 Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the
2577 center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation
2578 works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool.
2579 -- Kelvin Throop III
2581 Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so,
2584 Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel.
2585 Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something
2586 Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy
2589 Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy?
2590 -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret"
2592 Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long
2593 walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They
2594 then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
2595 health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
2596 not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find
2597 only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
2598 others who have tried it.
2599 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2601 Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny--
2602 Did you ever try buying them without money?
2609 In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot
2610 of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
2612 Character Density, n.:
2613 The number of very weird people in the office.
2616 The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year's Day and
2617 ends when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his
2621 Any cook who swears in French.
2624 Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.
2626 Chemistry is applied theology.
2627 -- Augustus Stanley Owsley III
2629 Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire.
2631 Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #36:
2632 Never ever ask the tough looking gentleman wearing El Rukn
2633 headgear where he got his "pyramid powered pizza warmer".
2634 -- Chicago Reader 3/27/81
2636 Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #84:
2637 The CTA has complimentary pop-up timers available on request
2638 for overheated passengers. When your timer pops up, the driver will
2639 cheerfully baste you.
2640 -- Chicago Reader 5/28/82
2643 Where the dead still vote ... early and often!
2645 Chicken Little only has to be right once.
2647 Chicken Little was right.
2650 An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin,
2651 cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure
2652 is neurotic dependence on one's mother.
2653 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
2655 Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every
2656 effort to teach them good manners.
2658 Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're
2659 going to catch you in next.
2660 -- Franklin P. Jones
2662 Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
2663 And that's what parents were created for.
2666 Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for
2667 word what you shouldn't have said.
2669 Chism's Law of Completion:
2670 The amount of time required to complete a government project is
2671 precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it.
2673 Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
2674 When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
2676 Chivalry, Schmivalry!
2677 Roger the thief has a
2680 Folks who are reading are
2682 Always Forgetting to
2683 Guard their own bac ...
2686 A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time.
2688 Churchill's Commentary on Man:
2689 Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the
2690 time he will pick himself up and continue on.
2693 A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in
2697 The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which
2698 covers the floors of movie theaters.
2699 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
2702 A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that
2703 which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead.
2706 Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like
2707 shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
2710 Cleanliness is next to impossible.
2712 Cleveland still lives. God ____
\b\b\b\bmust be dead.
2714 "Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day."
2716 Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.
2718 Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on
2722 COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance.
2724 Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan.
2726 Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum --
2727 "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am."
2728 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2730 "Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong."
2734 You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was
2737 Coincidences are spiritual puns.
2741 When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions.
2744 When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own
2748 A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the
2749 other fellow can spell.
2751 College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the
2752 faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if
2753 the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms,
2754 legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the
2758 Colvard's Logical Premises:
2759 All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it
2762 Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary:
2763 This is especially true when dealing with someone you're
2767 Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you.
2769 Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,
2770 And every vector dreams of matrices.
2771 Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
2772 It whispers of a more ergodic zone.
2773 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
2775 Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,
2776 Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
2777 Their indices bedecked from one to _
\bn,
2778 Commingled in an endless Markov chain!
2779 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
2782 Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in
2783 such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control.
2787 Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
2788 A medley of extemporanea;
2789 And love is thing that can never go wrong;
2790 And I am Marie of Roumania.
2794 Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs.
2795 The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.
2798 (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.
2799 (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this
2800 stamps you as being wise.
2801 (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the
2803 (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.
2804 (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you
2805 popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for.
2808 A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group
2809 decide that nothing can be done.
2812 Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to
2813 be appointed to do the work.
2815 Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at
2816 different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
2819 Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius.
2822 Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
2825 Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness
2826 of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule."
2829 Computer programmers do it byte by byte
2831 Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems
2834 Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
2836 Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
2839 Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in
2840 the world that just don't add up.
2842 Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more
2843 than the estimate the job will cost.
2845 Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
2849 Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than
2852 ... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___
\b\b\bdid* quote anybody in this
2853 business, it probably would be gibberish.
2856 Condense soup, not books!
2858 Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is
2862 Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the
2865 Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that
2866 would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that
2867 you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer
2868 maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS
2869 OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY
2870 UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED
2871 IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD
2872 WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND
2873 SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS,
2874 RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS,
2875 RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE
2876 FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?
2877 -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
2879 Connector Conspiracy, n:
2880 [probably came into prominence with the appearance of the
2881 KL-10, none of whose connectors match anything else] The tendency of
2882 manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything)
2883 to come up with new products which don't fit together with the old
2884 stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive
2887 Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.
2890 Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking
2893 Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
2895 Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you
2898 "Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich."
2899 -- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones]
2901 Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then
2902 give it back to them.
2904 "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and
2905 if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"
2906 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
2908 "Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern
2909 technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat."
2912 A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath
2913 is called the listener.
2916 In any organization there will always be one person who knows
2919 This person must be fired.
2922 The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and
2923 visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite
2925 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2928 In politics, holding an office of trust or profit.
2930 Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a
2931 muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can
2935 Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job
2936 is to enforce the law and fight crime.
2937 -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan
2940 A place where they dispense with justice.
2944 One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.
2945 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2947 Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with
2948 nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.
2949 -- Wernher von Braun
2951 Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.
2955 A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries
2957 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2960 If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of?
2964 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
2966 "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
2967 eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
2968 business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
2971 "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
2972 eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
2973 business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
2977 A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not
2978 as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking
2979 out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
2980 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2983 One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced
2987 -- R. Buckminster Fuller
2989 Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie.
2991 Dave Mack: "Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par."
2992 Allen Gwinn: "Yours is."
2995 The time when men of reason go to bed.
2996 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
2998 Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed.
3000 %DCL-E-MEMBAD, bad memory
3001 -SYSTEM-F-VMSPDGERS, pudding between the ears
3003 Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also
3004 easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to
3008 I just want *___
\b\b\bone* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On
3009 the other hand", again.
3012 My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's
3013 elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between
3014 courses, is all right. Which is correct?
3017 For the purpose of answering examinations in your home
3018 economics class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this
3019 principle of education may be of even greater importance to you now
3020 than learning correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners
3024 Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from
3028 Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on
3031 Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part
3032 of this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old
3033 will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a
3034 commercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as
3035 "Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on a
3036 table next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always
3037 says: "Part of this complete breakfast". Don't that really mean,
3038 "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as this
3039 complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claim
3040 if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a
3044 -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
3046 Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?
3048 Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business
3049 signs to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a
3050 word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR
3051 ANY ITEM'S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when
3052 creating hand- lettered small-business signs is that you should put
3053 quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT
3054 DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.
3055 -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
3057 Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy.
3059 Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired.
3062 Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings.
3064 "Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'".
3066 Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down
3068 Death is only a state of mind.
3070 Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else.
3072 Death to all fanatics!
3075 The person in your office who was unable to form a task force
3076 before the music stopped.
3078 Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really
3079 overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene
3080 language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the
3081 judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when
3082 addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang).
3083 -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing
3086 Deck Us All With Boston Charlie
3088 Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
3089 Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!
3090 Nora's freezin' on the trolley,
3091 Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo!
3093 Don't we know archaic barrel,
3094 Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou.
3095 Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
3096 Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!
3099 "Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts of
3100 marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a
3101 theory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah,
3102 those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly
3107 [Possibly from Black English "De fault wid dis system is you,
3108 mon."] The vain attempt to avoid errors by inactivity. "Nothing will
3109 come of nothing: speak again." -- King Lear.
3110 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
3112 #define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255)
3113 #define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \
3114 - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \
3115 - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111))
3117 -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word
3119 Definitions of hardware and software for dummies:
3121 Hardware is what you kick;
3122 Software is what you curse.
3126 Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like
3127 to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to
3128 "fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure it
3132 The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is
3134 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3136 "Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow."
3138 Demand the establishment of the government
3139 in its rightful home at Disneyland.
3141 Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than
3143 -- George Bernard Shaw
3145 Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder
3146 aloud what the country could do under first-class management.
3149 Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the
3150 incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
3151 -- George Bernard Shaw
3153 Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you
3156 Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by
3160 Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.
3163 Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people
3164 are right more than half of the time.
3168 A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass
3169 meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy.
3170 Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights.
3171 Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate,
3172 whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion,
3173 prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
3174 Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
3175 -- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932),
3178 Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the
3179 board. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls.
3182 A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls
3183 coins out of one's pockets.
3184 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3186 Despising machines to a man,
3187 The Luddites joined up with the Klan,
3188 And ride out by night
3189 In a sheeting of white
3190 To lynch all the robots they can.
3191 -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson
3193 Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will
3194 be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over
3196 -- The Anarchist Cookbook
3200 Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
3201 And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
3202 Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
3204 Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
3205 And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys.
3206 Know what to kiss -- and when.
3207 Remember that two wrongs never make a right,
3209 Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD".
3210 Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
3211 And despite the changing fortunes of time,
3212 There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
3214 You are a fluke of the universe ...
3215 You have no right to be here.
3216 Whether you can hear it or not, the universe
3217 Is laughing behind your back.
3221 If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want
3224 Did I say 2? I lied.
3228 That no-one ever reads these things?
3230 Did you know that clones never use mirrors?
3231 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3233 Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and lined
3234 them up end to end, they'd still point in the wrong direction?
3236 Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilot
3237 that shot down the Korean jet? At one point he definitely states:
3239 "Natasha! First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and
3245 To stop sinning suddenly.
3248 "Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a
3249 conventional thing to happen to him."
3250 -- John Barrymore's dying words
3252 Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little.
3254 Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term.
3255 Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
3257 Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
3259 Disc space -- the final frontier!
3261 Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be
3265 Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the above views and those of my
3266 employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely
3267 coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is
3268 non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the
3269 absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader.
3270 The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for
3271 the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal,
3272 non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.)
3274 Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art.
3277 A different color or shape than our competitors.
3280 A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.
3281 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3283 District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape
3284 injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any
3285 damage inflicted on the vehicle.
3287 Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery?
3289 Do molecular biologists wear designer genes?
3291 Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them.
3293 Do not drink coffee in early a.m. It will keep you awake until noon.
3295 Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to
3298 "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good
3301 Do not read this fortune under penalty of law.
3302 Violators will be prosecuted.
3303 (Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.))
3305 Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight.
3307 Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each
3311 Do something unusual today. Pay a bill.
3313 Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum.
3315 Do you have lysdexia?
3317 Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take
3318 the time to take the dirt out of them?
3320 "Do you think what we're doing is wrong?"
3321 "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!"
3322 "I've never done anything illegal before."
3323 "I thought you said you were an accountant!"
3325 Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and
3326 when it is bad, it is better than nothing.
3329 Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must
3330 be good because the programmers hate it so much.
3332 Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
3334 Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow.
3336 Don't be humble ... you're not that great.
3339 Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.
3341 Don't change the reason, just change the excuses!
3344 "Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly,
3345 sincerely, extremely dangerously.
3347 They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs.
3348 They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They
3349 used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used
3350 finks. They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used
3351 fallaron. They used betterment incentives. They used finger prints.
3352 They used the bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile.
3353 They used treachery. They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help.
3354 They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology. And
3355 what the hell, they caught him.
3357 -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the
3360 Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today!
3362 Don't feed the bats tonight.
3364 Don't get even -- get odd!
3366 Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly
3367 misleading. Debug only code.
3370 "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes
3371 you nothing. It was here first."
3374 Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while.
3376 Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.
3378 Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier.
3380 Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today.
3382 Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam.
3384 Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking
3387 Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone.
3389 Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you.
3391 Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy
3392 it today you can do it again tomorrow.
3394 "Don't say yes until I finish talking."
3397 Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business.
3401 Don't suspect your friends -- turn them in!
3404 Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.
3407 Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out of it alive.
3409 Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective.
3411 "Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to
3414 Don't worry about avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it starts
3416 -- The Old Farmer's Almanac
3418 "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any
3419 good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
3422 Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already
3423 tomorrow in Australia.
3426 Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too
3427 busy worrying over what you are thinking about them.
3429 Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in?
3431 Don: I didn't know you had a cousin Penelope, Bill! Was she
3433 W. C.: Well, her face was so wrinkled it looked like seven miles of
3434 bad road. She had so many gold teeth, Don, she use to have to
3435 sleep with her head in a safe. She died in Bolivia.
3436 Don: Oh Bill, it must be hard to lose a relative.
3437 W. C.: It's almost impossible.
3438 -- W. C. Fields, from "The Further Adventures of Larson
3439 E. Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles"
3442 (Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie")
3444 Double bucky, you're the one!
3445 You make my keyboard lots of fun
3446 Double bucky, an additional bit or two:
3448 Control and Meta side by side,
3449 Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!
3450 Double bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
3452 Double bucky, left and right
3453 OR'd together, outta sight!
3454 Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of
3455 Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of
3456 Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!
3458 -- (C) 1978 by Guy L. Steele, Jr.
3460 Double-Blind Experiment, n.:
3461 An experiment in which the chief researcher believes he is
3462 fooling both the subject and the lab assistant. Often accompanied by a
3463 belief in the tooth fairy.
3465 Down with categorical imperative!
3467 "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."
3469 Drew's Law of Highway Biology:
3470 The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front
3473 Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *__
\b\bis* fun trying.
3475 Drive defensively. Buy a tank.
3477 Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic
3481 If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize
3482 yourself as part of the problem.
3485 Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
3487 Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and
3488 it holds the universe together ...
3491 Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders
3492 has been discontinued.
3494 Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate
3495 and captain of your soul.
3497 Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been
3500 During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen
3501 were blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a
3502 red-faced country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted,
3503 "Hey, you almost hit my wife."
3504 "Did I?" cried the hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a
3505 shot at mine, over there."
3507 During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several
3508 times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_
\a~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_
\a~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o
3510 "Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have
3511 nothing whatever to do with it."
3512 -- W. Somerset Maugham
3517 Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more
3518 months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is
3519 an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)
3521 Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends
3523 /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can.
3525 Earth is a beta site.
3527 "Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun."
3530 Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube:
3531 Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the
3532 cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of
3533 the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this
3534 means the puzzle is solved.
3537 Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.
3539 "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work."
3541 Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
3542 -- John Kenneth Galbraith
3545 Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K.
3547 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
3549 Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy
3550 would turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it
3554 Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a
3555 percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor.
3558 Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent.
3561 Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine.
3564 Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak!
3567 Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.
3570 Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many
3571 people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable
3572 comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where
3573 the "nog" comes from.
3575 To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in
3578 Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain
3579 of being a damned fool.
3583 A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
3584 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
3586 Ehrman's Commentary:
3587 (1) Things will get worse before they get better.
3588 (2) Who said things would get better?
3590 Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees.
3591 -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star
3594 Sits at the keyboard
3595 And waits for a line on the screen
3599 That will make the machine do some more.
3602 All the lonely users, where do they all come from?
3603 All the lonely users, why does it take so long?
3605 Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance.
3607 Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles,
3608 called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you
3609 have been drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in
3610 most American homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In the
3611 time it has taken you to read this sentence so far, an electron could
3612 have traveled all the way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey,
3613 although God alone knows why it would want to.
3614 The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current,
3615 direct current, lightning, static, and European. Most American homes
3616 have alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in one
3617 direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents
3618 harmful electron buildup in the wires.
3619 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
3622 Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements.
3624 Elevators smell different to midgets
3626 Emerson's Law of Contrariness:
3627 Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we
3628 can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.
3630 Encyclopedia Salesmen:
3631 Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police
3632 and tell them your house is being burgled.
3633 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
3635 Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless.
3636 Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop.
3637 -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary
3639 Entropy isn't what it used to be.
3641 Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which
3642 otherwise require harder thinking.
3646 When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably
3647 something his wife can beat him at.
3649 Equal bytes for women.
3651 Error in operator: add beer
3653 Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven
3654 Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
3655 Und aller-m"
\bumsige Burggoven
3656 Dir mohmen R"
\bath ausgraben.
3657 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
3659 Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
3663 Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that
3664 were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed
3665 from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy"
3666 ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow."
3669 Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to
3673 "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit
3677 "Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral."
3678 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
3680 Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United
3681 States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents a
3684 Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you
3685 just how busy they are.
3687 Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what,
3688 exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men."
3689 All the other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with
3690 spears, and the wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about:
3691 Would you please take my wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please
3692 take her right now. No How about: Would you like to take something?
3693 My wife is available. No. How about ..."
3694 -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
3696 Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it.
3698 Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt.
3700 Every four seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this
3703 "Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one
3704 idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's
3705 sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all
3706 of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two
3707 highly-motivated, caustic twits."
3708 -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet
3710 Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
3711 signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
3712 fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
3713 spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
3714 genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way
3715 of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
3716 humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
3717 -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
3719 Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation):
3721 Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and in
3722 front they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an
3723 odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both even
3724 and odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of
3725 legs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere,
3726 there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horse
3727 of another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the same
3728 color"], that does not exist.
3730 Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.
3731 -- Frank Moore Colby
3733 Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.
3735 Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own.
3738 "Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95."
3740 Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse.
3741 -- Miguel de Cervantes
3743 "Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the
3744 richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work"
3747 Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis.
3749 It makes sense, when you don't think about it.
3751 Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one
3752 instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every
3753 program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.
3755 Every program has two purposes -- one for which it was written and
3756 another for which it wasn't.
3758 Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits.
3760 Every solution breeds new problems.
3762 Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no
3763 guarantee of eventual success.
3765 "Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it."
3767 Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.
3770 Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
3773 Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
3775 Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be
3776 taught how ___
\b\b\bnot to. So it is with the great programmers.
3778 Everyone is a genius. It's just that some people are too stupid to
3781 Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic
3782 formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the
3783 scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact
3784 wholly unconcerned with what ____
\b\b\b\bdoes exist. Indeed, the banality of
3785 existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to
3786 discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the
3787 problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the
3788 mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all,
3789 one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely
3791 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
3793 Everyone talks about apathy, but no one ____
\b\b\b\bdoes anything about it.
3795 Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately,
3796 no one we know belongs.
3798 Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being
3799 that a belch is more satisfying.
3802 Everything journalists write is true, except when they write about
3804 -- Dag-Erling Smorgrav,
3805 June 1999, FreeBSD-Stable Mailing List
3807 Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.
3809 Everything you know is wrong!
3811 Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less
3812 obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no
3813 solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid.
3814 There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no
3816 -- R. Buckminster Fuller
3818 Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping
3819 mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as
3820 "Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you
3821 how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence",
3822 "Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night
3823 So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc.
3824 -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
3826 Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike office water cooler.
3828 Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator.
3830 Excellent day to have a rotten day.
3832 Excellent time to become a missing person.
3834 Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from
3835 acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
3836 -- W. Somerset Maugham
3838 Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility.
3840 Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to do
3844 Expect the worst, it's the least you can do.
3846 Expense Accounts, n.:
3847 Corporate food stamps.
3849 Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
3852 Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
3853 when you make it again.
3856 Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and
3857 the instruction afterward.
3859 Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old
3862 Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.
3864 Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.
3867 Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides.
3869 Extract from Official Sweepstakes Rules:
3871 NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE
3873 To claim your prize without purchase, do the following: (a) Carefully
3874 cut out your computer-printed name and address from upper right hand
3875 corner of the Prize Claim Form. (b) Affix computer-printed name and
3876 address -- with glue or cellophane tape (no staples or paper clips) --
3877 to a 3x5 inch index card. (c) Also cut out the "No" paragraph (lower
3878 left hand corner of Prize Claim Form) and affix it to the 3x5 card
3879 below your address label. (d) Then print on your 3x5 card, above your
3880 computer-printed name and address the words "CARTER & VAN PEEL
3881 SWEEPSTAKES" (Use all capital letters.) (e) Finally place 3x5 card
3882 (without bending) into a plain envelope [NOTE: do NOT use the the
3883 Official Prize Claim and CVP Perfume Reply Envelope or you may be
3884 disqualified], and mail to: CVP, Box 1320, Westbury, NY 11595. Print
3885 this address correctly. Comply with above instructions carefully and
3886 completely or you may be disqualified from receiving your prize.
3888 F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm!
3890 f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd.
3892 f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.
3894 F: When into a room I plunge, I
3895 Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI.
3896 Then I linger, darkly brooding
3897 On the poison they're exuding.
3898 -- The Roguelet's ABC
3900 Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.
3903 A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers.
3905 Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic
3906 without looking to see whether the seeds move.
3909 That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be
3913 A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost
3914 religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources seem to
3915 have shinnied up a rope and vanished.
3917 Familiarity breeds attempt
3919 Families, when a child is born
3920 Want it to be intelligent.
3921 I, through intelligence,
3922 Having wrecked my whole life,
3923 Only hope the baby will prove
3924 Ignorant and stupid.
3925 Then he will crown a tranquil life
3926 By becoming a Cabinet Minister
3932 (1) "Don't worry, I can handle it."
3933 (2) "You and what army?"
3934 (3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be
3938 (1) Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix.
3939 (2) Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there.
3940 (3) What happens if you touch these two wires tog--
3941 (4) We won't need reservations.
3942 (5) It's always sunny there this time of the year.
3943 (6) Don't worry, it's not loaded.
3944 (7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager.
3947 Conspicuously miserable.
3950 Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the
3951 Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
3952 Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an
3953 utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life
3954 forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches
3955 are a pretty neat idea ...
3956 -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
3958 Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it
3964 Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ...
3966 Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children,
3969 Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each
3970 other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around
3971 the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors
3973 Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes
3974 to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your
3975 Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright
3976 piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres.
3977 Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with
3978 inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down
3979 other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and
3980 placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when
3981 the little hammers strike.
3982 Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over
3983 their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning
3984 Christmas tree. The piano is missing.
3986 You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless
3987 you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level
3988 4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog.
3990 Fifth Law of Applied Terror:
3991 If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.
3994 If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you
3997 Fifth Law of Procrastination:
3998 Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that
3999 there is nothing important to do.
4001 Fifty flippant frogs
4002 Walked by on flippered feet
4003 And with their slime they made the time
4008 Say my love is easy had,
4009 Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
4010 Say I am too often sad --
4011 Still behold me at your side.
4013 Say I'm neither brave nor young,
4014 Say I woo and coddle care,
4015 Say the devil touched my tongue --
4016 Still you have my heart to wear.
4018 But say my verses do not scan,
4019 And I get me another man!
4022 Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber, North
4026 Science is true. Don't be misled by facts.
4028 Finagle's First Law:
4029 If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
4031 Finagle's fourth Law:
4032 Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes
4035 Finagle's Second Law:
4036 No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be
4037 someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it
4038 happened according to his own pet theory.
4040 Finagle's Third Law:
4041 In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct,
4042 beyond all need of checking, is the mistake
4045 (1) Nobody whom you ask for help will see it.
4046 (2) The first person who stops by, whose advice you really
4047 don't want to hear, will see it immediately.
4049 Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture
4051 -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
4053 Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can.
4055 Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy.
4058 Functionality breeds Contempt.
4060 Finish the sentence below in 25 words or less:
4062 "Love is what you feel just before you give someone a good ..."
4064 Mail your answer along with the top half of your supervisor to:
4067 Baffled Greek, Michigan
4069 First Corollary of Taber's Second Law:
4070 Machines that piss people off get murdered.
4073 First Law of Bicycling:
4074 No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the
4077 First Law of Procrastination:
4078 Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility
4079 for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed
4082 First Law of Socio-Genetics:
4083 Celibacy is not hereditary.
4085 First Rule of History:
4086 History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each
4089 "First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
4090 -- Dr. Who, "Doctor Who"
4092 First, a few words about tools.
4094 Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of
4095 the laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously
4096 injure yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. If
4097 you're ever walking down the street and you notice some people who look
4098 particularly smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for
4099 granted. If I were you, I'd walk right up and smack them in the face.
4100 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
4102 Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity.
4105 Flappity, floppity, flip
4106 The mouse on the m"
\bobius strip;
4109 In a chronodimensional skip.
4111 FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when
4112 the little hand is on the ....
4115 There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is
4116 the least bit difficult to write bad programs.
4118 Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to her
4119 husband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen my
4122 "Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux
4123 a moment. Perhaps they're mislead."
4125 "No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting them
4126 in my burette ... We must call a copper."
4128 Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms,
4129 said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name
4132 "We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and
4133 dangerous. His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I can
4134 catch him there." With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an
4135 activated state and sped off along the reaction pathway ...
4136 -- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations"
4139 [From flow "to ripple down in rich profusion, as hair" + chart
4140 "a cryptic hidden-treasure map designed to mislead the uninitiated."]
4141 1. n. The solution, if any, to a class of Mascheroni construction
4142 problems in which given algorithms require geometrical representation
4143 using only the 35 basic ideograms of the ANSI template. 2. n. Neronic
4144 doodling while the system burns. 3. n. A low-cost substitute for
4145 wallpaper. 4. n. The innumerate misleading the illiterate. "A
4146 thousand pictures is worth ten lines of code." -- The Programmer's
4147 Little Red Vade Mecum, Mao Tse T'umps. 5. v.intrans. To produce
4148 flowcharts with no particular object in mind. 6. v.trans. To obfuscate
4149 (a problem) with esoteric cartoons.
4150 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
4153 When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the
4154 world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.
4156 Flying saucers on occasion
4157 Show themselves to human eyes.
4158 Aliens fume, put off invasion
4159 While they brand these tales as lies.
4162 Excessively (often obnoxiously) bright lamps mounted on the
4163 fronts of automobiles; used on dry, clear nights to indicate that the
4164 driver's brain is in a fog.
4166 See also "Idiot Lights".
4168 Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.
4169 -- Walt Kelly, "Putluck Pogo"
4171 For 20 dollars, I'll give you a good fortune next time ...
4173 For a good time, call (510) 642-9483
4175 For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by a
4178 "For an adequate time call 555-3321"
4180 For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be
4181 always old-fashioned.
4183 For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
4187 For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.
4190 "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence
4191 of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind."
4197 For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two.
4199 For my son, Robert, this is proving to be the high-point of his entire
4200 life to date. He has had his pajamas on for two, maybe three days
4201 now. He has the sense of joyful independence a 5-year-old child gets
4202 when he suddenly realizes that he could be operating an acetylene torch
4203 in the coat closet and neither parent [because of the flu] would have
4204 the strength to object. He has been foraging for his own food, which
4205 means his diet consists entirely of "food" substances which are
4206 advertised only on Saturday-morning cartoon shows; substances that are
4207 the color of jukebox lights and that, for legal reasons, have their
4208 names spelled wrong, as in New Creemy Chok-'n'-Cheez Lumps o' Froot
4209 ("part of this complete breakfast").
4210 -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"
4212 For perfect happiness, remember two things:
4213 (1) Be content with what you've got.
4214 (2) Be sure you've got plenty.
4216 For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say
4217 "Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something.
4218 -- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to
4221 For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz.
4223 "For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of
4224 a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with
4225 computers altogether?"
4228 For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they
4232 "For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but
4233 phone calls taper off."
4236 For what it's worth, if you -can- get Michelle Pfeiffer to model
4237 a latex daemon suit for the catalog, I strongly suggest you do.
4238 Breasts can sell anything. Shiny red latex body suits start
4241 -- Brian McGroarty <bvmcg@yahoo.com>
4243 For years a secret shame destroyed my peace --
4244 I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece.
4245 But now I think a thought that brings me hope:
4246 Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.
4247 -- Justin Richardson.
4249 For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH!
4252 A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their
4253 destitution of conscience.
4255 Forms follow function, and often obliterate it.
4257 FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS! #6
4259 RAZORBACK: Paul Harbride, 1984, 2 hours 25 min.
4260 One of the great Australian films of the early 1980's, and
4261 arguably the best movie ever made about a large, man-eating
4262 hog. Some violence. With Gregory Harrison.
4264 fortune's Contribution of the Month to the Animal Rights Debate:
4266 I'll stay out of animals' way if they'll stay out of mine.
4267 "Hey you, get off my plate"
4270 Fortune's Fictitious Country Song Title of the Week:
4271 "How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?"
4273 Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month):
4275 Don't Write On Walls!
4279 You want I should type?
4281 Fortune's Law of the Week (this week, from Kentucky):
4282 No female shall appear in a bathing suit at any airport in this
4283 State unless she is escorted by two officers or unless she is armed
4284 with a club. The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females
4285 weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it
4286 apply to female horses.
4288 Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful
4289 Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an
4290 impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and
4291 clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following
4292 exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan.
4294 DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are
4295 having to artificially propagate oysters and clams.
4296 HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters?
4297 DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter
4298 is that female oysters through their living habits cast out
4299 large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large
4300 amounts of fertilization ...
4301 HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many
4302 teenagers who read The Congressional Record.
4304 Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week:
4306 Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige.
4308 FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14
4310 Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your good
4311 liquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert and
4312 light after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anything
4313 drinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck.
4315 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #18:
4318 A: No, I'm divorced.
4319 Q: And what did your husband do before you divorced him?
4320 A: A lot of things I didn't know about.
4322 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #19:
4324 Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
4325 A: All my autopsies have been performed on dead people.
4327 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #29:
4329 THE JUDGE: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present
4330 information and prejudice from your minds, if you have
4333 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #32:
4335 Q: Do you know how far pregnant you are right now?
4336 A: I will be three months November 8th.
4337 Q: Apparently then, the date of conception was August 8th?
4339 Q: What were you and your husband doing at that time?
4341 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #37:
4343 Q: Did he pick the dog up by the ears?
4345 Q: What was he doing with the dog's ears?
4346 A: Picking them up in the air.
4347 Q: Where was the dog at this time?
4348 A: Attached to the ears.
4350 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #3:
4352 Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were
4353 able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to
4354 go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with
4356 MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.
4358 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41:
4360 Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?
4362 Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
4364 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #52:
4366 Q: What is your name?
4367 A: Ernestine McDowell.
4368 Q: And what is your marital status?
4371 Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #7:
4373 Q: What happened then?
4374 A: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify
4379 fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped.
4381 Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samuri
4382 sword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
4384 Oh, and have a nice day!
4385 -- Bryce Nesbitt '84
4387 Fourth Law of Applied Terror:
4388 The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology
4389 instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria.
4392 Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do
4393 except study for that instructor's course.
4395 Fourth Law of Revision:
4396 It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about
4397 interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you.
4399 Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is not
4400 almost one, it is damn near zero.
4403 Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a
4406 FreeBSD: everything but the fairings
4408 FreeBSD: Have you had your fairings today?
4410 FreeBSD: It's 3am at night. Do you know where your fairings are?
4413 If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored.
4415 Friends, Romans, Hipsters,
4417 I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him.
4418 The square kicks some cats are on stay with them;
4419 The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus
4420 Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes;
4421 If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea,
4422 And, like, old Caesar really set them straight.
4423 Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- for Brutus is a real cool cat;
4424 So are they all, all cool cats, --
4425 Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down.
4427 Frisbeetarianism, n.:
4428 The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and
4432 To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ.
4433 Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a
4434 frob". See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK
4435 sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless
4436 manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse
4437 search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is
4438 turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it
4439 he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the
4440 screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because
4441 turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it.
4443 Frobnitz, pl. Frobnitzem (frob'nitsm) n.:
4444 An unspecified physical object, a widget. Also refers to
4445 electronic black boxes. This rare form is usually abbreviated to
4446 FROTZ, or more commonly to FROB. Also used are FROBNULE, FROBULE, and
4447 FROBNODULE. Starting perhaps in 1979, FROBBOZ (fruh-bahz'), pl.
4448 FROBBOTZIM, has also become very popular, largely due to its exposure
4449 via the Adventure spin-off called Zork (Dungeon). These can also be
4450 applied to non-physical objects, such as data structures.
4452 [From an announcement of a congress of the International Ontopsychology
4453 Association, in Rome]:
4455 The Ontopsychological school, availing itself of new research criteria
4456 and of a new telematic epistemology, maintains that social modes do not
4457 spring from dialectics of territory or of class, or of consumer goods,
4458 or of means of power, but rather from dynamic latencies capillarized in
4459 millions of individuals in system functions which, once they have
4460 reached the event maturation, burst forth in catastrophic phenomenology
4461 engaging a suitable stereotype protagonist or duty marionette (general,
4462 president, political party, etc.) to consummate the act of social
4463 schizophrenia in mass genocide.
4465 From the "Guiness Book of World Records", 1973:
4467 Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and
4468 the most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the
4469 Court of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his
4470 candidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground
4471 nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts,
4472 other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not
4473 qualify as nuts (unground)(other than ground nuts) by reason of their
4474 being nuts (unground)."
4476 From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was
4477 convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
4478 -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"
4480 [From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, made
4483 The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOT
4484 MATRIX LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, is
4485 featured by permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high quality
4486 against low cost", "diversified functions with compact design",
4487 "flexibility in accessibleness and durability of approx. 2000,000,00
4488 Dot/Head", "being sophisticated in mechanism but possibly agile
4489 operating under noises being extremely suppressed" etc.
4491 And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to help
4492 achieve "super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned by
4493 HOST COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being.
4495 From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of the
4496 instructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a new
4497 experience in sound:
4499 5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading
4500 sound is normal for this type of connector.
4502 From too much love of living,
4503 From hope and fear set free,
4504 We thank with brief thanksgiving,
4505 Whatever gods may be,
4506 That no life lives forever,
4507 That dead men rise up never,
4508 That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.
4512 If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't well
4515 Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
4516 Push something hard enough and it will fall over.
4519 Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank
4520 even when you are the only person in line.
4521 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
4523 Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
4526 Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening.
4528 G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. One
4529 of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his
4530 secretary, `Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says
4531 `No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' And
4532 that's your chance, my boy."
4534 Garbage In -- Gospel Out.
4537 An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her
4538 stockings and desolating the country.
4539 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
4541 Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall
4542 on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!!
4543 -- Adventures of Asterix.
4545 Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep".
4547 Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound
4548 than the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference:
4549 "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling."
4551 Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start
4552 speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as
4553 long as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all
4554 your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and
4555 so on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committed
4556 individuals and then grow ...
4557 Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those
4558 signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when
4559 everything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving on
4560 the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs
4561 backwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? I
4562 think not, my friend, I think not.
4563 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
4565 "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at More Science High has an
4566 extracurricular activity except you."
4567 "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?"
4568 "Only to ten, Mudhead."
4572 "Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore."
4574 GEMINI (May 21 - June 20)
4575 You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you
4576 because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much
4577 for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for
4580 GEMINI (May 21 to Jun. 20)
4581 Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while
4582 you can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy praise
4583 and respect from those around you; everybody loves a sucker. A short
4584 trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's room.
4587 The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to
4588 determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and
4590 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
4592 Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why
4595 Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus
4600 A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with
4603 George Orwell 1984. Northwestern 0.
4604 -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
4606 George Orwell was an optimist.
4608 George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to
4609 have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
4612 Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:
4613 (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong
4615 (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
4616 (3) The energy required to change either one of these states
4617 will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so
4618 much as to make the task totally impossible.
4620 Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty.
4624 The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April
4625 1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above
4626 the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grep
4627 each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered
4628 chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek
4629 nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Three
4630 days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Two
4631 seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user-
4632 friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know is
4633 Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis
4634 "cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You
4635 Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary because
4636 all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we
4638 -- Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84
4640 Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children!
4642 -- Gifts for Children --
4644 This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children,
4645 because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months
4646 and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday-
4647 morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children
4648 exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If
4649 your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You
4650 Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it
4651 might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe
4652 me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child
4653 who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift.
4654 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
4658 Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professional
4659 ice hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But you
4660 should never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the
4661 clothes they will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For
4662 example, your average man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only
4663 three of them. He has learned, through humiliating trial and error,
4664 that if he wears any of the other 81 ties, his wife will probably laugh
4665 at him ("You're not going to wear THAT tie with that suit, are you?").
4666 So he has narrowed it down to three safe ties, and has gone several
4667 years without being laughed at. If you give him a new tie, he will
4668 pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you.
4670 If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More
4671 than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set
4673 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
4675 Gimmie That Old Time Religion
4676 We will follow Zarathustra, We will worship like the Druids,
4677 Zarathustra like we use to, Dancing naked in the woods,
4678 I'm a Zarathustra booster, Drinking strange fermented fluids,
4679 And he's good enough for me! And it's good enough for me!
4682 In the church of Aphrodite,
4683 The priestess wears a see-through nightie,
4684 She's a mighty righteous sightie,
4685 And she's good enough for me!
4688 CHORUS: Give me that old time religion,
4689 Give me that old time religion,
4690 Give me that old time religion,
4691 'Cause it's good enough for me!
4695 (2) You can't break even.
4696 (3) You can't even quit the game.
4698 Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem:
4699 Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem
4700 meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's
4703 (1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
4704 (2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break
4706 (3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the
4709 Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place
4710 to stand, and I will drain the world.
4712 "Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war."
4715 Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities!
4717 Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to
4720 Give your child mental blocks for Christmas.
4722 "Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying
4723 around, I'd rather lie around. No contest."
4726 Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden:
4727 Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP
4728 machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
4729 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
4731 Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
4732 Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
4733 probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some
4737 A person who leaves all his ski passes on his jacket just to
4739 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
4741 Go 'way! You're bothering me!
4743 Go climb a gravity well!
4745 Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may
4746 be in owning a piece thereof.
4747 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
4749 //GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH
4751 God did not create the world in seven days; he screwed around for six
4752 days and then pulled an all-nighter.
4754 God doesn't play dice.
4757 "God gives burdens; also shoulders"
4759 Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the
4760 end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I
4761 can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why
4762 would he lie about a thing like that?
4763 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
4765 God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ...
4766 The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I do
4767 not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman
4768 ... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on
4769 smoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and
4770 water is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in
4771 the morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at
4773 -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
4775 God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh.
4777 God is a polytheist.
4786 God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's
4788 God is real, unless declared integer.
4790 God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the
4791 elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying
4795 God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.
4798 God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place.
4800 God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man.
4802 God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
4805 God made the integers; all else is the work of Man.
4808 God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh.
4810 God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean.
4813 God must love the Common Man; He made so many of them.
4815 God rest ye CS students now,
4816 Let nothing you dismay.
4817 The VAX is down and won't be up,
4818 Until the first of May.
4819 The program that was due this morn,
4820 Won't be postponed, they say.
4822 Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,
4824 Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.
4826 The bearings on the drum are gone,
4827 The disk is wobbling, too.
4828 We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol
4829 Can't tell false from true.
4830 And now we find that we can't get
4835 Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to
4836 school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a
4840 A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It
4841 is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who
4842 immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold
4843 hasn't done anything to them.
4844 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
4846 Goldenstern's Rules:
4847 (1) Always hire a rich attorney
4848 (2) Never buy from a rich salesman.
4850 Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad
4852 -- La Rouchefoucauld
4854 Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall.
4856 Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase.
4858 Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school.
4860 Good day to let down old friends who need help.
4862 Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.
4864 Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance.
4866 Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day.
4868 Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's
4871 "Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored."
4872 -- George Saunders' dying words
4875 If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing
4878 Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with
4879 time travel, you never can tell."
4880 -- Dr. Who, "Androids of Tara"
4883 Call Avogadro 6.02 x 10^23
4886 A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers
4887 to complain about unstructured programmers.
4890 Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage.
4891 -- John Updike, "Couples"
4893 Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are
4896 Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't know
4897 any more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, he
4902 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2.
4904 Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture.
4906 Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture.
4908 Grandpa Charnock's Law:
4909 You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
4911 Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks.
4913 Gray's Law of Programming:
4914 `_
\bn+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same
4915 time as `_
\bn' tasks.
4917 Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law:
4918 `_
\bn+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as `_
\bn' trivial tasks.
4920 Great minds run in great circles.
4922 GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY #21 -- July 30, 1917
4924 On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then-
4925 Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought them
4926 off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought I
4927 wouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from his
4928 mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs in a
4929 tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service men
4932 Green light in a.m. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic
4936 Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.
4939 Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above
4942 "Grub first, then ethics."
4946 The red warning flag at the top of a club sandwich which
4947 prevents the person from biting into it and puncturing the roof of his
4949 -- Rich Hall & Friends, "Sniglets"
4952 A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also
4953 free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to each
4954 other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two
4955 mutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to the
4956 other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus
4957 offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any
4958 torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin.
4959 -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary
4961 H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L.
4962 Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude.
4963 -- Maxwell Bodenheim
4965 H. L. Mencken's Law:
4966 Those who can -- do.
4967 Those who can't -- teach.
4970 Those who cannot teach -- administrate.
4972 H: If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you,
4973 Slice him up before he slays you.
4974 Nothing makes you look a slob
4975 Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB).
4976 -- The Roguelet's ABC
4979 The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a
4980 nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.
4982 Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge.
4984 ... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror,
4985 and you would not have been informed.
4988 He sure is a fun god
4991 Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big
4992 enough majority in any town?
4993 -- Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn"
4995 Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.)
4998 This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still
4999 crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference
5000 between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like
5001 the difference between life and death.
5002 You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill
5003 there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the
5004 airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough
5005 Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on
5006 Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk
5007 about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the
5008 man, "Let me have a nice half-done."
5009 Worth the trouble, wasn't it?
5010 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
5012 Hall's Laws of Politics:
5013 (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending.
5014 (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something
5016 (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend
5017 military spending, and conservatives social spending in
5018 their own districts).
5021 A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and
5022 commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
5023 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5026 Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
5029 Hanson's Treatment of Time:
5030 There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days
5033 Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.
5036 Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
5040 An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of
5042 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5044 Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances?
5047 The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
5049 Hark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender. You stand
5050 convicted of sickness, hunger, wretchedness, and want.
5053 Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark
5054 The Duke is fond of kittens
5055 He likes to take their insides out
5056 And use them for his mittens
5057 From "The Thirteen Clocks"
5059 Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
5060 Advertising wondrous things.
5064 All the good ones are taken.
5066 Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab:
5067 Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment
5070 Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he
5071 makes us all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean
5072 famous for its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses
5073 probably stirs romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you
5074 have never met any wild horses in person. In person, they are like
5075 enormous hooved rats. They amble up to your camp site, and their
5076 attitude is: "We're wild horses. We're going to eat your food, knock
5077 down your tent and poop on your shoes. We're protected by federal law,
5078 just like Richard Nixon."
5079 -- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob"
5081 Hartley's First Law:
5082 You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float
5083 on his back, you've got something.
5085 Hartley's Second Law:
5086 Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
5089 Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure,
5090 temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will
5091 do as it damn well pleases.
5093 "Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?"
5094 "Yes, I don't have one."
5095 "Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..."
5096 -- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372
5098 Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are
5099 typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter
5100 keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use
5101 of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is
5102 not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears.
5104 Has your family tried 'em?
5108 Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious!
5110 They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons the
5111 strength to get up and do what needs to be done.
5115 Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of the
5116 biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark stains
5117 that indicate freshness.
5120 A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's
5122 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5124 Have an adequate day.
5126 Have people realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is
5127 to defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a
5128 non-cynical, or even an informative cookie?
5130 Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This
5131 still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or
5132 only serves to blunt the warning signs.
5134 Long live the revolution!
5137 Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell
5138 you, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the time
5141 Have you ever wondered what makes Californians so calm? Besides drugs,
5142 I mean. The answer is hot tubs. A hot tub is a redwood container
5143 filled with water that you sit in naked with members of the opposite
5144 sex, none of whom is necessarily your spouse. After a few hours in
5145 their hot tubs, Californians don't give a damn about earthquakes or
5146 mass murderers. They don't give a damn about anything , which is why
5147 they are able to produce "Laverne and Shirley" week after week.
5148 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
5150 "Have you lived here all your life?"
5151 "Oh, twice that long."
5153 Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a
5154 crack in your sidewalk?
5156 Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline
5157 sharply the minute they start waving guns around?
5160 Have you reconsidered a computer career?
5162 "He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental
5163 effort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable
5165 -- Mick Farren, "When Gravity Fails"
5167 "He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions"
5169 He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation
5170 perfectly delightful.
5173 He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and
5174 heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope
5175 of ever behaving "normally."
5176 -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72"
5178 He hadn't a single redeeming vice.
5181 "He is now rising from affluence to poverty."
5184 He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered.
5186 He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace.
5187 -- John Mason Brown, drama critic
5189 He thought he saw an albatross
5190 That fluttered 'round the lamp.
5191 He looked again and saw it was
5192 A penny postage stamp.
5193 "You'd best be getting home," he said,
5194 "The nights are rather damp."
5196 He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.
5199 "He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him
5202 "He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both
5205 He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry
5206 attacks democracy itself.
5207 -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS
5209 He who Laughs, Lasts.
5211 "He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ..."
5213 He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be
5214 there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter.
5216 "He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..."
5218 HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science.
5219 SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their ___
\b\b\bOWN brains.
5222 Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
5224 Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
5228 Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
5233 A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of
5234 their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you
5236 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5239 Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.
5241 "Heisenberg may have slept here"
5243 Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.
5247 The first myth of management is that it exists.
5249 Johnson's Corollary:
5250 Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the
5254 -- Don Carpenter quoting a Hollywood agent
5256 Help a swallow land at Capistrano.
5258 Help fight continental drift.
5260 Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file!
5262 Help stamp out and abolish redundancy.
5264 Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70!
5266 HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN!
5269 Her locks an ancient lady gave
5270 Her loving husband's life to save;
5271 And men -- they honored so the dame --
5272 Upon some stars bestowed her name.
5274 But to our modern married fair,
5275 Who'd give their lords to save their hair,
5276 No stellar recognition's given.
5277 There are not stars enough in heaven.
5279 "Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from
5280 Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..."
5282 Here I sit, broken-hearted,
5283 All logged in, but work unstarted.
5284 First net.this and net.that,
5285 And a hot buttered bun for net.fat.
5287 The boss comes by, and I play the game,
5288 Then I turn back to net.flame.
5289 Is there a cure (I need your views),
5290 For someone trapped in net.news?
5292 I need your help, I say 'tween sobs,
5293 'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs.
5295 Here in my heart, I am Helen;
5296 I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
5297 I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"
\bel;
5298 I'm Salome, moon of the East.
5300 Here in my soul I am Sappho;
5301 Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
5302 In me R'
\becamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
5303 With Dido, and Eve, and poor nell.
5305 I'm all of the glamorous ladies
5306 At whose beckoning history shook.
5307 But you are a man, and see only my pan,
5308 So I stay at home with a book.
5311 Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical
5312 lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach
5313 your hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings.
5314 Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in
5315 pain? This teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force,
5316 but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an
5317 important electrical lesson.
5319 It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed
5320 your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small
5321 objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will
5322 attract dirt. The electrons travel through your bloodstream and
5323 collect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your
5324 friend's filling, then travels down to his feet and back into the
5325 carpet, thus completing the circuit.
5327 Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without
5328 touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your
5329 finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you
5331 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
5333 Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the
5334 month. According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people
5335 are experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China.
5336 The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either
5337 (depending on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax
5339 Bite the wax tadpole.
5340 There is a sort of rough justice, is there not?
5341 The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's
5342 hard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to
5343 bite a wax tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad,
5344 but broad satiric vistas do not open up.
5345 -- John Carrol, San Francisco Chronicle
5347 "Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like
5348 `Psychic Wins Lottery'?"
5351 Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs,
5352 then they'd be algorithms.
5354 "Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!"
5357 Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person
5358 reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes,
5359 nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home.
5361 "Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet.
5362 As you can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of
5363 equal height on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney.
5364 Do you have a car or a job? Do you ever walk around? If so, you
5365 probably have the makings of an excellent legal case. Although of
5366 course every case is different, I would definitely say that based on my
5367 experience and training, there's no reason why you shouldn't come out
5368 of this thing with at least a cabin cruiser.
5370 "Remember, at the Preston A. Mantis Consumers Retail Law Outlet, our
5371 motto is: 'It is very difficult to disprove certain kinds of pain.'"
5372 -- Dave Barry, "Pain and Suffering"
5374 Hier liegt ein Mann ganz ohnegleich;
5375 Im Leibe dick, an Suenden reich.
5376 Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws
5377 Weil es uns duenkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head;
5378 We buried him today because
5379 As far as we can tell, he's dead.
5380 -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty
5381 Sue Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher;
5382 "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter
5387 Ruffled the critics by
5389 "Phooey on Freud and his
5391 Oedipus, Shmoedipus,
5394 Hindsight is an exact science.
5397 An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin.
5398 The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle.
5399 The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which
5400 is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full
5402 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5404 Hire the morally handicapped.
5406 "His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had
5407 money, he went to Southern California."
5409 "His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice"
5412 "His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier."
5414 History is curious stuff
5415 You'd think by now we had enough
5416 Yet the fact remains I fear
5417 They make more of it every year.
5419 History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history.
5422 Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we
5423 learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from
5424 what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long
5426 -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"
5429 If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they
5430 will find an easier way to do it.
5432 Hoare's Law of Large Problems:
5433 Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get
5437 It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take
5438 Hofstadter's Law into account.
5440 Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it.
5443 Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's
5444 willing to pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop
5445 for lumber, hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say
5446 "shop for", as opposed to "obtain". This is the major drawback of home
5447 centers: they are always out of everything except artificial Christmas
5448 trees. The home center employees have no time to reorder merchandise
5449 because they are too busy applying little price stickers to every
5450 object -- every board, washer, nail and screw -- in the entire store ...
5451 Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the
5452 broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has
5453 a replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the
5454 inside of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the
5455 same way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at
5456 an electronic calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of
5457 these sometime around the middle of next week".
5458 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
5460 Home of Doberman Propulsion Laboratories:
5461 The ultimate in watchdog weaponry.
5464 "Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense"
5466 Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people.
5469 Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..."
5471 Honk if you love peace and quiet.
5474 Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative
5475 bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the
5476 honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."
5477 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
5479 Horngren's Observation:
5480 Among economists, the real world is often a special case.
5482 Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on
5486 Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa.
5488 "Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed."
5491 How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
5493 How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers?
5495 How come wrong numbers are never busy?
5497 "How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows."
5499 How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?
5502 How doth the little crocodile
5503 Improve his shining tail,
5504 And pour the waters of the Nile
5505 On every golden scale!
5507 How cheerfully he seems to grin,
5508 How neatly spreads his claws,
5509 And welcomes little fishes in,
5510 With gently smiling jaws!
5511 -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"
5513 How doth the VAX's C compiler
5514 Improve its object code.
5515 And even as we speak does it
5516 Increase the system load.
5518 How patiently it seems to run
5519 And spit out error flags,
5520 While users, with frustration, all
5521 Tear their clothes to rags.
5523 How doth the VAX's C-compiler
5524 Improve its object code.
5525 And even as we speak does it
5526 Increase the system load.
5528 How patiently it seems to run
5529 And spit out error flags,
5530 While users, with frustration, all
5531 Tear all their clothes to rags.
5533 How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're
5536 How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
5537 None: "We'll fix it in software."
5539 How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
5540 None: "We'll document it in the manual."
5542 How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb?
5543 None: "The user can work it out."
5545 "How many hors d'oeuvres you are allowed to take off a tray being
5546 carried by a waiter at a nice party?"
5548 Two, but there are ways around it, depending on the style of the hors
5549 d'oeuvre. If they're those little pastry things where you can't tell
5550 what's inside, you take one, bite off about two-thirds of it, then
5551 say: "This is cheese! I hate cheese!" Then you put the rest of it
5552 back on the tray and bite another one and go, "Darn it! Another
5554 -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
5556 How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are
5557 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand,
5558 who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a
5560 -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs
5562 How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to
5564 -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey
5566 How to become a sysop:
5567 I grew a beard, started wearing only t-shirts and jeans, and
5568 developed a surly attitude. The group accepted me, and I've never
5569 worked a full day in my life since then.
5572 How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.
5574 HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
5575 #1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces.
5577 HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
5578 #15 Your pet rock snaps at you.
5580 HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY:
5582 #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of
5586 Everyone has a scheme that will not work.
5588 However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional
5589 manner ... sulking and nausea.
5592 HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill.,
5593 motion that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate
5594 amendment making changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits.
5595 The Senate amendment was an amendment to the House amendment to the
5596 Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the
5597 bill. The original Senate amendment was the conference agreement on
5598 the bill. Agreed to.
5599 -- Albuquerque Journal
5603 I will not play at tug o' war.
5604 I'd rather play at hug o' war,
5607 Where everyone giggles
5608 And rolls on the rug,
5609 Where everyone kisses,
5611 And everyone cuddles,
5615 Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.
5617 Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in
5618 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an
5619 operating table to prevent his interference, he placed a uretheral
5620 catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of
5621 his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took
5622 the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the
5625 Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs.
5627 "Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse."
5630 Hurewitz's Memory Principle:
5631 The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional
5632 to ..... to ........ uh ..............
5634 I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a
5635 professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any
5636 other minority viewpoint -- no matter how distasteful to the majority.
5639 What are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism?
5642 I am a PC technician - however, this has unfortunately caused my
5643 computer to be running Win98.
5644 -- seen on a FreeBSD mailing-list
5646 "I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder
5647 have included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products.
5648 This technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's
5649 reign. My carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go
5651 -- timw@zeb.USWest.COM
5653 I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work.
5655 "I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!"
5658 "I am not now, and never have been, a girlfriend of Henry Kissinger."
5661 I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party.
5664 "I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it."
5665 -- English Professor
5667 "I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the
5668 great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
5669 -- Winston Churchill
5671 "I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone
5672 has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top."
5673 -- English Professor, Ohio University
5675 I am so optimistic about beef prices that I've just leased a pot roast
5676 with an option to buy.
5678 "I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater."
5680 "I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person,
5681 of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell
5682 you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial
5683 atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something
5684 inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering."
5685 -- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado", Gilbert & Sullivan
5687 "I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of
5688 the sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for
5689 you are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway."
5690 -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy,
5691 University of Tennessee at Knoxville
5693 "I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an
5694 argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and
5695 steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect,
5696 they don't even invite me."
5699 "I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean."
5702 "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."
5705 "I bet the human brain is a kludge."
5708 I brake for chezlogs!
5710 I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up.
5713 I can feel for her because, although I have never been an Alaskan
5714 prostitute dancing on the bar in a spangled dress, I still get very
5715 bored with washing and ironing and dishwashing and cooking day after
5719 I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself.
5721 "I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and
5722 25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be
5726 "I can resist anything but temptation."
5728 "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do."
5731 "I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling."
5732 -- Florence Henderson
5734 I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can
5736 -- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.
5738 I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a
5739 novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.
5742 "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."
5745 I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rate
5746 of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ...
5747 -- F. H. Wales (1936)
5749 I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar.
5751 What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good
5752 grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause
5753 of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the
5754 United States would have lost World War II."
5755 -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar"
5757 "I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frito Bugger in a
5759 "No," said GoodGulf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, of
5760 course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which
5761 I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in
5764 "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves,
5765 Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves.
5766 Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop,
5767 This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop.
5768 The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring.
5769 The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing.
5770 If broken or busted, it cannot be remade.
5771 If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)."
5772 -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
5774 " I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights
5775 instead! Now when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is
5779 I could dance till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather
5780 dance with the cows till you come home.
5783 "I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps
5784 the time I found out that M&Ms really *do* melt in your hand ..."
5787 "I didn't know it was impossible when I did it."
5789 I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The
5792 I disapprove of the F-word, not because it's dirty, but because
5793 we use it as a substitute for thoughtful insults, and it frequently
5794 leads to violence. What we ought to do, when we anger each other, say,
5795 in traffic, is exchange phone numbers, so that later on, when we've had
5796 time to think of witty and learned insults or look them up in the
5797 library, we could call each other up:
5801 You: This is Ed. Remember? The person whose parking space you
5802 took last Thursday? Outside of Sears?
5803 Bob: Oh yes! Sure! How are you, Ed?
5804 You: Fine, thanks. Listen, Bob, the reason I'm calling is:
5805 "Madam, you may be drunk, but I am ugly, and ..." No, wait.
5806 I mean: "you may be ugly, but I am Winston Churchill
5807 and ..." No, wait. (Sound of reference book thudding onto
5808 the floor.) S-word. Excuse me. Look, Bob, I'm going to
5809 have to get back to you.
5811 -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
5813 I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an
5814 exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to
5815 minds entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary
5816 accountants fail to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a
5817 mind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the
5818 bottom up, and then again from the top down, the result is always
5820 -- Mrs. La Touche (19th cent.)
5822 "I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them."
5825 "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
5826 with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use."
5829 "I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should."
5830 -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
5832 "I don't believe in astrology. But then I'm an Aquarius, and Aquarians
5833 don't believe in astrology."
5834 -- James R. F. Quirk
5836 I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all just
5837 a BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell more
5840 I don't care for the Sugar Smacks commercial. I don't like the idea of
5841 a frog jumping on my Breakfast.
5842 -- Lowell, Chicago Reader 10/15/82
5844 "I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the
5848 "I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem."
5849 -- Ashleigh Brilliant
5851 "I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of
5852 people waiting to abuse me."
5853 -- Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters"
5855 I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
5858 "I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."
5861 "I don't know what you mean by `glory,'" Alice said
5862 Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't --
5863 till I tell you. I meant `there's a nice knock-down argument for
5865 "But glory doesn't mean `a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice
5867 "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful
5868 tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor
5870 "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean
5871 so many different things."
5872 "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--
5874 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
5876 "I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd
5877 eat it, and I just hate it."
5880 "I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path."
5883 I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the
5884 streets and frighten the horses.
5887 "I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!?"
5889 "I don't think so," said Ren'
\be Descartes. Just then, he vanished.
5891 "I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the other
5892 hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out."
5894 I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that
5895 the Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress is
5896 thinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientists
5897 broadcast signals to alien beings. This would be a large mistake.
5898 Alien beings have nuclear blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off
5899 their federal programs as if they were merely poor people ...
5900 -- Davy Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE
5903 I doubt, therefore I might be.
5905 "I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business
5906 on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment
5907 he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual
5908 becoming, with a goal in front and not behind."
5909 -- George Bernard Shaw
5911 "I drink to make other people interesting."
5912 -- George Jean Nathan
5914 I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on,
5915 so I woke up from sheer boredom.
5917 I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the
5918 accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For
5919 the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that
5920 can't be measured in monetary terms.
5922 Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have
5923 that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by
5924 subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should
5925 someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly
5926 understand his long delay.
5928 "I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words."
5930 "I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very
5931 reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment."
5934 I gave up Smoking, Drinking and Sex. It was the most *__________
\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\bhorrifying* 20
5937 'I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."
5940 I get up each morning, gather my wits.
5941 Pick up the paper, read the obits.
5942 If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.
5943 So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
5945 I get up each morning, gather my wits.
5946 Pick up the paper, read the obits.
5947 If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.
5948 So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.
5950 Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent?
5951 My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.
5952 But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin,
5953 And think of the places my get-up has been.
5956 "I had to censor everything my sons watched ... even on the Mary Tyler
5957 Moore show I heard the word 'damn'!"
5960 "I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense."
5962 "I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means
5963 it's going to be up all night."
5966 "I hate quotations."
5967 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
5969 I have a simple philosophy:
5973 Scratch where it itches.
5976 "I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it
5979 "I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show,
5980 which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark'."
5981 -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
5983 I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth
5984 and they never believe me.
5985 -- Camillo Di Cavour
5987 I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it.
5990 "I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. You
5991 sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an
5992 eight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. I
5993 have never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty of
5994 beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below. Westbrook Pegler, a
5995 guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. You can take that as more
5996 of an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry."
5997 -- President Harry S Truman
6000 To spell hors d'oeuvres
6001 Which still grates on
6002 Some people's n'oeuvres.
6005 "I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming
6006 that I have never made one."
6007 -- James Gordon Bennett
6009 "I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to
6013 I have more humility in my little finger than you have in your whole
6015 -- from "Cerebus" #82
6017 "I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer."
6018 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
6020 "I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best."
6023 "I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it
6024 scattered around the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you've seen it.
6027 "I have to convince you, or at least snow you ..."
6028 -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435
6030 "I have two very rare photographs: one is a picture of Houdini locking
6031 his keys in his car; the other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell
6032 beating up a child."
6035 I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked
6036 at in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
6039 "I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere."
6041 "I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it."
6043 I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!!
6045 "I just need enough to tide me over until I need more."
6048 I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once.
6050 "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
6051 War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
6054 "I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!
6055 The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building."
6058 "I like being single. I'm always there when I need me."
6061 I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to
6062 promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want
6063 peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of
6064 the way and let them have it.
6065 -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
6067 "I like work ... I can sit and watch it for hours."
6069 "I like your game but we have to change the rules."
6071 "I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what
6072 entertainment is all about ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils."
6073 -- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
6075 "I love to eat them Smurfies
6076 Smurfies what I love to eat
6077 Bite they ugly heads off,
6078 Nibble on they bluish feet."
6080 "I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, but
6081 don't let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age ... at the
6083 -- Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk
6085 "I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent."
6086 -- Ashleigh Brilliant
6088 "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a
6089 week sometimes to make it up."
6090 -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"
6092 I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts
6094 "I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do
6097 "I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like."
6099 I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.
6100 -- George Bernard Shaw
6102 "I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis!"
6103 -- Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus)
6105 "I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the
6106 kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled
6107 substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no
6108 restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we
6109 made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given
6110 powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative
6112 -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
6114 I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow!
6116 "I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral
6118 -- William F. Buckley
6120 "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of
6121 that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put
6122 more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it
6123 might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
6124 otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be
6126 -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"
6128 I realize that the MX missile is none of our concern. I realize that
6129 the whole point of living in a democracy is that we pay professional
6130 congresspersons to concern themselves with things like the MX missile
6131 so we can be free to concern ourselves with getting hold of the
6134 But from time to time, I feel I must address major public issues such
6135 as this, because in a free and open society, where the very future of
6136 the world hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you never
6137 win large cash journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usually
6138 write about, such as nose-picking.
6139 -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against
6142 I really hate this damned machine
6143 I wish that they would sell it.
6144 It never does quite what I want
6145 But only what I tell it.
6147 "I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person."
6149 I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes. I hope
6150 they do get 'em lowered enough so people can afford to pay 'em.
6153 I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
6154 I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
6155 Bernoulli would have been content to die
6156 Had he but known such _
\ba-squared cos 2(phi)!
6157 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
6159 I sent a letter to the fish,
6160 I told them, "This is what I wish."
6161 The little fishes of the sea,
6162 They sent an answer back to me.
6163 The little fishes' answer was
6164 "We cannot do it, sir, because ..."
6165 I sent a letter back to say
6166 It would be better to obey.
6167 But someone came to me and said
6168 "The little fishes are in bed."
6169 I said to him, and I said it plain
6170 "Then you must wake them up again."
6171 I said it very loud and clear,
6172 I went and shouted in his ear.
6173 But he was very stiff and proud,
6174 He said "You needn't shout so loud."
6175 And he was very proud and stiff,
6176 He said "I'll go and wake them if ..."
6177 I took a kettle from the shelf,
6178 I went to wake them up myself.
6179 But when I found the door was locked
6180 I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked,
6181 And when I found the door was shut,
6182 I tried to turn the handle, But ...
6184 "Is that all?" asked Alice.
6185 "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye."
6186 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
6188 "I shot an arrow into the air, and it stuck."
6189 -- Graffito in Los Angeles
6191 "... I should explain that I was wearing a black velvet cape that was
6192 supposed to make me look like the dashing, romantic Zorro but which
6193 actually made me look like a gigantic bat wearing glasses ..."
6194 -- Dave Barry, "The Wet Zorro Suit and Other Turning
6197 "I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full
6198 house and four people died."
6201 "I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to
6202 see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."
6205 I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do
6206 too much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which
6207 direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After
6208 much trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot
6210 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
6212 "I think it is true for all _
\bn. I was just playing it safe with _
\bn >= 3
6213 because I couldn't remember the proof."
6214 -- Baker, Pure Math 351a
6216 "I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it."
6218 I think that all good, right thinking people in this country are sick
6219 and tired of being told that all good, right thinking people in this
6220 country are fed up with being told that all good, right thinking people
6221 in this country are fed up with being sick and tired. I'm certainly
6222 not, and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am.
6225 I think that I shall never see
6226 A billboard lovely as a tree.
6227 Perhaps, unless the billboards fall
6228 I'll never see a tree at all.
6231 I think that I shall never see
6232 A thing as lovely as a tree.
6233 But as you see the trees have gone
6234 They went this morning with the dawn.
6235 A logging firm from out of town
6236 Came and chopped the trees all down.
6237 But I will trick those dirty skunks
6238 And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'.
6240 "I think the sky is blue because it's a shift from black through purple
6241 to blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, the
6242 farther we get into darkness, and there's a shifting of color of light
6243 into the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away from
6244 the reflected light we have from the sun or the light that's bouncing
6245 off this earth, uh, the darker it gets ... I think if you look at the
6246 color scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it on
6247 out, it's the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the stars
6248 singing, and that's one of the effects of the shifting of colors."
6249 -- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club
6251 I think the world would be a more peaceful place if people
6252 could just keep their fingers out of the fortune files.
6253 -- Jordan K. Hubbard
6255 I think we can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown
6256 ... HEY! PAY ATTENTION WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU DAMMIT! I said I think
6257 we can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown today.
6258 When we take the time to be courteous to each other, we find that we
6259 are happier and less likely to engage in nuclear war. This point was
6260 driven home by the recent summit talks, where Nancy Reagan and Raisa
6261 Gorbachev, each of whose husband thinks the other's husband is vermin,
6262 were able to sit down at a high-level tea and engage in courteous
6264 -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
6266 "I thought you were trying to get into shape."
6267 "I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle."
6269 " ... I told my doctor I got all the exercise I needed being a
6270 pallbearer for all my friends who run and do exercises!"
6271 -- Winston Churchill
6273 I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in
6274 twenty minutes. It's about Russia.
6277 I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure.
6279 "I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance."
6281 "I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure."
6283 "I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my
6284 body. Then I realized who was telling me this."
6287 I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere
6291 I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to
6292 animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for
6293 anything connected with society except that which makes the roads
6294 safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and old men and women
6295 warmer in the winter, and happier in the summer.
6298 "I want to buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch `St.
6299 Elsewhere', won't scream, `FORGET IT, BLANCHE ... IT'S TIME FOR "HEE
6301 -- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County"
6303 I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know
6304 anything else ... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is
6305 a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows
6309 "I was drunk last night, crawled home across the lawn. By accident I
6310 put the car key in the door lock. The house started up. So I figured
6311 what the hell, and drove it around the block a few times. I thought I
6312 should go park it in the middle of the freeway and yell at everyone to
6313 get off my driveway."
6316 "I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I
6320 I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending
6321 their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to
6322 buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.
6323 -- Emile Henry Gauvreay
6325 "I was playing poker the other night ... with Tarot cards. I got a full
6326 house and four people died."
6329 "I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything
6333 I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained
6334 it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass
6335 stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold.
6336 I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be
6337 absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had
6338 developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case.
6339 Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's
6340 temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I
6341 chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to
6342 the point where it would not run at all.
6343 -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black
6344 Holes and the Fate of Stars"
6346 "I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any
6347 questions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the
6348 speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen?
6350 He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work
6354 "I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in
6355 the shape of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't
6359 "I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the
6360 statues that are in all the other museums."
6363 I went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good that
6364 it took seven others to beat him!
6366 "I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.
6367 There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't work."
6370 "I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've
6371 always worked for me."
6372 -- Hunter S. Thompson
6374 "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous."
6376 "I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've got
6379 "I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat."
6381 "I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if I
6384 "I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in
6387 "I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my
6390 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of my
6393 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch from
6394 Julian to Gregorian."
6396 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for
6399 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered."
6401 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on my
6402 cottage cheese sculpture."
6404 "I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving."
6406 "I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karma
6409 "I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night."
6411 "I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV."
6413 "I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never
6416 "I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to stay
6419 "I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues that
6420 need worrying about."
6422 "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
6424 "I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over,
6425 carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old Virginia,
6426 I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun."
6429 I'll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I'd
6431 -- Tom Galloway with apologies to Voltaire
6433 I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
6434 Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love;
6435 And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove
6436 And in our bound partition never part.
6437 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
6439 "I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob.
6440 That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood."
6441 -- Daffy Duck, "Robin Hood Daffy", [1958, Chuck Jones]
6443 "I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from
6446 I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me!
6448 "I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry my
6451 I'm changing my name to Chrysler
6452 I'm going down to Washington, D.C.
6453 I'll tell some power broker
6454 What they did for Iacocca
6455 Will be perfectly acceptable to me!
6456 I'm changing my name to Chrysler,
6457 I'm heading for that great receiving line.
6458 When they hand a million grand out,
6459 I'll be standing with my hand out,
6460 Yessir, I'll get mine!
6463 I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did.
6465 "I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did."
6467 "I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to
6471 I'm going to Boston to see my doctor. He's a very sick man.
6474 I'm going to live forever, or die trying!
6477 ... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM of a
6480 "I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here?"
6481 -- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate
6483 i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be
6487 I'm N-ary the tree, I am,
6488 N-ary the tree, I am, I am.
6489 I'm getting traversed by the parser next door,
6490 She's traversed me seven times before.
6491 And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!)
6492 Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!)
6493 I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary.
6494 N-ary the tree I am, I am,
6495 N-ary the tree I am.
6497 "I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am.
6498 It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get."
6500 "I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday
6503 I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is
6504 -- I could be just as proud for half the money.
6509 "I'm really enjoying not talking to you ... Let's not talk again ____
\b\b\b\bREAL
6512 "I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it
6513 (your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage."
6514 -- English Professor, Providence College
6516 "I'm sorry, but after reading this thread, I'm having a hard time
6517 coming up with an explanation for this nonsense which doesn't involve
6518 you being a dumbass."
6519 -- Bill Paul <wpaul@FreeBSD.org>
6521 I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
6522 I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
6523 In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
6524 I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
6525 -- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance"
6527 "I'm willing to sacrifice anything for this cause, even other people's
6530 I've built a better model than the one at Data General
6531 For data bases vegetable, animal, and mineral
6532 My OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality;
6533 My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality.
6534 My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity,
6535 You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity;
6536 There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting;
6537 My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting.
6539 I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point:
6540 There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point,
6541 Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineral
6542 I've built a better model than the one at Data General.
6544 -- Steve Levine, "A Computer Song" (To the tune of
6545 "Modern Major General", from "Pirates of Penzance",
6546 by Gilbert & Sullivan)
6548 I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand.
6550 I've found my niche. If you're wondering why I'm not there, there was
6551 this little hole in the bottom ...
6554 I've given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.
6556 I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
6559 I've known him as a man, as an adolescent and as a child -- sometimes
6562 "I've seen better heads on half a pint of beer."
6564 "I've seen, I SAY, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer"
6567 I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;
6568 And from that full meridian of my glory
6569 I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
6570 Like a bright exhalation in the evening
6571 And no man see me more.
6575 Its syntax worse than JOSS;
6576 And everywhere this language went,
6577 It was a total loss.
6579 Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a box
6580 of candy weighing less than fifty pounds.
6582 Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't like
6583 solitary confinement.
6586 The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the
6587 stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves.
6588 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
6591 A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human
6592 affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
6593 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
6595 If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape
6596 at about 30 miles/second.
6597 -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming
6599 If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law.
6602 "If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far."
6605 If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensus
6606 forecast is a camel's behind.
6609 If A equals success, then the formula is _
\bA = _
\bX + _
\bY + _
\bZ. _
\bX is work. _
\bY
6610 is play. _
\bZ is keep your mouth shut.
6613 If a group of _
\bN persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be _
\bN-1
6614 passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager.
6617 If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-four
6618 hours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances where
6620 -- Joseph C. Goulden
6622 If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake
6625 If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country.
6627 If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have
6628 dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to
6629 maintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support it
6630 must drop. The law of gravity supersedes the law of golf.
6633 "If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a good
6634 attitude. If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment to
6635 playing the game right. If it plays the game right, it will win --
6636 unless, of course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no manager
6637 can make goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry?"
6640 If all be true that I do think,
6641 There be Five Reasons why one should Drink;
6642 Good friends, good wine, or being dry,
6643 Or lest we should be by-and-by,
6644 Or any other reason why.
6646 If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular
6648 -- John Kenneth Galbraith
6650 If all the Chinese simultaneously jumped into the Pacific off a 10 foot
6651 platform erected 10 feet off their coast, it would cause a tidal wave
6652 that would destroy everything in this country west of Nebraska.
6654 If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.
6657 If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
6661 If an S and an I and an O and a U
6662 With an X at the end spell Su;
6663 And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
6664 Pray what is a speller to do?
6665 Then, if also an S and an I and a G
6666 And an HED spell side,
6667 There's nothing much left for a speller to do
6668 But to go commit siouxeyesighed.
6669 -- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament"
6671 If anything can go wrong, it will.
6673 If at first you don't succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool.
6675 If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
6677 If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four
6680 "If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?"
6682 If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?
6684 If everybody minded their own business, the world would go
6685 around a deal faster.
6686 -- The Duchess, "Through the Looking Glass"
6688 If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane.
6690 ... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with
6691 the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls
6692 asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ...
6693 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
6695 If God didn't mean for us to juggle, tennis balls wouldn't come three
6698 If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire.
6700 If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet.
6702 If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit
6705 If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their
6708 If God had meant for us to be in the Army, we would have been born with
6711 If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.
6713 If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to
6716 If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger
6719 If God is dead, who will save the Queen?
6721 If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions?
6723 "If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows."
6726 If God wanted us to be brave, why did he give us legs?
6729 "If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will be
6730 replaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET!"
6732 If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive!
6735 If I don't drive around the park,
6736 I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
6737 If I'm in bed each night by ten,
6738 I may get back my looks again.
6739 If I abstain from fun and such,
6740 I'll probably amount to much;
6741 But I shall stay the way I am,
6742 Because I do not give a damn.
6745 If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture.
6747 If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell, I'd sell the
6748 plantation and go home.
6749 -- Eugene P. Gallagher
6751 If I had any humility I would be perfect.
6754 "If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith."
6757 If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the
6758 shoulders of giants.
6761 In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
6762 with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
6765 If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing
6769 In computer science, we stand on each other's feet.
6772 If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction.
6774 On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that is
6775 also a psychological interaction.
6777 The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so
6780 The crucial point is if you can tell which is which.
6781 -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
6783 If I traveled to the end of the rainbow
6784 As Dame Fortune did intend,
6785 Murphy would be there to tell me
6786 The pot's at the other end.
6789 If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?
6791 If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune.
6793 If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him.
6794 They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun
6798 "If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they
6799 forgot to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll
6800 just think the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail.
6801 And if *fifty* pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty*
6802 pieces of mail get lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken!
6803 And if 1Gb of mail gets lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa is down and
6804 think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to
6805 receive Net Mail ..."
6806 -- Leith (Casey) Leedom
6808 If life is a stage, I want some better lighting.
6810 If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
6813 If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women
6814 you've got in the house.
6815 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
6817 If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by
6820 If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it.
6822 "If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think
6823 little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and
6824 Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."
6825 -- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859)
6827 If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants.
6830 If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit
6831 in my name at a Swiss bank.
6832 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
6834 If only I could be respected without having to be respectable.
6836 If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without
6837 having to accomplish anything.
6839 If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad,
6840 he should see how bad it is with representation.
6842 If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of
6843 arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the
6844 physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker
6845 entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.
6848 If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied
6852 "If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem."
6853 -- C. Durance, Computer Science 234
6855 If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would
6856 presumably flunk it.
6859 If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong.
6862 If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to
6863 get the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude.
6864 See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving
6865 the natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting
6866 that you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The
6867 college, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odious
6868 and unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to
6869 rally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective.
6870 Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure
6871 interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by
6872 opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for
6873 himself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; for
6874 boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor.
6875 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
6877 "If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for
6879 -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920)
6881 If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances
6884 If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If
6885 the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the
6886 bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will
6887 exceed all expectations.
6888 -- Reverend Chichester
6890 If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams.
6892 If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that
6893 will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
6895 If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?
6898 If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make
6899 something out of you.
6902 If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it.
6904 If this is timesharing, give me my share right now.
6906 If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same?
6908 If today is the first day of the rest of your life, what the hell was
6911 If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is
6913 -- Lyndon Baines Johnson
6915 If two wrongs don't make a right, try three.
6916 -- Laurence J. Peter
6918 "If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely"
6920 "If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage."
6922 If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel
6923 in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary
6924 qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted.
6925 -- Marguerite Emmons
6927 If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it?
6930 "If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
6933 If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.
6935 If you can read this, you're too close.
6937 If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything.
6939 If you can't be good, be careful. If you can't be careful, give me a
6942 If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
6944 If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
6947 If you didn't get caught, did you really do it?
6949 If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.
6951 If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours.
6954 If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter.
6957 "If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little
6958 Lavoris in the toilet."
6961 If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to
6962 either of you for the rest of the day.
6964 "If you ever want to get anywhere in politics, my boy, you're going to
6965 have to get a toehold in the public eye."
6967 If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody
6970 If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it
6972 -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin
6974 "If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is
6975 make the rubble bounce"
6976 -- Winston Churchill
6978 If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous.
6980 If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
6982 "If you have to hate, hate gently"
6984 If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to
6985 boot yourself in the posterior.
6988 If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away.
6990 If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.
6993 If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few
6994 people die past the age of a hundred.
6997 If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you
6998 really make them think they'll hate you.
7000 If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
7003 If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure
7004 can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly
7007 If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite
7008 you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
7011 If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine,
7012 you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get
7015 If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But
7016 this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is
7017 somehow enobled and none dare criticize it.
7019 If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're
7022 If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair.
7024 If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker,
7025 It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock.
7026 Or some joker who is slicker,
7027 Will trick you of your liquor,
7028 If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock.
7030 If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
7031 -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
7033 If you think last Tuesday was a drag, wait till you see what happens
7036 If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car
7040 If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it.
7043 If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest
7044 shopping center in the world?
7047 If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest
7048 shopping center in the world?
7051 If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would
7052 be to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call
7053 you to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throw
7054 another party next year.
7056 What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake up
7057 several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've
7058 been indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious to
7059 avoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning
7060 parties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from
7061 having another one ...
7063 If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unless
7064 your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas
7065 through your living room window. As host, your job is to make sure
7066 that they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arresting
7067 someone, your job is to make sure it isn't you ...
7069 If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid them
7070 end to end, they'd be a lot more comfortable.
7071 -- "Graffiti in the Big Ten"
7073 "If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything."
7076 If you want divine justice, die.
7079 If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people
7083 If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the
7084 Constitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's
7085 statecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washington
7086 telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with
7087 titles beginning with the word "National".
7090 If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to every
7091 word you say, talk in your sleep.
7093 "If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up some
7094 memoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' it,
7095 even if they don't know what it means."
7096 -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party"
7098 If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings -- including this one.
7100 If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for
7101 tomorrow morning, sleep late.
7104 If you're happy, you're successful.
7106 If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairs
7107 around your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnace
7108 explodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The
7109 "professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides and
7110 deposits a large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend the
7111 better part of the week in your basement whacking objects at random
7112 with heavy wrenches, after which the "professional" returns and gives
7113 you a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run a
7114 successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.
7115 And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself.
7116 You figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. How
7117 difficult can it be?"
7118 Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible,
7119 which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in paying
7120 other people to screw things up when you can easily screw them up
7121 yourself for far less money. This article can help you.
7122 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
7124 If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
7126 If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory.
7127 -- Benjamin Disraeli
7129 If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%?
7131 "If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round
7132 it off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the
7135 If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all.
7139 The overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car
7140 door even as the brain is saying, "my keys are in there!"
7141 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
7143 Il brilgue: les t^
\boves libricilleux
7144 Se gyrent et frillant dans le guave,
7145 Enm^
\bim'
\bes sont les gougebosquex,
7146 Et le m^
\bomerade horgrave.
7147 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
7150 There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directly
7151 at the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it.
7154 Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the
7155 land He's trying to ignore.
7157 Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
7158 -- Jules de Gaultier
7160 "Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
7161 usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody
7162 thinks of complaining."
7163 -- Jeff Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal
7165 Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has
7166 a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk
7167 storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on
7168 voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300.
7169 What's the first question that the computer community asks?
7171 "Is it PC compatible?"
7173 Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
7176 Immortality -- a fate worse than death.
7180 Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from
7181 espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two
7182 conflicting opinions.
7183 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7185 Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the
7186 mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the
7190 (1) I wouldn't like it and when it happens I won't approve;
7191 (2) I can't be bothered; (3) God can't be bothered. Meaning (3) may
7192 perhaps be valid but the others are 101% whaledreck.
7193 -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"
7195 In 1750 Issac Newton became discouraged when he fell up a flight of
7198 In 1869 the waffle iron was invented for people who had wrinkled
7201 In 1880 the French captured Detroit but gave it back ... they couldn't
7204 In 1914, the first crossword puzzle was printed in a newspaper. The
7205 creator received $4000 down ... and $3000 across.
7207 In 1915 pancake make-up was invented but most people still preferred
7210 In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only
7211 we can't control when the five year period will begin.
7213 In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi,
7214 junior, what are you up to?"
7215 "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the
7217 "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!"
7218 "Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the
7219 rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied
7220 expression on his face.
7221 Comes along a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?"
7222 "I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits
7224 "Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?"
7225 "Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes
7226 out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw.
7227 Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody
7228 should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion sitting
7229 next to some bloody and furry remnants of the wolf and the fox.
7231 The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important --
7232 it's your PhD advisor that really counts.
7234 In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth"
7235 Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex.
7238 In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus,
7239 "one when he was a boy and one when he was a man."
7242 In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the ground
7243 with clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists call
7244 this a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf.
7246 In America today ... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become so
7247 sophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow. All
7248 those who think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where the
7249 devil gets her pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing up
7250 as a human sperm, please raise your hands. Thank you.
7251 -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
7253 In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one
7254 of the risks he takes.
7257 In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own
7259 -- The Peter Principle
7261 In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks)
7262 are to be treated as variables.
7264 "In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of
7265 nations -- it's cold, half-French, and difficult to stir."
7268 In Blythe, California, a city ordinance declares that a person must own
7269 at least two cows before he can wear cowboy boots in public.
7271 In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs.
7273 In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schools
7274 will be temporarily canceled.
7276 In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it and
7279 In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle
7280 a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order
7281 to get her attention.
7283 In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ride
7284 in any motor vehicle.
7286 "In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable."
7287 -- Winston Churchill, of Montgomery
7289 In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door
7292 In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset.
7294 In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last
7295 resort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but
7296 inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.
7297 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7299 In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our
7300 programming languages.
7302 In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards on
7303 the sidewalks when a concert is on.
7305 In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come
7306 into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish
7307 between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which
7308 will only make it mushy.
7311 In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in your
7314 In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any
7315 pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while
7316 either flying or waiting to board a plane.
7318 In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless
7319 there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red
7320 flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians.
7322 In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent as
7323 to publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of the
7324 speaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00.
7326 "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the
7328 -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
7330 In our civilization, and under our republican form of government,
7331 intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from
7332 the cares of office.
7333 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7335 In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds
7336 and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane.
7338 In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying
7339 of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public
7342 In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
7343 Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
7344 Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
7345 We shall encounter, counting, face to face.
7346 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
7348 In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon that
7349 is over six feet in length.
7351 In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way.
7352 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
7354 "In short, _
\bN is Richardian if, and only if, _
\bN is not Richardian."
7356 In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's.
7358 In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a
7361 [In the 60's] there was madness in any direction, at any hour ... You
7362 could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense
7363 that whatever we were doing was `right', that we were winning ...
7365 And that, I think, was the handle -- the sense of inevitable victory
7366 over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we
7367 didn't need that. Our energy would simply `prevail'. There was no
7368 point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum;
7369 we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ....
7371 So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in
7372 Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost
7373 ___
\b\b\bsee the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and
7375 -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
7377 In the beginning was the word.
7378 But by the time the second word was added to it,
7380 For with it came syntax ...
7383 In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat
7384 hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am
7385 training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is the
7386 net wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any
7387 preconceptions of how to play." Minsky shut his eyes. "Why do you
7388 close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher. "So the room will be
7389 empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
7391 In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in
7392 the proper order then why can't he?
7394 In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful
7396 -- Egyptian Book of the Dead
7398 In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble.
7401 In the olden days in England, you could be hung for stealing a sheep or
7402 a loaf of bread. However, if a sheep stole a loaf of bread and gave it
7403 to you, you would only be tried for receiving, a crime punishable by
7404 forty lashes with the cat or the dog, whichever was handy. If you
7405 stole a dog and were caught, you were punished with twelve rabbit
7406 punches, although it was hard to find rabbits big enough or strong
7407 enough to punch you.
7408 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
7410 In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has
7411 shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the
7412 Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million
7413 three hundred thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years
7414 from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long.
7415 ... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such
7416 wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of
7420 In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to
7421 drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at
7425 In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used to frequently take
7427 -- Winston Churchill
7429 In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without
7430 the supervision of a licensed engineer.
7432 In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse
7433 along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months.
7436 Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents.
7437 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7439 ... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leaves
7440 smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is
7441 not a children's pastime like mere highway robbery.
7444 Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?
7446 Individualists unite!
7449 The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven
7450 lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon
7454 Information Center, n.:
7455 A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is
7456 to tell you why you cannot have the information you require.
7459 A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of
7462 Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
7463 -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
7466 A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and
7467 water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote
7469 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7471 Innovation is hard to schedule.
7474 Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.
7476 Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the
7477 salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon.
7480 One who enables two persons of different languages to
7481 understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to
7482 the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
7483 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7485 Intolerance is the last defense of the insecure.
7488 Four be the things I am wiser to know:
7489 Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
7491 Four be the things I'd been better without:
7492 Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
7494 Three be the things I shall never attain:
7495 Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
7497 Three be the things I shall have till I die:
7498 Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
7500 Iron Law of Distribution:
7501 Them that has, gets.
7503 "Irrationality is the square root of all evil"
7504 -- Douglas Hofstadter
7506 Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is
7507 meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a
7510 Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the
7511 beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get
7512 out, and such as are out wish to get in?
7515 Is your job running? You'd better go catch it!
7517 Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
7518 listen to weather forecasts and economists?
7519 -- Kelvin Throop III
7521 Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune
7522 tellers take economists seriously?
7524 Issawi's Laws of Progress:
7526 The Course of Progress:
7527 Most things get steadily worse.
7529 The Path of Progress:
7530 A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.
7532 It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself working
7533 as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he found that he
7534 had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one he asked,
7535 "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They discussed
7536 Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second new arrival
7537 came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's IQ. The answer
7538 this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell me, how did the
7539 Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half an hour or so.
7540 To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the question, "What's
7541 your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", Einstein smiled and asked,
7542 "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?"
7544 It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown
7545 came out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and
7546 applauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I
7547 think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the
7548 wits, who believe that it is a joke.
7549 -- S. A. Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
7551 It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is
7552 thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have
7553 drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
7554 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
7556 It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself
7557 that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *____
\b\b\b\bonly* by amusing oneself that
7559 -- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman
7561 It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have
7562 been searching for evidence which could support this.
7565 It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
7567 It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to
7568 program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in
7569 organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be
7573 It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of
7576 It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your parents will
7577 not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselves
7578 and because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act like
7579 mature human beings ...
7580 -- Playboy, January 1983
7582 It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a
7583 pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the
7584 sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color.
7587 It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what
7588 they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed
7589 that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so
7590 much -- the wheel, New York wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins
7591 had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But
7592 conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more
7593 intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.
7595 Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending
7596 destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to
7597 alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were
7599 -- Douglas Admas "The Hitch-Hikers' Guide To The
7602 It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be
7606 It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck?
7607 One in a million, perhaps.
7609 It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark
7611 It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three
7612 benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never
7616 It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both
7617 incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by
7618 twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
7621 "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is
7623 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
7625 It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country its
7626 proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your community
7627 a better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than to
7628 treat your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller the
7629 focus of attention, the harder the task.
7632 It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice
7635 It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
7637 It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct
7640 It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because
7641 if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of
7643 -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
7645 It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood
7646 Boulevard at one time.
7648 It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia.
7650 It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry
7654 It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so
7657 It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not
7658 desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
7661 It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our
7662 offense consists in doubting it.
7663 -- Justice Robert H. Jackson
7665 It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the
7668 It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be
7669 privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to
7670 corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles.
7671 -- George Bernard Shaw
7673 It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
7676 It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it's one
7677 damn thing over and over.
7678 -- Edna St. Vincent Millay
7680 It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is?
7681 -- Elizabeth Carpenter
7683 It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a
7686 It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that
7687 virginity could be a virtue.
7690 It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their
7693 It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared
7694 to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.
7697 It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to
7698 students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential
7699 programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of
7703 It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the
7704 lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as
7707 It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a
7708 statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more
7709 glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through
7710 which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the
7711 day, that is the highest of arts.
7712 -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live"
7714 It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroad
7715 crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed
7716 until the other has gone.
7718 It is the business of little minds to shrink.
7721 It is the business of the future to be dangerous.
7724 It is true that if your paperboy throws your paper into the bushes for
7725 five straight days it can be explained by Newton's Law of Gravity. But
7726 it takes Murphy's law to explain why it is happening to you.
7728 It is hard to predict, in particular about the future.
7729 -- Robert Storm Petersen
7731 It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out.
7733 It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn't too
7734 good either if you speak when your head is empty.
7736 It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a
7739 "It runs like _
\bx, where _
\bx is something unsavory"
7740 -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435
7742 It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the
7745 It shall be unlawful for any suspicious person to be within the
7747 -- Local ordinance, Euclid Ohio
7749 "It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
7750 but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous."
7753 It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead.
7755 "It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set
7758 It was one of those perfect summer days -- the sun was shining, a
7759 breeze was blowing, the birds were singing, and the lawn mower was
7763 "It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps
7764 I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I
7765 don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and
7766 the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual
7767 charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its
7768 novelty .... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but
7769 yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable
7773 It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east
7774 laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. The
7775 thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle,
7776 nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying
7777 for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's.
7778 Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating
7779 under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting
7781 -- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
7783 It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more like
7784 the rose and the teeth were in the same glass.
7786 It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on
7787 the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work.
7789 It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at human
7790 nature and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant
7794 It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing
7795 warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or
7796 two things still safe to eat.
7799 It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
7802 "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone
7805 It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.
7807 "It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it."
7812 "It means summon's in trouble."
7813 -- Rocky and Bullwinkle
7815 It's a very *__
\b\bUN*lucky week in which to be took dead.
7818 It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black.
7820 "It's bad luck to be superstitious."
7823 It's better to be wanted for murder that not to be wanted at all.
7826 "It's easier said than done."
7828 ... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done than
7829 said, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done than
7830 said' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said than
7833 It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
7835 It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for
7838 "It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an
7842 It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse.
7844 It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
7845 is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
7846 isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
7847 -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News
7849 It's just a jump to the left
7850 And then a step to the right.
7851 Put your hands on your hips
7852 And pull your knees in tight.
7853 It's the pelvic thrust
7854 That really gets you insa-a-a-a-ane
7856 LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!
7858 -- Rocky Horror Picture Show
7860 "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
7867 and even the teddy bears
7870 It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong
7873 "It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name."
7875 It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre.
7878 It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows how
7879 to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair.
7882 It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one.
7885 "It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either."
7886 -- Kevin White, mayor of Boston
7888 It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too.
7891 "It's not just a computer -- it's your ass."
7894 It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it's
7895 what you're taking for it...
7897 It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off
7901 It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it
7905 It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips.
7908 It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact that
7909 English is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in many
7910 other languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case.
7913 It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...
7915 It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
7917 It's so stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the
7918 Devil when he is the only explanation of it.
7920 It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which
7921 raises the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody
7923 -- Franklin P. Jones
7925 It's the thought, if any, that counts!
7927 JACK AND THE BEANSTACK
7930 Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL
7931 character named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often their
7932 hash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices
7933 are sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some
7934 BASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it
7936 So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path,
7937 he met the traveling salesman.
7938 "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman
7939 in high-level language.
7940 "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips
7941 and Apples," commented Jack.
7942 "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queue
7943 there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now."
7944 Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But when
7945 he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she
7947 "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All these
7948 kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the
7951 Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government:
7952 No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the
7953 legislature is in session.
7955 James Joyce -- an essentially private man who wished his total
7956 indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.
7964 But only Buddha pays Dividends.
7967 Telling your boss what he can do with your job.
7969 Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes!
7971 Johnson's First Law:
7972 When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the
7973 most inconvenient possible time.
7975 Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called
7976 "Bureaucracy". Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do
7979 Join the march to save individuality!
7982 The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone
7986 Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
7989 Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of
7990 endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction
7991 to its progress -- in direct proportion to the importance of their
7992 original contribution.
7994 Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac
7995 (and nobody cares about it).
7998 Just as most issues are seldom black or white, so are most good
7999 solutions seldom black or white. Beware of the solution that requires
8000 one side to be totally the loser and the other side to be totally the
8001 winner. The reason there are two sides to begin with usually is
8002 because neither side has all the facts. Therefore, when the wise
8003 mediator effects a compromise, he is not acting from political
8004 motivation. Rather, he is acting from a deep sense of respect for the
8006 -- Stephen R. Schwambach
8008 Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has
8012 Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you.
8014 Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he
8017 Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you
8018 get a prompt, type like hell.
8020 "Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't
8022 -- The Brigader, "Dr. Who"
8024 "Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some
8025 of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?"
8026 -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US
8028 "Just remember, it all started with a mouse."
8031 Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to
8032 twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty!
8034 `Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried,
8035 As he landed his crew with care;
8036 Supporting each man on the top of the tide
8037 By a finger entwined in his hair.
8039 'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
8040 That alone should encourage the crew.
8041 Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
8042 What I tell you three times is true.'
8044 Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes a
8047 Justice always prevails ... three times out of seven!
8048 -- Michael J. Wagner
8050 Justice is incidental to law and order.
8054 A decision in your favor.
8056 K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining;
8057 Cobol's wordy and confining;
8058 KOBOLDS topple when you strike them;
8059 Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them.
8060 -- The Roguelet's ABC
8062 Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to
8066 Man and nations will act rationally when all other
8067 possibilities have been exhausted.
8069 Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans.
8071 Keep Cool, but Don't Freeze
8072 - Hellman's Mayonnaise
8074 Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis.
8076 Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo.
8078 Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee:
8079 (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc
8080 straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this
8081 force is technically termed "car suck").
8082 (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive
8085 Keep your Eye on the Ball,
8086 Your Shoulder to the Wheel,
8087 Your Nose to the Grindstone,
8088 Your Feet on the Ground,
8089 Your Head on your Shoulders.
8090 Now ... try to get something DONE!
8092 Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most
8093 automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the
8094 numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the
8095 driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the
8096 dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know
8099 Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College:
8100 Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex for the students,
8101 and parking for the faculty.
8103 Kids have *_____
\b\b\b\b\bnever* taken guidance from their parents. If you could
8104 travel back in time and observe the original primate family in the
8105 original tree, you would see the primate parents yelling at the primate
8106 teenager for sitting around and sulking all day instead of hunting for
8107 grubs and berries like dad primate. Then you'd see the primate
8108 teenager stomp up to his branch and slam the leaves.
8109 -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly
8113 An affliction of the blood
8115 Kinkler's First Law:
8116 Responsibility always exceeds authority.
8118 Kinkler's Second Law:
8119 All the easy problems have been solved.
8121 "Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack."
8123 Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through
8126 Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic.
8128 Kiss your keyboard goodbye!
8130 Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within.
8132 Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within.
8136 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8138 Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A.
8140 Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions.
8143 Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr):
8144 The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards.
8145 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
8148 One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
8149 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8154 (3) Never volunteer for anything
8156 Lactomangulation, n.:
8157 Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly
8158 that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side.
8159 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
8163 Your house is on fire,
8164 Your children will burn!
8165 So jump ye and sing, for
8167 The four lines above
8168 Have been put into rhyme.
8171 Laetrile is the pits
8174 (1) Everything depends.
8175 (2) Nothing is always.
8176 (3) Everything is sometimes.
8179 All laws are basically false.
8181 Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived with
8182 was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always getting
8183 pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to the
8184 farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their
8185 sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do
8186 you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her?
8187 What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead
8188 of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under
8189 the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops
8190 whatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, which
8191 Lassie filed the applications for.
8194 "Last night, I came home and realized that everything in my apartment
8195 had been stolen and replaced with an exact duplicate. I told this to
8196 my friend -- he said, `Do I know you?'"
8199 "Last week a cop stopped me in my car. He asked me if I had a police
8200 record. I said, no, but I have the new DEVO album. Cops have no sense
8203 Last yeer I kudn't spel Engineer. Now I are won.
8205 Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.
8207 "Laughter is the closest distance between two people."
8210 Law of Communications:
8211 The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications
8212 between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of
8215 Law of Probable Dispersal:
8216 Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly
8219 Law of Selective Gravity:
8220 An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
8222 Jenning's Corollary:
8223 The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is
8224 directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.
8226 Law of the Perversity of Nature:
8227 You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the
8230 Laws of Serendipity:
8232 (1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for
8234 (2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already
8235 be engaged in making an inferior one.
8237 Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom:
8238 No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats --
8239 approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
8241 Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads.
8243 Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and
8244 everything else follows in the same way.
8247 Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
8249 Legalize free-enterprise murder: why should governments have all the
8252 Legislation proposed in the Illinois State Legislature, May, 1907:
8253 "Speed upon county roads will be limited to ten miles an hour
8254 unless the motorist sees a bailiff who does not appear to have had a
8255 drink in 30 days, when the driver will be permitted to make what he
8259 When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you
8260 hold the hammer with both hands.
8262 LEO (July 23 - Aug 22)
8263 You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are
8264 pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike
8265 honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people
8268 LEO (July 23 - Aug 22)
8269 Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore.
8270 Your ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because
8271 you've got a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of
8272 fact, if you can laugh at what happens to you today, you've got
8273 a sick sense of humor.
8275 Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday.
8277 "Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a
8278 number. You're two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash
8279 and another number."
8284 Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!!
8288 Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In every
8289 relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If you
8290 really care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's the
8291 end. For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the
8292 qualities I most admired in myself I gave up. I stopped being loud and
8293 bossy ... Oh, all right. I was still loud and bossy, but only behind
8295 -- Kate Hepburn, on Tracy and Hepburn
8297 Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick
8298 your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as
8299 Mental Anguish. You would sue:
8301 * The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions
8302 section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand
8303 into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls
8306 * The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious
8307 cretin like yourself.
8309 * Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this
8310 case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you
8311 a large cash settlement anyway.
8314 Let's talk about how to fill out your 1984 tax return. Here's an often
8315 overlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands of
8316 dollars: For several days before you put it in the mail, carry your
8317 tax return around under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want to
8318 spend hours poring over a sweat-stained document. So even if you owe
8319 money, you can put in for an enormous refund and the agent will
8320 probably give it to you, just to avoid an audit. What does he care?
8322 -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
8324 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London)
8328 I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home or
8329 to the office. We have more than enough of them foisted upon us in
8330 public places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only result
8331 in the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turn
8332 will cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressed
8333 agricultural industry.
8336 Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J. P.
8339 Lewis's Law of Travel:
8340 The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to
8344 A lawyer with a roving commission.
8345 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8347 Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
8348 -- Harry Emerson Fosdick
8350 LIBRA (Sep. 23 to Oct. 22)
8351 Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your
8352 desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and
8353 polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that.
8355 LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22)
8356 You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with
8357 reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay.
8358 Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most
8359 Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal
8363 A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one
8367 Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
8369 Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.
8371 Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string.
8373 "Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to
8374 eat it nevertheless."
8377 "Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it."
8379 Life is like a simile.
8381 Life is like an analogy
8383 Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find
8384 there is nothing in it.
8386 "Life is too important to take seriously."
8389 "Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of
8390 which I disapprove."
8392 "Life to you is a bold and dashing responsibility"
8393 -- a Mary Chung's fortune cookie
8395 "Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if it
8396 weren't for other people"
8399 Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.
8401 "Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."
8402 -- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
8404 Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made
8405 sense from things she found in gift shops.
8406 -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
8408 Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking
8409 for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem.
8412 Limericks are art forms complex,
8413 Their topics run chiefly to sex.
8414 They usually have virgins,
8415 And masculine urgin's,
8416 And other erotic effects.
8418 Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
8419 Kennedy exactly one hundred years later in 1946.
8421 Lincoln was elected president in November 1860.
8422 Kennedy in November 1960.
8424 Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy who urged him not to go to
8426 Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln who advised against his going
8429 Booth shot Lincoln in a theatre and ran off into a warehouse.
8430 Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and ran off into a theatre.
8432 Lincoln was succeeded by a Southerner named Johnson.
8433 Kennedy was succeeded by a Southerner named Johnson.
8435 The first Johnson was born in 1808.
8436 The second Johnson was born in 1908.
8438 -- Alistair Cooke, "Letter From America", 26nov2001
8440 Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations.
8442 Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe
8443 we should think only about today.
8445 No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get
8448 Living in LA is like not having a date on Saturday night.
8451 Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip
8454 Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted
8457 Lizzie Borden took an axe,
8458 And plunged it deep into the VAX;
8459 Don't you envy people who
8460 Do all the things ___
\b\b\bYOU want to do?
8462 Loan-department manager: "There isn't any fine print. At these
8463 interest rates, we don't need it."
8466 Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks are
8467 squeamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is the
8468 only proper method of preparing them. Frankly, the easiest way to
8469 eliminate your guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trial
8470 before they're cooked. The fact is, lobsters are among the most
8471 ferocious predators on the sea floor, and you're helping reduce crime
8472 in the reefs. Grasp the lobster behind the head, look it right in its
8473 unmistakably guilty eyestalks and say, "Where were you on the night of
8474 the 21st?", then flourish a picture of a scallop or a sole and shout,
8475 "Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural apparatus you call a
8476 memory!" The lobster will squirm noticeably. It may even take a swipe
8477 at you with one of its claws. Incorrigible. Pop it into the pot.
8478 Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will be,
8480 -- "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and Utensils
8481 into Excuses and Apologies"
8483 Lockwood's Long Shot:
8484 The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street aren't
8485 one in a million, but once would be enough.
8487 Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree; that smells *_____
\b\b\b\b\bawful*.
8489 ... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, and
8490 legally ... impeccable!
8492 Logicians have but ill defined
8493 As rational the human kind.
8494 Logic, they say, belongs to man,
8495 But let them prove it if they can.
8498 Look out! Behind you!
\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a\a
8500 Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us
8501 to pay income taxes, too?
8502 -- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox
8504 Loose bits sink chips.
8506 Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA,
8509 Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy.
8511 Loud burping while walking around the airport is prohibited in
8514 Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
8516 Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
8518 Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the
8519 world has ever seen.
8521 Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder.
8524 "Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it
8525 flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."
8528 Love is a word that is constantly heard,
8529 Hate is a word that is not.
8530 Love, I am told, is more precious than gold.
8531 Love, I have read, is hot.
8532 But hate is the verb that to me is superb,
8533 And Love but a drug on the mart.
8534 Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,
8535 But Hating, my boy, is an Art.
8538 "Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with
8539 the ideal never goes unpunished."
8542 Love is sentimental measles.
8544 Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
8547 Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes.
8549 Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood.
8552 Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up
8557 My love is like an iron wand
8558 That conks me on the head,
8559 My love is like the valium
8560 That I take before my bed,
8561 My love is like the pint of scotch
8562 That I drink when I be dry;
8563 And I shall love thee still, my dear,
8564 Until my wife is wise.
8567 If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing
8570 LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand.
8572 Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology:
8573 There's always one more bug.
8576 The place where optimism most flourishes.
8578 Lysistrata had a good idea.
8580 "MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into
8581 the smallest amount of thoughts."
8582 -- Winston Churchill
8584 Machine-Independent, adj.:
8585 Does not run on any existing machine.
8587 Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate,
8588 and play games -- but not with pleasure.
8592 Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ...
8593 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8595 Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them
8596 first for seven hours, they always come out tender.
8600 [Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced Insurance
8601 Accounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshore
8602 subsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS. MAFIA documentation is
8603 rather scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testy
8604 reluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DP
8605 operations. From the little that has seeped out, it would appear that
8606 MAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lipped
8607 variant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complex
8608 security functions. The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to a
8609 more than usually autocratic operating system. Screen prompts carry an
8610 imperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YES
8611 options, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay.
8612 Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using a
8613 powerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, and
8614 entire nodal aggravations.
8615 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
8617 Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetism
8619 Magnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet.
8621 The two definition immediately foregoing are condensed from the works
8622 of one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subject
8623 with a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of human
8625 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8628 Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping
8630 -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
8633 A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it
8634 might be taught to talk.
8635 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8638 If the facts don't conform to the theory, they must be disposed
8642 (1) The bigger the theory, the better.
8643 (2) The experiment may be considered a success if no more than
8644 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to
8645 obtain a correspondence with the theory.
8648 For every action there is an equal and opposite government
8652 If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.
8654 Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly
8657 Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds.
8659 Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
8660 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8663 That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law.
8665 Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist!
8667 Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users
8668 tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It
8669 has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is
8670 the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files.
8671 -- System V.2 administrator's guide
8674 Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.
8676 Man 1: Ask me. "What is the most important thing about telling a good
8679 Man 2: OK, what is the most impo --
8681 Man 1: ______
\b\b\b\b\b\bTIMING!
8683 "Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain."
8686 Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called
8687 upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
8690 Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the
8691 only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor.
8692 -- Wernher von Braun
8694 Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
8697 Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the
8698 victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
8701 Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the
8702 victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
8703 -- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
8705 Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it
8710 An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks
8711 he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief
8712 occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which,
8713 however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole
8714 habitable earth and Canada.
8715 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8717 Mandrell: "You know what I think?"
8718 Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you
8719 don't think, right?"
8722 Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history,
8723 dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive
8724 man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the
8725 air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first
8728 What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as
8729 mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers.
8730 -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
8733 A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a
8734 given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The
8735 information you need in in the others.
8738 Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon,
8739 there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he
8740 was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how
8741 completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ...
8744 Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery:
8745 Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a
8746 simple yes or no answer.
8748 Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
8751 Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people on
8752 the dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slam
8754 -- Ransford, Chicago Reader 10/7/83
8756 Maternity pay? Now every Tom, Dick and Harry will get pregnant.
8759 Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated.
8762 Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they
8763 translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something
8765 -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
8767 Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is
8768 described as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number can
8770 -- Dr. Thor Wald, in "Beep/The Quincunx of Time", by
8773 "Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence."
8775 Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a
8778 Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
8781 May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts
8783 May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual!
8785 May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones.
8787 May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a
8790 Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology.
8793 Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these days you can certainly charge
8796 McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom:
8797 If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not
8801 Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to
8802 everyone you know, only more so.
8805 An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or
8806 department not represented in the room must solve a problem.
8808 Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures
8809 from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from Alpha
8810 Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man
8811 had split before. Thus was the Empire forged.
8812 -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams
8814 Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and
8815 it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin
8816 very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently
8817 tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ...
8818 [EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important
8819 world events such as agriculture, we're going to delete the
8820 next few square feet of the woman's skin. Thank you.]
8821 ... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your
8822 cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of
8823 billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is even
8824 more interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is a
8825 fact. Your skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the
8826 older veteran cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and
8827 obtained offices with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the
8828 window head first, without so much as a pension plan, by younger
8829 hotshot cells moving up from below.
8830 -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
8832 Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American:
8833 The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife.
8835 Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American:
8836 The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the
8837 cork makes when it is popped.
8839 Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American:
8840 All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards.
8842 Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American:
8843 Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that
8844 is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can
8845 never hope to acquire it.
8848 A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of.
8851 There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to
8854 MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched.
8856 Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it.
8858 methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutamin-
8859 ylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolyl-
8860 phenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglu-
8861 taminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanyl-
8862 glycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylala-
8863 nylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylgluta-
8864 minylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylgly-
8865 cylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionyl-
8866 leucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleu-
8867 cylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylva-
8868 lylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyro-
8869 sylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleu-
8870 cylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphe-
8871 nylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylala-
8872 nylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylas-
8873 partylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosyl-
8874 glycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycyl-
8875 valylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleu-
8876 cylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagi-
8877 nylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylse-
8878 rylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl-
8879 glycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalylly-
8880 sylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpro-
8881 lylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalyl-
8882 glutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine, n.:
8883 The chemical name for tryptophan synthetase A protein, a
8884 1,913-letter enzyme with 267 amino acids.
8885 -- Mrs. Bryne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and
8887 Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch.
8890 Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.
8892 "Microwave oven? Whaddya mean, it's a microwave oven? I've been
8893 watching Channel 4 on the thing for two weeks."
8895 "Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you
8896 out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles."
8898 Mike: "The Fourth Dimension is a shambles?"
8899 Bernie: "Nobody ever empties the ashtrays. People are SO
8901 -- Gary Trudeau, "Doonesbury"
8904 If a string has one end, then it has another end.
8906 Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
8909 Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
8913 The amount of beauty required to launch one ship.
8915 Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with
8916 themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
8919 Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede that
8920 politics is almost always the choice of the lesser evil. "Tweedledum
8921 and Tweedledee," they say, "I will not vote." Having abstained, they
8922 are presented with a President who appoints the people who are going to
8923 rummage around in their lives for the next four years. Consider all
8924 the people who sat home in a stew in 1968 rather than vote for Hubert
8925 Humphrey. They showed Humphrey. Those people who taught Hubert
8926 Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the Nixon Supreme Court when
8927 Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among the gold and the
8929 -- Russel Baker, "Ford without Flummery"
8931 Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there
8932 is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined,
8933 myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in
8934 the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my
8935 unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You
8936 will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as
8937 dead as a door-nail.
8939 Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner.
8941 Minors in Kansas City, Missouri, are not allowed to purchase cap
8942 pistols; they may buy shotguns freely, however.
8944 Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate.
8946 Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.
8950 The kind of fortune that never misses.
8951 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8954 A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that
8955 they are in the market.
8956 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8958 Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure.
8960 Mitchell's Law of Committees:
8961 Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are
8964 MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed)
8966 Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers
8967 2 cups water 2 cups sugar
8968 2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice
8969 Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine
8972 Roll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. Break
8973 RITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugar
8974 and cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemon
8975 juice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generously
8976 with butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with top
8977 crust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to let
8978 steam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crust
8979 is crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices.
8980 -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box
8982 Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.
8984 Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly. An aide once asked
8985 him how he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just
8986 last week. The great man replied that it was because this week he knew
8990 The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished
8991 from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a
8992 closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of
8993 matter ... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the
8994 atom in that it is an ion ...
8995 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
8997 Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis:
8998 If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented
8999 it wasn't worth doing.
9001 Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life.
9004 In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
9005 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
9007 Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
9009 Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots
9011 Money is the root of all wealth.
9014 1. A celestial object whose phase is very important to
9015 hackers. See PHASE OF THE MOON. 2. Dave Moon (MOON@MC).
9018 Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian.
9020 MORE SPORTS RESULTS:
9021 The Beverly Hills Freudians tied the Chicago Rogerians 0-0 last
9022 Saturday night. The match started with a long period of silence while
9023 the Freudians waited for the Rogerians to free associate and the
9024 Rogerians waited for the Freudians to say something they could
9025 paraphrase. The stalemate was broken when the Freudians' best player
9026 took the offensive and interpreted the Rogerians' silence as reflecting
9027 their anal-retentive personalities. At this the Rogerians' star player
9028 said "I hear you saying you think we're full of ka-ka." This started a
9029 fight and the match was called by officials.
9031 More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One
9032 path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total
9033 extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
9036 Mosher's Law of Software Engineering:
9037 Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd
9040 Most fish live underwater, which is a terrible place to have sex
9041 because virtually anywhere you lie down there will be stinging crabs
9042 and large quantities of little fish staring at you with buggy little
9043 eyes. So generally when two fish want to have sex, they swim around
9044 and around for hours, looking for someplace to go, until finally the
9045 female gets really tired and has a terrible headache, and she just
9046 dumps her eggs right on the sand and swims away. Then the male, driven
9047 by some timeless, noble instinct for survival, eats the eggs. So the
9048 truth is that fish don't reproduce at all, but there are so many of
9049 them that it doesn't make any difference.
9050 -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
9053 Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differently
9057 Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.
9060 Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.
9063 Mother is the invention of necessity.
9065 Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before.
9068 The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the
9069 population is growing.
9071 "Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams)
9072 "365,365,365,365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365. He [ten-year-old
9073 Truman Henry Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his
9074 pantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes
9075 in their sockets, sometimes smiling and talking, and then seeming to be
9076 in an agony, until, in not more than one minute, said he,
9077 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!" An electronic
9078 computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be as much
9080 -- James R. Newman (The World of Mathematics)
9083 Do you know Presidents talk to the country the way men talk to
9084 women? They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and everything
9085 will be all right." And what happens? Nine months later, you're in
9088 Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't
9091 Murphy's Law of Research:
9092 Enough research will tend to support your theory.
9094 "Murphy's Law, that brash proletarian restatement of Godel's Theorem ..."
9095 -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
9097 Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring
9098 Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping
9099 pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret
9100 military installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray and
9101 Esther and hustle them off to prison.
9102 They can't prove who they are because they've left their
9103 passports in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day
9104 and night to get them to name their contacts in the liberation
9105 movement.. Finally they're hauled in front of a military court,
9106 charged with espionage, and sentenced to death.
9107 The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where
9108 they'll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them
9109 if they have any last requests. Esther wants to know if she can call
9110 her daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not
9111 possible, and turns to Murray.
9112 "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he
9113 spits in the sergeants face.
9114 "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble."
9115 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
9118 Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so
9119 long it has become a science project.
9120 -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
9122 "My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on
9124 -- "Grendel", by John Gardner
9126 My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I
9127 threw my amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste.
9128 First we checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the
9129 frame, using the belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked up
9130 the amplifier and backed up to my bedroom door. Then we rushed
9131 forward, shouting "The WHO! The WHO!" and we launched my amplifier
9132 perfectly, as though we had been doing it all our lives, clean through
9133 the window and down onto the sidewalk, where a small but appreciative
9134 crowd had gathered. I would like to be able to say that this was a
9135 symbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away from one state
9136 in my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper and I
9137 really just wanted to find out what it would sound like. It sounded
9139 -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
9141 "My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless
9142 there are three other people."
9145 My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand
9146 times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and
9147 sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right
9148 through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever
9149 listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just
9152 "My life is a soap opera, but who has the rights?"
9155 My love runs by like a day in June,
9156 And he makes no friends of sorrows.
9157 He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
9158 In the pathway or the morrows.
9159 He'll live his days where the sunbeams start
9160 Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
9161 My own dear love, he is all my heart --
9162 And I wish somebody'd shoot him.
9165 My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet,
9166 And a wild young wood-thing bore him!
9167 The ways are fair to his roaming feet,
9168 And the skies are sunlit for him.
9169 As sharply sweet to my heart he seems
9170 As the fragrance of acacia.
9171 My own dear love, he is all my dreams --
9172 And I wish he were in Asia.
9175 My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been
9179 My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
9181 My own dear love, he is strong and bold
9182 And he cares not what comes after.
9183 His words ring sweet as a chime of gold,
9184 And his eyes are lit with laughter.
9185 He is jubilant as a flag unfurled --
9186 Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.
9187 My own dear love, he is all my world --
9188 And I wish I'd never met him.
9191 ... My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling
9194 "My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling
9196 -- Zippy the Pinhead
9198 My pen is at the bottom of a page,
9199 Which, being finished, here the story ends;
9200 'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done,
9201 But stories somehow lengthen when begun.
9204 My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not
9206 -- Christopher Morley
9208 "My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies"
9211 The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its
9212 origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished
9213 from the true accounts which it invents later.
9214 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
9216 n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa);
9217 n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc);
9218 n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0);
9219 n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00);
9220 n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000);
9222 -- C code which reverses the bits in a word.
9225 You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it
9228 NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he
9230 GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says
9232 -- George Bernard Shaw, "The Man of Destiny"
9234 Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant
9235 said "My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next
9236 time he goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone
9239 Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the
9240 villagers gathered around to hear what had passed. "At this time,"
9241 said Nasrudin, "I only want to say that the King spoke to me." All the
9242 villagers but the stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news. The
9243 remaining villager asked, "What did the King say to you?" "What he
9244 said -- and quite distinctly, for everyone to hear -- was 'Get out of
9245 my way!'" The simpleton was overjoyed; he had heard words actually
9246 spoken by the King, and seen the very man they were spoken to.
9248 Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward to
9249 serve him. Nasrudin said, "First things first. Did you see me walk
9250 into your shop?" "Of course." "Have you ever seen me before?"
9251 "Never." "Then how do you know it was me?"
9253 Nasrudin walked into a teahouse and declaimed, "The moon is more useful
9254 than the sun." "Why?", he was asked. "Because at night we need the
9257 Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liver
9258 pie. Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece of
9259 meat from his hand. As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it,
9260 "Foolish bird! You have the liver, but what can you do with it without
9263 Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of
9264 conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the
9265 fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he
9266 is most likely to be creamed?
9269 Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night,
9270 God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light.
9272 It did not last; the devil howling "Ho!
9273 Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo.
9275 Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it
9276 cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs.
9279 Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
9280 character, give him power.
9283 Necessity is a mother.
9285 Neckties strangle clear thinking.
9288 Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.
9290 Never call a man a fool; borrow from him.
9292 Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you.
9294 Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off
9296 Never drink coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled
9297 with the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to
9298 change into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually
9299 fly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators
9302 Never eat more than you can lift.
9305 Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
9307 Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
9309 Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
9310 -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"
9312 Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to
9313 make it complex and wonderful.
9315 Never offend people with style when you can offend them with
9317 -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977
9319 Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together.
9321 Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a
9322 law against it by that time.
9324 Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower.
9326 Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.
9328 Never try to outstubborn a cat.
9329 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
9331 Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes.
9332 -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS
9334 "Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon."
9336 Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's
9340 New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt.
9342 New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or in
9343 any way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe.
9345 New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention of
9346 Cruelty to Yourself. Apply within.
9348 New members urgently required for SUICIDE CLUB, Watford area.
9349 -- Monty Python's Big Red Book
9351 New systems generate new problems.
9353 New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and
9354 his wife most often reminds him to act it.
9355 -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary
9357 New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors.
9359 New York's got the ways and means;
9360 Just won't let you be.
9361 -- The Grateful Dead
9364 An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government
9365 economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.
9368 Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West
9369 German pole-vault champion.
9372 Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven!
9374 Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction.
9376 Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law:
9377 A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.
9379 Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't
9380 have a lucky day this year.
9382 Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying
9383 as an income tax refund.
9386 "Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice."
9389 Nihilism should commence with oneself.
9391 Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name
9392 correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into
9393 (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but
9394 Americans call him by value.
9396 Nine megs for the secretaries fair,
9397 Seven megs for the hackers scarce,
9398 Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,
9399 Three megs for system source;
9401 One disk to rule them all,
9402 One disk to bind them,
9403 One disk to hold the files
9404 And in the darkness grind 'em.
9406 Nine-track tapes and seven-track tapes
9407 And tapes without any tracks;
9408 Stretchy tapes and snarley tapes
9409 And tapes mixed up on the racks --
9410 Take hold of the tape
9411 And pull off the strip,
9412 And then you'll be sure
9413 Your tape drive will skip.
9415 -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes
9417 "Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they
9418 would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect
9422 Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
9423 The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
9424 the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
9426 "Nirvana? Thats the place where the powers that be and their friends
9430 No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless
9431 absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation.
9434 No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a
9435 camel -- anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform
9436 effectively under such difficult conditions.
9437 -- Laurence J. Peter
9439 No good deed goes unpunished.
9440 -- Clare Boothe Luce
9442 No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after
9446 No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.
9448 No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will
9449 seriously cramp his style.
9451 No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
9452 immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.
9454 No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
9455 -- Eleanor Roosevelt
9457 "No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid."
9459 No one has a higher opinion of him than he has.
9460 -- Greg Lehey, FreeBSDcon 1999
9462 No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrieval
9463 system, or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness of
9467 No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff --
9468 He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough.
9469 Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame
9470 And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame.
9472 Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
9473 And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
9474 Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
9475 And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
9476 Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails
9477 And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail.
9478 All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff
9479 But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!"
9481 Puff used more resources than DCS could spare.
9482 The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care.
9483 A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end,
9484 But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again!
9487 No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.
9489 No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere.
9491 "No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied
9492 occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an
9493 indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining
9494 occurrence different from the one identified by the given indication as
9495 an indication-applied occurrence."
9498 "No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of
9500 -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was
9501 taken over by Rupert Murdoch
9503 No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider
9507 "No, `Eureka' is Greek for `This bath is too hot.'"
9510 Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing
9512 -- Tallulah Bankhead
9514 NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION
9516 Nobody said computers were going to be polite.
9518 Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child in
9519 order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the
9520 substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young
9524 Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with
9525 constructive praise.
9527 Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations:
9528 Negative expectations yield negative results.
9529 Positive expectations yield negative results.
9531 Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades.
9537 Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
9539 "Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong."
9541 Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
9543 Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the
9544 Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats
9545 in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the
9546 moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a
9547 dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every
9548 respect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside
9549 it, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms,
9550 then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they
9551 chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine ...
9552 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
9554 "Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none."
9557 "Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper
9558 is from the wrong kind of tree."
9561 Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter
9562 of wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund
9563 is astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman --
9564 unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who is
9565 careful not to make any poultry jokes ...
9568 Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
9570 Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up.
9572 Nothing is faster than the speed of light ...
9574 To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the
9577 Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.
9580 Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires
9581 tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
9584 Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.
9585 Conscience makes egotists of us all.
9588 Nothing recedes like success.
9591 Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited
9596 The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
9597 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
9599 Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature.
9601 Now I lay me down to sleep
9602 I pray the double lock will keep;
9603 May no brick through the window break,
9604 And, no one rob me till I awake.
9606 "Now is the time for all good men to come to."
9609 Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next
9610 time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV
9611 to plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for
9612 eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself
9613 the following questions:
9615 (1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a
9617 (2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich
9618 exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me?
9619 (3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as
9620 prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with
9621 double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living
9622 right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like
9625 That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick.
9627 "Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called
9628 Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that
9629 were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..."
9630 -- "The Begatting of a President"
9632 "Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a
9634 -- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354
9636 ... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to
9637 get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in
9638 the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs
9639 on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage
9640 children emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a
9641 snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn
9642 to love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about
9643 a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an
9644 outcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does
9645 he ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect
9646 Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks
9647 Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some
9648 kind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want your
9649 children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop
9651 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
9653 Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home
9654 tool sets for under $4?" An excellent question.
9655 Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell
9656 plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where
9657 they have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of
9658 Raisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon
9659 administration. In either the hardware or housewares department,
9660 you'll find an item imported from an obscure Oriental country and
9661 described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of a little handle with
9662 interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental notions of tools
9663 that Americans might use around the home. Buy it.
9664 This is the kind of tool set professionals use. Not only is it
9665 inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the
9666 so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off
9667 if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to
9669 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
9671 "Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile."
9674 "Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption of
9675 normal routines, for children and adults alike."
9676 -- Willard F. Libby, "You *Can* Survive Atomic Attack"
9678 "Nuclear war would really set back cable."
9681 [Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable.
9684 Nudists are people who wear one-button suits.
9686 (null cookie; hope that's ok)
9688 Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're
9692 Where the buffalo roam,
9693 Where the deer and the antelope play,
9694 Where seldom is heard
9695 A discouraging word,
9696 'Cause what can an antelope say?
9698 O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
9699 Murphy was an optimist.
9701 "Of ______
\b\b\b\b\b\bcourse it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a
9704 Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the
9705 reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest
9709 Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
9712 Of all the words of witch's doom
9713 There's none so bad as which and whom.
9714 The man who kills both which and whom
9715 Will be enshrined in our Who's Whom.
9718 "Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power
9719 tools aren't soluble in alcohol ..."
9722 Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy.
9724 Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%.
9725 And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a
9728 Office Automation, n.:
9729 The use of computers to improve efficiency by removing anyone
9730 you would want to talk with over coffee.
9733 The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch
9736 Oh Dad! We're ALL Devo!
9738 Oh don't the days seem lank and long
9739 When all goes right and none goes wrong,
9740 And isn't your life extremely flat
9741 With nothing whatever to grumble at!
9743 Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
9744 I muck with indices and structs all day
9745 And when it works, I shout hoo-ray
9746 Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
9748 Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd
9749 be irresponsible, too.
9752 Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
9753 And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;
9754 Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
9755 Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
9756 You have not dreamed of --
9757 Wheeled and soared and swung
9758 High in the sunlit silence.
9760 I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
9761 My eager craft through footless halls of air.
9762 Up, up along delirious, burning blue
9763 I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
9764 Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
9765 And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
9766 The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
9767 Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
9768 -- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight"
9770 Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes.
9772 Oh, when I was in love with you,
9773 Then I was clean and brave,
9774 And miles around the wonder grew
9775 How well did I behave.
9777 And now the fancy passes by,
9778 And nothing will remain,
9779 And miles around they'll say that I
9780 Am quite myself again.
9783 Oh, wow! Look at the moon!
9785 "OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard."
9788 OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything.
9790 Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
9793 Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address.
9795 Old soldiers never die. Young ones do.
9798 Experience is something you don't get until just after you need
9802 Indifferent to type of drink. "Oh, you can get me anything.
9805 OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS of
9806 JELL-O and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th' WRENCH in the JELL-O
9807 as if it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... or ... I ... um ...
9808 WHERE'S the WASHING MACHINES?
9810 On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:
9812 "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."
9815 On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only
9816 nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter
9820 On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in
9821 receipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day's
9822 income was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than
9823 $283 on the desk before the cashier.
9824 "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. That
9825 route never brought in money like this! What happened?"
9826 "Well, after three days on that cockamamie route, I figured
9827 business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and
9828 worked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!"
9830 On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are
9834 On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are
9836 -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"
9838 On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a
9841 On the subject of C program indentation:
9843 "In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be
9844 indented six feet downward and covered with dirt."
9845 -- Blair P. Houghton
9847 "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], `Pray,
9848 Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right
9849 answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of
9850 confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
9854 The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a
9857 Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were
9858 forced to live on nothing but food and water for days.
9859 -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee"
9861 Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that
9862 each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his
9865 In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians
9866 called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka"
9867 and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People
9868 passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy
9869 Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!"
9870 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
9872 Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict,
9873 Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease".
9874 Disraeli replied, "That all depends upon whether I embrace your
9875 principals or your mistress".
9877 Once Law was sitting on the bench
9878 And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
9879 "Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
9880 Nor come before me creeping.
9881 Upon you knees if you appear,
9882 'Tis plain you have no standing here."
9884 Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
9885 "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!"
9886 "Amica curiae," she replied --
9887 "Friend of the court, so please you."
9888 "Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door --
9889 I never saw your face before!"
9890 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
9892 Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human
9893 beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by
9894 side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them
9895 which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the
9899 Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a
9900 great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to
9901 the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of
9902 life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But
9903 one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is
9904 going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I
9905 shall die of boredom."
9906 The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that
9907 current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the
9908 rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"
9909 But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go,
9910 and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
9911 Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current
9912 lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
9913 And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried,
9914 "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the
9915 Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current
9916 said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us
9917 free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this
9919 But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to
9920 the rocks, making legends of a Saviour.
9922 Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of
9923 us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of
9924 the smaller prime numbers.
9927 It's the only even prime, therefore it's odd. QED.
9928 3: The True Prime --
9929 Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you three times, it's true."
9930 31: The Arbitrary Prime --
9931 Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime
9932 in case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91
9933 received the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the
9934 next most. However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none
9937 Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities are
9938 derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd but
9939 true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers.
9941 ... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to you
9942 with ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them. Holiday
9943 shoppers have been whipped into a frenzy by months of holiday
9944 advertisements, and they will buy anything small enough to stuff into a
9945 shopping bag. If your children object to being tied, threaten to take
9946 them to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them up.
9947 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
9951 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
9953 One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least
9954 somebody's listening.
9955 -- Franklin P. Jones
9957 "One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative."
9959 Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
9960 The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
9963 One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
9965 One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing
9966 how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette.
9967 -- Professor Charles P. Issawi
9969 One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell
9970 the truth. A gallows was erected in front of the city gates. A herald
9971 announced, "Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to
9972 a question which will be put to him." Nasrudin was first in line. The
9973 captain of the guard asked him, "Where are you going? Tell the truth
9974 -- the alternative is death by hanging." "I am going," said Nasrudin,
9975 "to be hanged on that gallows." "I don't believe you." "Very well, if
9976 I have told a lie, then hang me!" "But that would make it the truth!"
9977 "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth."
9979 One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet
9982 One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they
9983 never have to stop and answer the phone.
9985 One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
9986 -- Chateaubriand (1768-1848)
9988 One learns to itch where one can scratch.
9991 One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as
9992 one man would have produced alone. These two plus two more will
9993 produce half again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin to
9994 represent a creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter as
9998 One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
10000 One monk said to the other, "The fish has flopped out of the net! How
10001 will it live?" The other said, "When you have gotten out of the net,
10004 One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
10006 One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible
10007 from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at
10008 least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts
10009 are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but
10010 when He's good, nobody can touch Him.
10011 -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983
10013 One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to
10014 do and always a clever thing to say.
10017 "... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
10018 lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
10022 One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God
10023 create goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "________
\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\bsomebody has to buy
10025 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
10027 One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How
10028 enthusiastic is our support for UNIX?
10029 Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many
10030 years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines.
10031 Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple
10032 language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for
10033 students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for
10034 interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of
10035 its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on
10036 VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
10037 It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will
10038 run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and
10039 will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
10040 With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and
10041 quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With
10042 VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of
10043 documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the
10044 difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS
10045 is that it's all there.
10046 -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984
10048 One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your
10049 seat to another passenger. This may seem callous, but it is the best
10050 way, really. If one passenger were to give a seat to someone who
10051 fainted in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would become
10052 disoriented and imagine they were in Topeka, Kansas.
10054 The Seventh Commandments for Technicians
10055 Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy
10056 fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in
10059 The First Commandment for Technicians:
10060 Beware the lightening that lurketh in the undischarged
10061 capacitor, lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most
10062 untechnician-like manner.
10064 One Page Principle:
10065 A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch
10066 paper cannot be understood.
10069 "One planet is all you get."
10071 One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could
10072 manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that
10073 they be installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips. Let's
10074 say your congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding
10075 study on how the French government handles diseases transmitted by
10076 sherbet. Just when he got to the plane, his mandatory air bag,
10077 strapped around his waist, would inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus
10078 rendering him too large to fit through the plane door. It could also
10079 be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman proposed a law. ("Mr.
10080 Speaker, people ask me, why should October be designated as Cuticle
10081 Inspection Month? And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.") This would save
10082 millions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public would violently
10083 support a law requiring airbags on congressmen. The problem is that
10084 your potential market is very small: there are only around 500 members
10085 of Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil, are
10086 already too large to fit on normal aircraft.
10087 -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
10089 One reason why George Washington
10090 Is held in such veneration:
10091 He never blamed his problems
10092 On the former Administration.
10093 -- George O. Ludcke
10095 One seldom sees a monument to a committee.
10097 One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh
10100 "One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that
10101 sometimes you must work under adverse conditions ... like a state of
10105 One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a
10108 One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him.
10110 One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned
10111 at the stake while the votes were being counted.
10114 One-Shot Case Study, n.:
10115 The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which
10116 it is concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes
10119 Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps.
10121 Only God can make random selections.
10123 Only presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to
10124 use the editorial "we."
10126 Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer.
10128 Optimization hinders evolution.
10130 Optimization hinders evolution.
10133 The ancient Italian art of pizza folding.
10136 Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday
10139 Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry
10140 is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.
10144 Variables won't; constants aren't.
10146 Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your
10149 Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is
10150 they charge fifteen cents for them.
10152 Our documentation manager was showing her two year old son around the
10153 office. He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we
10154 were both holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of
10155 juice. But only *_
\b_
\bhe* had a lollipop.
10157 He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?"
10161 "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's what it
10162 means to be a programmer."
10164 Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name.
10165 Thy programs run, thy syscalls done,
10166 In kernel as it is in user!
10168 Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing.
10169 -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president Litton Industries
10171 ... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce
10172 Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One
10173 thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If
10174 somebody gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it
10175 on his legal stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what
10176 a lesser person would do, such as get it changed or kill himself.
10177 -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!"
10179 "Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it."
10182 "Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it."
10185 Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
10186 -- General Omar N. Bradley
10189 Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes
10190 Did logzerneg the ifthen block
10191 All kludgy were the function flows
10192 And subroutines adhoc.
10194 Beware the runtime-bug my friend
10195 squrooneg, the false goto
10196 Beware the infiniteloop
10197 And shun the inprectoo.
10199 "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog,
10200 it's too dark to read."
10203 Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now
10204 I can remember things that *have* happened before ...
10206 Overdrawn? But I still have checks left!
10208 Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket.
10210 Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated.
10213 (1) If someone says he will do something "without fail," he
10215 (2) The more people talk on the phone, the less money they
10217 (3) People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't.
10218 (4) Pizza always burns the roof of your mouth.
10221 The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and
10222 exposing them to the critic.
10225 panic: can't find /
10227 panic: kernel trap (ignored)
10229 Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much
10233 Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
10235 Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.
10237 Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.
10239 Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to
10240 criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.
10243 Pardo's First Postulate:
10244 Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or
10248 Everything else causes cancer in rats.
10250 Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction.
10253 Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
10255 Parkinson's Fifth Law:
10256 If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good
10257 bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
10259 Parkinson's Fourth Law:
10260 The number of people in any working group tends to increase
10261 regardless of the amount of work to be done.
10267 Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
10269 "Pascal is not a high-level language."
10272 "Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat."
10273 -- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340
10276 To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the
10277 death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half speed.
10280 A programming language named after a man who would turn over in
10281 his grave if he knew about it.
10283 Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
10287 The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant
10288 under brain transplants.
10290 Paul Revere was a tattle-tale
10293 In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you
10297 You can't fall off the floor.
10300 In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
10301 periods of fighting.
10302 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
10306 4 cups sugar 16 tbsp. milk
10307 4 cups brown sugar 4 tsp. vanilla
10308 4 cups shortening 14 cups flour
10310 4 cups peanut butter 4 tsp. salt
10312 Shape dough into balls. Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookie
10313 sheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes. Immediately top each cookie with a
10314 Hershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie. Makes a
10317 Pecor's Health-Food Principle:
10318 Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in
10322 The perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under the
10323 sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed.
10324 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
10326 Penguin Trivia #46:
10327 Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were.
10328 -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
10330 People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.
10331 -- Bokonon, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
10333 People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of
10336 "People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense."
10339 People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed.
10341 People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better
10342 press than people who are just funny and smart.
10343 -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post"
10345 People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never
10346 slept in a room with a single mosquito.
10348 People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who
10349 haven't what they want that they don't want it.
10352 People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that
10353 Benjamin Franklin said it first.
10355 People will buy anything that's one to a customer.
10357 People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they
10360 Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
10361 "Confound those who have said our remarks before us."
10364 Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.
10366 Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but
10367 when there is no longer anything to take away.
10368 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
10370 Personifiers Unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!
10372 Peter Wemm Murphy Field, n.:
10373 A field of abnormally frequent and severe Murphy's Law events
10374 emanating from Mr. Peter Wemm. The field was first discovered and
10375 identified in Denmark during the initial FreeBSD SMP development.
10376 Mr. Wemm was residing in Australia at the time.
10378 Peter's Law of Substitution:
10379 Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after
10382 Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to
10383 exciting Camden, New Jersey.
10385 Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny.
10387 Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
10390 Pick another fortune cookie.
10392 "Picture the sun as the origin of two intersecting 6-dimensional
10393 hyperplanes from which we can deduce a certain transformational
10394 sequence which gives us the terminal velocity of a rubber duck ..."
10397 An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race
10398 by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is
10399 inferior in scope, for it balks at pig.
10400 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
10402 PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20)
10403 You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being
10404 followed by the CIA or FBI. You have minor influence over your
10405 associates and people resent your flaunting of your power. You lack
10406 confidence and you are generally a coward. Pisces people do terrible
10407 things to small animals.
10409 PISCES (Feb. 19 to Mar. 20)
10410 Take the high road, look for the good things, carry the
10411 American Express card and a weapon. The world is yours today, as
10412 nobody else wants it. Your mortgage will be foreclosed. You will
10413 probably get run over by a bus.
10415 Pittsburgh Driver's Test
10417 (7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light
10418 but a steady left tail light. This means
10420 (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn
10421 to call the problem to the driver's attention.
10422 (b) the driver is signaling a right turn.
10423 (c) the driver is signaling a left turn.
10424 (d) the driver is from out of town.
10426 The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreign
10427 countries to signal turns.
10429 Pittsburgh Driver's Test
10431 (8) Pedestrians are
10436 (d) difficult to clean off the front grille.
10438 The correct answer is (a). Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are
10439 totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely.
10441 Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
10444 PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem set than to the
10448 "Plaese porrf raed."
10449 -- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase
10451 Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia
10452 because they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosophers
10453 couldn't compete successfully with poets.
10454 -- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer) "Venus on the Half
10457 Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill
10460 Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic
10462 -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
10464 Please ignore previous fortune.
10468 Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas"
10469 until you are told that those rooms are "punched out". Once punched
10470 out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas,
10474 Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means?
10476 Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities,
10477 requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm
10478 into a clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing
10479 problems, such as annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the
10480 radio. But before we get into specific techniques, let's look at how
10482 A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system,
10483 except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires,
10484 it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets
10485 and toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at
10486 all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can
10488 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
10491 (to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius)
10493 Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
10494 If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation.
10495 Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations.
10496 Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
10499 Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.
10501 Police: Good evening, are you the host?
10503 Police: We've been getting complaints about this party.
10504 Host: About the drugs?
10506 Host: About the guns, then? Is somebody complaining about the guns?
10507 Police: No, the noise.
10508 Host: Oh, the noise. Well that makes sense because there are no guns
10509 or drugs here. (An enormous explosion is heard in the
10510 background.) Or fireworks. Who's complaining about the noise?
10512 Police: No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago. Most of the recent
10513 complaints have come from Pittsburgh. Do you think you could
10514 ask the host to quiet things down?
10515 Host: No Problem. (At this point, a Volkswagon bug with primitive
10516 religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living
10517 room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the
10518 lawn, where it smashes into a tree. Eight guests tumble out
10519 onto the grass, moaning.) See? Things are starting to wind
10522 Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell
10523 all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds.
10526 An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of
10527 organized society is reared. When he wriggles, he mistakes the
10528 agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared
10529 with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.
10530 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
10533 From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tete" ("head" or
10534 "face," as in "tete-a-tete": head to head or face to face). Hence
10535 "polytetien", a person of two or more faces.
10538 Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even
10539 where there is no river.
10540 -- Nikita Khrushchev
10542 Politics is like coaching a football team. you have to be smart enough
10543 to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.
10545 Polymer physicists are into chains.
10547 Pope Goestheveezl was the shortest reigning pope in the history of the
10548 Church, reigning for two hours and six minutes on 1 April 1866. The
10549 white smoke had hardly faded into the blue of the Vatican skies before
10550 it dawned on the assembled multitudes in St. Peter's Square that his
10551 name had hilarious possibilities. The crowds fell about, helpless with
10553 Half a pound of tuppenny rice
10554 Half a pound of treacle
10555 That's the way the chimney smokes
10557 The square was finally cleared by armed carabineri with tears of
10558 laughter streaming down their faces. The event set a record for
10559 hilarious civic functions, smashing the previous record set when Baron
10560 Hans Neizant B"
\bompzidaize was elected Landburgher of K"
\boln in 1653.
10561 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
10564 Survives system reboot.
10567 Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
10568 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
10570 Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
10572 "Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat"
10573 -- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy 1981-1987
10575 Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically.
10578 The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA.
10580 Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little
10581 more time for dreaming.
10584 Predestination was doomed from the start.
10586 President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and
10587 forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax.
10589 President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the
10590 vote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting.
10591 -- The Washington Post
10593 Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist!
10595 Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning:
10596 It's on the other side.
10598 [Prime Minister Joseph] Chamberlain loves the working man -- he loves
10600 -- Winston Churchill
10602 Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.
10604 Probable-Possible, my black hen,
10605 She lays eggs in the Relative When.
10606 She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
10607 Because she's unable to postulate how.
10608 -- Frederick Winsor
10610 Probably the question asked most often is: Do one-celled animals have
10611 orgasms? The answer is yes, they have orgasms almost constantly, which
10612 is why they don't mind living in pools of warm slime.
10613 -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
10616 Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data
10617 encryption standard and they came up with ...
10620 Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem.
10621 Eng. 130 midterm. Once again no student received a single point on
10622 his exam. Newell has now tossed five shutouts this quarter. Newell's
10623 earned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%
10625 Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to
10626 build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying
10627 to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
10631 Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction.
10633 This technique is used on equations with "_
\bn" in them. Induction
10634 techniques are very popular, even the military used them.
10636 SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction.
10638 We know it's true for _
\bn equal to 1. Now assume that it's true
10639 for every natural number less than _
\bn. _
\bN is arbitrary, so we can take _
\bn
10640 as large as we want. If _
\bn is sufficiently large, the case of _
\bn+1 is
10641 trivially equivalent, so the only important _
\bn are _
\bn less than _
\bn. We
10642 can take _
\bn = _
\bn (from above), so it's true for _
\bn+1 because it's just
10644 QED. (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?")
10646 Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity.
10647 SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs.
10648 (1) Horses have an even number of legs.
10649 (2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front.
10650 (3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of
10652 (4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity.
10653 (5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs.
10655 Topics to be covered in future issues include proof by:
10657 Gesticulation (handwaving)
10659 Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...)
10661 Changing all the 2's to _
\bn's
10663 Lack of a counterexample, and
10664 "It stands to reason"
10666 Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
10668 BBW Branch Both Ways
10669 BEW Branch Either Way
10670 BBBF Branch on Bit Bucket Full
10672 BMR Branch Multiple Registers
10674 BPO Branch on Power Off
10675 BST Backspace and Stretch Tape
10676 CDS Condense and Destroy System
10677 CLBR Clobber Register
10678 CLBRI Clobber Register Immediately
10679 CM Circulate Memory
10680 CMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programming
10681 CPPR Crumple Printer Paper and Rip
10682 CRN Convert to Roman Numerals
10684 Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
10686 DC Divide and Conquer
10687 DMPK Destroy Memory Protect Key
10688 DO Divide and Overflow
10689 EMPC Emulate Pocket Calculator
10690 EPI Execute Programmer Immediately
10691 EROS Erase Read Only Storage
10692 EXCE Execute Customer Engineer
10693 HCF Halt and Catch Fire
10694 IBP Insert Bug and Proceed
10695 INSQSW Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out])
10696 PBC Print and Break Chain
10699 Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
10702 POPI Punch Operator Immediately
10703 PVLC Punch Variable Length Card
10704 RASC Read And Shred Card
10705 RPM Read Programmers Mind
10706 RSSC reduce speed, step carefully (for improved accuracy)
10707 RTAB Rewind tape and break
10709 RWOC Read Writing On Card
10710 SCRBL scribble to disk - faster than a write
10711 SLC Search for Lost Chord
10712 SPSW Scramble Program Status Word
10713 SRSD Seek Record and Scar Disk
10714 STROM Store in Read Only Memory
10715 TDB Transfer and Drop Bit
10716 WBT Water Binary Tree
10718 "Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller
10719 than the both put together."
10721 Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check
10722 three friends. If they're OK, you're it.
10724 Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well
10725 anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.
10728 Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves
10729 to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way
10730 to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the
10731 cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in
10732 fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a
10733 lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of
10734 the first day even if they have plenty of food and water.
10735 -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
10737 Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off of the TV screen.
10739 Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen.
10741 Pushing 40 is exercise enough.
10743 Put no trust in cryptic comments.
10745 Put your Nose to the Grindstone!
10746 -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd.
10749 Technology is dominated by two types of people:
10750 Those who understand what they do not manage.
10751 Those who manage what they do not understand.
10753 Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is?
10756 Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence?
10757 A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.
10759 Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat ?
10760 A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.
10762 Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat?
10763 A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.
10765 Q: How long does it take?
10766 A: It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've
10769 Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats?
10770 A: They replace your generator.
10772 Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
10773 A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb
10774 itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective
10775 reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a
10776 maudlin cosmos of nothingness.
10778 Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb
10782 Q: How many IBM cpu's does it take to do a logical right shift?
10783 A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register.
10785 Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job?
10786 A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.
10788 Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?
10789 A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001,
10790 Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of
10791 the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20%
10792 of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences
10793 of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
10795 Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
10796 A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring
10797 light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government
10798 plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a pulitzer
10799 prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb
10800 assassin to break the bulb in the first place.
10802 Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
10805 Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
10806 A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem
10807 to the earlier joke.
10809 Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
10810 A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those
10811 Californians trying to share the experience.
10813 Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
10814 A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub
10815 with brightly colored machine tools.
10817 Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
10818 A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
10821 Q: What's a light-year?
10822 A: One-third less calories than a regular year.
10824 Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
10825 A: Because it was on the other side.
10827 Q: Why do ducks have flat feet?
10828 A: To stamp out forest fires.
10830 Q: Why do elephants have flat feet?
10831 A: To stamp out flaming ducks.
10833 Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
10834 A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home.
10836 Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What
10839 A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on
10840 believing that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be
10841 the only one to make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No
10842 time to lose, so certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if
10843 somebody else has made the correction.
10845 And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're
10846 the only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have
10847 to inform the whole net right away!
10849 -- Brad Templeton, "Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions
10852 Quality Control, n.:
10853 The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off
10854 a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100 works.
10857 Man Invented Alcohol,
10858 God Invented Grass.
10861 Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!
10863 Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!!
10865 Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
10867 (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
10870 Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will
10871 atttempt to use it.
10878 "Qvid me anxivs svm?"
10880 QWERT (kwirt), n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth]:
10881 1. a unit of weight equal to 13 poiuyt avoirdupois (or 1.69
10882 kiloliks), commonly used in structural engineering; 2. [colloq.] one
10883 thirteenth the load that a fully grown sligo can carry; 3. [anat.] a
10884 painful irritation of the dermis in the region of the anus; 4. [slang]
10885 person who excites in others the symptoms of a qwert.
10886 -- Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed.
10888 Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.
10890 Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something
10891 I saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of
10892 computer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport
10893 store. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told
10894 all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how all
10895 the lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are
10896 they taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the current
10897 rate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions on
10898 Information Theory" at the A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be
10899 impressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the saying
10900 goes, giving away the store?
10901 -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President
10903 Ray's Rule of Precision:
10904 Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.
10909 And drugs cause cramp.
10910 Guns aren't lawful;
10913 You might as well live.
10916 Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe
10917 the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described
10920 Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of
10921 Congress. But I repeat myself.
10924 Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic
10925 value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is
10926 much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice
10927 this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA.
10929 Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware
10930 has limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing
10931 machines are so poor at I/O.
10933 Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are
10934 so long they can't afford the disk space.
10936 Real computer scientists don't program in assembler. They don't write
10937 in anything less portable than a number two pencil.
10939 Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker
10940 with `programming systems', but those are so high level that they
10941 hardly count (and rarely count accurately; precision is for
10944 Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run
10945 on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo
10946 sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet.
10948 Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured
10949 programming is for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet-
10950 trained. They wear neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise
10953 Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine
10954 doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell
10957 Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it
10958 should be hard to understand.
10960 Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the
10961 illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how
10962 much good it did them.
10964 Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires
10965 you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers
10966 wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly
10967 spring up in the middle of the machine room.
10969 Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write
10970 in BASIC after reaching puberty.
10972 Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress
10973 freaks and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who
10976 Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who
10977 can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN.
10979 Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue.
10981 Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use
10982 functions for scratch space after they are finished calling them?
10984 Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness.
10985 This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a
10986 computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package.
10988 Real software engineers don't like the idea of some inexplicable and
10989 greasy hardware several aisles away that may stop working at any
10990 moment. They have a great distrust of hardware people, and wish that
10991 systems could be virtual at *___
\b\b\ball* levels. They would like personal
10992 computers (you know no one's going to trip over something and kill your
10993 DFA in mid-transit), except that they need 8 megabytes to run their
10994 Correctness Verification Aid packages.
10996 Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the
10997 job is described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like
10998 using an undocumented external procedure.
11001 Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there
11004 Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never
11005 afraid to break your face.
11007 Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shuts
11008 down the system for days.
11010 Real Users hate Real Programmers.
11012 Real Users know your home telephone number.
11014 Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your
11015 program doesn't deliver it.
11017 Real Users never use the Help key.
11019 Real World, The n.:
11020 1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may
11021 be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. To
11022 programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related
11023 to programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and
11024 tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5. 4.
11025 The location of the status quo. 5. Anywhere outside a university.
11026 "Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world." Used
11027 pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking
11028 of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a
11031 Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs.
11033 Reality is an obstacle to hallucination.
11035 Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth?
11038 Reality is for people who lack imagination.
11040 Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
11042 Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity.
11045 "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go
11049 "Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!"
11051 Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than
11052 being flat broke and having a stomach ache.
11053 -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"
11055 Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you
11056 lose your job. These economic downturns are very difficult to predict,
11057 but sophisticated econometric modeling houses like Data Resources and
11058 Chase Econometrics have successfully predicted 14 of the last 3
11061 Reclaimer, spare that tree!
11062 Take not a single bit!
11063 It used to point to me,
11064 Now I'm protecting it.
11065 It was the reader's CONS
11066 That made it, paired by dot;
11067 Now, GC, for the nonce,
11068 Thou shalt reclaim it not.
11070 "Reflections on Ice-Breaking"
11077 "Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universe
11078 again ..." An unusually long pause followed, "... but I don't know
11079 which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A
11080 spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the
11081 starfield surrounding the ship.
11083 "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC
11084 announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they
11085 are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been
11086 intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and
11087 transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown.
11088 Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious."
11089 -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star"
11091 Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia:
11092 If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
11094 Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
11097 "Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used
11101 Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be
11102 worse in Cleveland.
11103 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
11105 Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a good
11108 Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat.
11110 Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU.
11112 Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.
11116 Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying.
11118 Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western
11120 Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.
11123 A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a
11125 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
11127 REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system?
11129 SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying that
11130 the country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You can
11131 carry a pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away."
11132 I have no idea why the country folk say this. Maybe there's some kind
11133 of chemical pollutant in their drinking water. That is why I pledge to
11134 do all that I can to protect the environment of this great nation of
11135 ours, and put prayer back in the schools, where it belongs. What we
11136 need is jobs, not empty promises. I realize I'm risking my political
11137 career be being so outspoken on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but
11138 that's just the kind of straight-talking honest person I am, and I
11140 -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
11142 Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
11143 -- Wernher von Braun
11145 Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get
11146 another chance later on.
11150 (1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH,
11151 and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before
11152 he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the
11153 Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship?
11155 (2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks
11156 twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks
11157 every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off
11158 his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week?
11160 (3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers
11161 the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a
11162 pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King
11163 Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice?
11166 When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening,
11167 circumstance, or result can in no way be directly, indirectly,
11168 empirically, or circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred,
11169 induced, deducted, estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always
11170 for the purpose of convenience, expediency, political advantage,
11171 material gain, or personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or
11172 none of the above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed,
11173 proclaimed, and adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably,
11174 universally, immutably, and infinitely so, until such time as it
11175 becomes advantageous to assume otherwise, maybe.
11177 "Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time."
11180 Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention
11181 Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will
11182 reject the proposal.
11184 Romeo wasn't bilked in a day.
11185 -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With
11188 ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
11189 MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-
11190 door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.
11193 If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it
11196 Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London:
11197 Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall
11198 be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person
11199 shall be deemed to be a cat.
11201 Rule of Creative Research:
11202 (1) Never draw what you can copy.
11203 (2) Never copy what you can trace.
11204 (3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down.
11206 Rule of Defactualization:
11207 Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.
11209 Rule of Feline Frustration:
11210 When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly
11211 content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.
11214 When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep
11215 thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.
11217 Rules for Academic Deans:
11219 (2) If they find you, LIE!!!!
11220 -- Father Damian C. Fandal
11222 Rules for driving in New York:
11223 (1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal.
11224 (2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers
11226 (3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the
11229 RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED
11230 (1) Never eat on an empty stomach.
11231 (2) Never leave the table hungry.
11232 (3) When traveling, never leave a country hungry.
11233 (4) Enjoy your food.
11234 (5) Enjoy your companion's food.
11235 (6) Really taste your food. It may take several portions to
11236 accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned.
11237 (7) Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare,
11238 for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a
11239 brownie. Which feels better against your cheeks?
11240 (8) Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal.
11241 (9) Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You
11242 can always eat it later.
11243 (10) Avoid any wine with a childproof cap.
11244 (11) Avoid blue food.
11245 -- Richard Smit, "The Bronx Diet"
11248 (1) The boss is always right.
11249 (2) When the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1.
11251 Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence
11252 Tip #1: How to tell when you are dead.
11254 (1) Little things start bothering you: little things like worms, bugs,
11256 (2) Something is missing in your personal relationships.
11257 (3) Your dog becomes overly affectionate.
11258 (4) You have a hard time getting a waiter.
11259 (5) Exotic birds flock around you.
11260 (6) People ignore you at parties.
11261 (7) You have a hard time getting up in the morning.
11262 (8) You no longer get off on cocaine.
11264 Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence
11265 (1) Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear
11266 bomb; use the stairs.
11267 (2) When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit
11269 (3) If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials.
11270 (4) Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to
11271 psychological problems.
11272 (5) Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to
11273 recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed
11274 potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc.
11275 (6) Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs
11276 will be scarce in the post-nuclear age.
11277 (7) Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles.
11278 (8) Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be
11279 staggering illegally.
11280 (9) Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more
11281 sanitary due to limited circulation.
11282 (10) Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on
11285 SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21)
11286 You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless
11287 tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority
11288 of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People
11289 laugh at you a great deal.
11291 San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was.
11295 Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse.
11297 Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.
11300 Santa Claus wears a Red Suit,
11301 He must be a communist.
11302 And a beard and long hair,
11303 Must be a pacifist.
11305 What's in that pipe that he's smoking?
11308 Satellite Safety Tip #14:
11309 If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck.
11312 It works better if you plug it in.
11314 Saturday night in Toledo Ohio,
11315 Is like being nowhere at all,
11316 All through the day how the hours rush by,
11317 You sit in the park and you watch the grass die.
11318 -- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio"
11320 Sauron is alive in Argentina!
11322 Save energy: be apathetic.
11324 Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda.
11326 Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
11328 "Saw a sign on a restaurant that said Breakfast, any time -- so I
11329 ordered French Toast in the Renaissance.
11332 SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!
11335 Schapiro's Explanation:
11336 The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's
11337 because they use more manure.
11339 Schizophrenia beats being alone.
11341 Schlattwhapper, n.:
11342 The window shade that allows itself to be pulled down,
11343 hesitates for a second, then snaps up in your face.
11344 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11347 A dog's practice of continuously nuzzling in your crotch in
11349 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11352 The amusing rotation of one's bottom while sharpening a
11354 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11356 Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made
11357 of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts
11358 is not necessarily science.
11359 -- Henri Poincair'
\be
11361 Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.
11363 Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.
11367 SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21)
11368 You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will
11369 achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of
11370 ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered.
11373 No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.
11375 Scott's second Law:
11376 When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found
11377 to have been wrong in the first place.
11380 After the correction has been found in error, it will be
11381 impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation.
11383 Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!
11384 Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock?
11385 Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.
11386 Kirk: Then it's of external origin?
11387 Spock: Affirmative.
11388 Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.
11389 Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.
11391 Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else.
11393 Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the
11397 Second Law of Business Meetings:
11398 If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you
11399 will pick the wrong one.
11402 If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it
11405 "Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State).
11406 In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a
11407 multiline message byte.
11408 In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message
11409 must be sent passive true.
11410 The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter:
11411 (1) The ANRS if DAV is false
11412 (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither:
11413 (a) The LADS is active
11414 (b) Nor LACS is active"
11416 -- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for
11417 Programmable Instrumentation
11419 Security check:
\a\a\aINTRUDER ALERT!
11421 Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
11422 She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
11423 Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
11425 Sightlessly seeking
11426 Some savage, spectacular suicide.
11427 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
11429 "See - the thing is - I'm an absolutist. I mean, kind of ... in a way ..."
11431 Seleznick's Theory of Holistic Medicine:
11432 Ice Cream cures all ills.
11434 Self Test for Paranoia:
11435 You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's
11439 From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion.
11441 Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would
11442 notify you if the record has pornographic material or
11443 material glorifying violence?"
11444 Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me."
11445 Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's
11446 legs on the album cover is good indication that it's
11447 not for little Johnny."
11449 -- The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock
11450 lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985
11453 A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and
11457 Serenity through viciousness.
11459 Serocki's Stricture:
11460 Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.
11462 Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence.
11464 "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated
11465 thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY
11466 advice, I'd have said `Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now."
11467 "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly.
11468 "Too proud?" the other enquired.
11469 Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean,"
11470 she said, "that one can't help growing older."
11471 "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With
11472 proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
11475 Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a
11476 big store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at
11477 reasonable prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with that, let's
11478 build a home center. And before long home centers were springing up
11479 like crabgrass all over the United States.
11480 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
11482 Sex is a natural bodily process, like a stroke.
11484 Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
11487 Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated.
11490 Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go,
11491 it's one of the best.
11494 Shamus, n. [Yiddish]:
11495 A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the
11496 temple, and makes sure everything is in working order.
11497 A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagog
11498 functionaries, and there's a joke about that:
11499 A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the
11500 middle of a service, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The cantor, not to be
11501 bested, also cries out, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!"
11502 The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, "Oh, Lord, I
11503 am nobody!" The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, "Look who thinks
11505 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
11507 Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off
11508 during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.
11509 -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
11513 Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will
11516 "She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to."
11519 She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot.
11522 She liked him; he was a man of many qualities, even if most of them
11525 She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could
11526 have poured on a waffle ...
11528 "She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing,
11529 you should hear me play piano.'"
11532 She's genuinely bogus.
11534 "Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have
11535 taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an
11536 excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature."
11539 SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT!
11540 POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE!
11542 Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is
11543 playing golf with his boss.
11545 Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change.
11547 Signals don't kill programs. Programs kill programs.
11549 Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help.
11550 -- from the Brown Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet
11553 If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
11556 Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.
11558 Since I hurt my pendulum
11559 My life is all erratic.
11560 My parrot, who was cordial,
11561 Is now transmitting static.
11562 The carpet died, a palm collapsed,
11563 The cat keeps doing poo.
11564 The only thing that keeps me sane
11565 Is talking to my shoe.
11568 Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're
11572 Since we're all here, we must not be all there.
11573 -- Bob "Mountain" Beck
11575 [Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the
11577 -- Winston Churchill
11579 Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the Vulgate
11580 Bible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automatically
11581 excommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text.
11582 This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personally
11583 examined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the published
11584 Vulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to be
11585 printed and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wry
11586 comments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus had
11587 no recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy.
11589 Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor):
11590 That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to,
11591 or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should
11594 Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes
11597 Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not,
11598 when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and
11599 apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I
11600 neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a
11601 tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension: they
11602 were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of
11603 souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a
11604 testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from
11606 -- Frederick Douglass
11608 Slick's Three Laws of the Universe:
11609 (1) Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad
11611 (2) A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat.
11612 (3) There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is
11613 attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is
11614 attracted to dark objects.
11616 Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ...
11619 The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when
11620 it sits in the dish too long.
11621 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11623 Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
11627 The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly
11628 returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have
11630 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
11632 So as your consumer electronics adviser, I am advising you to donate
11633 your current VCR to a grate resident, who will laugh sardonically and
11634 hurl it into a dumpster. Then I want you to go out and purchase a vast
11635 array of 8-millimeter video equipment.
11637 ... OK! Got everything? Well, *too bad, sucker*, because while you
11638 were gone the electronics industry came up with an even newer format
11639 that makes your 8-millimeter VCR look as technologically advanced as
11640 toenail dirt. This format is called "3.5 hectare" and it will not be
11641 made available until it is outmoded, sometime early next week, by a
11642 format called "Elroy", so *order yours now*.
11643 -- Dave Barry, "No Surrender in the Electronics
11646 So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in
11647 praise of intelligence.
11648 -- Bertrand Russell
11650 ... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those
11651 who wish to tyrranize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent,
11652 and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious
11653 and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.
11654 -- Voltarine de Cleyre
11656 So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
11657 With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
11658 maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
11659 corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
11660 flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward
11661 it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and --
11662 I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in
11663 the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us.
11664 Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and
11665 I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our
11666 heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're
11667 unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water
11668 up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the
11669 opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of
11670 our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all
11671 the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers
11672 cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen
11673 these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked
11674 into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.
11675 -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
11677 "So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple
11678 pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops
11679 its head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very
11680 imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies,
11681 and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top,
11682 and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the
11683 gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots."
11686 ... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their
11687 procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as
11688 to infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of
11689 sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making
11690 documentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly
11691 listless. The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another
11692 documentary." So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking,
11693 under the guise of Scientific Research. "We know very little about the
11694 effect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeply
11695 scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White
11696 in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers keep this kind of
11697 thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and
11698 then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very
11699 dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all
11701 -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
11703 So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway? And why can't he ever
11704 remember his Bible?
11707 Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is
11711 Formal evening attire for female computer analysts.
11713 Some don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit.
11715 Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.
11718 Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to
11719 celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around
11720 stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on
11721 "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind
11722 of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The
11723 government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level
11724 Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and
11725 billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which
11726 it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming
11727 thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with
11728 the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money
11730 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
11732 Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some
11733 people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
11734 -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
11736 Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have only
11737 one life to live, let me live it as a jerk."
11739 Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit
11742 Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic.
11744 Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but when
11745 you finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be even
11749 Some points to remember [about animals]:
11751 (1) Don't go to sleep under big animals, e.g., elephants, rhinoceri,
11753 (2) Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the
11754 front of your clothes;
11755 (3) Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or dogs
11756 you have just kicked.
11757 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
11759 Some primal termite knocked on wood.
11760 And tasted it, and found it good.
11761 And that is why your Cousin May
11762 Fell through the parlor floor today.
11765 Some programming languages manage to absorb change but withstand
11768 Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand
11770 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
11772 Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the
11773 pens will multiply instead of disappear.
11775 Someone will try to honk your nose today.
11777 "Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm
11780 Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
11783 "Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the
11784 Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then
11785 intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men
11786 and women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our
11787 best, with good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are
11788 we not God's Machineries of Joy?"
11790 "If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin."
11791 -- R. Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy"
11793 Somewhere, just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering.
11795 Song Title of the Week:
11796 "They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change
11799 Sooner or later you must pay for your sins. (Those who have already
11800 paid may disregard this fortune).
11802 Sorry, no fortune this time.
11804 Sorry. I forget what I was going to say.
11806 Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-
11807 bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the
11808 road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.
11809 -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
11811 "Spare no expense to save money on this one."
11814 Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers:
11815 If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as
11816 if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question
11819 Speak roughly to your little boy,
11820 And beat him when he sneezes:
11821 He only does it to annoy
11822 Because he knows it teases.
11826 I speak severely to my boy,
11827 And beat him when he sneezes:
11828 For he can thoroughly enjoy
11829 The pepper when he pleases!
11832 -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"
11834 Speak roughly to your little VAX,
11835 And boot it when it crashes;
11836 It knows that one cannot relax
11837 Because the paging thrashes!
11841 I speak severely to my VAX,
11842 And boot it when it crashes;
11843 In spite of all my favorite hacks
11844 My jobs it always thrashes!
11848 Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword.
11850 Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman.
11853 Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am
11854 sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging,
11855 cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free
11856 the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a
11857 bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a
11858 controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before
11859 passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same
11860 memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well,
11861 no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously
11862 designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use?
11864 Speaking of Godzilla and other things that convey horror:
11866 With a purposeful grimace and a Mongo-like flair
11867 He throws the spinning disk drives in the air!
11868 And he picks up a Vax and he throws it back down
11869 As he wades through the lab making terrible sounds!
11870 Helpless users with projects due
11871 Scream "My God!" as he stomps on the tape drives, too!
11873 Oh, no! He says Unix runs too slow! Go, go, DECzilla!
11874 Oh, yes! He's gonna bring up VMS! Go, go, DECzilla!"
11876 * VMS is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation
11877 * DECzilla is a trademark of Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death, Inc.
11880 Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently
11881 these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people
11882 to communicate with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't
11883 communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so
11884 on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on (and in real
11885 life, I might add) spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't
11886 communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very _____
\b\b\b\b\bleast
11887 he can do is to Shut Up!
11888 -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was"
11890 "Speed is subsittute fo accurancy."
11892 Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading:
11893 The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the
11894 number of times you have looked at it.
11896 Spelling is a lossed art.
11898 Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers.
11901 The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in
11903 -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
11906 Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you
11907 wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single.
11909 "Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist
11910 drivel; Star Trek can turn your brains to pur'
\bee of bat guano; and the
11911 greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll
11912 take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up!"
11915 Stay away from flying saucers today.
11917 Stay away from hurricanes for a while.
11919 "Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly."
11921 Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy:
11922 Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have
11925 Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming:
11926 Never test for an error condition you don't know how to
11929 Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you.
11931 Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if they'd only
11935 Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is
11936 fight the solutions.
11939 Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay.
11941 Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?
11944 90% of everything is crud.
11946 Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your
11947 editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
11950 Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way
11951 before it is understood.
11953 Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring.
11955 Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar
11956 without his duck ...
11958 (Sung to the tune of "The Impossible Dream" from MAN OF LA MANCHA)
11960 To code the impossible code,
11961 To bring up a virgin machine,
11962 To pop out of endless recursion,
11963 To grok what appears on the screen,
11965 To right the unrightable bug,
11966 To endlessly twiddle and thrash,
11967 To mount the unmountable magtape,
11968 To stop the unstoppable crash!
11970 Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!
11972 Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy.
11974 Support your local police force -- steal!!
11976 Support your local Search and Rescue unit -- get lost.
11978 Sure he's sharp as a razor ... he's a two-dimensional pinhead!
11980 Surprise due today. Also the rent.
11982 Surprise your boss. Get to work on time.
11984 Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just type
11985 in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving
11986 the room is punishable under law:
11991 The language used by the National Enquirer to print their
11996 A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly.
11998 Swipple's Rule of Order:
11999 He who shouts the loudest has the floor.
12001 Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
12002 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
12004 System/3! System/3!
12005 See how it runs! See how it runs!
12006 Its monitor loses so totally!
12007 It runs all its programs in RPG!
12008 It's made by our favorite monopoly!
12011 Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on ad
12012 infinitum -- which is why we're always starting over.
12013 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
12021 | | | | ______ ~~~~ _____
12022 | |__/ | / ___--\\ ~~~ __/_____\__
12023 | ___/ / \--\\ \\ \ ___ <__ x x __\
12024 | | / /\\ \\ )) \ ( " )
12025 | | -------(---->>(@)--(@)-------\----------< >-----------
12026 | | // | | //__________ / \ ____) (___ \\
12027 | | // __|_| ( --------- ) //// ______ /////\ \\
12028 // | ( \ ______ / <<<< <>-----<<<<< / \\
12029 // ( ) / / \` \__ \\
12030 //-------------------------------------------------------------\\
12032 Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels
12033 start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and
12034 then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the
12035 music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.
12036 -- H.S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
12038 T: One big monster, he called TROLL.
12039 He don't rock, and he don't roll;
12040 Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies.
12041 He just Love To Eat Them Roguies.
12042 -- The Roguelet's ABC
12044 Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a
12048 The unsaid part of what you're thinking.
12050 Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way.
12052 Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting
12054 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
12056 Take it easy, we're in a hurry.
12058 Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it
12059 needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.
12062 Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content to sit
12063 back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good
12064 beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up
12065 drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a
12066 nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves
12067 and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" So
12068 Coca-Cola was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw
12069 no need to improve ...
12070 -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
12072 Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to
12073 your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms,
12074 and they'll call you crazy.
12075 -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul"
12077 Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
12080 Talkers are no good doers.
12081 -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
12083 Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
12084 -- Friedrich Nietzsche
12086 TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20)
12087 You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged
12088 determination and work like hell. Most people think you are
12089 stubborn and bull headed. You are a Communist.
12091 Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind
12095 Taxes are going up so fast, the government is likely to price itself
12099 Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get
12102 Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he
12103 grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway.
12105 Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else.
12107 Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means
12108 for going backwards.
12112 An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the
12113 advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
12116 Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,
12117 Is those things arms, or is they legs?
12118 I marvel at thee, Octopus;
12119 If I were thou, I'd call me us.
12122 Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop
12126 "Terence, this is stupid stuff:
12127 You eat your victuals fast enough;
12128 There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
12129 To see the rate you drink your beer.
12130 But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
12131 It gives a chap the belly-ache.
12132 The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
12133 It sleeps well the horned head:
12134 We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
12135 To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
12136 Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
12137 Your friends to death before their time.
12138 Moping, melancholy mad:
12139 Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."
12142 "Termiter's argument that God is His own grandmother generated a
12143 surprising amount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one
12144 hand considered the argument unsupported by scripture but on the other
12145 hand were unwilling to risk offending God's grandmother."
12146 -- Len Cool, "American Pie"
12148 Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a
12149 pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city
12150 until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him is
12151 ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe
12152 because it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historical
12153 fact, for he merely said:
12155 "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because
12156 it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain
12157 because it is impossible."
12159 Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of
12160 philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it.
12161 -- C. G. Jung, in Psychological Types
12163 (Tertullian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church).
12165 Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones.
12167 Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession.
12169 "Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even
12170 one which cannot be justified on any other grounds."
12171 -- J. Finnegan, USC.
12173 Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future.
12174 -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly
12176 "That boy's about as sharp as a pound of wet liver"
12179 "That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all."
12181 That secret you've been guarding, isn't.
12183 That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them.
12186 The 80's -- when you can't tell hairstyles from chemotherapy.
12188 The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by
12189 people who want some.
12190 -- Dwight MacDonald
12192 The Abrams' Principle:
12193 The shortest distance between two points is off the wall.
12195 The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper
12196 -- Thomas Jefferson
12198 The Advertising Agency Song:
12200 When your client's hopping mad,
12201 Put his picture in the ad.
12202 If he still should prove refractory,
12203 Add a picture of his factory.
12205 "The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug
12207 -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340
12209 ... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that
12210 consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune
12211 of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to
12212 listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it.
12213 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
12215 The answer is that libdialog, the library on which sysinstall depends
12216 for these menus, is genuinely evil. It is the unloved, satanic
12217 bastard child of multiple parents and torturing users like yourself
12218 constitutes the only joy in life it has left. Its source files are
12219 all chmod'd 0666 and dire README files warn against trespass by
12220 neophyte programmers. It is the 7th gate of Hell. It makes the baby
12221 Jesus cry. Were libdialog given anthropomorphic representation, it
12222 would be promptly burnt at the stake and its ashes scattered in the
12223 desert, to be then doused with holy water from altitude by
12224 fire-fighting aircraft.
12226 -- Jordan K. Hubbard on the evils of libdialog
12228 The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the Arkansas
12229 River can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in Little
12232 The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion.
12233 Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed
12234 and color, but also on ability.
12237 The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe.
12240 The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use
12241 in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the
12242 Declaration not for that, but for future use.
12245 The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m.
12247 The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the
12248 average man can see better than he can think.
12250 "The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by
12251 people who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried
12253 -- Jim Joyce, owner of Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore
12255 The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than
12256 cities. Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and
12257 difficult to park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots,
12258 which are also dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but --
12259 here is the big difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO
12260 RULES. You're allowed to do anything. You can drive as fast as you
12261 want in any direction you want. I was once driving in a mall parking
12262 lot when my car was struck by a pickup truck being driven backward by a
12263 squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" on his forearm, who got out
12264 and explained to me, in great detail, why the accident was my fault,
12265 his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, whereas I was
12266 neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall parking
12268 -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
12270 The basic menu item, in fact the ONLY menu item, would be a food unit
12271 called the "patty," consisting of -- this would be guaranteed in
12272 writing -- "100 percent animal matter of some kind." All patties would
12273 be heated up and then cooled back down in electronic devices
12274 immediately before serving. The Breakfast Patty would be a patty on a
12275 bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, egg, Ba-Ko-Bits, Cheez Whiz, a Special
12276 Sauce made by pouring ketchup out of a bottle and a little slip of
12277 paper stating: "Inspected by Number 12". The Lunch or Dinner Patty
12278 would be any Breakfast Patties that didn't get sold in the morning.
12279 The Seafood Lover's Patty would be any patties that were starting to
12280 emit a serious aroma. Patties that were too rank even to be Seafood
12281 Lover's Patties would be compressed into wads and sold as "Nuggets."
12282 -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
12284 The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland";
12285 but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
12287 The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
12290 The best defense against logic is ignorance.
12292 The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time.
12294 "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and
12295 blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.
12296 You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
12297 night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only
12298 love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or
12299 know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only
12300 one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what
12301 wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust,
12302 never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never
12303 dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a
12304 lot of things there are to learn."
12305 -- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King"
12307 The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them
12311 The bigger the theory the better.
12313 The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse
12317 The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss
12318 Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public.
12320 It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has been
12321 known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and,
12322 in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two
12323 under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight of
12324 people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a
12325 city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking
12326 umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of
12327 activity that frightens the horses on the street ...
12329 "The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch."
12331 The bogosity meter just pegged.
12333 The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up
12334 in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school.
12336 The Briggs/Chase Law of Program Development:
12337 To determine how long it will take to write and debug a
12338 program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and
12339 convert to the next higher units.
12341 The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be.
12342 Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in
12343 automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo.
12346 The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding
12349 "The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the
12350 flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language."
12352 The camel has a single hump;
12354 Or else the other way around.
12355 I'm never sure. Are you?
12358 The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly
12359 greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed
12360 inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner
12361 party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics.
12364 "The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain."
12367 The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up
12368 at the steam fitters' picnic.
12370 The chief cause of problems is solutions.
12372 The chief danger in life is that you may take too may precautions.
12375 The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will
12379 "The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live
12382 "The Computer made me do it."
12384 The computing field is always in need of new cliches.
12387 The confusion of a staff member is measured by the length of his
12389 -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
12391 The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other
12392 subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up
12393 every bird watcher in the country.
12394 -- John Mitchell, Atty. General 1969-1972
12396 The Consultant's Curse:
12397 When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him
12398 what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong
12399 medicine, and is normally only required once.
12401 The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is
12402 none of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but."
12403 Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period.
12404 Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you
12406 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
12408 The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
12410 The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going
12413 The cow is nothing but a machine with makes grass fit for us people to
12417 The Crown is full of it!
12418 -- Nate Harris, 1775
12420 The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should
12421 therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could
12422 hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to
12423 declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny ... In war,
12424 then, as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press.
12425 Cling to this as the bulwark of all our rights and privileges.
12426 -- William Ellery Channing
12428 The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.
12430 The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of
12431 us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching
12432 Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe.
12434 The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary?
12436 The devil finds work for idle circuits to do.
12438 "The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell
12439 into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him
12440 out again, it would be a calamity."
12441 -- Benjamin Disraeli
12443 The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science
12444 requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require
12448 The distinction between Jewish and goyish can be quite subtle, as the
12449 following quote from Lenny Bruce illustrates:
12451 "I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish.
12452 Eddie Cantor's goyish. The B'nai Brith is goyish. The Hadassah is
12453 Jewish. Marine Corps -- heavy goyish, dangerous.
12454 "Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish.
12455 Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish.
12456 Instant potatoes -- goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish.
12457 Macaroons are ____
\b\b\b\bvery Jewish. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is
12458 goyish. Lime soda is ____
\b\b\b\bvery goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that
12459 Jews won't go near them ..."
12460 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
12462 The District of Columbia has a law forbidding you to exert pressure on
12463 a balloon and thereby cause a whistling sound on the streets.
12465 The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man
12466 really clever who has not found that he is stupid.
12467 -- Gilbert K. Chesterson
12469 The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show
12470 off this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his
12471 next hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the
12472 duck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the
12473 duck and returned it to his master.
12474 "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly.
12475 "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't
12478 The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in late
12479 and owns the worm farm.
12482 The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier.
12484 The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and
12487 The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on
12488 weather forecasters.
12489 -- Jean-Paul Kauffmann
12491 "The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not
12492 Compute' -- I forget which."
12493 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
12495 The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of
12497 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
12499 The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, with
12500 symposium to follow.
12502 The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach
12503 their children to speak it.
12504 -- George Bernard Shaw
12506 The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of a
12507 remarkable Christian forbearance among men.
12510 The fact that it works is immaterial.
12513 The faster we go, the rounder we get.
12514 -- The Grateful Dead
12517 You have taken yourself too seriously.
12519 The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
12522 The first Great Steward, Parrafin the Climber, was employed in King
12523 Chloroplast's kitchen as second scullery boy when the old King met a
12524 tragic death. He apparently fell backward by accident on a dozen salad
12525 forks. Simultaneously the true heir, his son Carotene, mysteriously
12526 fled the city, complaining of some sort of plot and a lot of
12527 threatening notes left on his breakfast tray. At the time, this looked
12528 suspicious what with his father's death, and Carotene was suspected of
12529 foul play. Then the rest of the King's relatives began to drop dead
12530 one after the other in an odd fashion. Some were found strangled with
12531 dishrags and some succumbed to food poisoning. A few were found
12532 drowned in the soup vats, and one was attacked by assailants unknown
12533 and beaten to death with a pot roast. At least three appear to have
12534 thrown themselves backward on salad forks, perhaps in a noble gesture
12535 of grief over the King's untimely end. Finally there was no one left
12536 in Minas Troney who was either eligible or willing to wear the accursed
12537 crown, and the rule of Twodor was up for grabs. The scullery slave
12538 Parrafin bravely accepted the Stewardship of Twodor until that day when
12539 a lineal descendant of Carotene's returns to reclaim his rightful
12540 throne, conquer Twodor's enemies, and revamp the postal system.
12541 -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
12543 The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of
12544 management is that success equals skill.
12547 The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish
12548 child, was propounded to me by my father:
12549 "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and
12551 I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity
12553 "A herring," said my father.
12554 "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!"
12555 "So hang it there."
12556 "But a herring isn't green!" I protested.
12558 "But a herring isn't wet."
12559 "If it's just painted it's still wet."
12560 "But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring
12562 "Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it
12564 -- Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish"
12566 "The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your
12567 hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do."
12568 -- McCloctnik the Lucid
12570 The First Rule of Program Optimization:
12573 The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!):
12577 The first time, it's a KLUDGE!
12578 The second, a trick.
12579 Later, it's a well-established technique!
12580 -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics
12582 The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions
12583 Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals:
12585 As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of
12586 logical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more
12587 appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the
12588 four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector.
12590 Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible
12591 blocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line moves
12592 parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge
12595 The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by
12596 a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities.
12598 "The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel and
12602 The full impact of parenthood doesn't hit you until you multiply the
12603 number of your kids by 32 teeth.
12605 The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to
12608 The gentlemen looked one another over with microscopic carelessness.
12610 The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the
12611 center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South
12612 Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South
12613 End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.
12615 The giraffe you thought you offended last week is willing to be nuzzled
12618 The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at
12619 least until we've finished building it.
12621 The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature
12622 is to build better mice.
12624 The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him
12625 love and he invented marriage.
12627 THE GOLDEN RULE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
12628 The one who has the gold makes the rules.
12630 "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who
12631 make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians
12632 have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine
12633 man in the bonds of Hell."
12636 The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got
12639 "The Good Ship Enterprise" (to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop")
12641 On the good ship Enterprise
12642 Every week there's a new surprise
12643 Where the Romulans lurk
12644 And the Klingons often go berserk.
12646 Yes, the good ship Enterprise
12647 There's excitement anywhere it flies
12648 Where Tribbles play
12649 And Nurse Chapel never gets her way.
12651 See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge,
12652 Mr. Spock is at his side.
12653 The weekly menace, ooh-ooh
12654 It gets fried, scattered far and wide.
12656 It's the good ship Enterprise
12657 Heading out where danger lies
12658 And you live in dread
12659 If you're wearing a shirt that's red.
12660 -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics
12662 The government [is] extremely fond of amassing great quantities of
12663 statistics. These are raised to the _
\bnth degree, the cube roots are
12664 extracted, and the results are arranged into elaborate and impressive
12665 displays. What must be kept ever in mind, however, is that in every
12666 case, the figures are first put down by a village watchman, and he puts
12667 down anything he damn well pleases.
12668 -- Sir Josiah Stamp
12670 The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
12671 who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
12672 -- Benjamin Franklin.
12674 The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog:
12675 The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in
12676 courtship, his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk
12677 clerks. Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods
12678 of time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp
12680 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
12682 The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
12683 of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
12684 -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
12686 The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
12689 The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a custom
12690 whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary,
12693 The Heineken Uncertainty Principle:
12694 You can never be sure how many beers you had last night.
12696 The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent
12699 The hieroglyphics are all unreadable except for a notation on the back,
12700 which reads "Genuine authentic Egyptian papyrus. Guaranteed to be at
12701 least 5000 years old."
12703 The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for
12704 lists of "Ten Best".
12707 "The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and
12708 has gills through which it can see."
12711 The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity
12712 -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.
12714 The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange
12715 protein -- it rejects it.
12718 The human race has been fascinated by sharks for as long as I can
12719 remember. Just like the bluebird feeding its young, or the spider
12720 struggling to weave its perfect web, or the buttercup blooming in
12721 spring, the shark reveals to us yet another of the infinite and
12722 wonderful facets of nature, namely the facet that it can bite your head
12723 off. This causes us humans to feel a certain degree of awe.
12724 -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
12726 The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
12729 The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that
12730 procession but carrying a banner.
12733 The idea is to die young as late as possible.
12736 The idea there was that consumers would bring their broken electronic
12737 devices, such as television sets and VCR's, to the destruction centers,
12738 where trained personnel would whack them (the devices) with
12739 sledgehammers. With their devices thus permanently destroyed,
12740 consumers would then be free to go out and buy new devices, rather than
12741 have to fritter away years of their lives trying to have the old ones
12742 repaired at so-called "factory service centers," which in fact consist
12743 of two men named Lester poking at the insides of broken electronic
12744 devices with cheap cigars and going, "Lookit all them WIRES in there!"
12745 -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
12747 "The identical is equal to itself, since it is different."
12750 "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit
12754 The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf
12755 has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
12756 when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
12759 The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important
12760 point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly
12761 important thing to people.
12762 -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King
12764 The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the
12765 number of participants.
12768 The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided
12769 by the number of people in the group.
12771 The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free
12772 information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a
12773 dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a
12774 real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless.
12776 So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business never
12777 pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big
12778 consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes...
12779 -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
12781 The Kennedy Constant:
12782 Don't get mad -- get even.
12784 The Killer Ducks are coming!!!
12786 The ladies men admire, I've heard,
12787 Would shudder at a wicked word.
12788 Their candle gives a single light;
12789 They'd rather stay at home at night.
12790 They do not keep awake till three,
12791 Nor read erotic poetry.
12792 They never sanction the impure,
12793 Nor recognize an overture.
12794 They shrink from powders and from paints ...
12795 So far, I've had no complaints.
12798 "The last time somebody said, `I find I can write much better with a
12799 word processor.', I replied, `They used to say the same thing about
12803 The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the
12805 -- Henry David Thoreau
12807 The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the
12808 poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
12812 "The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all
12813 men should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the
12814 universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we
12815 presently imagine we own."
12818 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE
12820 SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language
12821 Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for
12822 Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code
12823 with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,
12824 END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make
12825 a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus
12826 they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without
12827 the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
12829 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP
12831 This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of
12832 an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said
12833 to be useful in protheththing lithtth.
12835 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL
12837 SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler.
12838 Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they
12839 compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the
12840 coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom
12841 sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to
12842 compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but
12843 infinitely faster) language, COCAINE.
12845 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE
12847 Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely
12848 unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just
12849 are. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions.
12850 SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at
12853 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: C-
12855 This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he
12856 submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is
12857 best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the
12858 language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code
12859 statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very
12862 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18a: FIFTH
12864 FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types
12865 refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and
12866 JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and
12867 BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY,
12868 CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND.
12870 The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and
12871 financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include
12872 VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH
12873 and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers
12874 who end up using this language.
12876 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE
12878 Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene
12879 DesCartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The
12880 language is being developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics
12881 and Programming under a grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A
12882 spokesman described the language as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of
12885 The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they have
12886 almost succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside the
12887 organization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases to
12890 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #5: VALGOL
12891 From its modest beginnings in Southern California's San Fernando Valley,
12892 VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the industry.
12894 Here is a sample program:
12895 LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START
12896 IF PIZZA = LIKE BITCHEN AND GUY = LIKE TUBULAR AND
12897 VALLEY GIRL = LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 THEN
12898 FOR I = LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100
12899 DO*WAH - (DITTY**2)
12900 BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT)
12902 LIKE BAG THIS PROGRAM
12904 LIKE TOTALLY (Y*KNOW)
12908 When the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the message:
12910 GAG ME WITH A SPOON!!
12912 THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK
12914 This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi,
12915 Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to
12916 the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley.
12918 The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs
12919 while they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there
12920 because the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and
12923 Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle
12924 and non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower
12925 case. For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the
12927 "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can
12928 you find the time to try it again?"
12930 The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching
12933 The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon.
12935 The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get
12939 The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
12942 "The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as
12943 we could with both of them."
12944 -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
12946 The makers may make
12947 and the users may use,
12948 but the fixers must fix
12949 with but minimal clues
12951 The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the
12952 crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no
12954 -- Alan Ashley-Pitt
12956 The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that
12957 will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
12960 The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a
12961 soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which
12962 when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years.
12964 "... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic ..."
12967 The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.
12969 The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the
12970 klutz said, "Life is like a bowl of sour cream."
12972 "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?"
12974 "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?"
12976 The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to
12977 devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation.
12980 The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might
12981 be general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the
12982 law that any field that had the word "science" in its name was
12983 guaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examples
12984 Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Homemaking
12985 Science, Social Science, and Computer Science. Discuss the generality
12986 of this law, and possible reasons for its predictive
12988 -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems
12991 The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything.
12992 -- Laurence J. Peter
12994 The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me.
12995 -- Nicol Williamson
12997 The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader.
12999 The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away.
13001 "The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the
13002 lower the mailing cost."
13003 -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
13005 The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and
13006 robbers there will be.
13009 The more things change, the more they stay insane.
13011 The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us
13014 The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey.
13017 "The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and
13018 to watch someone else do it wrong without comment."
13019 -- Theodore H. White
13021 The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
13022 discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
13025 The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on.
13027 ... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!!
13029 "... The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'!"
13030 "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to
13032 "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little
13033 vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, 'The Aged
13035 "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?"
13036 Alice corrected herself.
13037 "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is
13038 called 'Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!"
13039 "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this time
13040 completely bewildered.
13041 "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is
13042 "A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention."
13043 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
13045 "The National Association of Theater Concessionaires reported that in
13046 1986, 60% of all candy sold in movie theaters was sold to Roger Ebert."
13049 The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says:
13050 Support your right to bare arms!
13052 The net of law is spread so wide,
13053 No sinner from its sweep may hide.
13054 Its meshes are so fine and strong,
13055 They take in every child of wrong.
13056 O wondrous web of mystery!
13057 Big fish alone escape from thee!
13058 -- James Jeffrey Roche
13060 The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I
13061 hope I don't get run over again.
13063 The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory,
13064 in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system.
13066 But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for
13067 whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
13070 "The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. The
13071 Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country.
13072 The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive
13073 and running the country ..."
13074 -- Robert J Woodhead
13076 The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to
13078 -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
13080 The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the
13082 -- Dennis M. Ritchie
13084 The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should
13085 serve the state is essentially a Communist notion ... In a free society
13086 these institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their
13087 function is to serve as checks upon the state.
13090 The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them are
13094 The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughly
13095 analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their
13096 occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve
13097 these problems when called upon.
13099 However, When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to
13100 remind yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp.
13102 The Official MBA Handbook on business cards:
13103 Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm,
13104 Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate
13107 The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy.
13109 The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age
13113 The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader
13114 catch his own breath.
13115 -- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart
13117 The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when
13120 The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the
13121 `social sciences' is: some do, some don't.
13122 -- Ernest Rutherford
13124 The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop
13127 "The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon."
13128 -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and
13131 The only really decent thing to do behind a person's back is pat it.
13133 The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber
13134 has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture,
13135 finished, and put inside boxes.
13136 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
13138 The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any
13142 "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from
13146 "I know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking the
13148 -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar"
13150 The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
13153 The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up
13156 The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
13159 The optimum committee has no members.
13160 -- Norman Augustine
13162 "The other day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven ... I almost
13163 went back in time."
13166 The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because
13168 -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley)
13170 The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it
13171 were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.
13174 The people of Halifax invented the trampoline. During the
13175 Victorian period the tripe-dressers of Halifax stretched tripe across a
13176 large wooden frame and jumped up and down on it to `tender and dress'
13177 it. The tripoline, as they called it, degenerated into becoming the
13178 apparatus for a spectator sport.
13180 The people of Halifax also invented the harmonium, a device for
13181 castrating pigs during Sunday service.
13182 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
13184 The Pig, if I am not mistaken,
13185 Gives us ham and pork and Bacon.
13186 Let others think his heart is big,
13187 I think it stupid of the Pig.
13190 The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter
13191 swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the
13192 batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The
13193 center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute
13194 his eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it.
13197 The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose.
13200 The polite thing to do has always been to address people as they wish
13201 to be addressed, to treat them in a way they think dignified. But it
13202 is equally important to accept and tolerate different standards of
13203 courtesy, not expecting everyone else to adapt to one's own
13204 preferences. Only then can we hope to restore the insult to its proper
13205 social function of expressing true distaste.
13206 -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to
13207 Excruciatingly Correct Behavior"
13209 "The porcupine with the sharpest quills gets stuck on a tree more
13212 The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher,
13213 Were each of them once a kiddie.
13214 A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature.
13215 Do I want one? God Forbiddie!
13218 The President publicly apologized today to all those offended by his
13219 brother's remark, "There's more Arabs in this country than there is
13220 Jews!". Those offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers.
13221 -- Baltimore, Channel 11 News, on Jimmy Carter
13223 The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday
13224 they might force their beliefs on us.
13227 The primary cause of failure in electrical appliances is an expired
13228 warranty. Often, you can get an appliance running again simply by
13229 changing the warranty expiration date with a 15/64-inch felt-tipped
13231 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
13233 The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to
13234 constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every
13235 appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA
13236 statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This
13237 also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.
13238 -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers
13240 The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough
13241 voters to win the next election.
13243 The primary theme of SoupCon is communication. The acronym "LEO"
13244 represents the secondary theme:
13246 Law Enforcement Officials
13248 The overall theme of SoupCon shall be:
13250 Avoiding Communication with Law Enforcement Officials
13252 ... the privileged being which we call human is distinguished from
13253 other animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which in
13254 charity we can only call "inhuman."
13257 The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the
13258 stupidity of your action.
13260 The problem ... is that we have run out of dinosaurs to form oil with.
13261 Scientists working for the Department of Energy have tried to form oil
13262 using other animals; they've piled thousands of tons of sand and Middle
13263 Eastern countries on top of cows, raccoons, haddock, laboratory rats,
13264 etc., but so far all they have managed to do is run up an enormous
13265 bulldozer-rental bill and anger a lot of Middle Eastern persons. None
13266 of the animals turned into oil, although most of the laboratory rats
13268 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
13270 The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go
13274 The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to get
13277 The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy
13278 problems in order to get results.
13280 The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at toy
13281 problems in order to get results.
13283 The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be
13284 pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
13285 -- Elizabeth Taylor
13287 The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
13289 The Psblurtex is an 18-inch long anaconda that hides in the gentlemen's
13290 outfitting departments of Amazonian stores and is often bought by
13291 mistake since its colors are those of the London Reform Club. Once
13292 tied around its victim's neck, it strangles him gently and then claims
13293 the insurance before running off to Germany where it lives in hiding.
13294 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
13296 "The pyramid is opening!"
13298 "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!"
13299 -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At
13300 Once When You're Not Anywhere At All"
13302 The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's:
13303 "My brain is paged out to my liver"
13305 The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is
13306 it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television,
13307 that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of
13309 -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
13311 The rain it raineth on the just
13312 And also on the unjust fella,
13313 But chiefly on the just, because
13314 The unjust steals the just's umbrella.
13316 The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is
13319 The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much.
13321 The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose",
13322 which is also sometimes called "grape sugar", and also because "Grape
13323 Nuts" is catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between Gerbil
13324 Food and Gravel", which is what it tastes like.
13325 -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
13327 The reason we come up with new versions is not to fix bugs. It's
13331 The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
13332 persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all
13333 progress depends on the unreasonable man.
13334 -- George Bernard Shaw
13336 The revolution will not be televised.
13338 The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
13341 The rhino is a homely beast,
13342 For human eyes he's not a feast.
13343 Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros,
13344 I'll stare at something less prepoceros.
13347 The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This
13348 means that only left handed people are in their right mind.
13350 "The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests
13351 and to his imagination for his facts."
13354 The right to revolt has sources deep in our history.
13355 -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
13357 "The rights you have are the rights given you by this Committee [the
13358 House Un-American Activities Committee]. We will determine what rights
13359 you have and what rights you have not got."
13360 -- J. Parnell Thomas
13362 The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And littered with
13366 The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the
13367 one who is doing it.
13369 The Ruffed Pandanga of Borneo and Rotherham spreads out his feathers in
13370 his courtship dance and imitates Winston Churchill and Tommy Cooper on
13371 one leg. The padanga is dying out because the female padanga doesn't
13372 take it too seriously.
13373 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
13375 The rule on staying alive as a forcaster is to give 'em a number or
13376 give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once.
13377 -- Jane Bryant Quinn
13379 "The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography"
13381 The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100
13382 showed that all had these things in common:
13384 (1) They all had moderate appetites.
13385 (2) They all came from middle class homes
13386 (3) All but two of them were dead.
13388 The scum also rises.
13389 -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
13391 The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes,
13392 respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones
13393 from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the
13394 milestones are lifted.
13395 -- George Bernard Shaw
13397 The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood
13398 as he reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all.
13399 The Gray Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in
13400 the palace of Gilpkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts in
13401 twenty-five of him are dead, he is alive.
13403 "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached
13404 everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a
13405 fierce host which out-numbers Lankhmar's inhabitants by fifty to one --
13406 and equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city."
13408 "How?" demanded Fafhrd.
13410 Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know."
13411 -- Fritz Leiber, from "The Swords of Lankhmar"
13413 The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land.
13415 The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
13418 The Sixth Commandment of Frisbee:
13419 The greatest single aid to distance is for the disc to be going
13420 in a direction you did not want. (Goes the wrong way = Goes a long
13424 "The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity
13425 and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted
13426 activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ...
13427 neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."
13429 "The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find their
13431 -- Ed Bluestone, "The National Lampoon"
13433 "The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up!"
13435 The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the sooner you will be
13436 able to correct them.
13439 The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
13441 The Soviet pre-eminence in chess can be traced to the average Russian's
13442 readiness to brood obsessively over anything, even the arrangement of
13443 some pieces of wood. Indeed, the Russians' predisposition for quiet
13444 reflection followed by sudden preventive action explains why they led
13445 the field for many years in both chess and ax murders. It is well
13446 known that as early as 1970, the U.S.S.R., aware of what a defeat at
13447 Reykjavik would do to national prestige, implemented a vigorous program
13448 of preparation and incentive. Every day for an entire year, a team of
13449 psychologists, chess analysts and coaches met with the top three
13450 Russian grand masters and threatened them with a pointy stick. That
13451 these tactics proved fruitless is now a part of chess history and a
13452 further testament to the American way, which provides that if you want
13453 something badly enough, you can always go to Iceland and get it from
13455 -- Marshall Brickman, Playboy, April, 1973
13458 Sung to the tune of "Lola", by the Kinks:
13460 I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah
13461 Where it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda
13463 I saw the little runt sitting there on a log
13464 I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda
13465 Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
13467 Well I've been around but I ain't never seen
13468 A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green
13469 Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
13470 Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand
13471 How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand
13472 Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
13474 The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub.
13476 The steady state of disks is full.
13479 THE STORY OF CREATION
13483 In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null,
13484 and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM
13485 was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be
13486 registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried;
13487 and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data
13488 Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening
13489 and there was morning, one interrupt ...
13492 The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make
13494 -- Mayor Frank Rizzo
13496 "The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and
13497 is an emerging underachiever."
13499 The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant
13502 "The subspace _
\bW inherits the other 8 properties of _
\bV. And there aren't
13503 even any property taxes."
13504 -- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b
13506 The sum of the Universe is zero.
13508 The sun was shining on the sea,
13509 Shining with all his might:
13510 He did his very best to make
13511 The billows smooth and bright --
13512 And this was very odd, because it was
13513 The middle of the night.
13514 -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
13516 The superfluous is very necessary.
13519 The surest protection against temptation is cowardice.
13522 The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our
13523 authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as
13524 the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as
13525 the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much
13526 radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much
13527 as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we
13528 receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the
13529 Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will
13530 heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to
13531 the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much
13532 heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for
13533 radiation, (_
\bH/_
\bE)^4 = 50, where _
\bE is the absolute temperature of the
13534 earth (-300K), gives _
\bH as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell
13535 cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the
13536 fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which
13537 burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means
13538 that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We
13539 have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
13540 -- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972
13542 The Third Law of Photography:
13543 If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined
13544 when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark
13547 The Three Laws of Thermodynamics:
13549 The First Law: You can't get anything without working for it.
13550 The Second Law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break
13552 The Third Law: You can only break even at absolute zero.
13554 The Three Major Kind of Tools
13556 * Tools for hitting things to make them loose or to tighten them up or
13557 jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a
13558 manner that they function perfectly. (These are your hammers, maces,
13559 bludgeons, and truncheons.)
13561 * Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot. (Awls)
13563 * Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far
13564 greater than the value of any project that could possibly result.
13565 (Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses
13566 any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.)
13567 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
13569 The trouble with a kitten is that
13570 When it grows up, it's always a cat
13573 The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
13575 The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate
13577 -- Franklin P. Jones
13579 The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing
13580 more important to do.
13582 The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody
13583 appreciates how difficult it was.
13585 The trouble with superheros is what to do between phone booths.
13588 The truth is what is; what should be is a dirty lie.
13591 The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And
13594 The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
13595 Which practically conceal its sex.
13596 I think it clever of the turtle
13597 In such a fix to be so fertile.
13600 "The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and
13603 The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more
13604 annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.
13607 The United States also has its native Fascists who say that they are
13608 "100 percent American"...
13609 -- U. S. Army (1945)
13611 The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to
13612 everybody and still nobody likes him.
13615 The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be
13618 The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but the
13619 combination is locked up in the safe.
13622 The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie
13623 Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said
13624 to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his
13625 decision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride."
13627 The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and
13628 religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging
13629 from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its
13630 yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of the
13631 world put together.
13632 -- Sir Peter Medawar
13634 The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
13635 regarded as a criminal offense.
13638 The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes
13642 The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid
13646 The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.
13647 Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts
13648 to fit their views ... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to
13649 be one of the facts that needs altering.
13650 -- Dr. Who, "Face of Evil"
13652 "The voters have spoken, the bastards ..."
13654 "The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes,
13655 it's just a tired feeling:"
13657 The wages of sin are high but you get your money's worth.
13659 "The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity
13660 that would be clearly understood."
13663 "The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start
13664 with a large fortune."
13666 The wind doth taste so bitter sweet,
13667 Like Jaspar wine and sugar,
13668 It must have blown through someone's feet,
13669 Like those of Caspar Weinberger.
13674 The wombat lives across the seas,
13675 Among the far Antipodes.
13676 He may exist on nuts and berries,
13677 Or then again, on missionaries;
13678 His distant habitat precludes
13679 Conclusive knowledge of his moods.
13680 But I would not engage the wombat
13681 In any form of mortal combat.
13683 The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!
13685 The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books!
13687 The world is coming to an end. Please log off.
13689 The world's as ugly as sin,
13690 And almost as delightful
13691 -- Frederick Locker-Lampson
13693 The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages of
13694 four and eighteen. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all
13697 Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations.
13699 He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the Jordan,
13700 then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an open
13703 If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he should
13704 not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of himself.
13706 Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree.
13707 Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg.
13708 Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower.
13709 -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
13711 Then here's to the City of Boston,
13712 The town of the cries and the groans.
13713 Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks,
13714 And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns.
13715 -- Franklin Pierce Adams
13718 Into love and out again,
13719 Thus I went and thus I go.
13720 Spare your voice, and hold your pen:
13721 Well and bitterly I know
13722 All the songs were ever sung,
13723 All the words were ever said;
13724 Could it be, when I was young,
13725 Someone dropped me on my head?
13728 There *__
\b\bis* intelligent life on Earth, but I leave for Texas on Monday.
13730 There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable,
13731 and praiseworthy ...
13732 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
13734 There are many intelligent species in the universe. They all own
13737 There are no data that cannot be plotted on a straight line if the axis
13738 are chosen correctly.
13740 There are no games on this system.
13742 There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the
13743 existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any
13744 marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat
13745 engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is
13746 obviously impossible.
13747 -- Richard Davisson
13749 There are people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the
13750 truth without lying.
13752 There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a
13753 vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone.
13756 There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that
13757 someone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew named
13758 Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or
13759 Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that
13760 every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is
13762 Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for
13763 centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think ___
\b\b\byou
13764 can find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it's
13765 forbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster
13766 -- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don't
13767 even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover
13768 why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance.
13769 -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
13771 "There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both
13772 plants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis;
13773 and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again,
13776 "There are those who claim that magic is like the tide; that it swells
13777 and fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentrated
13778 pools here and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leaving
13779 them parched for wonder. There are also those who believe that if you
13780 stick your fingers up your nose and blow, it will increase your
13782 -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII
13784 There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
13787 "There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away
13788 from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; or someone
13789 loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor."
13791 There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be
13792 offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin
13793 a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount
13794 of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of
13795 affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately.
13796 When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating.
13797 Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.
13798 -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior
13800 "There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and
13801 engineers. While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far
13803 -- Baron Rothschild, ca. 1800
13805 There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ring
13806 the changes on its corollaries; that's philosophy. Two: Record many
13807 facts. Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the next
13808 fact; that's science. Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolent
13809 Universe controlled by Murphy's Law, sometimes offset by Brewster's
13810 Factor; that's engineering.
13812 There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I
13816 There are three ways to get something done:
13817 (1) Do it yourself.
13818 (2) Hire someone to do it for you.
13819 (3) Forbid your kids to do it.
13821 There are times when truth is stranger than fiction and lunch time is
13824 There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect
13825 the sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the
13826 sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too.
13827 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
13829 There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good
13830 sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.
13833 "There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to
13834 make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the
13835 other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
13839 "There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the
13840 other is to read Pope."
13843 There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one
13846 There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a
13847 suitable application of high explosives.
13849 There can be no twisted thought without a twisted molecule.
13852 There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
13855 There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than 10 men or fewer
13859 There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know
13862 There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an
13866 There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of
13867 paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write.
13869 There is a green, multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.
13871 There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legs
13872 tied during the month of April.
13874 There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish.
13877 "There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor,
13878 Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and
13879 love of the Fatherland."
13882 There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
13883 what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
13884 disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and
13887 There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
13888 -- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"
13890 "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a
13892 -- Arthur C. Clarke
13894 There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
13897 There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the
13898 tools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not
13899 abuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and
13900 war hold him in check. And also the wife who wants him home by five,
13902 -- Encyclopedia Apocryphia, 1990 ed.
13904 "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
13906 -- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
13909 There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.
13910 -- George Bernard Shaw
13912 There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast
13915 There is no such thing as fortune. Try again.
13917 There is no time like the pleasant.
13919 There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be
13922 There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY.
13923 There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS I'm very probably wrong.
13925 "There is nothing which cannot be answered by means of my doctrine,"
13926 said a monk, coming into a teahouse where Nasrudin sat. "And yet just
13927 a short time ago, I was challenged by a scholar with an unanswerable
13928 question," said Nasrudin. "I could have answered it if I had been
13929 there." "Very well. He asked, 'Why are you breaking into my house in
13930 the middle of the night?'"
13932 There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the
13933 ocean level wouldn't cure.
13936 There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and
13937 that is not being talked about.
13940 There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
13941 returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
13944 There once was a girl named Irene
13945 Who lived on distilled kerosene
13946 But she started absorbin'
13948 And since then has never benzene.
13950 There once was a member of Mensa
13951 Who was a most excellent fencer.
13952 The sword that he used
13953 Was his -- (line is refused,
13954 And has now been removed by the censor).
13956 There once was an old man from Esser,
13957 Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser.
13958 It at last grew so small,
13959 He knew nothing at all,
13960 And now he's a College Professor.
13962 "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved
13964 -- C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia
13966 There was a plane crash over mid-ocean, and only three survivors were
13967 left in the life-raft: the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley.
13968 Unfortunately, it was a one-man life-raft, and quickly sinking, so they
13969 started debating who should be allowed to stay.
13971 The Pope pointed out that he was the spiritual leader of millions all
13972 over the world, the President explained that if he died then America
13973 would be stuck with the Vice-President, and so forth. Then Mayor Daley
13974 said, "Look! We're not solving anything like this! The only fair
13975 thing to do is to vote on it." So they did, and Mayor Daley won by 97
13978 There was a young lady from Hyde
13979 Who ate a green apple and died.
13980 While her lover lamented
13981 The apple fermented
13982 And made cider inside her inside.
13984 There was a young man who said "God,
13985 I find it exceedingly odd,
13986 That the willow oak tree
13988 When there's no one about in the Quad."
13990 "Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd,
13991 For I'm always about in the Quad;
13992 And that's why the tree,
13994 Signed "Yours faithfully, God."
13996 There was a young poet named Dan,
13997 Whose poetry never would scan.
13998 When told this was so,
13999 He said, "Yes, I know.
14000 It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that last line that I can."
14002 "There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial:
14003 both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed to
14004 talk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed him
14008 There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of
14009 the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double-
14010 digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the
14011 8-cent postcard. The second was responsible for such things as the
14012 transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity
14013 stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative
14014 feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching
14015 systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the
14016 first electrical digital computer, and the first communications
14017 satellite. Guess which one got to tell the other how to run the
14018 telephone business?
14020 There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not
14023 There's a long-standing bug relating to the x86 architecture that
14024 allows you to install Windows.
14025 -- Matthew D. Fuller
14027 There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to.
14029 There's little in taking or giving,
14030 There's little in water or wine:
14031 This living, this living, this living,
14032 Was never a project of mine.
14033 Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
14034 The gain of the one at the top,
14035 For art is a form of catharsis,
14036 And love is a permanent flop,
14037 And work is the province of cattle,
14038 And rest's for a clam in a shell,
14039 So I'm thinking of throwing the battle --
14040 Would you kindly direct me to hell?
14043 There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through our
14044 whole lives, win, lose, or draw.
14047 There's no future in time travel.
14049 There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.
14052 There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get
14055 There's no room in the drug world for amateurs.
14057 There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government
14061 "There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead
14063 -- Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner
14065 There's nothing so precious as a cafe full of Gap kiddies trying to
14066 work out whether you're really wearing rubber pants.
14069 "There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't
14072 There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn
14073 what it is I'll get married again.
14076 There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is
14077 becoming an endangered synthetic.
14080 "These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!"
14081 "These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!"
14082 "These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAP
14083 out of MEGATON MAN!"
14085 These days the necessities of life cost you about three times what they
14086 used to, and half the time they aren't even fit to drink.
14088 They also surf who only stand on waves.
14090 "They make a desert and call it peace."
14091 -- Tacitus (55?-120?)
14093 They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners
14094 always spell better than they pronounce.
14097 "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
14098 safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
14099 -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
14101 "They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!"
14103 They told me you had proven it When they discovered our results
14104 About a month before. Their hair began to curl
14105 The proof was valid, more or less Instead of understanding it
14106 But rather less than more. We'd run the thing through PRL.
14108 He sent them word that we would try Don't tell a soul about all this
14109 To pass where they had failed For it must ever be
14110 And after we were done, to them A secret, kept from all the rest
14111 The new proof would be mailed. Between yourself and me.
14113 My notion was to start again
14114 Ignoring all they'd done
14115 We quickly turned it into code
14116 To see if it would run.
14118 They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid!
14120 "They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really. They'd be difficult
14124 Things are more like they used to be than they are now.
14126 Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face.
14128 Think big. Pollute the Mississippi.
14130 Think honk if you're a telepath.
14132 Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!
14134 Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer
14137 Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click".
14139 "Thirty days hath Septober,
14140 April, June, and no wonder.
14141 all the rest have peanut butter
14142 except my father who wears red suspenders."
14144 This Fortue Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14
14146 This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need,
14147 please use the program "________
\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\brandchar". This program generates random
14148 characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with
14149 something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be
14150 more profound than THIS program has ever been.
14152 This fortune intentionally not included.
14154 This fortune is false.
14156 This fortune is inoperative. Please try another.
14158 "This is a country where people are free to practice their religion,
14159 regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling
14162 "This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT
14166 "This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an
14167 actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you?"
14169 This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly,
14170 because the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under
14171 which it recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has
14172 "deregulated" the airline industry. What this means for you, the
14173 consumer, is that the airlines are no longer required to follow any
14174 rules whatsoever. They can show snuff movies. They can charge for
14175 oxygen. They can hire pilots right out of Vending Machine Refill
14176 Person School. They can conserve fuel by ejecting husky passengers
14177 over water. They can ram competing planes in mid-air. These
14178 innovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which have been
14179 passed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights with
14180 amazingly low fares, such as $29. Of course, certain restrictions do
14181 apply, the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark,
14182 and you must pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out.
14183 -- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations"
14185 This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement.
14187 This is for all ill-treated fellows
14188 Unborn and unbegot,
14189 For them to read when they're in trouble
14193 "This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back
14195 -- Prof. Seager, C&O 351
14197 This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week.
14199 THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM
14201 If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your
14202 contribution of a pithy fortune, clean or obscene? We cannot continue
14203 without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are
14204 contributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We
14205 can't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money
14206 for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the
14207 difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight
14208 and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to
14209 "fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now before
14210 you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week.
14211 Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute
14212 30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The
14213 Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or
14214 more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug ....
14216 This is the ____
\b\b\b\bLAST time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury!
14218 This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the
14219 power of computers:
14221 Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct
14222 the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a
14223 minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The
14224 results are that one should eat each day:
14228 1 glass of skim milk
14229 27 heads of lettuce.
14230 -- Rev. Adrian Melott
14232 This is the story of the bee
14233 Whose sex is very hard to see
14235 You cannot tell the he from the she
14236 But she can tell, and so can he
14238 The little bee is never still
14239 She has no time to take the pill
14241 And that is why, in times like these
14242 There are so many sons of bees.
14244 This is your fortune.
14246 This land is full of trousers!
14247 this land is full of mausers!
14248 And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down!
14249 -- Firesign Theater
14251 This land is made of mountains,
14252 This land is made of mud,
14253 This land has lots of everything,
14254 For me and Elmer Fudd.
14256 This land has lots of trousers,
14257 This land has lots of mousers,
14258 And pussycats to eat them
14259 When the sun goes down.
14261 This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life,
14262 you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where
14265 This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88
14267 This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with
14271 This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of
14272 the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many
14273 solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were
14274 largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper,
14275 which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of
14276 paper that were unhappy.
14279 "This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it does
14280 something child-like."
14281 -- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454
14283 This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Maryland
14284 student newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87.
14286 One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use
14287 Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one
14288 computer language to another and has a built-in editing system
14289 which identifies errors in the original program.
14291 This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't.
14294 ... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal lives
14295 as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as
14296 determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people
14297 buy imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80s
14298 couple goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three
14299 weeks in advance, and they are informed that their table is available,
14300 they stalk out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent
14301 restaurant. If it were, it would have an enormous crowd of
14302 excellence-oriented people like themselves waiting, their beepers going
14303 off like crickets in the night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't have
14304 a table ready immediately for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli.
14305 -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
14307 This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget
14310 Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire
14311 rainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better
14313 As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about
14314 it. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily
14315 sane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we
14316 consider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is
14317 being eaten alive by tinhorn politicians.
14318 The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can
14319 do for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his
14320 honor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can
14321 be as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public
14322 relations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter
14323 Thompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes.
14324 This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease.
14325 -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt
14326 from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear
14327 and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72"
14329 Those of you who think you know everything are very annoying to those
14332 Those who can't write, write manuals.
14334 Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
14336 "Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics."
14339 Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
14342 Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents,
14343 for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
14346 Those who express random thoughts to legislative committees are often
14347 surprised and appalled to find themselves the instigators of law.
14350 Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.
14352 Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent
14353 revolution inevitable.
14356 Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are
14357 men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean
14358 without the roar of its many waters.
14359 -- Frederick Douglass
14361 Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are
14362 the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with
14363 Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether --
14364 whose existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation ... A
14365 fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any
14366 more about the matter than the others.
14367 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
14369 Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.
14371 Time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so.
14374 Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at
14377 'Tis the dream of each programmer,
14378 Before his life is done,
14379 To write three lines of APL,
14380 And make the damn things run.
14382 (to "The Caissons Go Rolling Along")
14383 Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug
14384 Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug
14385 And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.
14386 Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all,
14387 Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall
14388 And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.
14389 And we've also found Just flip one switch
14390 When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch
14391 You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble
14393 Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU
14394 Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo,"
14395 And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash.
14397 To A Quick Young Fox:
14398 Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp,
14399 Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice?
14400 Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp --
14401 Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice.
14404 To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.
14413 "To be responsive at this time, though I will simply say, and therefore
14414 this is a repeat of what I said previously, that which I am unable to
14415 offer in response is based on information available to make no such
14418 To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit,
14419 call it the target.
14421 To envision how a 4-processor system running [SunOS] 4.1.x works, think
14422 of four kids and one bathroom.
14425 To err is human, to forgive is Not Company Policy.
14427 "To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System"
14429 To err is human, to moo bovine.
14431 To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D.
14434 To generalize is to be an idiot.
14437 To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three
14438 men, two of them absent.
14440 To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
14443 To iterate is human, to recurse, divine.
14445 To the best of my recollection, Senator, I can't recall.
14447 To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide
14450 To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional
14451 system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy,
14452 inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence:
14453 precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel,
14454 uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar,
14455 well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures
14456 of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very
14457 secure ecological niche.
14458 -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers"
14460 To understand this important story, you have to understand how the
14461 telephone company works. Your telephone is connected to a local
14462 computer, which is in turn connected to a regional computer, which is
14463 in turn connected to a loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the
14464 lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of Lawrence, Kan.
14466 Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it
14467 suspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the
14468 computer above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the
14469 one above it, until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe
14470 break down in tears and tell your closest friend about a sordid
14471 incident from your past involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse,
14472 an entire religious order, a garden hose and six quarts of tapioca
14473 pudding, the top computer feeds your conversation into Edna's
14474 loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on the porch to listen
14475 and drink gin and laugh themselves silly.
14476 -- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own
14479 "To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?"
14481 "To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."
14484 Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official.
14486 Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.
14488 Today is the first day of the rest of the mess
14490 Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage.
14492 Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday
14494 Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity?
14496 And where does it go after it leaves the toaster?
14497 -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
14499 "Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new
14500 cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more
14501 spectacular adventure starring ... Tippy, the Wonder Dog."
14504 "Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-word
14505 except in major motion pictures."
14506 -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
14508 Toilet Toup'
\bee, n.:
14509 Any shag carpet that causes the lid to become top-heavy, thus
14510 creating endless annoyance to male users.
14511 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
14513 Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest.
14515 Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
14517 Too clever is dumb.
14520 Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL.
14523 Too much of everything is just enough.
14526 Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available
14528 -- Governor Jerry Brown
14530 Top 10 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon Programmer:
14532 10) Specifications are for the weak and timid!
14533 9) You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
14534 8) Indentation?! - I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
14535 7) What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'.
14536 Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality
14537 assurance people in its wake.
14538 6) Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments'
14539 - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
14540 5) Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
14541 4) A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!
14542 3) Klingon software does NOT have BUGS. It has FEATURES, and those features
14543 are too sophisticated for a Romulan pig like you to understand.
14544 2) You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the
14546 1) Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship
14547 it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
14549 Top scientists agree that with the present rate of consumption, the
14550 earth's supply of gravity will be exhausted before the 24th century.
14551 As man struggles to discover cheaper alternatives, we need your help.
14556 Follow these simple suggestions:
14558 (1) Walk with a light step. Carry helium balloons if possible.
14559 (2) Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights.
14560 (3) Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like
14562 (4) Avoid showers .. take baths instead.
14563 (5) Don't hang all your clothes in the closet ... Keep them in one big
14565 (6) Stop flipping pancakes
14567 Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow.
14569 Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful, wealthy, and live
14570 in eucalyptus trees.
14572 Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant
14576 Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it.
14579 Truth will be out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.)
14582 Dumb and illiterate.
14583 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
14585 Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational.
14588 Try to be the best of whatever you are, even if what you are is no
14591 Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done,
14592 is it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written
14593 in four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and
14594 pretense. Watch for novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmer),
14595 defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and the
14596 absolutely perfect future.
14599 Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.
14601 Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only
14602 specification is that it should run noiselessly.
14604 Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
14607 Trying to establish voice contact ... please ____
\b\b\b\byell into keyboard.
14610 The attention span of a computer is only as long as its
14614 Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.
14616 TV is chewing gum for the eyes.
14617 -- Frank Lloyd Wright
14619 'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks
14620 Did gyre and gimble in their cave
14621 All mimsy was the CS-VAX
14622 And Cory raths outgrabe.
14624 "Beware the software rot, my son!
14625 The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash!
14626 Beware the broken pipe, and shun
14627 The frumious system crash!"
14629 'Twas the Night before Crisis
14631 'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house,
14632 Not a program was working not even a browse.
14633 The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care,
14634 Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer.
14635 The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
14636 While visions of inquiries danced in their heads.
14637 When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter,
14638 I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter.
14639 And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
14640 But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear.
14641 More rapid than eagles, his programs they came,
14642 And he whistled and shouted and called them by name;
14643 On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete!
14644 On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete!
14645 His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean,
14646 From Weekends and nights in front of a screen.
14647 A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
14648 Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread...
14650 'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period
14651 preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And
14652 throughout our place of residence,
14653 Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the
14654 possessors of this potential, including that
14655 species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.
14656 Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward
14657 edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus,
14658 Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an
14659 imminent visitation from an eccentric
14660 philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations
14661 is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ...
14663 Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing.
14666 Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long.
14669 Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate. The first man
14670 said, "This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." The
14671 second man said, "He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to his
14672 chambers, and spent an hour trying to bite his own ear. He succeeded
14673 only in falling over and bruising his forehead. Returning to the
14674 courtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the man whose ear was bitten.
14675 If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and the case is
14676 dismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it and
14677 must pay three silver pieces."
14679 Two percent of zero is almost nothing.
14681 "Two sure ways to tell a sexy male; the first is, he has a bad memory.
14682 I forget the second."
14684 Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
14686 U: There's a U -- a Unicorn!
14687 Run right up and rub its horn.
14688 Look at all those points you're losing!
14689 UMBER HULKS are so confusing.
14690 -- The Roguelet's ABC
14692 "Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex."
14694 (Where there is no police, there is no speed limit.)
14695 -- Roman Law, trans. Petr Beckmann (1971)
14697 UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist.
14699 "Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?"
14701 "It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food,
14703 -- MacNelley, "Shoe"
14705 Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb:
14706 Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a
14707 hammer or get a splinter in it.
14709 Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
14710 just man is also in prison.
14711 -- Henry David Thoreau
14713 Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it
14714 can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic ...
14716 Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics:
14717 Superiority is recessive.
14719 Unfair animal names:
14721 -- tsetse fly -- bullhead
14722 -- booby -- duck-billed platypus
14723 -- sapsucker -- Clarence
14726 United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of the
14727 Christmas season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of
14728 all the military forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of
14729 all the patriots of every persuasion.
14731 Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time low over the
14739 Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's
14740 usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to
14743 unix soit qui mal y pense
14745 UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on
14746 Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch).
14750 If it happens, it must be possible.
14752 Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out
14753 twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
14756 Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir
14759 A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
14762 The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot."
14763 -- Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top"
14765 Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach.
14768 Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two,
14769 opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none.
14772 Vail's Second Axiom:
14773 The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the
14774 amount of work already completed.
14776 Valerie: Aww, Tom, you're going maudlin on me ...
14777 Tom: I reserve the right to wax maudlin as I wane eloquent ...
14781 An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
14784 Ordinary flavor, standard. See FLAVOR. When used of food,
14785 very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla
14786 extract! For example, "vanilla-flavored won ton soup" (or simply
14787 "vanilla won ton soup") means ordinary won ton soup, as opposed to hot
14788 and sour won ton soup.
14790 Velilind's Laws of Experimentation:
14791 (1) If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only
14793 (2) If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data
14798 "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past
14799 year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley
14800 reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their
14801 artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue
14802 moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon
14803 Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the
14804 entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the
14805 sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips."
14807 "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito.
14809 "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made
14811 -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
14813 Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
14815 Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life."
14816 Orac: "It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater mistakes
14817 waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it."
14819 Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
14822 Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the
14825 VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
14826 Learn something new today, like how to spell or how to count to
14827 ten without using your fingers. Be careful dressing this
14828 morning. You may be hit by a car later in the day and you
14829 wouldn't want to be taken to the doctor's office in some of
14830 that old underwear you own.
14832 VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
14833 You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is
14834 sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and
14835 sometimes fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus
14838 "Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from.
14840 Virtue is its own punishment.
14842 Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving
14843 from where you left them to where you can't find them.
14845 Vitamin C deficiency is apauling
14847 VMS is like a nightmare about RSX-11M.
14851 Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived and
14854 VYARZERZOMANIMORORSEZASSEZANSERAREORSES?
14857 \a\a\a\a *** System shutdown message from root ***
14859 System going down in 60 seconds
14863 "Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
14866 Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?"
14867 1st customer: "I'll have tea."
14868 2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!"
14869 (Waiter exits, returns)
14870 Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?"
14872 Walk softly and carry a megawatt laser.
14874 War hath no fury like a non-combatant.
14875 -- Charles Edward Montague
14877 War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable.
14879 WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:
14881 Firings will continue until morale improves.
14884 Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your
14885 mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth of hair on
14886 your palms, and make a difference in the outcome of your favorite war.
14888 Warning: Do not look directly into laser with remaining eye.
14890 Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for
14891 those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking
14893 -- Chicago Reader 4/22/83
14895 Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with.
14897 Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
14900 Waste not, get your budget cut next year.
14902 Wasting time is an important part of living.
14905 The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the
14906 number and significance of any persons watching it.
14908 We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which
14909 divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being
14910 correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
14913 We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
14916 We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm.
14917 -- Winston Churchill
14919 We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it.
14920 -- Whole Earth Catalog
14922 We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.
14923 -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo"
14925 We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to
14926 socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The
14927 bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its ... Did I say
14931 "We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last
14933 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
14935 "We are upping our standards ... so up yours."
14936 -- Pat Paulsen for President, 1988.
14938 We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved.
14940 We cannot put the face of a person on a stamp unless said person is
14941 deceased. My suggestion, therefore, is that you drop dead.
14942 -- James E. Day, Postmaster General
14944 "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
14947 "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."
14949 We don't know who discovered water, but we're certain it wasn't a
14952 We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the
14953 hardware, but we can *___
\b\b\bsee* the blinking lights!
14955 We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids?
14956 -- I. I. Rabi to the Atomic Energy Commission
14958 "We had it tough ... I had to get up at 9 o'clock at night, half an
14959 hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours down
14960 mill, and when we came home our Dad would kill us, and dance about on
14961 our grave singing Haleleuia ..."
14964 We have met the enemy, and he is us.
14967 We have only two things to worry about: That things will never get
14968 back to normal, and that they already have.
14970 "We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his
14971 hands for masturbation."
14974 We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an
14975 official name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death
14976 Flu". You may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish
14977 you had another setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that
14978 said "ELECTROCUTION".
14980 Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) your
14981 teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing
14982 process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a
14983 couple of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways
14984 out of your mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste
14985 stalagmites that would bond your head permanently to the bathroom
14986 floor, which is how the police would find you.
14988 You know the kind of flu I'm talking about.
14989 -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"
14991 We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all
14992 purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start
14993 with? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the
14994 playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is
14995 best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can
14996 buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English.
14999 We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always
15000 respect their good judgement.
15002 We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass
15003 no matter how self-seeking.
15004 -- F. G. Withington
15006 We ought to be very grateful that we have tools. Millions of years ago
15007 people did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult.
15008 For example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he had
15009 to drive the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his bare
15010 fist, so generally the paneling wound up getting spattered with
15011 primitive blood, which isn't really all that bad when you consider how
15012 ugly paneling is to begin with.
15013 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
15015 We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best
15016 friends are trying to kill us.
15018 We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.
15019 But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle
15020 Haggard song at a French restaurant. ...
15021 I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of
15022 her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I
15023 had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone
15024 told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was
15025 lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he
15026 fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing
15027 what men must do. ...
15028 "Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible
15029 sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew
15030 not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a
15031 quiet and peace I will never forget.
15032 "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the
15033 tollway belle's for thee."
15034 The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was
15035 a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I
15036 poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day.
15037 -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway
15040 We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one
15041 technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter.
15043 we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love,
15044 we will cry over things we used to laugh &
15045 our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentile
15046 creatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then &
15047 in the end a summer with wild winds &
15048 new friends will be.
15050 We wish you a Hare Krishna
15051 We wish you a Hare Krishna
15052 We wish you a Hare Krishna
15053 And a Sun Myung Moon!
15056 "We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later."
15058 We're deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell from
15059 the fact that everywhere you look, you see jolly old St. Nick urging
15060 you to purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him right
15061 in his bowl full of jelly.
15062 -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
15064 We're only in it for the volume.
15067 We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center
15068 of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week,
15069 but for some reason nobody's ever done it.
15073 Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it
15076 Weinberg's First Law:
15077 Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
15079 Weinberg's Principle:
15080 An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while
15081 sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
15083 Weinberg's Second Law:
15084 If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
15085 then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
15087 Weiner's Law of Libraries:
15088 There are no answers, only cross references.
15090 Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if
15091 you run out of food.
15092 -- Dean McLaughlin.
15094 Well, here it is, 1983, so it won't be long before you start reading a
15095 lot of boring stories about people like Vance Hartke. Hartke is a
15096 governor or mayor or something from one of the flatter states, and the
15097 reason you'll be reading about him is that he's one of the 50 top
15098 contenders for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. These men
15099 will spend the next 18 months going around the country engaging in the
15100 most degrading activities imaginable, such as wearing idiot hats and
15101 appearing on "Meet the Press". "Meet the Press" is one of those Sunday
15102 morning public interest shows that the public is not the least bit
15103 interested in. It features a panel of reporters who ask questions of a
15104 guest politician, who wins an Amana home freezer if he can get through
15105 the entire show without answering a single question ...
15106 -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
15108 Well, I would -- if they realized that we -- again if -- if we led them
15109 back to that stalemate only because our retaliatory power, our seconds,
15110 or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive they
15111 they couldn't afford it, that would hold them off.
15112 -- President Ronald Reagan, on the MX missile
15114 "Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___
\b\b\bcan*
15116 -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]
15118 Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail,
15119 And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail;
15120 I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues,
15121 I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
15123 If you think that it's nice that you get what you C,
15124 Then go : illogical statement with your whole family,
15125 'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views.
15126 I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
15128 On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze,
15129 But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze.
15130 Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse,
15131 I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.
15132 -- Core Dumped Blues
15134 "Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?"
15136 "Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection ...
15137 coefficient of relevance to Key of Time: zero."
15140 "Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool is
15141 no wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand five
15143 -- The Mahabharata.
15145 Westheimer's Discovery:
15146 A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a
15147 couple of hours in the library.
15150 Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
15152 "What are we going to do?"
15154 "Me, I'm examining the major Western religions. I'm looking for
15155 something that's soft on morality, generous with holidays, and has a
15156 short initiation period."
15158 "What are you doing?"
15160 "Examining the world's major religions. I'm looking for something
15161 that's light on morals, has lots of holidays, and with a short
15162 initiation period."
15164 What color is a chameleon on a mirror?
15166 "What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty
15167 teenager asked her mother.
15168 "Encouragement, dear," she replied.
15170 What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"?
15172 What does it mean if there is no fortune for you?
15174 What garlic is to food, insanity is to art.
15176 What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.
15178 "What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so
15179 that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our
15180 country. Nice try anyway, George."
15181 -- D.J. on KSFO/KYA
15183 What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the
15186 What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow
15189 What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I hop into the shower
15190 stall. Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped in I landed
15191 barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot character
15192 from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off of
15193 while he showers. Then I hop right back into the stall because our
15194 dog, Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building up
15195 powerful dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into the
15196 bathroom and wants to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, any
15197 one of which -- bear in mind that I am naked and, without my contact
15198 lenses, essentially blind -- could result in the kind of injury where
15199 you have to learn a whole new part if you want to sing the "Messiah",
15200 if you get my drift. Then I hop right back out, because Robert, with
15201 that uncanny sixth sense some children have -- you cannot teach it;
15202 they either have it or they don't -- has chosen exactly that moment to
15203 flush one of the toilets. Perhaps several of them.
15204 -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
15206 What I tell you three times is true.
15208 "What I think is that the F-word is basically just a convenient nasty-
15209 sounding word that we tend to use when we would really like to come up
15210 with a terrifically witty insult, the kind Winston Churchill always
15211 came up with when enormous women asked him stupid questions at
15213 -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
15215 What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility.
15217 "What I've done, of course, is total garbage."
15218 -- R. Willard, Pure Math 430a
15220 What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I
15221 definitely overpaid for my carpet.
15222 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
15224 What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's
15225 worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?
15226 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
15228 What is a magician but a practicing theorist?
15231 What is mind? No matter.
15232 What is matter? Never mind.
15233 -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875
15235 What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern
15236 computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest
15237 and the establishment of a Hilton on its peak.
15239 "What is the Nature of God?"
15241 CLICK...CLICK...WHIRRR...CLICK...=BEEP!=
15245 STIR AND SPRINKLE WITH BACON BITS.
15247 "I've just GOT to start labeling my software..."
15250 "What is the robbing of a bank compared to the FOUNDING of a bank?"
15253 "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out,
15254 which is the exact opposite."
15255 -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical_Essays", 1928
15257 What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do.
15259 What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing
15260 to compare it with.
15262 What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism.
15263 It's corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell books
15264 and magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, Scotch, cigarettes
15265 and, most important, corporate America's message, which runs: "Yes,
15266 women were discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunate
15267 mistake has been remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestige
15268 and power by dint of individual rather than collective effort."
15271 What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
15272 -- Ursula K. LeGuin
15274 What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket.
15276 What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
15278 What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener.
15280 What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent
15283 What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel.
15285 What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING!
15287 What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer.
15289 What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.
15291 What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon.
15293 What this world needs is a good five-dollar plasma weapon.
15295 What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn?
15296 -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"
15298 What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which
15299 nobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday
15300 Morning Time, whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-
15301 launch-style "hold" for two to three hours, during which it just
15302 remains 7 a.m. This way we could all wake up via a civilized gradual
15303 process of stretching and belching and scratching, and it would still
15304 be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually emerge from bed.
15305 -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
15307 What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it.
15309 "What's another word for Thesaurus?"
15312 "What's that thing?"
15313 "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in
15314 computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what
15315 it does. We call it a two-by-four."
15316 -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe"
15318 "What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?"
15321 Whatever became of eternal truth?
15323 Whatever became of Strange de Jim? Well, he found a substitute for
15324 cocaine: "You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrils
15325 as far as they will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shredding
15326 hundred dollar bills."
15329 Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not
15331 -- Collis P. Huntingdon
15333 "Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not
15337 When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the
15341 When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the
15342 thing," it's the money.
15345 When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half
15348 When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is
15349 not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space
15350 travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
15353 When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see the
15354 sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain
15355 relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten.
15356 -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
15359 When all other means of communication fail, try words.
15361 "When are you BUTTHEADS gonna learn that you can't oppose Gestapo
15362 tactics *with* Gestapo tactics?"
15365 When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before
15366 the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours."
15367 -- Vine Deloria, Jr.
15369 When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I
15370 think it was a Tuesday.
15372 When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to
15375 "When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great
15376 parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if
15380 When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a
15381 year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire
15382 winter with slightly over half that quantity of beer.
15383 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
15385 When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young
15386 ladies, and, of course, the goat.
15388 When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now
15389 I'm beginning to believe it.
15392 When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will you
15393 take me to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them come
15397 "When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any
15398 firearms with me. I said, `Well, what do you need?'"
15401 When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into
15402 the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
15405 When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an
15406 act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A
15407 group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a
15408 six-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do things
15409 together which not one of you would think of doing alone." ...
15410 Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collective
15411 responsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The military
15412 establishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to have
15413 been expressly designed to make it possible for people to do things
15414 together which nobody in his right mind would do alone.
15415 -- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope"
15417 When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened
15418 or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I
15419 cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to
15420 go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.
15423 When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess.
15425 "When in doubt, tell the truth."
15428 When in doubt, use brute force.
15431 When in panic, fear and doubt,
15432 Drink in barrels, eat, and shout.
15434 When love is gone, there's always justice.
15435 And when justice is gone, there's always force.
15436 And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
15440 When Marriage is Outlawed,
15441 Only Outlaws will have Inlaws.
15443 When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment
15447 When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony
15448 concerts, she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years --
15449 and I find I mind it less and less."
15450 -- Louise Andrews Kent
15452 When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity:
15453 for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when
15454 your boss is away and you get twice as much done.
15457 When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only
15458 say what I wish done," give him a lollipop.
15460 "When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical"
15463 When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, you
15464 modify the problem, not the remedy.
15466 When the Ngdanga tribe of West Africa hold their moon love ceremonies,
15467 the men of the tribe bang their heads on sacred trees until they get a
15468 nose bleed, which usually cures them of ____
\b\b\b\bthat.
15469 -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
15471 When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that is
15475 When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the
15476 stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them
15477 from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones
15478 were set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the
15479 corners as bodies of a lower grade ...
15480 -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
15482 When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the
15486 When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most
15487 insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are
15488 required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and
15489 exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.
15490 -- George Bernard Shaw
15492 When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is
15496 When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before --
15497 except our fingertips will have been singed.
15498 -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
15500 When you are about to do an objective and scientific piece of
15501 investigation of a topic, it is well to have the answer firmly in hand,
15502 so that you can proceed forthrightly, without being deflected or
15503 swayed, directly to the goal.
15506 "When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut."
15508 When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
15510 When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
15513 When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure
15514 clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer
15515 to a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively.
15516 In a way, the next move is up to him.
15519 "When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."
15520 -- Winston Churchill, On formal declarations of war
15522 When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by
15523 asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't
15524 know the answer either.
15525 -- Edgar R. Fiedler
15527 When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers.
15528 -- The Wall Street Journal
15530 When you try to make an impression, the chances are that is the
15531 impression you will make.
15533 When you're away, I'm restless, lonely,
15534 Wretched, bored, dejected; only
15535 Here's the rub, my darling dear
15536 I feel the same when you are near.
15537 -- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away"
15539 When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN.
15541 Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they really mean, "not really".
15544 Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to
15545 see it tried on him personally.
15548 Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
15551 Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last
15552 you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his
15553 Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.
15555 "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"
15557 Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
15561 WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE
15563 Oh, dear, where can the matter be
15564 When it's converted to energy?
15565 There is a slight loss of parity.
15566 Johnny's so long at the fair.
15568 Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what
15569 is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.
15570 -- John Kenneth Galbraith
15572 Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax.
15574 Whether you can hear it or not
15575 The Universe is laughing behind your back
15576 -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
15578 Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
15580 While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is
15581 admission to someone else.
15583 While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
15584 The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
15585 While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
15586 And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
15587 Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
15588 The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
15589 -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman",
15592 While having never invented a sin, I'm trying to perfect several.
15594 While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don't
15595 keep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove.
15596 -- Edward Stevenson
15598 While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own
15601 While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining
15604 While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their
15605 correctness never does.
15607 While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very
15608 reassuring to know that it's still there.
15610 While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are
15611 safe, for you can watch both of his.
15612 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
15615 You never know who is right, but you always know who is in
15618 "Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new
15619 Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..."
15621 Who made the world I cannot tell;
15622 'Tis made, and here am I in hell.
15623 My hand, though now my knuckles bleed,
15624 I never soiled with such a deed.
15627 Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?
15629 Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink?
15633 "Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school.
15636 Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
15638 Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.
15640 "Why are we importing all these highbrow plays like `Amadeus'? I could
15641 have told you Mozart was a jerk for nothing."
15644 "Why be a man when you can be a success?"
15647 Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones we
15650 Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else?
15652 Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to
15653 avoid responsibility with?
15655 Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office
15658 Why do we have two eyes? To watch 3-D movies with.
15660 Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently
15661 there must be a beverage.
15662 -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
15664 Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have
15667 New Jersey had first choice.
15669 Why don't elephants eat penguins ?
15671 Because they can't get the wrappers off ...
15673 Why I Can't Go Out With You:
15675 I'd LOVE to, but ...
15676 -- I have to floss my cat.
15677 -- I've dedicated my life to linguini.
15678 -- I need to spend more time with my blender.
15679 -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People.
15680 -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish.
15681 -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves.
15682 -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products.
15683 -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise.
15684 -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist.
15685 -- I have some really hard words to look up.
15686 -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting.
15687 -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps.
15689 "Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is
15690 because we are not the person involved"
15693 Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
15695 "Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?"
15698 "Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love
15699 you knowing nothing?"
15700 -- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
15702 Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year?
15703 Just picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as your
15704 children open their old-fashioned presents.
15706 Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?"
15708 You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it
15709 falls down. What fun! Ha, ha!"
15711 Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer
15712 with two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory,
15713 and I get this cretin TOP?"
15715 Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this."
15717 You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!"
15719 Daughter: "It looks like goat barf."
15720 -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
15722 "Why was I born with such contemporaries?"
15725 Why You Can't Run When There's Trouble in the Office:
15726 No matter where you stand, no matter how far or fast you flee,
15727 when it hits the fan, as much as possible will be propelled in your
15728 direction, and almost none will be returned to the source.
15732 Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
15734 William Safire's Rules for Writers:
15736 Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never
15737 be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to
15738 agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words
15739 out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal
15740 of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must
15741 not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a
15742 conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a
15743 sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as
15744 close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more
15745 words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles
15746 must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a
15747 linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing
15748 metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should
15749 be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their
15750 writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows
15751 the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek
15752 viable alternatives.
15754 Williams and Holland's Law:
15755 If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by
15756 statistical methods.
15758 Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as
15759 it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.
15762 The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery
15763 ... by leaving it out.
15764 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
15766 With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I
15767 try to be a fraud and a half.
15768 -- Otto von Bismark
15770 With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
15771 -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
15773 With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once
15774 build a nuclear balm?
15776 With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand
15777 miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and
15778 still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no
15779 such thing as progress.
15782 Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless.
15784 Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection:
15785 (1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it.
15786 (2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete.
15787 (3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2)
15788 (4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a
15789 VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator.
15790 (5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless.
15793 Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If
15794 you cut down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut
15795 down the new tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that
15796 tree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a mutation with
15797 long, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it will sit
15798 there in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when you
15801 Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago,
15802 when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot.
15803 Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the
15804 cavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood
15805 heat!" The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately
15806 beat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made,
15807 and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed,
15808 although their insurance rates went way up.
15809 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
15811 Work Rule: Leave of Absence (for an Operation):
15812 We are no longer allowing this practice. We wish to discourage
15813 any thoughts that you may not need all of whatever you have, and you
15814 should not consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are,
15815 and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we
15818 Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your
15821 World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforced
15824 Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing:
15825 August. The lines are the shortest, though.
15826 -- Steve Rubenstein
15828 Worst Month of the Year:
15829 February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if
15830 you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't
15831 get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible.
15832 -- Steve Rubenstein
15834 Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985:
15835 From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved
15836 in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs
15837 damage my videotapes?"
15839 Worst Vegetable of the Year:
15840 The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next
15842 -- Steve Rubenstein
15844 "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
15846 "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat
15849 "Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish
15850 and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer
15851 if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and
15852 and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and
15853 and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?"
15855 Write-Protect Tab, n.:
15856 A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly
15857 left by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error
15858 message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the
15859 momentary inconvenience.
15862 Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
15865 "Wrong," said Renner.
15867 "The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree with
15868 the Senator would be to say, `That turns out not to be the case.'"
15870 X-rated movies are all alike ... the only thing they leave to the
15871 imagination is the plot.
15873 Xerox does it again and again and again and ...
15875 Xerox never comes up with anything original.
15878 The practice of trying to determine the year a movie was made
15879 by deciphering the Roman numerals at the end of the credits.
15880 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
15882 "Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have
15883 goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in
15884 their endless search for "one more feature". Their irritating
15885 unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my
15886 doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right.
15887 -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements"
15889 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall
15890 fear no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadic
15891 operators together.
15894 "Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context."
15897 A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.
15898 -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
15900 Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache.
15902 Yes, but which self do you want to be?
15904 Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
15905 be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
15908 Yesterday upon the stair
15909 I met a man who wasn't there.
15910 He wasn't there again today --
15911 I think he's from the CIA.
15913 Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again.
15914 -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
15917 A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one
15919 -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
15921 You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are.
15932 But you're not all there.
15934 "You are old, Father William," the young man said,
15935 "All your papers these days look the same;
15936 Those William's would be better unread --
15937 Do these facts never fill you with shame?"
15939 "In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
15940 "I wrote wonderful papers galore;
15941 But the great reputation I found that I'd won,
15942 Made it pointless to think any more."
15944 "You are old, father William," the young man said,
15945 "And your hair has become very white;
15946 And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
15947 Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
15949 "In my youth," father William replied to his son,
15950 "I feared it might injure the brain;
15951 But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
15952 Why, I do it again and again."
15955 "You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers
15956 That your lectures bore people to death.
15957 Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year --
15958 Don't you think that you should save your breath?"
15960 "I have answered three questions and that is enough,"
15961 Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs!
15962 Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
15963 Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"
15965 "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
15966 For anything tougher than suet;
15967 Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
15968 Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
15970 "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
15971 And argued each case with my wife;
15972 And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
15973 Has lasted the rest of my life."
15976 "You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run,
15977 And there isn't one language you like;
15978 Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none --
15979 Have you thought about taking a hike?"
15981 "Since I never write programs," his father replied,
15982 "Every language looks equally bad;
15983 Yet the people keep paying to read all my books
15984 And don't realize that they've been had."
15986 "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
15987 And have grown most uncommonly fat;
15988 Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
15989 Pray what is the reason of that?"
15991 "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
15992 "I kept all my limbs very supple
15993 By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box --
15994 Allow me to sell you a couple?"
15997 "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
15998 And make errors few people could bear;
15999 You complain about everyone's English but yours --
16000 Do you really think this is quite fair?"
16002 "I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared,
16003 "But my stature these days is so great
16004 That no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared,
16005 And to stop me it's now far too late."
16007 "You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
16008 That your eye was as steady as ever;
16009 Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
16010 What made you so awfully clever?"
16012 "I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
16013 Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
16014 Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
16015 Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"
16018 You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
16020 You are the only person to ever get this message.
16022 You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading
16023 this sort of trash.
16025 You buttered your bread, now lie in it.
16027 You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting
16028 incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail.
16029 Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable
16030 to find a way to damage them. They last forever, largely because
16031 nobody ever eats them. In fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes
16032 they receive and send them back to the original givers the next year;
16033 some fruitcakes have been passed back and forth for hundreds of years.
16035 The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then
16036 pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear
16038 -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
16040 "You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it
16041 doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on."
16042 -- Hepler, Systems Design 182
16044 You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior
16047 "You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them.
16048 Why do you find that funny?"
16049 -- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350
16051 You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you
16052 can with just a kind word.
16055 You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have,
16057 -- Franklin P. Jones
16059 You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.
16061 You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on
16062 the continuing viability of FORTRAN.
16065 You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
16067 You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding
16068 decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left
16069 over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart.
16072 You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of
16076 You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.
16078 "You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename."
16079 -- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454
16081 You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks.
16083 "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"
16086 You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
16087 -- Booker T. Washington
16089 You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
16091 "You can't make a program without broken egos."
16093 You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic
16094 enough worrying about what's happening now.
16097 "You can't survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten."
16098 -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and
16101 "You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they
16103 -- Dagwood Bumstead
16105 You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.
16107 You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.
16109 You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.
16111 You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first
16112 and last month in advance.
16114 You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable
16116 -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict
16118 You do not have mail.
16120 You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.
16123 You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting
16125 -- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food
16127 You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form.
16128 The short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified",
16129 which means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears
16130 tax-preparation expert to distinguish between their first and last
16131 names. Here's the complete text:
16133 "(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT)
16134 "(2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT)
16135 "(3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to
16136 send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF
16137 THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME)
16138 household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way
16139 you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST
16140 NAME), that it pays to file the short form!"
16142 The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your
16143 money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long
16145 -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
16147 You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers.
16149 You have acquired a scroll entitled 'irk gleknow mizk'(n).--More--
16151 This is an IBM Manual scroll.--More--
16153 You are permanently confused.
16156 You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close to
16157 metal objects which are not fastened down.
16159 You have junk mail.
16161 You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it gets
16164 You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot
16167 You know if they ever find a way to harness sarcasm as an energy source,
16168 you people are all going to owe me big.
16171 You know it's going to be a bad day when you want to put on the clothes
16172 you wore home from the party and there aren't any.
16174 You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens
16175 anywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night,
16176 you can always change the channel.
16179 You know you have a small apartment when Rice Krispies echo.
16180 -- S. Rickly Christian
16182 You know you're a little fat if you have stretch marks on your car.
16183 -- Cyrus, Chicago Reader 1/22/82
16185 You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your
16186 friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it.
16188 You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi.
16190 "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon
16191 airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in
16192 deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me
16194 "Why, what did she tell you?"
16195 "I don't know, I didn't listen!"
16196 -- Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
16198 You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.
16200 You may be recognized soon. Hide.
16202 You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," he
16203 is preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing.
16206 You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue -- agree with
16210 You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog.
16213 You men out there probably think you already know how to dress for
16214 success. You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suits
16215 or white plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costume
16216 party disguised as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World.
16217 -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success"
16219 You might have mail
16221 You might like to know that I looked at a detailed map of NT, and I'm
16222 now able to confirm that in all probability Microsoft NT does not
16223 exist. If it does, it's so small as to be completely insignificant.
16226 "You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable
16227 proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do."
16229 You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll
16232 You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a
16233 reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
16234 the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for
16236 -- Charles A. Beard
16238 You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the
16241 You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were
16242 you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare
16243 yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the
16245 -- J. Wellington Wells
16247 You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.
16249 You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could
16250 know how seldom they do.
16253 You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially
16256 You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than
16258 -- Ernest Rutherford
16260 You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for
16261 freedom and liberty.
16264 You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that,
16265 contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from
16266 houses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many
16267 scientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the
16268 summer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day,
16269 you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientist
16270 sitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily.
16271 -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
16273 You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name,
16274 another $2 if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you and
16275 another $2 for each "special" he describes involving confusing terms
16276 such as "shallots," and $4 if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In
16277 many restaurants, this means the waiter will actually owe you money.
16278 If you are traveling with a child aged six months to three years, you
16279 should leave an additional amount equal to twice the bill to compensate
16280 for the fact that they will have to take the banquette out and burn it
16281 because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets made of partially
16282 chewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit.
16284 In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention his
16286 -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
16288 "You should, without hesitation, pound your typewriter into a
16289 plowshare, your paper into fertilizer, and enter agriculture."
16290 -- Business Professor, University of Georgia
16292 You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother.
16294 YOU TOO CAN MAKE BIG MONEY IN THE EXCITING FIELD OF
16297 Mr. TAA of Muddle, Mass. says: "Before I took this course I used to be
16298 a lowly bit twiddler. Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feel
16299 really important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best."
16301 Mr. MARC had this to say: "Ten short days ago all I could look forward
16302 to was a dead-end job as a engineer. Now I have a promising future and
16303 make really big Zorkmids."
16305 MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but when
16306 you earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter.
16308 SEND FOR OUR FREE BROCHURE TODAY!
16310 You too can wear a nose mitten.
16312 You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old.
16314 You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of
16315 a lion, and the face of Donald Duck.
16317 You will be surprised by a loud noise.
16319 You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself.
16321 You will feel hungry again in another hour.
16323 You will lose your present job and have to become a door to door
16324 mayonnaise salesman.
16326 You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the
16327 Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the
16328 parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
16331 You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes.
16333 You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You're not paid enough to
16336 You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a
16337 taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a
16341 "You'll never be the man your mother was!"
16343 You're at the end of the road again.
16345 You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days.
16347 You're never too old to become younger.
16350 You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
16353 You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!!
16355 You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture.
16357 "You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks."
16360 "You've got to think about tomorrow!"
16362 "TOMORROW! I haven't even prepared for *_________
\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\byesterday* yet!"
16364 Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a
16365 thing he tells you.
16367 Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you
16370 Your fault: core dumped
16372 Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that
16373 bring electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a
16374 chance to kill you. This is called a "circuit". The most common home
16375 electrical problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit
16376 breaker"; this causes the electricity to back up in one of the wires
16377 until it bursts out of an outlet in the form of sparks, which can
16378 damage your carpet. The best way to avoid broken circuits is to change
16379 your fuses regularly.
16380 Another common problem is that the lights flicker. This
16381 sometimes means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more
16382 often it means that your home is possessed by demons, in which case
16383 you'll need to get a caulking gun and some caulking. If you're not
16384 sure whether your house is possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a
16385 fine documentary film based on an actual book. Or call in a licensed
16386 electrician, who is trained to spot the signs of demonic possession,
16387 such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous cats on the dinette
16389 -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
16391 Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret.
16393 Your lucky color has faded.
16395 Your lucky number has been disconnected.
16397 Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.
16399 Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.
16401 "Yow! Am I having fun yet?"
16402 -- Zippy the Pinhead
16404 YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL!
16407 The result of shutting down a production line.
16409 Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words
16410 since I first called my brother's father dad.
16411 -- William Shakespeare, "King John"
16413 Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor:
16414 People are always available for work in the past tense.
16416 At first, I just did it on weekends. With a few friends, you know...
16417 We never wanted to hurt anyone. The girls loved it. We'd all sit
16418 around the computer and do a little UNIX. It was just a kick. At
16419 least that's what we thought. Then it got worse.
16421 It got so I'd have to do some UNIX during the weekdays. After a
16422 while, I couldn't even wake up in the morning without having that
16423 crave to go do UNIX. Then it started affecting my job. I would just
16424 have to do it during my break. Maybe a `grep' or two, maybe a little
16425 `more'. I eventually started doing UNIX just to get through the day.
16426 Of course, it screwed up my mind so much that I couldn't even
16427 function as a normal person.
16429 I'm lucky today, I've overcome my UNIX problem. It wasn't easy. If
16430 you're smart, just don't start. Remember, if any weirdo offers you
16435 From a Tru64 patch description:
16437 Fixes a bug that causes a panic due to software error