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The Star Fraction
Ken MacLeod's vision of the 21st century - and beyond - is highly politicized. He has won two Prometheus awards for libertarian science fiction despite his positive appraisal of much of the Left in his writing. His four published novels involve a society very different politically from our own. His work has fanned out from his first novel, The Star Fraction to offer alternative viewpoints - often sympathetic but possibly contradictory - on where humanity could be heading. The breadth and cross-pollination between the books gives each a greater depth, regardless of the order in which they are read.
The Star Fraction opens around the middle of the 21st century. Britain has been fractured by turbulence at home and abroad. Division on every issue and the failure of central government has left independents of every stripe in enclaves throughout the country, from London to the Scottish Highlands. Many of these have a broad sympathy for the former Socialist government and the attitudes of the Left but are involved in feuds at the expense of the dream of a re-united Republican Britain. A Royalist government retains power over the rump of the country, but their power is further limited by the U.S./UN. The U.S./UN itself maintains global power through space based weaponry and control of new technology which has paralyzed the development of biotechnology and artificial intelligence.
The primary underlying "science" of this science fiction is politics. The interference patterns created by such a thought experiment are the very lives and livelihoods of the people in the book. Characters include a communist mercenary who works for a collective protecting (capitalist) property, a university researcher and a programmer/stockbroker from a Christian fundamentalist group. These people are powerfully realised. They care deeply about the society they live in and their political beliefs are a deep and genuine expression of their concern. The process of exploring politics through character makes the factional complexity of ideology more accessible. It also results in a visceral experience rather than a novel of ideas.
The speculative elements of The Star Fraction are in no way limited to politics. Space is a place where people go to work. This is significant, both for the influence that this all-seeing perspective offers the major powers and for the increasing freedom from Earth of those above. On the ground, the Green movement is seen to be deeply affected by global warming - what can they do when the environment is so clearly falling apart and it seems that still too few respect Gaia? There is also machine consciousness which works its way towards full artificial intelligence. The centre of this novel has much to say about artificial intelligence and its possible relationships with humanity. The idea of a life form springing from the silicon is opposed by those - both ignorant and computer literate - who fear the potential power of AI.
In the final third of the book the plot languishes somewhat as the populus works to reach a future bright with possibility. This final outcome remains open to re-interpretation and revelation. This novel brims with political pizzazz, wry humor and unusual insight. The struggle of the masses is brought to life in a manner which matches its fervency for a better world with brilliant action and convincing description.
It's only availible overseas, however.
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An elderly couple were flying to their Caribbean hideaway on a chartered plane
when a terrible storm forced them to land on an uninhabited island. When
several days passed without rescue, the couple and their pilot sank into a
despondent silence. Finally, the woman asked her husband if he had made his
usual pledge to the United Way Campaign.
"We're running out of food and water and you ask *that*?" her husband
barked. "If you really need to know, I not only pledged a half million but
I've already paid them half of it."
"You owe the U.W.C. a *quarter million*?" the woman exclaimed
euphorically. "Don't worry, Harry, they'll find us! They'll find us!"
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Alex Haley was adopted!
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...
When this load is DONE I think I'll wash it AGAIN
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Optimization hinders evolution.
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Reality is for people who lack imagination.
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"I drink to make other people interesting."
-- George Jean Nathan
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Nihilism should commence with oneself.
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"Force is but might," the teacher said--
"That definition's just."
The boy said naught but thought instead,
Remembering his pounded head:
"Force is not might but must!"
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Whip it, baby.
Whip it right.
Whip it, baby.
Whip it all night!
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my NOSE is NUMB!
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Kin, n.:
An affliction of the blood
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Yow! Are you the self-frying president?
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modem, adj.:
Up-to-date, new-fangled, as in "Thoroughly Modem Millie." An
unfortunate byproduct of kerning.
[That's sic!]
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A person who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely
called a liberal.
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SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!
-- Ken Thompson
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.44 caliber homicide,
Blackout, heatwave,
The bums drop dead and the dogs go mad in packs on the West Side,
A young girl standing on a ledge, looks like another suicide,
She wants to hit those bricks,
'cause the news at six got to stick to a deadline,
While the millionaires hide in Beekman place,
The bag ladies throw their bones in my face,
I get attacked by a kid with stereo sound,
I don't want to hear it but he won't turn it down...
-- Billy Joel, "Glass Houses"
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We call our dog Egypt, because in every room he leaves a pyramid.
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"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead
stuff."
-- Dave Enyeart
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... The waitress's UNIFORM sheds ...
Content: 80% POLYESTER, 20% DACRONi
TARTAR SAUCE like an 8" by 10" GLOSSY
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I realize that the MX missile is none of our concern. I realize that
the whole point of living in a democracy is that we pay professional
congresspersons to concern themselves with things like the MX missile
so we can be free to concern ourselves with getting hold of the
plumber.
But from time to time, I feel I must address major public issues such
as this, because in a free and open society, where the very future of
the world hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you never
win large cash journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usually
write about, such as nose-picking.
-- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against
Political Fallout"
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... its programmed with simple instructions --
When a child is taught
and at some point, if its mind develops properly, it exceeds the sum of
what it was taught, thinks independently.
-- Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer",
stardate 4731.3.
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...
Q: How do you tell if an Elephant has been making love in your
backyard?
A: If all your trashcan liners are missing
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Finality is death.
Perfection is finality.
Nothing is perfect.
There are lumps in it.
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My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet,
And a wild young wood-thing bore him!
The ways are fair to his roaming feet,
And the skies are sunlit for him.
As sharply sweet to my heart he seems
As the fragrance of acacia.
My own dear love, he is all my dreams --
And I wish he were in Asia.
-- Dorothy Parker, part 2
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Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't
have a lucky day this year.
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May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a
Thousand Caramels.
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"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
home."
-- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
Convention, 1977
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Learning at some schools is like drinking from a firehose.
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Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles
as if she laid an asteroid.
-- Mark Twain
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All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
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It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students
that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are
mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5
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Q: How many right-to-lifers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to screw it in and one to say that light started when the
screwing began.
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"I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense."
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"If you're a real good kid, I'll give you a piggy-back ride on a
buzz-saw."
-- W. C. Fields
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Of course, you UNDERSTAND about the PLAIDS in the SPIN CYCLE --
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"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
-- Will Rogers
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The heart is not a logical organ.
-- Dr. Janet Wallace, "The Deadly Years", stardate 3479.4
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Surprise your boss. Get to work on time.
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Xerox your lunch and file it under "sex offenders"!
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This Fortue Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14
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"It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The
Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital
lies."
-- Edith Hamilton, "The Greek Way"
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Sauron is alive in Argentina!
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Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber, North
Carolina.
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Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch.
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Algebraic symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about.
-- Philippe Schnoebelen
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"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
-- J. Paul Getty
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"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
-- Walt Disney
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Pascal Users:
To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the
death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half speed.
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A remarkable race are the Persians;
They have such peculiar diversions.
They make love the whole day
In the usual way
And save up the nights for perversions.
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Fortune presents:
USEFUL PHRASES IN ESPERANTO, #2.
^Cu tiu loko estas okupita? Is this seat taken?
^Cu vi ofte venas ^ci-tien? Do you come here often?
^Cu mi povas havi via telelonnumeron? May I have your phone number?
Mi estas komputilisto. I work with computers.
Mi legas multe da scienca fikcio. I read a lot of science fiction.
^Cu necesas ke vi eliras? Do you really have to be going?
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"If you have to hate, hate gently"
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He who findeth sensuous pleasures in the bodies of lush, hot, pink
damsels is not righteous, but he can have a lot more fun.
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Preserve wildlife -- pickle a squirrel today!
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"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-- Albert Einstein
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WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE
Oh, dear, where can the matter be
When it's converted to energy?
There is a slight loss of parity.
Johnny's so long at the fair.
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If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the
airport.
-- George Winters
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There was a young girl of Darjeeling
Who could dance with such exquisite feeling
There was never a sound
For miles around
Save of fly-buttons hitting the ceiling.
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Absent, adj.:
Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered.
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Murder is contrary to the laws of man and God.
-- M-5 Computer, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
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"It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it."
-- Steven Wright
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Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty.
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"I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it
any time!"
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Do something unusual today. Pay a bill.
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John Birch Society -- that pathetic manifestation of organized
apoplexy.
-- Edward P. Morgan
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This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week.
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Friends, Romans, Hipsters,
Let me clue you in;
I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him.
The square kicks some cats are on stay with them;
The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caesar. The cool Brutus
Gave you the message: Caesar had big eyes;
If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea,
And, like, old Caesar really set them straight.
Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- for Brutus is a real cool cat;
So are they all, all cool cats, --
Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down.
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Barach's Rule:
An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own
physician.
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... a good reason and
A real person has two reasons for doing anything
the real reason.
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It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether II win or lose.
-- Darrin Weinberg
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If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make
something out of you.
-- Muhammad Ali
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Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way
of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
-- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
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As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would
interfere with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the
Wright Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure
out how to get their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on
Wilbur. "Orville," he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual
organs!" You should have seen their original design.] As a result,
birds are very, very difficult to arouse sexually. You almost never
see an aroused bird. So when they want to reproduce, birds fly up and
stand on telephone lines, where they monitor telephone conversations
with their feet. When they find a conversation in which people are
talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they are both
highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant.
-- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
Teen Should Know"
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Logic is a pretty flower that smells bad.
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Do not worry about which side your bread is buttered on: you eat BOTH sides.
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I feel partially hydrogenated!
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Hanlon's Razor:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
stupidity.
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cerebral atrophy, n:
The phenomena which occurs as brain cells become weak and sick, and
impair the brain's performance. An abundance of these "bad" cells can cause
symptoms related to senility, apathy, depression, and overall poor academic
performance. A certain small number of brain cells will deteriorate due to
everday activity, but large amounts are weakened by intense mental effort
and the assimilation of difficult concepts. Many college students become
victims of this dread disorder due to poor habits such as overstudying.
cerebral darwinism, n:
The theory that the effects of cerebral atrophy can be reversed
through the purging action of heavy alcohol consumption. Large amounts of
alcohol cause many brain cells to perish due to oxygen deprivation. Through
the process of natural selection, the weak and sick brain cells will die
first, leaving only the healthy cells. This wonderful process leaves the
imbiber with a healthier, more vibrant brain, and increases mental capacity.
Thus, the devastating effects of cerebral atrophy are reversed, and academic
performance actually increases beyond previous levels.
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Pardo's First Postulate:
Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or
fattening.
Arnold's Addendum:
Everything else causes cancer in rats.
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One day President Reagan, Chairman Andropov, the Pope, and a boy scout
were flying together in an airplane. Right out in the middle of
nowhere the plane developed engine trouble and started to go down.
Unfortunately, only three parachutes could be found for the four
passengers! Andropov grabbed one of the parachutes and declared
"Comrades, as leader of the socialist workers revolution, my life must
be spared," and he jumped out of the plane. Then Reagan exclaimed "As
leader of the greatest nation on earth, I must keep the world safe for
democracy," and with that he too jumped to safety. Now if you are
following all this (or counting on your fingers) you must see that
there is only one parachute left for the two remaining passengers. The
Pope looked kindly upon the boy scout and said "I have had a long and
productive life, my son. You take the parachute and leave me in God's
hands." "That's very kind of you," the observant scout replied, "but
there is no need. Reagan just jumped out with my knapsack."
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[District Attorneys] learn in District Attorney School that there are
two sure-fire ways to get a lot of favorable publicity:
(1) Go down and raid all the lockers in the local high school and
confiscate 53 marijuana cigarettes and put them in a pile and hold
a press conference where you announce that they have a street value
of $850 million. These raids never fail, because ALL high schools,
including brand-new, never-used ones, have at least 53 marijuana
cigarettes in the lockers. As far as anyone can tell, the locker
factory puts them there.
(2) Raid an "adult book store" and hold a press conference where you
announce you are charging the owner with 850 counts of being a
piece of human sleaze. This also never fails, because you always
get a conviction. A juror at a pornography trial is not about to
state for the record that he finds nothing obscene about a movie
where actors engage in sexual activities with live snakes and a
fire extinguisher. He is going to convict the bookstore owner, and
vote for the death penalty just to make sure nobody gets the wrong
impression.
-- Dave Barry, "Pornography"
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"I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!
The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building."
-- Charles Schulz
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Silence is the only virtue you have left.
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... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal lives
as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as
determined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties people
buy imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80s
couple goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation three
weeks in advance, and they are informed that their table is available,
they stalk out immediately, because they know it is not an excellent
restaurant. If it were, it would have an enormous crowd of
excellence-oriented people like themselves waiting, their beepers going
off like crickets in the night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't have
a table ready immediately for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli.
-- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"
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We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which
divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being
correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
-- Niels Bohr
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So you're back... about time...
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It's the RINSE CYCLE!! They've ALL IGNORED the RINSE CYCLE!!
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You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it gets
wrinkled.
(Moderation suggestion: +20211, Insightful)
Q: What's a light-year?
A: One-third less calories than a regular year.
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Only God can make random selections.
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...... consists of sequences
Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001,
Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of
the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20%
of the definitions are of the form "A
of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
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A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets
people's attention.
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..."
Finish the sentence below in 25 words or less:
"Love is what you feel just before you give someone a good
Mail your answer along with the top half of your supervisor to:
P.O. Box 35
Baffled Greek, Michigan
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The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the
stupidity of your action.
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In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse
along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months.
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This is the story of the bee
Whose sex is very hard to see
You cannot tell the he from the she
But she can tell, and so can he
The little bee is never still
She has no time to take the pill
And that is why, in times like these
There are so many sons of bees.
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Adapt. Enjoy. Survive.
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"The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and
has gills through which it can see."
-- Monty Python
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I'm reporting for duty as a modern person. I want to do the Latin Hustle now!
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LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22)
You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with
reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay.
Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most
Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal
disease.
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Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?
Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs
to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in:
WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S.
Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand- lettered
small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random
words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.
-- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
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"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,
but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous."
-- Robert Benchly
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Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to
make it complex and wonderful.
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Time sharing: The use of many people by the computer.
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Totally illogical, there was no chance.
-- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3
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President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the
vote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting.
-- The Washington Post
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"His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had
money, he went to Southern California."
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A bachelor is an unaltared male.
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I always have fun because I'm out of my mind!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +6920, Insightful)
"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving."
(Moderation suggestion: +11329, Insightful)
"The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live
elsewhere."
(Moderation suggestion: +11420, Insightful)
Machine-Independent, adj.:
Does not run on any existing machine.
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... But we've only fondled the surface of that subject.
-- Virginia Masters
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Actor: So what do you do for a living?
Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving
dishes for Chinese restaurants.
-- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
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1: No code table for op: ++post
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Only a fool fights in a burning house.
-- Kank the Klingon, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown
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"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody
thinks of complaining."
-- Jeff Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal
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Life is a game. Money is how we keep score.
-- Ted Turner
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"Anything created must necessarily be inferior to the essence of the creator."
-- Claude Shouse
"Einstein's mother must have been one heck of a physicist."
-- Joseph C. Wang
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..."
"Even nowadays a man can't step up and kill a woman without feeling
just a bit unchivalrous
-- Robert Benchley
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Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture.
(Moderation suggestion: +123, Insightful)
In Oz, never say "krizzle kroo" to a Woozy.
(Moderation suggestion: +21208, Insightful)
Neckties strangle clear thinking.
-- Lin Yutang
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..."
Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if
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When you become used to never being alone, you may consider yourself
Americanized.
(Moderation suggestion: +11518, Insightful)
No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.
(Moderation suggestion: +21459, Insightful)
God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean.
-- Albert Einstein
(Moderation suggestion: +11733, Insightful)
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and
blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only
love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or
know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only
one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what
wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust,
never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never
dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a
lot of things there are to learn."
-- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King"
(Moderation suggestion: +21376, Insightful)
"Jesus saves...but Gretzky gets the rebound!"
-- Daniel Hinojosa
(Moderation suggestion: +11818, Insightful)
Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to
sell it.
(Moderation suggestion: +1002, Insightful)
Last guys don't finish nice.
-- Stanley Kelley, on the cult of victory at all costs
(Moderation suggestion: +16069, Insightful)
A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest
man a century.
(Moderation suggestion: +7256, Insightful)
"There is nothing which cannot be answered by means of my doctrine,"
said a monk, coming into a teahouse where Nasrudin sat. "And yet just
a short time ago, I was challenged by a scholar with an unanswerable
question," said Nasrudin. "I could have answered it if I had been
there." "Very well. He asked, 'Why are you breaking into my house in
the middle of the night?'"
(Moderation suggestion: +11902, Insightful)
The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
(Moderation suggestion: +7339, Insightful)
I smell a RANCID CORN DOG!
(Moderation suggestion: +12000, Insightful)
Getting an education at the University of California is like having
$50.00 shoved up your ass, a nickel at a time.
(Moderation suggestion: +7884, Insightful)
I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming
that I have never made one.
-- James Gordon Bennett
(Moderation suggestion: +16354, Insightful)
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.
(Moderation suggestion: +7505, Insightful)
Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
(Moderation suggestion: +12090, Insightful)
Maternity pay? Now every Tom, Dick and Harry will get pregnant.
-- Malcolm Smith
(Moderation suggestion: +15757, Insightful)
"Ever free-climbed a thousand foot vertical cliff with 60 pounds of gear
strapped to your butt?"
"No."
"'Course you haven't, you fruit-loop little geek."
-- The Mountain Man, one of Dana Carvey's SNL characters
[ditto]
(Moderation suggestion: +7422, Insightful)
It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead.
(Moderation suggestion: +16628, Insightful)
Clear the laundromat!! This whirl-o-matic just had a nuclear meltdown!!
(Moderation suggestion: +8185, Insightful)
...
My nose feels like a bad Ronald Reagan movie
(Moderation suggestion: +7589, Insightful)
!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH
(Moderation suggestion: +8472, Insightful)
I want to reach your mind -- where is it currently located?
(Moderation suggestion: +7758, Insightful)
It is a sad commentary on today's society that this fortune has to be
classified as "offensive" simply because it contains the word "fuck".
(Moderation suggestion: +8745, Insightful)
Goda's Truism:
By the time you get to the point where you can make ends meet,
somebody moves the ends.
(Moderation suggestion: +21629, Insightful)
I feel like I'm in a Toilet Bowl with a thumbtack in my forehead!!
(Moderation suggestion: +21546, Insightful)
We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one
technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter.
(Moderation suggestion: +1312, Insightful)
Tis man's perdition to be safe, when for the truth he ought to die.
(Moderation suggestion: +26914, Insightful)
Higher education helps your earning capacity. Ask any college professor.
(Moderation suggestion: +21795, Insightful)
This limerick is **SO**FILTHY** that it would offend you. So I'll put
"di-dah" for the filthy words:
Di-dah, di-dah, di-dah di-dah,
Di-dah di-dah di-dah, di-dah;
di-dah di-dah di-dah?
Di-dah di-dah di-dah.
Di-dah di-dah, di-dah di-fuck.
(Moderation suggestion: +21712, Insightful)
You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name,
another $2 if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you and
another $2 for each "special" he describes involving confusing terms
such as "shallots," and $4 if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In
many restaurants, this means the waiter will actually owe you money.
If you are traveling with a child aged six months to three years, you
should leave an additional amount equal to twice the bill to compensate
for the fact that they will have to take the banquette out and burn it
because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets made of partially
chewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit.
In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention his
hemorrhoids.
-- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
(Moderation suggestion: +16932, Insightful)
I'm ZIPPY the PINHEAD and I'm totally committed to the festive mode.
(Moderation suggestion: +17029, Insightful)
... I almost
"The other day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven
went back in time."
-- Steven Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +1602, Insightful)
The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
-- Benjamin Franklin.
(Moderation suggestion: +21896, Insightful)
...
Xerox does it again and again and again and
(Moderation suggestion: +17293, Insightful)
..."
"This is a country where people are free to practice their religion,
regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling
keys
(Moderation suggestion: +12175, Insightful)
Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and
when it is bad, it is better than nothing.
-- Dick Brandon
(Moderation suggestion: +27998, Insightful)
Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all
real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an
understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors.
-- R. Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
(Moderation suggestion: +12267, Insightful)
The Killer Ducks are coming!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +21979, Insightful)
Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%.
And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a
blazer.
(Moderation suggestion: +1898, Insightful)
Consultant, n.:
(1) Someone you pay to take the watch off your wrist and tell
you what time it is. (2) (For resume use) The working title
of anyone who doesn't currently hold a job. Motto: Have
Calculator, Will Travel.
(Moderation suggestion: +17379, Insightful)
Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of
conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the
fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he
is most likely to be creamed?
-- Solomon Short
(Moderation suggestion: +12356, Insightful)
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Moderation suggestion: +28496, Insightful)
"My life is a soap opera, but who has the rights?"
-- MadameX
(Moderation suggestion: +12441, Insightful)
November, n.:
The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +7926, Insightful)
A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was
eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality
test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy."
Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into
the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too".
(Moderation suggestion: +22062, Insightful)
FOOLED you! Absorb EGO SHATTERING impulse rays, polyester poltroon!!
(Moderation suggestion: +9229, Insightful)
Now it's time to say goodbye
To all our company...
M-I-C (see you next week!)
K-E-Y (Why? Because we LIKE you!)
M-O-U-S-E.
(Moderation suggestion: +12532, Insightful)
Do something big -- fuck a giant
(Moderation suggestion: +17483, Insightful)
Satire is what closes Saturday night.
-- George Kaufman
(Moderation suggestion: +17462, Insightful)
T: One big monster, he called TROLL.
He don't rock, and he don't roll;
Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies.
He just Love To Eat Them Roguies.
-- The Roguelet's ABC
(Moderation suggestion: +8105, Insightful)
Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
(Moderation suggestion: +12617, Insightful)
Psychoanalysis?? I thought this was a nude rap session!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +17546, Insightful)
History tends to exaggerate.
-- Col. Green, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4
(Moderation suggestion: +12700, Insightful)
First Rule of History:
History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each
other.
(Moderation suggestion: +28857, Insightful)
Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.
-- Dave Butler
(Moderation suggestion: +9608, Insightful)
Satire is what closes in New Haven.
(Moderation suggestion: +17777, Insightful)
All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing
without thinking.
(Moderation suggestion: +8273, Insightful)
Polymer physicists are into chains.
(Moderation suggestion: +12793, Insightful)
Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up
to.
(Moderation suggestion: +9902, Insightful)
Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas"
until you are told that those rooms are "punched out." Once punched out,
we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas, and such.
-- N. Meyrowitz
(Moderation suggestion: +8455, Insightful)
I'm not available for comment..
(Moderation suggestion: +8538, Insightful)
... why do they call this a word processor?"
... you've seen what food processors do to food,
"Uncle Cosmo
"It's simple, Skyler
right?"
-- MacNelley, "Shoe"
(Moderation suggestion: +8357, Insightful)
A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.
(Moderation suggestion: +10186, Insightful)
Maintainer's Motto:
If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.
(Moderation suggestion: +22145, Insightful)
...
... And then there's the guy who bought 20,000 bras, cut them in half,
and sold 40,000 yamalchas with chin straps
(Moderation suggestion: +2406, Insightful)
Ma Bell is a mean mother!
(Moderation suggestion: +22231, Insightful)
Edwin Meese made me wear CORDOVANS!!
(Moderation suggestion: +22314, Insightful)
Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire
telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New
York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?
And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
(Moderation suggestion: +17799, Insightful)
Any excuse will serve a tyrant.
-- Aesop
(Moderation suggestion: +2759, Insightful)
It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came
out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest and applauded.
He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So I think the world
will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe
that it is a joke.
(Moderation suggestion: +17986, Insightful)
Well, see, Joyce, there we were, trapped in the elevator. Now, I had
my tennis racquet and the goldfish; she was holding the Crisco. Surely
you can imagine how one thing naturally led to another!
(Moderation suggestion: +30057, Insightful)
If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.
-- Graham Summer
(Moderation suggestion: +22399, Insightful)
...
One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as
one man would have produced alone. These two plus two more will
produce half again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin to
represent a creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter as
many
-- Anthony Chevins
(Moderation suggestion: +22485, Insightful)
Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
(Moderation suggestion: +18169, Insightful)
... the other eight
Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation
are unimportant.
-- Henry Miller
(Moderation suggestion: +3055, Insightful)
You will have domestic happiness and faithful friends.
(Moderation suggestion: +30352, Insightful)
I will make you shorter by the head.
-- Elizabeth I
(Moderation suggestion: +22670, Insightful)
Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the
situation.
(Moderation suggestion: +18359, Insightful)
You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't
pick your friend's nose.
(Moderation suggestion: +8188, Insightful)
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight
Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
-- Dave Barry
(Moderation suggestion: +22570, Insightful)
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
-- Groucho Marx
(Moderation suggestion: +18529, Insightful)
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and
inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has
already happened.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
(Moderation suggestion: +8621, Insightful)
The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be
broken.
(Moderation suggestion: +18626, Insightful)
I love ROCK 'N ROLL! I memorized the all WORDS to "WIPE-OUT" in
1965!!
(Moderation suggestion: +31582, Insightful)
The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by
people who want some.
-- Dwight MacDonald
(Moderation suggestion: +8705, Insightful)
Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night to
wear tail lights.
(Moderation suggestion: +31869, Insightful)
Support Mental Health. Or I'll kill you.
(Moderation suggestion: +10589, Insightful)
Who loves not wisely but too well
Will look on Helen's face in hell,
But he whose love is thin and wise
Will view John Knox in Paradise.
-- Dorothy Parker
(Moderation suggestion: +8789, Insightful)
The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching
train.
(Moderation suggestion: +8872, Insightful)
"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the
great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
-- Winston Churchill
(Moderation suggestion: +10973, Insightful)
Universities are places of knowledge. The freshman each bring a little
in with them, and the seniors take none away, so knowledge accumulates.
(Moderation suggestion: +8955, Insightful)
If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances
are 50-50 it will.
(Moderation suggestion: +9038, Insightful)
This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88
(Moderation suggestion: +11305, Insightful)
You can grovel with a lover, you can grovel with a friend,
You can grovel with your boss, and it never has to end.
(chorus) Grovel, grovel, grovel, every night and every day,
Grovel, grovel, grovel, in your own peculiar way.
You can grovel in a hallway, you can grovel in a park,
You can grovel in an alley with a mugger after dark.
(chorus)
You can grovel with your uncle, you can grovel with your aunt,
You can grovel with your Apple, even though you say you can't.
(chorus)
(Moderation suggestion: +3343, Insightful)
"Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a
cockatoo."
-- George Bernard Shaw
(Moderation suggestion: +22753, Insightful)
If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But
this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is
somehow enobled and none dare criticize it.
(Moderation suggestion: +22836, Insightful)
You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't
pick your friend's nose.
(Moderation suggestion: +23004, Insightful)
DELETE A FORTUNE!
Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like
to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to
"fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure it
gets expunged.
(Moderation suggestion: +18889, Insightful)
We have found all life forms in the galaxy are capable of superior
development.
-- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion", stardate 3211.7
(Moderation suggestion: +32166, Insightful)
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not
become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks
into you.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Moderation suggestion: +22921, Insightful)
Hugh Hefner is a virgin.
(Moderation suggestion: +3762, Insightful)
love, n.:
When, if asked to choose between your lover
and happiness, you'd skip happiness in a heartbeat.
(Moderation suggestion: +18986, Insightful)
"Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed."
-- Neil Armstrong
(Moderation suggestion: +23087, Insightful)
It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct
one.
(Moderation suggestion: +19081, Insightful)
A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the
poor to protect them from each other.
(Moderation suggestion: +4139, Insightful)
Sears has everything.
(Moderation suggestion: +19186, Insightful)
At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial
challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
-- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985
(Moderation suggestion: +23170, Insightful)
"Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle."
-- Alice Roosevelt Longworth
(Moderation suggestion: +19303, Insightful)
There was a gay countess of Bray,
And you may think it odd when I say,
That in spite of high station,
Rank and education,
She always spelled cunt with a "k".
(Moderation suggestion: +9208, Insightful)
Does someone from PEORIA have a SHORTER ATTENTION span than me?
(Moderation suggestion: +23253, Insightful)
UH-OH!! We're out of AUTOMOBILE PARTS and RUBBER GOODS!
(Moderation suggestion: +19579, Insightful)
"The pyramid is opening!"
"Which one?"
"The one with the ever-widening hole in it!"
-- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At
Once When You're Not Anywhere At All"
(Moderation suggestion: +644, Insightful)
Life begins at the centerfold and expands outward.
-- Miss November, 1966
(Moderation suggestion: +11597, Insightful)
It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas,
and not in circumstances.
-- Emerson
(Moderation suggestion: +9292, Insightful)
If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest
shopping center in the world?
-- Richard M. Nixon
(Moderation suggestion: +19677, Insightful)
... Did I say
We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to
socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. The
bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its
socialism?
-- Fidel Castro
(Moderation suggestion: +920, Insightful)
If an S and an I and an O and a U
With an X at the end spell Su;
And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
Pray what is a speller to do?
Then, if also an S and an I and a G
And an HED spell side,
There's nothing much left for a speller to do
But to go commit siouxeyesighed.
-- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament"
(Moderation suggestion: +9375, Insightful)
Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.
(Moderation suggestion: +9460, Insightful)
...
Why I Can't Go Out With You:
I'd LOVE to, but
-- I have to floss my cat.
-- I've dedicated my life to linguini.
-- I need to spend more time with my blender.
-- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People.
-- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish.
-- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves.
-- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products.
-- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise.
-- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist.
-- I have some really hard words to look up.
-- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting.
-- I promised to help a friend fold road maps.
(Moderation suggestion: +9544, Insightful)
Bradley's Bromide:
If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a
committee -- that will do them in.
(Moderation suggestion: +12415, Insightful)
Mommy, what happens to your files when you die?
(Moderation suggestion: +9627, Insightful)
It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the
problem.
(Moderation suggestion: +9712, Insightful)
Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
(Moderation suggestion: +12723, Insightful)
If you are looking for a kindly, well-to-do older gentleman who is no
longer interested in sex, take out an ad in The Wall Street Journal.
-- Abigail Van Buren
(Moderation suggestion: +20935, Insightful)
A few hours grace before the madness begins again.
(Moderation suggestion: +31842, Insightful)
A Vulcan can no sooner be disloyal than he can exist without
breathing.
-- Kirk, "The Menagerie", stardate 3012.4
(Moderation suggestion: +31925, Insightful)
Conversation, n.:
A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath
is called the listener.
(Moderation suggestion: +21225, Insightful)
Deja vu:
French., already seen; unoriginal; trite.
Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced
something actually being encountered for the first time.
Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced
something actually being encountered for the first time.
(Moderation suggestion: +32012, Insightful)
Why is it that there are so many more horses' asses than there are
horses?
-- G. Gordon Liddy
(Moderation suggestion: +32095, Insightful)
... but nothing ever is.
Not one hundred percent efficient, of course
-- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8
(Moderation suggestion: +21503, Insightful)
You know your apartment is small...
when you can't know its position and velocity at the same time.
you put your key in the lock and it breaks the window.
you have to go outside to change your mind.
you can vacuum the entire place using a single electrical outlet.
(Moderation suggestion: +4474, Insightful)
I put up my thumb... and it blotted out the planet Earth.
-- Neil Armstrong
(Moderation suggestion: +32178, Insightful)
If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong.
-- Norm Schryer
(Moderation suggestion: +23336, Insightful)
The fact that it works is immaterial.
-- L. Ogborn
(Moderation suggestion: +23434, Insightful)
... if thou art in the
Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls
bathtub, it tolls for thee.
(Moderation suggestion: +32263, Insightful)
Parkinson's Fourth Law:
The number of people in any working group tends to increase
regardless of the amount of work to be done.
(Moderation suggestion: +23517, Insightful)
"Do you think what we're doing is wrong?"
"Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!"
"I've never done anything illegal before."
"I thought you said you were an accountant!"
(Moderation suggestion: +19769, Insightful)
... I have Tylenol!!
Please come home with me
(Moderation suggestion: +32347, Insightful)
"I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the other
hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out."
(Moderation suggestion: +4761, Insightful)
Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.
(Moderation suggestion: +1412, Insightful)
Rome was not built in one day.
-- John Heywood
(Moderation suggestion: +23602, Insightful)
Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers:
If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as
if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question
back at him.
(Moderation suggestion: +19852, Insightful)
Reclaimer, spare that tree!
Take not a single bit!
It used to point to me,
Now I'm protecting it.
It was the reader's CONS
That made it, paired by dot;
Now, GC, for the nonce,
Thou shalt reclaim it not.
(Moderation suggestion: +5180, Insightful)
The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be.... The
natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience
only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.
- Adam Smith
(Moderation suggestion: +20108, Insightful)
For those of you how have been looking for evidence that a working
version of "Star Wars" can be built, consider the following proof
offered by Caspar Weinberger:
"If such a system is so unattainable, why have the Soviets been
working desperately to get it for over 17 years?"
-- USA Today, 24 June 1986
(Moderation suggestion: +23687, Insightful)
New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors.
(Moderation suggestion: +20208, Insightful)
When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, you
modify the problem, not the remedy.
(Moderation suggestion: +23773, Insightful)
RHAPSODY in Glue!
(Moderation suggestion: +5601, Insightful)
Any given program will expand to fill available memory.
(Moderation suggestion: +20293, Insightful)
This PIZZA symbolizes my COMPLETE EMOTIONAL RECOVERY!!
(Moderation suggestion: +9795, Insightful)
Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to
sell it.
(Moderation suggestion: +20376, Insightful)
Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
-- Groucho Marx
(Moderation suggestion: +2592, Insightful)
It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our
offense consists in doubting it.
-- Justice Robert H. Jackson
(Moderation suggestion: +9882, Insightful)
... The waitress's UNIFORM sheds ...
Content: 80% POLYESTER, 20% DACRONi
TARTAR SAUCE like an 8" by 10" GLOSSY
(Moderation suggestion: +12983, Insightful)
Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of
interest is easy.
(Moderation suggestion: +20467, Insightful)
...
A diva who specializes in risqu'e arias is an off-coloratura soprano
(Moderation suggestion: +9965, Insightful)
Howard Cosell's biggest protrusion is his asshole
-- John Valby
(Moderation suggestion: +20552, Insightful)
Sauron is alive in Argentina!
(Moderation suggestion: +10049, Insightful)
If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.
(Moderation suggestion: +13369, Insightful)
If your mother knew what you're doing, she'd probably hang her head and cry.
(Moderation suggestion: +10132, Insightful)
A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have
enlightened him with ours.
(Moderation suggestion: +10217, Insightful)
This test has been designed to evaluate reactions of management
personal to various situations.
You are making a sales presentation to a group of corporate executives
in the plushest office you've ever seen. The enchillada casserole and
egg salad sandwich you had for lunch react, creating severe pressure.
Your sphincter loses control and you break wind, causing the glass
bookcase doors to shatter and a secretary to pass out.
YOU SHOULD:
(a) Offer to come back next week when the smell has gone away.
(b) Point to the Chief Executive and accuse him of the offense.
(c) Challenge anyone in the room to do better.
(Moderation suggestion: +13842, Insightful)
Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to
avoid responsibility with?
(Moderation suggestion: +10300, Insightful)
I hope you millionaires are having fun! I just invested half your life
savings in yeast!!
(Moderation suggestion: +32430, Insightful)
Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
-- Fletcher Knebel
(Moderation suggestion: +22343, Insightful)
We fight only when there is no other choice. We prefer the ways of
peaceful contact.
-- Kirk, "Spectre of the Gun", stardate 4385.3
(Moderation suggestion: +32514, Insightful)
You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.
(Moderation suggestion: +32597, Insightful)
Every four seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this
woman and stop her.
(Moderation suggestion: +22650, Insightful)
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
-- Robert W. Service
(Moderation suggestion: +32697, Insightful)
This cultural mystique surrounding the biological function -- you
realize humans are overly preoccupied with the subject.
-- Kelinda the Kelvan, "By Any Other Name", stardate 4658.9
(Moderation suggestion: +21, Insightful)
An air of FRENCH FRIES permeates my nostrils!!
(Moderation suggestion: +23861, Insightful)
Sorry. I forget what I was going to say.
(Moderation suggestion: +22940, Insightful)
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice,
there is.
(Moderation suggestion: +23948, Insightful)
... this must be what it's like to be a COLLEGE GRADUATE!!
(Moderation suggestion: +5904, Insightful)
God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
-- Paul Valery
(Moderation suggestion: +121, Insightful)
The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and
add ten percent.
(Moderation suggestion: +2994, Insightful)
The error of youth is to believe that intelligence is a substitute for
experience, while the error of age is to believe experience is a substitute
for intelligence.
-- Lyman Bryson
(Moderation suggestion: +204, Insightful)
I had pancake makeup for brunch!
(Moderation suggestion: +24031, Insightful)
"Arguments with furniture are rarely productive."
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
(Moderation suggestion: +24129, Insightful)
Wethern's Law:
Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
(Moderation suggestion: +20815, Insightful)
Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?
(Moderation suggestion: +6189, Insightful)
A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam.
(Moderation suggestion: +3298, Insightful)
A novice asked the Master: "Here is a programmer that never designs,
documents, or tests his programs. Yet all who know him consider him one of
the best programmers in the world. Why is this?"
The Master replies: "That programmer has mastered the Tao. He has
gone beyond the need for design; he does not become angry when the system
crashes, but accepts the universe without concern. He has gone beyond the
need for documentation; he no longer cares if anyone else sees his code. He
has gone beyond the need for testing; each of his programs are perfect within
themselves, serene and elegant, their purpose self-evident. Truly, he has
entered the mystery of the Tao."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
(Moderation suggestion: +24212, Insightful)
Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction.
(Moderation suggestion: +24295, Insightful)
You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +20898, Insightful)
Hofstadter's Law:
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take
Hofstadter's Law into account.
(Moderation suggestion: +6569, Insightful)
When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity: for
every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when your boss
is away and you get twice as much done.
-- Daniel B. Luten
(Moderation suggestion: +21064, Insightful)
I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up.
-- Biff Barf
(Moderation suggestion: +24378, Insightful)
CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19)
You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do
much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any
importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as
they take root and become trees.
(Moderation suggestion: +21260, Insightful)
By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
completely overwhelm you.
(Moderation suggestion: +4517, Insightful)
I don't want to be young again, I just don't want to get any older.
(Moderation suggestion: +21529, Insightful)
A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without
getting nervous.
(Moderation suggestion: +21613, Insightful)
"Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't
immune to bullets"
-- The Brigader, "Dr. Who"
(Moderation suggestion: +21728, Insightful)
...
... And then there's the guy who bought 20,000 bras, cut them in half,
and sold 40,000 yamalchas with chin straps
(Moderation suggestion: +23409, Insightful)
Ring around the collar.
(Moderation suggestion: +289, Insightful)
... dressing for the opera when she turned to her
... We must call a copper."
...
Florence Flask was
husband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen my
joules!"
"Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and reflux
a moment. Perhaps they're mislead."
"No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting them
in my burette
Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms,
said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the name
of Lawrence Ium.
"We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, and
dangerous. His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I can
catch him there." With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in an
activated state and sped off along the reaction pathway
-- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations"
(Moderation suggestion: +372, Insightful)
The heart is not a logical organ.
-- Dr. Janet Wallace, "The Deadly Years", stardate 3479.4
(Moderation suggestion: +23801, Insightful)
Then here's to the City of Boston,
The town of the cries and the groans.
Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks,
And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns.
-- Franklin Pierce Adams
(Moderation suggestion: +455, Insightful)
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf
has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
-- Will Rogers
(Moderation suggestion: +538, Insightful)
..."
"This is a country where people are free to practice their religion,
regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling
keys
(Moderation suggestion: +24119, Insightful)
To our sweethearts and wives. May they never meet.
-- 19th century toast
(Moderation suggestion: +24463, Insightful)
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
(Moderation suggestion: +624, Insightful)
So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward
it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and --
I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in
the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us.
Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and
I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our
heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're
unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water
up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the
opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of
our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all
the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers
cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen
these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked
into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.
-- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
(Moderation suggestion: +24546, Insightful)
All your people must learn before you can reach for the stars.
-- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion", stardate 3259.2
(Moderation suggestion: +7051, Insightful)
According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold,
and according to convention, there is an order. In truth, there are atoms
and a void.
-- Democritus, 400 B.C.
(Moderation suggestion: +723, Insightful)
From the "Guiness Book of World Records", 1973:
Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and
the most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the
Court of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his
candidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than ground
nuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts,
other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order not
qualify as nuts (unground)(other than ground nuts) by reason of their
being nuts (unground)."
(Moderation suggestion: +24406, Insightful)
E = MC ** 2 +- 3db
(Moderation suggestion: +4818, Insightful)
A hammer sometimes misses its mark - a bouquet never.
(Moderation suggestion: +24629, Insightful)
Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades.
(Moderation suggestion: +21829, Insightful)
John Birch Society -- that pathetic manifestation of organized
apoplexy.
-- Edward P. Morgan
(Moderation suggestion: +7359, Insightful)
A Hen Brooding Kittens
A friend informs us that he saw at the Novato ranch, Marin county,
a few days since, a hen actually brooding and otherwise caring for three
kittens! The gentleman upon whose premises this strange event is transpiring
says the hen adopted the kittens when they were but a few days old, and that
she has devoted them her undivided care for several weeks past. The young
felines are now of respectable size, but they nevertheless follow the hen at
her cluckings, and are regularly brooded at night beneath her wings.
-- Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1861
(Moderation suggestion: +24712, Insightful)
Old soldiers never die. Young ones do.
(Moderation suggestion: +5115, Insightful)
Finagle's First Law:
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
(Moderation suggestion: +24796, Insightful)
The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of
management is that success equals skill.
-- Robert Heller
(Moderation suggestion: +7652, Insightful)
It is a human characteristic to love little animals, especially if
they're attractive in some way.
-- McCoy, "The Trouble with Tribbles", stardate 4525.6
(Moderation suggestion: +21996, Insightful)
Boob's Law:
You always find something in the last place you look.
(Moderation suggestion: +24896, Insightful)
"I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent."
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
(Moderation suggestion: +22083, Insightful)
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
-- Eric Hoffer
(Moderation suggestion: +22169, Insightful)
"There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both
plants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis;
and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again,
don't we all?"
(Moderation suggestion: +24979, Insightful)
YOU PICKED KARL MALDEN'S NOSE!!
(Moderation suggestion: +22257, Insightful)
Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.
(Moderation suggestion: +22344, Insightful)
"You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them.
Why do you find that funny?"
-- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350
(Moderation suggestion: +22430, Insightful)
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
-- Albert Einstein
(Moderation suggestion: +6375, Insightful)
Scenery is here, wish you were beautiful.
(Moderation suggestion: +807, Insightful)
Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as
Wheels.
(Moderation suggestion: +890, Insightful)
Can I have an IMPULSE ITEM instead?
(Moderation suggestion: +24813, Insightful)
Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without
greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics.
-- Albert Camus
(Moderation suggestion: +1063, Insightful)
On the subject of C program indentation:
"In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be
indented six feet downward and covered with dirt."
-- Blair P. Houghton
(Moderation suggestion: +980, Insightful)
"I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I never
came back."
(Moderation suggestion: +25234, Insightful)
Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you
from enjoying it.
(Moderation suggestion: +7936, Insightful)
Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it; what
is happening in America is that those parades are getting smaller and
smaller -- and there are many more of them.
-- John Naisbitt, "Megatrends"
(Moderation suggestion: +1146, Insightful)
It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself
that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *____only* by amusing oneself that
one can learn."
-- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman
(Moderation suggestion: +1229, Insightful)
The real problem with fucking a sheep is that you have to walk around
in front every time you want to kiss her.
(Moderation suggestion: +25258, Insightful)
A UNIX saleslady, Lenore,
Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more.
She found a good way
To combine work and play:
She sells C shells by the seashore.
(Moderation suggestion: +25527, Insightful)
"Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago."
-- Bernard Berenson
(Moderation suggestion: +25342, Insightful)
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: C-
This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he
submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is
best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the
language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code
statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very
similar to COBOL.
(Moderation suggestion: +1314, Insightful)
You need no longer worry about the future. This time tomorrow you'll
be dead.
(Moderation suggestion: +25477, Insightful)
"When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."
-- Winston Curchill, On formal declarations of war
(Moderation suggestion: +22719, Insightful)
Yow! I'm having a quadrophonic sensation of two winos alone in a steel
mill!
(Moderation suggestion: +8437, Insightful)
A guy has to get fresh once in a while so a girl doesn't lose her confidence.
(Moderation suggestion: +22802, Insightful)
... JUGULAR ...
I feel
(Moderation suggestion: +25572, Insightful)
I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening
And no man see me more.
-- Shakespeare
(Moderation suggestion: +8807, Insightful)
Dentist, n.:
A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls
coins out of one's pockets.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +6653, Insightful)
They don't know how the world is shaped. And so they give it a shape, and
try to make everything fit it. They separate the right from the left, the
man from the woman, the plant from the animal, the sun from the moon. They
only want to count to two.
-- Emma Bull, "Bone Dance"
(Moderation suggestion: +22900, Insightful)
How many retured bricklayers from FLORIDA are out purchasing PENCIL
SHARPENERS right NOW??
(Moderation suggestion: +25655, Insightful)
... I'm HEALTHY ... I can HIKE THRU CAPT GROGAN'S LUMBAR
I'm young
REGIONS!
(Moderation suggestion: +22984, Insightful)
If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it?
-- Ann Edwards-Duff
(Moderation suggestion: +25741, Insightful)
...
Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS
(Moderation suggestion: +9104, Insightful)
Alea iacta est.
[The die is cast]
-- Gaius Julius Caesar
(Moderation suggestion: +7129, Insightful)
When you get your PH.D. will you get able to work at BURGER KING?
(Moderation suggestion: +23068, Insightful)
The President publicly apologized today to all those offended by his
brother's remark, "There's more Arabs in this country than there is
Jews!". Those offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers.
-- Baltimore, Channel 11 News, on Jimmy Carter
(Moderation suggestion: +23152, Insightful)
Hello. I know the divorce rate among unmarried Catholic Alaskan
females!!
(Moderation suggestion: +23421, Insightful)
Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes a
faster rat!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +23504, Insightful)
Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow.
(Moderation suggestion: +1397, Insightful)
Osborn's Law:
Variables won't; constants aren't.
(Moderation suggestion: +25804, Insightful)
A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing
but together can decide that nothing can be done.
-- Fred Allen
(Moderation suggestion: +1484, Insightful)
It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east
laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. The
thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle,
nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying
for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's.
Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating
under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting
icepacks.
-- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"
(Moderation suggestion: +1567, Insightful)
"355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible
simulation!"
(Moderation suggestion: +26187, Insightful)
"Plastic gun. Ingenious. More coffee, please."
-- The Phantom comics
(Moderation suggestion: +1650, Insightful)
MORE SPORTS RESULTS:
The Beverly Hills Freudians tied the Chicago Rogerians 0-0 last
Saturday night. The match started with a long period of silence while
the Freudians waited for the Rogerians to free associate and the
Rogerians waited for the Freudians to say something they could
paraphrase. The stalemate was broken when the Freudians' best player
took the offensive and interpreted the Rogerians' silence as reflecting
their anal-retentive personalities. At this the Rogerians' star player
said "I hear you saying you think we're full of ka-ka." This started a
fight and the match was called by officials.
(Moderation suggestion: +1734, Insightful)
There's enough money here to buy 5000 cans of Noodle-Roni!
(Moderation suggestion: +26680, Insightful)
Fine day for friends.
So-so day for you.
(Moderation suggestion: +1818, Insightful)
"Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it."
(Moderation suggestion: +1913, Insightful)
After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access
cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been
removed.
(Moderation suggestion: +23587, Insightful)
Here I am in 53 B.C. and all I want is a dill pickle!!
(Moderation suggestion: +23671, Insightful)
Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that
each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his
choice.
In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians
called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka"
and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People
passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy
Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!"
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
(Moderation suggestion: +8307, Insightful)
Bowie's Theorem:
If an experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.
(Moderation suggestion: +23757, Insightful)
It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips.
-- Garfield
(Moderation suggestion: +23840, Insightful)
"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the
universe."
-- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
(Moderation suggestion: +8721, Insightful)
"Force is but might," the teacher said--
"That definition's just."
The boy said naught but thought instead,
Remembering his pounded head:
"Force is not might but must!"
(Moderation suggestion: +9025, Insightful)
The master programmer moves from program to program without fear. No
change in management can harm him. He will not be fired, even if the project
is canceled. Why is this? He is filled with the Tao.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
(Moderation suggestion: +24111, Insightful)
Painting, n.:
The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and
exposing them to the critic.
-- Ambrose Bierce
(Moderation suggestion: +24194, Insightful)
THEORY
Into love and out again,
Thus I went and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen:
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Someone dropped me on my head?
-- Dorothy Parker
(Moderation suggestion: +24277, Insightful)
F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm!
(Moderation suggestion: +26998, Insightful)
Abstainer, n.:
A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a
pleasure.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +1999, Insightful)
An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose.
-- A. P. Herbert
(Moderation suggestion: +2083, Insightful)
"You'll never be the man your mother was!"
(Moderation suggestion: +2182, Insightful)
Once Law was sitting on the bench
And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
Nor come before me creeping.
Upon you knees if you appear,
'Tis plain you have no standing here."
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
"YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!"
"Amica curiae," she replied --
"Friend of the court, so please you."
"Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door --
I never saw your face before!"
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +27271, Insightful)
"How would I know if I believe in love at first sight?" the sexy
social climber said to her roommate. "I mean, I've never seen a Porsche
full of money before."
(Moderation suggestion: +2265, Insightful)
The chief danger in life is that you may take too may precautions.
-- Alfred Adler
(Moderation suggestion: +27544, Insightful)
I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too
much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which
direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After much
trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face
is up.
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
(Moderation suggestion: +2348, Insightful)
Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence
(1) Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear
bomb; use the stairs.
(2) When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit
the ground.
(3) If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials.
(4) Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to
psychological problems.
(5) Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to
recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed
potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc.
(6) Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs
will be scarce in the post-nuclear age.
(7) Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles.
(8) Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be
staggering illegally.
(9) Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more
sanitary due to limited circulation.
(10) Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on
D-Day.
(Moderation suggestion: +2431, Insightful)
[From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, made
in Japan]:
The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOT
MATRIX LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, is
featured by permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high quality
against low cost", "diversified functions with compact design",
"flexibility in accessibleness and durability of approx. 2000,000,00
Dot/Head", "being sophisticated in mechanism but possibly agile
operating under noises being extremely suppressed" etc.
And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to help
achieve "super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned by
HOST COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being.
(Moderation suggestion: +2516, Insightful)
"Don't say yes until I finish talking."
-- Darryl F. Zanuck
(Moderation suggestion: +24360, Insightful)
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
-- Walt Kelly
(Moderation suggestion: +24445, Insightful)
I appoint you ambassador to Fantasy Island!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +24454, Insightful)
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to
see it tried on him personally.
-- A. Lincoln
(Moderation suggestion: +10243, Insightful)
n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa);
n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc);
n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0);
n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00);
n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000);
-- Yet another mystical 'C' gem. This one reverses the bits in a word.
(Moderation suggestion: +10532, Insightful)
We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them.
-- Thucydides
(Moderation suggestion: +24860, Insightful)
Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the
land He's trying to ignore.
(Moderation suggestion: +24777, Insightful)
Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and
the instruction afterward.
(Moderation suggestion: +10822, Insightful)
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
- Voltaire
(Moderation suggestion: +24958, Insightful)
The polite thing to do has always been to address people as they wish
to be addressed, to treat them in a way they think dignified. But it
is equally important to accept and tolerate different standards of
courtesy, not expecting everyone else to adapt to one's own
preferences. Only then can we hope to restore the insult to its proper
social function of expressing true distaste.
-- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to
Excruciatingly Correct Behavior"
(Moderation suggestion: +25041, Insightful)
... I think it came from the FILLINGS in ...
I don't know WHY I said that
my read molars
(Moderation suggestion: +12421, Insightful)
Eating chocolate is like being in love without the aggravation.
(Moderation suggestion: +11186, Insightful)
I wonder if I could ever get started in the credit world?
(Moderation suggestion: +11269, Insightful)
If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensus
forecast is a camel's behind.
-- Edgar R. Fiedler
(Moderation suggestion: +12707, Insightful)
Three o'clock in the afternoon is always just a little too late or a little
too early for anything you want to do.
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
(Moderation suggestion: +11352, Insightful)
As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great
industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free
speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to
myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a
real American talk like that.
-- Frank Hague (1896-1956)
(Moderation suggestion: +11437, Insightful)
...
In the beginning was the word.
But by the time the second word was added to it,
there was trouble.
For with it came syntax
-- John Simon
(Moderation suggestion: +28042, Insightful)
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.
The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow--
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.
-- R.L. Stevenson
(Moderation suggestion: +11522, Insightful)
... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be to
get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in
the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs
on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage
children emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a
snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn
to love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about
a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an
outcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Does
he ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect
Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asks
Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some
kind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want your
children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop
quickly.
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
(Moderation suggestion: +13112, Insightful)
"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?"
(Moderation suggestion: +2599, Insightful)
The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him
love and he invented marriage.
(Moderation suggestion: +2682, Insightful)
Was my SOY LOAF left out in th'RAIN? It tastes REAL GOOD!!
(Moderation suggestion: +11607, Insightful)
A beat schizophrenic said, "Me?
I am not I, I'm a tree."
But another, more sane,
Shouted, "I'm a Great Dane!"
And covered his pants leg with pee.
(Moderation suggestion: +28406, Insightful)
No line available at 300 baud.
(Moderation suggestion: +11690, Insightful)
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
(Moderation suggestion: +2765, Insightful)
... I think you drop th'WRENCH in the JELL-O as if ... ... or ... I ... um ... WHERE'S
OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need 4 GALLONS of JELL-O
and a BIG WRENCH!!
it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT
the WASHING MACHINES?
(Moderation suggestion: +2848, Insightful)
I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once.
(Moderation suggestion: +28707, Insightful)
Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism
in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with
the ignorance of the community.
-- Oscar Wilde
(Moderation suggestion: +2935, Insightful)
Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if
one went to Harvard).
-- Edgar R. Fiedler
(Moderation suggestion: +3018, Insightful)
This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most of
the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many
solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were
largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper,
which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of
paper that were unhappy.
-- Douglas Adams
(Moderation suggestion: +28992, Insightful)
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith
(Moderation suggestion: +25127, Insightful)
HOORAY, Ronald!! Now YOU can marry LINDA RONSTADT too!!
(Moderation suggestion: +25210, Insightful)
... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!!
(Moderation suggestion: +25474, Insightful)
Romulan women are not like Vulcan females. We are not dedicated to
pure logic and the sterility of non-emotion.
-- Romulan Commander, "The Enterprise Incident",
stardate 5027.3
(Moderation suggestion: +25557, Insightful)
You can't underestimate the power of fear.
-- Tricia Nixon
(Moderation suggestion: +12064, Insightful)
Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly,
uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the
rational functions needed to represent the integrand. Although the
algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure
of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot
claim that the algorithm is a natural one. In fact, the creator of
differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's,
largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work. Probably
he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as well.
-- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J.F. Traub
(Moderation suggestion: +25655, Insightful)
It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it's
what you're taking for it...
(Moderation suggestion: +25738, Insightful)
Yow! Is this sexual intercourse yet?? Is it, huh, is it??
(Moderation suggestion: +12341, Insightful)
... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!
The world is coming to an end
(Moderation suggestion: +25821, Insightful)
"My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies"
(Moderation suggestion: +25904, Insightful)
"I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere."
(Moderation suggestion: +13501, Insightful)
[Washington, D.C.] is the home of... taste for the people -- the big,
the bland and the banal.
-- Ada Louise Huxtable
(Moderation suggestion: +11774, Insightful)
Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one
instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every
program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.
(Moderation suggestion: +11857, Insightful)
Surprise due today. Also the rent.
(Moderation suggestion: +13849, Insightful)
There's no future in time travel.
(Moderation suggestion: +11961, Insightful)
Vidi, vici, veni.
(I saw, I conquered, I came.)
(Moderation suggestion: +12044, Insightful)
...
HUMAN REPLICAS are inserted into VATS of NUTRITIONAL YEAST
(Moderation suggestion: +14137, Insightful)
The City of Palo Alto, in its official description of parking lot standards,
specifies the grade of wheelchair access ramps in terms of centimeters of
rise per foot of run. A compromise, I imagine...
(Moderation suggestion: +26282, Insightful)
TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20)
You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged
determination and work like hell. Most people think you are
stubborn and bull headed. You are a Communist.
(Moderation suggestion: +3101, Insightful)
George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to
have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
-- Ashley Cooper
(Moderation suggestion: +14011, Insightful)
Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their
hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt,
without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only
in the God idea, not God Himself.
- Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish philosopher and writer
(Moderation suggestion: +12127, Insightful)
When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to
guarantee them.
(Moderation suggestion: +3186, Insightful)
... with Tarot cards. I got a full
"I was playing poker the other night
house and four people died."
-- Steven Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +14560, Insightful)
... The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when then get
to know each other.
-- Kirk, "Elaan of Troyius", stardate 4372.5
(Moderation suggestion: +14297, Insightful)
semper en excretus
(Moderation suggestion: +3270, Insightful)
Mr. Cole's Axiom:
The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the
population is growing.
(Moderation suggestion: +29399, Insightful)
Charlie was a chemist,
But Charlie is no more.
For what he thought was H2O,
Was H2SO4.
(Moderation suggestion: +12295, Insightful)
If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen to
either of you for the rest of the day.
(Moderation suggestion: +26199, Insightful)
Coronation, n.:
The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and
visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite
bomb.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +3353, Insightful)
I love this fucking University, and this University loves fucking me.
(Moderation suggestion: +25082, Insightful)
"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with
reality at any point."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Moderation suggestion: +29802, Insightful)
Fremen add life to spice!
(Moderation suggestion: +26096, Insightful)
It is undignified for a woman to play servant to a man who is not
hers.
-- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7
(Moderation suggestion: +13705, Insightful)
I hear what you're saying but I just don't care.
(Moderation suggestion: +3437, Insightful)
One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible
from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at
least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts
are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but
when He's good, nobody can touch Him.
-- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983
(Moderation suggestion: +3522, Insightful)
"Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love
you knowing nothing?"
-- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
(Moderation suggestion: +27131, Insightful)
Did YOU find a DIGITAL WATCH in YOUR box of VELVEETA?
(Moderation suggestion: +30128, Insightful)
... [it] is also a great place for cock-fighting, gambling
Monterey... is decidedly the pleasantest and most civilized-looking place
in California
of all sorts, fandangos, and various kinds of amusements and knavery.
-- Richard Henry Dama, "Two Years Before the Mast", 1840
(Moderation suggestion: +27552, Insightful)
"It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never set
foot."
(Moderation suggestion: +26948, Insightful)
Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the
illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how
much good it did them.
(Moderation suggestion: +3605, Insightful)
Totally illogical, there was no chance.
-- Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2822.3
(Moderation suggestion: +12378, Insightful)
... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce
Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. One
thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. If
somebody gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it
on his legal stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what
a lesser person would do, such as get it changed or kill himself.
-- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!"
(Moderation suggestion: +14972, Insightful)
The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella,
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella.
-- Lord Bowen
(Moderation suggestion: +12465, Insightful)
The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's:
"My brain is paged out to my liver"
(Moderation suggestion: +12548, Insightful)
Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
(Moderation suggestion: +15270, Insightful)
The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them
is a match.
-- Will Rogers
(Moderation suggestion: +12660, Insightful)
Concentrate on th'cute, li'l CARTOON GUYS! Remember the SERIAL
NUMBERS!! Follow the WHIPPLE AVE. EXIT!! Have a FREE PEPSI!! Turn
LEFT at th'HOLIDAY INN!! JOIN the CREDIT WORLD!! MAKE me an OFFER!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +12635, Insightful)
Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession.
(Moderation suggestion: +3705, Insightful)
"There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the
other is to read Pope."
-- Oscar Wilde
(Moderation suggestion: +26448, Insightful)
Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else.
(Moderation suggestion: +15566, Insightful)
In the land of the dark the Ship of the
Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead.
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead
(Moderation suggestion: +17398, Insightful)
"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."
-- Mark Twain
(Moderation suggestion: +3788, Insightful)
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
(Moderation suggestion: +30414, Insightful)
For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH!
(Moderation suggestion: +27300, Insightful)
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
(Moderation suggestion: +12887, Insightful)
Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended for
those who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after waking
up.
-- Chicago Reader 4/22/83
(Moderation suggestion: +12804, Insightful)
My vaseline is RUNNING...
(Moderation suggestion: +16982, Insightful)
It's interesting to think that many quite distinguished people have
bodies similar to yours.
(Moderation suggestion: +3871, Insightful)
You're dead, Jim.
-- McCoy, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7
(Moderation suggestion: +30832, Insightful)
To understand this important story, you have to understand how the telephone
company works. Your telephone is connected to a local computer, which is in
turn connected to a regional computer, which is in turn connected to a
loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on the lawn of Edna A. Bargewater of
Lawrence, Kan.
Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If it
suspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies the computer
above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert the one above it,
until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybe break down in tears
and tell your closest friend about a sordid incident from your past
involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse, an entire religious order, a
garden hose and six quarts of tapioca pudding, the top computer feeds your
conversation into Edna's loudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on
the porch to listen and drink gin and laugh themselves silly.
-- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own Phones?"
(Moderation suggestion: +27984, Insightful)
..."
"This is a country where people are free to practice their religion,
regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling
keys
(Moderation suggestion: +17765, Insightful)
... ... Are there any QUESTIONS??
Don't worry, nobody really LISTENS to lectures in MOSCOW, either!
FRENCH, HISTORY, ADVANCED CALCULUS, COMPUTER PROGRAMMING, BLACK
STUDIES, SOCIOBIOLOGY!
(Moderation suggestion: +3956, Insightful)
When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the
money is.
-- Robespierre
(Moderation suggestion: +27818, Insightful)
Howe's Law:
Everyone has a scheme that will not work.
(Moderation suggestion: +4040, Insightful)
"You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run,
And there isn't one language you like;
Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none --
Have you thought about taking a hike?"
"Since I never write programs," his father replied,
"Every language looks equally bad;
Yet the people keep paying to read all my books
And don't realize that they've been had."
(Moderation suggestion: +28586, Insightful)
Vulcans never bluff.
-- Spock, "The Doomsday Machine", stardate 4202.1
(Moderation suggestion: +4368, Insightful)
If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours.
-- Clarence Day
(Moderation suggestion: +18047, Insightful)
Rune's Rule:
If you don't care where you are, you ain't lost.
(Moderation suggestion: +4452, Insightful)
... um ... um ... th' washing machine
Laundry is the fifth dimension!!
is a black hole and the pink socks are bus drivers who just fell in!!
(Moderation suggestion: +21068, Insightful)
Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is
irksome and three minutes is a long time.
-- A.E. Houseman
(Moderation suggestion: +4206, Insightful)
OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything.
(Moderation suggestion: +15942, Insightful)
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
of nothing.
-- Redd Foxx
(Moderation suggestion: +13056, Insightful)
I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand.
(Moderation suggestion: +12973, Insightful)
Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be
yours too."
-- Dave Haynie
(Moderation suggestion: +16398, Insightful)
"Quite frankly, I don't like you humans. After what you all have done,
I find being 'inhuman' a compliment."
-- Spider Robinson, "Callahan's Secret"
(Moderation suggestion: +13139, Insightful)
Garbage In -- Gospel Out.
(Moderation suggestion: +13222, Insightful)
I doubt, therefore I might be.
(Moderation suggestion: +16699, Insightful)
Work Hard.
Rock Hard.
Eat Hard.
Sleep Hard.
Grow Big.
Wear Glasses If You Need 'Em.
-- The Webb Wilder Credo
(Moderation suggestion: +28837, Insightful)
Osborn's Law:
Variables won't; constants aren't.
(Moderation suggestion: +4552, Insightful)
Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers.
(Moderation suggestion: +18786, Insightful)
I'm not prejudiced, I hate everyone equally.
(Moderation suggestion: +13388, Insightful)
He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry
attacks democracy itself.
-- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS
(Moderation suggestion: +4123, Insightful)
It is undignified for a woman to play servant to a man who is not
hers.
-- Spock, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7
(Moderation suggestion: +13305, Insightful)
"I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd
eat it, and I just hate it."
-- Clarence Darrow
(Moderation suggestion: +4635, Insightful)
A long memory is the most subversive idea in America.
(Moderation suggestion: +29015, Insightful)
You're too beautiful to ignore. Too much woman.
-- Kirk to Yeoman Rand, "The Enemy Within", stardate unknown
(Moderation suggestion: +16983, Insightful)
New York's got the ways and means;
Just won't let you be.
-- The Grateful Dead
(Moderation suggestion: +29532, Insightful)
Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If
you cut down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut
down the new tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that
tree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a mutation with
long, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it will sit
there in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when you
come back.
Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago,
when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot.
Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of the
cavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood
heat!" The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately
beat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made,
and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed,
although their insurance rates went way up.
-- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
(Moderation suggestion: +4719, Insightful)
Beware of low-flying butterflies.
(Moderation suggestion: +32393, Insightful)
The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom
their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance.
Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the
battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved
blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves.
Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds?
The answer exists only in the Tao.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
(Moderation suggestion: +29616, Insightful)
When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment
results.
-- Calvin Coolidge
(Moderation suggestion: +4805, Insightful)
An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity
in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him.
"Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if
you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like
an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an
hour seems like a minute."
The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a
moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?"
-- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
(Moderation suggestion: +29700, Insightful)
...
A diva who specializes in risqu'e arias is an off-coloratura soprano
(Moderation suggestion: +4888, Insightful)
All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
(Moderation suggestion: +30216, Insightful)
The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I
hope I don't get run over again.
(Moderation suggestion: +31222, Insightful)
"Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense."
(Moderation suggestion: +30133, Insightful)
I Know A Joke
(Moderation suggestion: +21337, Insightful)Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupunctureon a rock. -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
(Moderation suggestion: +5056, Insightful)
"BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'."
(Moderation suggestion: +5140, Insightful)
He hated to mend, so young Ned
Called in a cute neighbor instead.
Her husband said, "Vi,
When you stitched up his torn fly,
Did you have to bite off the thread?"
(Moderation suggestion: +30552, Insightful)
Am I elected yet?
(Moderation suggestion: +13486, Insightful)
Weinberg's First Law:
Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
(Moderation suggestion: +13569, Insightful)
If God is dead, who will save the Queen?
(Moderation suggestion: +17259, Insightful)In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a reallygood argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually changetheir minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They reallydo it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists arehuman and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannotrecall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address
(Moderation suggestion: +13656, Insightful)
Uh-oh!! I'm having TOO MUCH FUN!!
(Moderation suggestion: +13740, Insightful)
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
-- Woody Allen
(Moderation suggestion: +17741, Insightful)
In high school in Brooklyn
I was the baseball manager,
proud as I could be
I chased baseballs,
gathered thrown bats
handed out the towels Eventually, I bought my own
It was very important work but it was dark blue while
for a small spastic kid, the official ones were green
but I was a team member Nobody ever said anything
When the team got to me about my blue jacket;
their warm-up jackets the guys were my friends
I didn't get one Yet it hurt me all year
Only the regular team to wear that blue jacket
got these jackets, and among all those green ones
surely not a manager Even now, forty years after,
I still recall that jacket
and the memory goes on hurting.
-- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance"
(Moderation suggestion: +21826, Insightful)
In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish. It
changes into a bird whose winds are like clouds filling the sky. When this
bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters.
This message it drops into the midst of the program mers, like a seagull
making its mark upon the beach. Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with
the blue sky at its back, returns home.
The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands
it not. The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears
its message. The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he
does not know that the bird has come and gone.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
(Moderation suggestion: +13823, Insightful)
"I like your game but we have to change the rules."
(Moderation suggestion: +30384, Insightful)
"There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial:
both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed to
talk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed him
during the trial."
-- David Letterman
(Moderation suggestion: +13907, Insightful)
Overdrawn? But I still have checks left!
(Moderation suggestion: +18128, Insightful)
Vulcans worship peace above all.
-- McCoy, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3
(Moderation suggestion: +30635, Insightful)
Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name.
Thy programs run, thy syscalls done,
In kernel as it is in user!
(Moderation suggestion: +13992, Insightful)
...
I can't think about that. It doesn't go with HEDGES in the shape of
LITTLE LULU -- or ROBOTS making BRICKS
(Moderation suggestion: +22199, Insightful)
... zzzzzzzzz ...
I hope I bought the right relish
(Moderation suggestion: +30736, Insightful)
Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
-- Jules Feiffer
(Moderation suggestion: +22482, Insightful)
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that
procession but carrying a banner.
-- Mark Twain
(Moderation suggestion: +23178, Insightful)
Rudeness is a weak man's imitation of strength.
(Moderation suggestion: +31154, Insightful)
And I heard Jeff exclaim,
As they strolled out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all --
You take credit cards, right?"
-- "Outsiders" comic
(Moderation suggestion: +23888, Insightful)
Yow! Am I in Milwaukee?
(Moderation suggestion: +31403, Insightful)
... Don't you SEE? O'Grogan SWALLOWED a VALUABLE COIN COLLECTION
When you said "HEAVILY FORESTED" it reminded me of an overdue CLEANING
BILL
and HAD to murder the ONLY MAN who KNEW!!
(Moderation suggestion: +14075, Insightful)Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of HudsonBay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate.Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years andgreat effort pushing boulders into a single word.It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow.Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latinequivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for thedestruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrassboth Parliament and Party.It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on otherplanets, this may be the first message received from us. -- The Realist, November, 1964.
(Moderation suggestion: +18437, Insightful)
Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.
(Moderation suggestion: +14163, Insightful)
"Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time
someone writes `bible thumpers?'
-- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu
(Moderation suggestion: +14329, Insightful)
Half a mind is a terrible thing to waste!
(Moderation suggestion: +14246, Insightful)
Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis.
(Moderation suggestion: +14412, Insightful)
Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.
(Moderation suggestion: +31588, Insightful)
You will be surprised by a loud noise.
(Moderation suggestion: +14497, Insightful)
... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror,
and you would not have been informed.
(Moderation suggestion: +24181, Insightful)
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws
of nature!
-- G.B. Shaw
(Moderation suggestion: +14580, Insightful)
Wit, n.:
The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery
... by leaving it out.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +14663, Insightful)
When you are about to do an objective and scientific piece of
investigation of a topic, it is well to gave the answer firmly in hand,
so that you can proceed forthrightly, without being deflected or
swayed, directly to the goal.
-- Amrom Katz
(Moderation suggestion: +31591, Insightful)
Superior ability breeds superior ambition.
-- Spock, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9
(Moderation suggestion: +19663, Insightful)
It's faster horses,
Younger women,
Older whiskey and
More money.
-- Tom T. Hall, "The Secret of Life"
(Moderation suggestion: +31837, Insightful)
... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!
The world is coming to an end
(Moderation suggestion: +32004, Insightful)
If Robert Di Niro assassinates Walter Slezak, will Jodie Foster marry
Bonzo??
(Moderation suggestion: +24982, Insightful)
The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all men
should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the universal
weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we presently imagine
we own.
-- H.G. Wells
(Moderation suggestion: +24591, Insightful)
In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending
your left leg, it's modern architecture.
-- Nancy Banks Smith
(Moderation suggestion: +32356, Insightful)
What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.
(Moderation suggestion: +32173, Insightful)
Eleven reasons a cucumber is better than a man:
(1) Cucumbers can stay up all night, and you won't have to
sleep in the wet spot.
(2) Cucumbers don't play the guitar and try to find
themselves.
(3) You won't find out later that your cucumber (a) is
married, (b) is on penicillin, (c) likes you -- but loves
your brother!
(4) A cucumber won't care what time of the month it is.
(5) A cucumber never wants to get it on when your nails are
wet.
(6) Cucumbers don't say "Let's keep trying until we have a
boy".
(7) Cucumbers won't tell you size doesn't count.
(8) A cucumber won't leave you for a cheerleader or an ex-nun.
(9) Cucumbers don't fall asleep on your chest or drool on the
pillow.
(10) Cucumbers don't care if you make more money than they do.
(11) With a cucumber, the toilet seat is always the way you
left it.
(Moderation suggestion: +32607, Insightful)
Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like.
-- Arnold Bennett
(Moderation suggestion: +14746, Insightful)
Do you like "TENDER VITTLES"?
(Moderation suggestion: +14829, Insightful)
A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort
of).
(Moderation suggestion: +14916, Insightful)
Think honk if you're a telepath.
(Moderation suggestion: +19925, Insightful)
We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful
new world. We will see it when we believe it.
-- Saul Alinsky
(Moderation suggestion: +14999, Insightful)
LEO (July 23 - Aug 22)
Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore.
Your ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because
you've got a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of
fact, if you can laugh at what happens to you today, you've got
a sick sense of humor.
(Moderation suggestion: +15083, Insightful)
First Law of Procrastination:
Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility
for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed
the deadline).
(Moderation suggestion: +20322, Insightful)
America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up.
- Oscar Wilde
(Moderation suggestion: +25558, Insightful)
There can be no twisted thought without a twisted molecule.
-- R. W. Gerard
(Moderation suggestion: +25940, Insightful)
At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find
at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.
(Moderation suggestion: +15168, Insightful)
It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is?
-- Elizabeth Carpenter
(Moderation suggestion: +27285, Insightful)
The happiest time of a person's life is after his first divorce.
-- J.K. Galbraith
(Moderation suggestion: +15251, Insightful)
...
The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss
Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public.
It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has been
known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and,
in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two
under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight of
people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a
city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking
umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of
activity that frightens the horses on the street
(Moderation suggestion: +20797, Insightful)
Chicken Little only has to be right once.
(Moderation suggestion: +111, Insightful)
PLUNDERER'S THEME
(to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius)
Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation.
Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations.
Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
(Moderation suggestion: +26998, Insightful)
She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook.
-- Tommy Manville
(Moderation suggestion: +26403, Insightful)
Mummy dust to make me old;
To shroud my clothes, the black of night;
To age my voice, an old hag's cackle;
To whiten my hair, a scream of fright;
A blast of wind to fan my hate;
A thunderbolt to mix it well --
Now begin thy magic spell!
-- Walter Disney, "Snow White"
(Moderation suggestion: +26707, Insightful)
The little town that time forgot,
Where all the women are strong,
The men are good-looking,
And the children above-average.
-- Prairie Home Companion
(Moderation suggestion: +461, Insightful)
UH-OH!! I put on "GREAT HEAD-ON TRAIN COLLISIONS of the 50's" by
mistake!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +294, Insightful)
We have DIFFERENT amounts of HAIR --
(Moderation suggestion: +14, Insightful)
Large cats can be dangerous, but a little pussy never hurt anyone.
(Moderation suggestion: +17577, Insightful)
Yow! And then we could sit on the hoods of cars at stop lights!
(Moderation suggestion: +15347, Insightful)
Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades.
(Moderation suggestion: +28112, Insightful)
The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is a constant, but nowadays the
illiterates can read.
-- Alberto Moravia
(Moderation suggestion: +15430, Insightful)
Hartley's First Law:
You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float
on his back, you've got something.
(Moderation suggestion: +21107, Insightful)
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their
fingers crossed. Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the
good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay
poor, the rich get rich. That's how it goes. Everybody knows.
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain
lied. Everybody got this broken feeling like their father or their dog
just died.
Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates
and long stem rose. Everybody knows.
Everybody knows that you love me, baby. Everybody knows that you really
do. Everybody knows that you've been faithful, give or take a night or
two. Everybody knows you've been discreet, but there were so many people
you just had to meet without your clothes. And everybody knows.
And everybody knows it's now or never. Everybody knows that it's me or you.
And everybody knows that you live forever when you've done a line or two.
Everybody knows the deal is rotten: Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
for you ribbons and bows. And everybody knows.
-- Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"
(Moderation suggestion: +17745, Insightful)
Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not
nailed down.
-- Collis P. Huntingdon
(Moderation suggestion: +15515, Insightful)
Dope will get you through times of no money better that money will get
you through times of no dope.
-- Gilbert Shelton
(Moderation suggestion: +17662, Insightful)
The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me.
-- Nicol Williamson
(Moderation suggestion: +21398, Insightful)
Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun.
(Moderation suggestion: +17828, Insightful)
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
-- Henry Spencer
(Moderation suggestion: +28491, Insightful)
"It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name."
(Moderation suggestion: +15599, Insightful)F: When into a room I plunge, I Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI. Then I linger, darkly brooding On the poison they're exuding. -- The Roguelet's ABC
(Moderation suggestion: +28812, Insightful)
I stood on the leading edge,
The eastern seaboard at my feet.
"Jump!" said Yoko Ono
I'm too scared and good-looking, I cried.
Go on and give it a try,
Why prolong the agony, all men must die.
-- Roger Waters, "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking"
(Moderation suggestion: +27769, Insightful)
Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it!
-- Monty Python
(Moderation suggestion: +15696, Insightful)
YOU PICKED KARL MALDEN'S NOSE!!
(Moderation suggestion: +21675, Insightful)
TCP/IP Slang Glossary, #1:
Gong, n: Medieval term for privy, or what pased for them in that era.
Today used whimsically to describe the aftermath of a bogon attack. Think
of our community as the Galapagos of the English language.
"Vogons may read you bad poetry, but bogons make you study obsolete RFCs."
-- Dave Mills
(Moderation suggestion: +32690, Insightful)
"When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut."
(Moderation suggestion: +18428, Insightful)
Heller's Law:
The first myth of management is that it exists.
Johnson's Corollary:
Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the
organization.
(Moderation suggestion: +15862, Insightful)
"Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war."
-- Napolean
(Moderation suggestion: +18092, Insightful)
You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi.
(Moderation suggestion: +630, Insightful)
... We are incapable of
The people of Gideon have always believed that life is sacred. That
the love of life is the greatest gift
destroying or interfering with the creation of that which we love so
deeply -- life in every form from fetus to developed being.
-- Hodin of Gideon, "The Mark of Gideon", stardate 5423.4
(Moderation suggestion: +29104, Insightful)
The superfluous is very necessary.
-- Voltaire
(Moderation suggestion: +1074, Insightful)
Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.
-- Andrew Young
(Moderation suggestion: +15947, Insightful)
One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh
paint.
(Moderation suggestion: +991, Insightful)
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly
disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and
inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has
already happened.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
(Moderation suggestion: +28719, Insightful)
Just a song before I go, Going through security
To whom it may concern, I held her for so long.
Traveling twice the speed of sound She finally looked at me in love,
It's easy to get burned. And she was gone.
When the shows were over Just a song before I go,
We had to get back home, A lesson to be learned.
And when we opened up the door Traveling twice the speed of sound
I had to be alone. It's easy to get burned.
She helped me with my suitcase,
She stands before my eyes,
Driving me to the airport
And to the friendly skies.
-- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Just a Song Before I Go"
(Moderation suggestion: +1325, Insightful)
Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!
(Moderation suggestion: +28430, Insightful)
I'm a soldier, not a diplomat. I can only tell the truth.
-- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3198.9
(Moderation suggestion: +1157, Insightful)
In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying
of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public
view."
(Moderation suggestion: +29124, Insightful)
A method of solution is perfect if we can forsee from the start,
and even prove, that following that method we shall attain our aim.
-- Leibnitz
(Moderation suggestion: +16030, Insightful)
Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old
ones.
(Moderation suggestion: +18175, Insightful)
Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans.
(Moderation suggestion: +18259, Insightful)
"I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've
always worked for me."
-- Hunter S. Thompson
(Moderation suggestion: +16196, Insightful)
The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on
weather forecasters.
-- Jean-Paul Kauffmann
(Moderation suggestion: +29515, Insightful)
The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
-- Harlan Ellison
(Moderation suggestion: +16378, Insightful)
..." You could feel the wind at your back, about you ... the ... you can feel her
Do you know the one -- "All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer
her by
sounds of the sea beneath you. And even if you take away the wind and
the water, it's still the same. The ship is yours
... and the stars are still there.
-- Kirk, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4
(Moderation suggestion: +23054, Insightful)
"Absolutely nothing should be concluded from these figures except that
no conclusion can be drawn from them."
(By Joseph L. Brothers, Linux/PowerPC Project)
(Moderation suggestion: +18345, Insightful)
I am a jelly donut. I am a jelly donut.
(Moderation suggestion: +16461, Insightful)
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now
I'm beginning to believe it.
-- Clarence Darrow
(Moderation suggestion: +18524, Insightful)
I want you to MEMORIZE the collected poems of EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY
... BACKWARDS!!
(Moderation suggestion: +29912, Insightful)
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't
recognize them.
(Moderation suggestion: +16280, Insightful)
With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
-- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
(Moderation suggestion: +16829, Insightful)
If I had a Q-TIP, I could prevent th' collapse of NEGOTIATIONS!!
(Moderation suggestion: +1240, Insightful)
Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write
in BASIC after reaching puberty.
(Moderation suggestion: +18607, Insightful)
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
of nothing.
-- Redd Foxx
(Moderation suggestion: +30215, Insightful)
Don't I know you?
(Moderation suggestion: +16913, Insightful)
You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail of
a lion, and the face of Donald Duck.
(Moderation suggestion: +1491, Insightful)
"He could be a poster child for retroactive birth control."
(Moderation suggestion: +23551, Insightful)
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,
... it expects what never was and never will be.
-- Thomas Jefferson
(Moderation suggestion: +29517, Insightful)
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
-- Albert Einstein
(Moderation suggestion: +18873, Insightful)
Tex SEX! The HOME of WHEELS! The dripping of COFFEE!! Take me to
Minnesota but don't EMBARRASS me!!
(Moderation suggestion: +30491, Insightful)
For men use, if they have an evil turn, to write it in marble:
and whoso doth us a good turn we write it in dust.
-- Sir Thomas More
(Moderation suggestion: +16996, Insightful)
...
I had a lease on an OEDIPUS COMPLEX back in '81
(Moderation suggestion: +1658, Insightful)
To be is to do.
-- I. Kant
To do is to be.
-- A. Sartre
Yabba-Dabba-Doo!
-- F. Flinstone
(Moderation suggestion: +29836, Insightful)
Would that my hand were as swift as my tongue.
-- Alfieri
(Moderation suggestion: +1842, Insightful)
Stay away from hurricanes for a while.
(Moderation suggestion: +30123, Insightful)
brokee, n:
Someone who buys stocks on the advice of a broker.
(Moderation suggestion: +2009, Insightful)
Binary, adj.:
Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes.
(Moderation suggestion: +30551, Insightful)
"It's like deja vu all over again." -- Yogi Berra
(Moderation suggestion: +2093, Insightful)
Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the
probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some
useful work done.
(Moderation suggestion: +17079, Insightful)
Equality is not when a female Einstein gets promoted to assistant
professor; equality is when a female schlemiel moves ahead as fast as a
male schlemiel.
-- Ewald Nyquist
(Moderation suggestion: +18956, Insightful)
Fine's Corollary:
Functionality breeds Contempt.
(Moderation suggestion: +23925, Insightful)
The salary of the chief executive of the large corporation is not a market
award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal
gesture by the individual to himself.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith, "Annals of an Abiding Liberal"
(Moderation suggestion: +30869, Insightful)
You'll wish that you had done some of the hard things when they were easier
to do.
(Moderation suggestion: +17207, Insightful)
... I had to get up at 9 o'clock at night, half an ..."
"We had it tough
hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours down
mill, and when we came home our Dad would kill us, and dance about on
our grave singing Haleleuia
-- Monty Python
(Moderation suggestion: +19124, Insightful)
"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and
blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only
love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or
know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only
one thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what
wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust,
never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never
dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a
lot of things there are to learn."
-- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King"
(Moderation suggestion: +19207, Insightful)
Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic
value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is
much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice
this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA.
(Moderation suggestion: +17291, Insightful)
... Have you ever noticed th' way it radiates SINCERITY,
How do you explain Wayne Newton's POWER over millions? It's th'
MOUSTACHE
HONESTY & WARMTH? It's a MOUSTACHE you want to take HOME and introduce
to NANCY SINATRA!
(Moderation suggestion: +24227, Insightful)
If you sell diamonds, you cannot expect to have many customers.
But a diamond is a diamond even if there are no customers.
-- Swami Prabhupada
(Moderation suggestion: +31357, Insightful)
I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens
who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known
something of what has been passing in their time.
-- H. Truman
(Moderation suggestion: +19290, Insightful)
Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41:
Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?
A: By death.
Q: And by whose death was it terminated?
(Moderation suggestion: +17428, Insightful)
"I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of
the sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for
you are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway."
-- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy,
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
(Moderation suggestion: +19373, Insightful)
Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab:
Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment
ruined.
(Moderation suggestion: +2176, Insightful)
... Don't you SEE? O'Grogan SWALLOWED a VALUABLE COIN COLLECTION
When you said "HEAVILY FORESTED" it reminded me of an overdue CLEANING
BILL
and HAD to murder the ONLY MAN who KNEW!!
(Moderation suggestion: +17511, Insightful)
A lady with one of her ears applied
To an open keyhole heard, inside,
Two female gossips in converse free --
The subject engaging them was she.
"I think", said one, "and my husband thinks
That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
As soon as no more of it she could hear
The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
"I will not stay," she said with a pout,
"To hear my character lied about!"
-- Gopete Sherany
(Moderation suggestion: +24532, Insightful)
... but nothing ever is.
Not one hundred percent efficient, of course
-- Kirk, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8
(Moderation suggestion: +31672, Insightful)
The future is a race between education and catastrophe.
-- H.G. Wells
(Moderation suggestion: +30980, Insightful)
Sic transit gloria Monday!
(Moderation suggestion: +2259, Insightful)
"I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to
make it shorter."
-- Blaise Pascal
(Moderation suggestion: +17602, Insightful)
A hypothetical paradox:
What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security
team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of
Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet?
-- Tom Galloway
(Moderation suggestion: +19457, Insightful)
Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the
month. According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people
are experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China.
The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either
(depending on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax
tadpole".
Bite the wax tadpole.
There is a sort of rough justice, is there not?
The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's
hard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to
bite a wax tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad,
but broad satiric vistas do not open up.
-- John Carrol, San Francisco Chronicle
(Moderation suggestion: +24926, Insightful)
The truth about a woman often lasts longer than the woman is true.
(Moderation suggestion: +31954, Insightful)
If you marry a man who cheats on his wife, you'll be married to a man who
cheats on his wife.
-- Ann Landers
(Moderation suggestion: +2344, Insightful)
Real World, The n.:
1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may
be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. To
programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related
to programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and
tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5. 4.
The location of the status quo. 5. Anywhere outside a university.
"Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world." Used
pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking
of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a
deceased person.
(Moderation suggestion: +31288, Insightful)
Life is like a diaper -- short and loaded.
(Moderation suggestion: +2778, Insightful)
I think that I shall never see
A thing as lovely as a tree.
But as you see the trees have gone
They went this morning with the dawn.
A logging firm from out of town
Came and chopped the trees all down.
But I will trick those dirty skunks
And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'.
(Moderation suggestion: +31564, Insightful)
Bondage maybe, discipline never!
-- T.K.
(Moderation suggestion: +2610, Insightful)
Did you know that Spiro Agnew is an anagram of "Grow a Penis"
(Moderation suggestion: +32461, Insightful)
QOTD:
"I'll listen to reason when it comes out on CD."
(Moderation suggestion: +2527, Insightful)
... his
While you're chewing, think of STEVEN SPIELBERG'S bank account
will have the same effect as two "STARCH BLOCKERS"!
(Moderation suggestion: +727, Insightful)
"Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of
which I disapprove."
(Moderation suggestion: +813, Insightful)
Expert, n.:
Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides.
(Moderation suggestion: +27590, Insightful)
"Dump the condiments. If we are to be eaten, we don't need to taste good."
-- "Visionaries" cartoon
(Moderation suggestion: +896, Insightful)
"What is the Nature of God?"
CLICK...CLICK...WHIRRR...CLICK...=BEEP!=
1 QT. SOUR CREAM
1 TSP. SAUERKRAUT
1/2 CUT CHIVES.
STIR AND SPRINKLE WITH BACON BITS.
"I've just GOT to start labeling my software..."
-- Bloom County
(Moderation suggestion: +980, Insightful)
This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly,
because the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under
which it recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has
"deregulated" the airline industry. What this means for you, the
consumer, is that the airlines are no longer required to follow any
rules whatsoever. They can show snuff movies. They can charge for
oxygen. They can hire pilots right out of Vending Machine Refill
Person School. They can conserve fuel by ejecting husky passengers
over water. They can ram competing planes in mid-air. These
innovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which have been
passed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights with
amazingly low fares, such as $29. Of course, certain restrictions do
apply, the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark,
and you must pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out.
-- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations"
(Moderation suggestion: +1063, Insightful)
Iles's Law:
There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directly
at the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it.
Neither will Iles.
(Moderation suggestion: +27925, Insightful)
Fraud is the homage that force pays to reason.
-- Charles Curtis, "A Commonplace Book"
(Moderation suggestion: +1153, Insightful)
Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis:
If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented
it wasn't worth doing.
(Moderation suggestion: +1236, Insightful)
The Three Laws of Thermodynamics:
The First Law: You can't get anything without working for it.
The Second Law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break
even.
The Third Law: You can only break even at absolute zero.
(Moderation suggestion: +28210, Insightful)
The ends justify the means.
-- after Matthew Prior
(Moderation suggestion: +19641, Insightful)
... impeccable!
... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, and
legally
(Moderation suggestion: +19724, Insightful)
The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough
voters to win the next election.
(Moderation suggestion: +32226, Insightful)
You must dine in our cafeteria. You can eat dirt cheap there!!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +19807, Insightful)
WHOA!! Ken and Barbie are having TOO MUCH FUN!! It must be the
NEGATIVE IONS!!
(Moderation suggestion: +19892, Insightful)
"The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not
Compute' -- I forget which."
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
(Moderation suggestion: +32731, Insightful)
When the lodge meeting broke up, Meyer confided to a friend.
"Abe, I'm in a terrible pickle! I'm strapped for cash and I haven't
the slightest idea where I'm going to get it from!"
"I'm glad to hear that," answered Abe. "I was afraid you
might have some idea that you could borrow from me!"
(Moderation suggestion: +2693, Insightful)
With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once
build a nuclear balm?
(Moderation suggestion: +19975, Insightful)
Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history,
dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive
man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the
air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first
primitive umpire.
What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as
mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers.
-- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
(Moderation suggestion: +20058, Insightful)
Thou shalt not omit adultery.
(Moderation suggestion: +2862, Insightful)
Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the
yard.
(Moderation suggestion: +349, Insightful)
Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient. Don't believe a
thing he tells you.
(Moderation suggestion: +258, Insightful)
So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward
it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and --
I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in
the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us.
Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and
I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our
heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're
unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water
up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the
opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of
our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all
the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers
cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen
these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked
into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.
-- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
(Moderation suggestion: +3212, Insightful)
Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a
policeman's tie.
(Moderation suggestion: +3112, Insightful)
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog,
it's too dark to read."
-- Groucho Marx
(Moderation suggestion: +20143, Insightful)
There is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.
-- Spock, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.9
(Moderation suggestion: +3029, Insightful)
Coito ergo sum
(Moderation suggestion: +714, Insightful)
Charlie was a chemist,
But Charlie is no more.
For what he thought was H2O,
Was H2SO4.
(Moderation suggestion: +3295, Insightful)
Laetrile is the pits
(Moderation suggestion: +1195, Insightful)
Life does not begin at the moment of conception or the moment of birth.
It begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies.
(Moderation suggestion: +3378, Insightful)
"Two sure ways to tell a sexy male; the first is, he has a bad memory.
I forget the second."
(Moderation suggestion: +1327, Insightful)
I'm mentally OVERDRAWN! What's that SIGNPOST up ahead? Where's ROD
STERLING when you really need him?
(Moderation suggestion: +1412, Insightful)
Vegetarians for oral sex -- "The only meat that's fit to eat"
(Moderation suggestion: +28629, Insightful)
One planet is all you get.
(Moderation suggestion: +1498, Insightful)
Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick
your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as
Mental Anguish. You would sue:
* The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions
section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand
into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls
in there".
* The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious
cretin like yourself.
* Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this
case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you
a large cash settlement anyway.
-- Dave Barry
(Moderation suggestion: +1581, Insightful)
A woman should have compassion.
-- Kirk, "Catspaw", stardate 3018.2
(Moderation suggestion: +29025, Insightful)
Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines.
-- David Letterman
(Moderation suggestion: +1676, Insightful)
Parkinson's Fifth Law:
If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good
bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
(Moderation suggestion: +1760, Insightful)
We're all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine.
But when it comes to your job -- that's different. And it always will
be different.
-- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4729.4
(Moderation suggestion: +29325, Insightful)
A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work.
(Moderation suggestion: +20226, Insightful)
"I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense."
(Moderation suggestion: +1845, Insightful)
... It's GREAT to be ALIVE!!
On SECOND thought, maybe I'll heat up some BAKED BEANS and watch REGIS
PHILBIN
(Moderation suggestion: +651, Insightful)
Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can
be tolerated only in race horses and women.
-- Lord Kalvin
(Moderation suggestion: +20326, Insightful)
"I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words."
(Moderation suggestion: +939, Insightful)
Everthing is farther away than it used to be. It is even twice as
far to the corner and they have added a hill. I have given up running for
the bus; it leaves earlier than it used to.
It seems to me they are making the stairs steeper than in the old
days. And have you noticed the smaller print they use in the newspapers?
There is no sense in asking anyone to read aloud anymore, as everbody
speaks in such a low voice I can hardly hear them.
The material in dresses is so skimpy now, especially around the hips
and waist, that it is almost impossible to reach one's shoelaces. And the
sizes don't run the way they used to. The 12's and 14's are so much smaller.
Even people are changing. They are so much younger than they used to
be when I was their age. On the other hand people my age are so much older
than I am.
I ran into an old classmate the other day and she has aged so much
that she didn't recognize me.
I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair
this morning and in so doing I glanced at my own reflection. Really now,
they don't even make good mirrors like they used to.
Sandy Frazier, "I Have Noticed"
(Moderation suggestion: +20492, Insightful)
"You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them.
Why do you find that funny?"
-- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350
(Moderation suggestion: +1352, Insightful)
I have not yet begun to byte!
(Moderation suggestion: +20661, Insightful)
We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always
respect their good judgement.
(Moderation suggestion: +1747, Insightful)
PL/I -- "the fatal disease" -- belongs more to the problem set than to the
solution set.
-- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5
(Moderation suggestion: +20828, Insightful)
..."
"Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?"
"Yes, I don't have one."
"Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors
-- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372
(Moderation suggestion: +20994, Insightful)
Then here's to the City of Boston,
The town of the cries and the groans.
Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks,
And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns.
-- Franklin Pierce Adams
(Moderation suggestion: +1942, Insightful)
Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and the
villagers gathered around to hear what had passed. "At this time,"
said Nasrudin, "I only want to say that the King spoke to me." All the
villagers but the stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news. The
remaining villager asked, "What did the King say to you?" "What he
said -- and quite distinctly, for everyone to hear -- was 'Get out of
my way!'" The simpleton was overjoyed; he had heard words actually
spoken by the King, and seen the very man they were spoken to.
(Moderation suggestion: +29602, Insightful)
Purple hum
Assorted cars
Laser lights, you bring
All to prove
You're on the move
and vanishing
- The Cars
(Moderation suggestion: +2109, Insightful)
That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them.
-- Dorothy Parker
(Moderation suggestion: +2026, Insightful)
"In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable."
-- Winston Curchill, of Montgomery
(Moderation suggestion: +29978, Insightful)
"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting for static
cling."
(Moderation suggestion: +2196, Insightful)
The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books!
(Moderation suggestion: +2279, Insightful)
But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who
was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal
education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in
1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of
American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was
invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he
invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant
adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends
electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the
electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant
part) sends it right back to the customer again.
This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch
of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since
very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely.
In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United
States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it
ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate
increases.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
(Moderation suggestion: +30467, Insightful)
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed
on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new
game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the
pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly
along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their
heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn
around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite
direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the
paper reports "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin
colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins
fall over gently onto their backs.
-- Audobon Society Magazine
(Moderation suggestion: +2364, Insightful)
Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the
land He's trying to ignore.
(Moderation suggestion: +2073, Insightful)
Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.
-- George Orwell
(Moderation suggestion: +2367, Insightful)
... please ____yell into keyboard.
Trying to establish voice contact
(Moderation suggestion: +2358, Insightful)
All constants are variables.
(Moderation suggestion: +21177, Insightful)
f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd.
(Moderation suggestion: +2818, Insightful)
QOTD:
"If I could walk that way, I wouldn't need the cologne, now would I?"
(Moderation suggestion: +21345, Insightful)
...
The FALAFEL SANDWICH lands on my HEAD and I become a VEGETARIAN
(Moderation suggestion: +3267, Insightful)
A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat.
(Moderation suggestion: +21511, Insightful)
Self Test for Paranoia:
You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's
your own fault.
(Moderation suggestion: +3570, Insightful)
Old MacDonald had an agricultural real estate tax abatement.
(Moderation suggestion: +21679, Insightful)
...
As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who are
interested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sick
perverted disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask,
"that you make jokes about setting fire to a goat?"
-- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
(Moderation suggestion: +3846, Insightful)
Major premise:
Sixty men can do sixty times as much work as one man.
Minor premise:
A man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds.
Conclusion:
Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Secondary Conclusion:
Do you realize how many holes there would be if people
would just take the time to take the dirt out of them?
(Moderation suggestion: +30776, Insightful)
We are not a loved organization, but we are a respected one.
-- John Fisher
(Moderation suggestion: +2612, Insightful)
GEMINI (May 21 - June 20)
You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you
because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much
for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for
committing incest.
(Moderation suggestion: +2529, Insightful)
You are an excellent tactician, Captain. You let your second in
command attack while you sit and watch for weakness.
-- Khan Noonian Singh, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9
(Moderation suggestion: +31064, Insightful)
Where's th' DAFFY DUCK EXHIBIT??
(Moderation suggestion: +22969, Insightful)
Bride, n.:
A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +2712, Insightful)
Make me look like LINDA RONSTADT again!!
(Moderation suggestion: +31373, Insightful)
Is this going to involve RAW human ecstasy?
(Moderation suggestion: +2795, Insightful)
Sure, Reagan has promised to take senility tests. But what if he
forgets?
(Moderation suggestion: +31460, Insightful)
What does it mean if there is no fortune for you?
(Moderation suggestion: +31338, Insightful)
Who will take care of the world after you're gone?
(Moderation suggestion: +23263, Insightful)
The major sin is the sin of being born.
-- Samuel Beckett
(Moderation suggestion: +31544, Insightful)
First Rule of History:
History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each
other.
(Moderation suggestion: +2879, Insightful)
A non-vegetarian anti-abortionist is a contradiction in terms.
-- Phyllis Schlafly
(Moderation suggestion: +31627, Insightful)
Your fault: core dumped
(Moderation suggestion: +2963, Insightful)
... The FURS never reached ISTANBUL ... You were an EXTRA ... Go home to your WIFE ... She's making
It's OBVIOUS
in the REMAKE of "TOPKAPI"
FRENCH TOAST!
(Moderation suggestion: +31824, Insightful)
Not everything worth doing is worth doing well.
(Moderation suggestion: +23535, Insightful)
Sight is a faculty; seeing is an art.
(Moderation suggestion: +21850, Insightful)
What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I hop into the shower
stall. Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped in I landed
barefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot character
from "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off of
while he showers. Then I hop right back into the stall because our
dog, Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building up
powerful dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into the
bathroom and wants to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, any
one of which -- bear in mind that I am naked and, without my contact
lenses, essentially blind -- could result in the kind of injury where
you have to learn a whole new part if you want to sing the "Messiah",
if you get my drift. Then I hop right back out, because Robert, with
that uncanny sixth sense some children have -- you cannot teach it;
they either have it or they don't -- has chosen exactly that moment to
flush one of the toilets. Perhaps several of them.
-- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
(Moderation suggestion: +22017, Insightful)
You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of
supercomputers.
-- Steven Feiner
(Moderation suggestion: +31711, Insightful)
...
... I have read the INSTRUCTIONS
(Moderation suggestion: +31795, Insightful)
...
On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a
POINT
(Moderation suggestion: +4228, Insightful)
Harriet's Dining Observation:
In every restaurant, the hardness of the butter pats
increases in direct proportion to the softness of the bread.
(Moderation suggestion: +24018, Insightful)
In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom.
It is not always an easy sacrifice.
(Moderation suggestion: +22185, Insightful)
"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to
see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."
-- Shirley Temple
(Moderation suggestion: +4721, Insightful)
"Don't talk to me about disclaimers! I invented disclaimers!"
-- The Censored Hacker
(Moderation suggestion: +22434, Insightful)
"The Good Ship Enterprise" (to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop")
On the good ship Enterprise
Every week there's a new surprise
Where the Romulans lurk
And the Klingons often go berserk.
Yes, the good ship Enterprise
There's excitement anywhere it flies
Where Tribbles play
And Nurse Chapel never gets her way.
See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge,
Mr. Spock is at his side.
The weekly menace, ooh-ooh
It gets fried, scattered far and wide.
It's the good ship Enterprise
Heading out where danger lies
And you live in dread
If you're wearing a shirt that's red.
-- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics
(Moderation suggestion: +5029, Insightful)
Didja' ever have to make up your mind,
Pick up on one and leave the other behind,
It's not often easy, and it's not often kind,
Didja' ever have to make up your mind?
-- Lovin' Spoonful
(Moderation suggestion: +22604, Insightful)
"Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception."
-- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989
(Moderation suggestion: +5315, Insightful)
We were happily married for eight months. Unfortunately, we were married
for four and a half years.
-- Nick Faldo
(Moderation suggestion: +22770, Insightful)
...
The SAME WAVE keeps coming in and COLLAPSING like a rayon MUU-MUU
(Moderation suggestion: +3048, Insightful)
Without followers, evil cannot spread.
-- Spock, "And The Children Shall Lead", stardate 5029.5
(Moderation suggestion: +3131, Insightful)
A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.
-- George Wald
(Moderation suggestion: +32195, Insightful)
To find a friend one must close one eye; to keep him -- two.
-- Norman Douglas
(Moderation suggestion: +3300, Insightful)
"He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions"
(Moderation suggestion: +31890, Insightful)
The entire CHINESE WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM all share ONE personality --
and have since BIRTH!!
(Moderation suggestion: +31973, Insightful)
Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to
criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.
-- D. J. Hicks
(Moderation suggestion: +3217, Insightful)
"I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to
see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph."
-- Shirley Temple
(Moderation suggestion: +24395, Insightful)
... coefficient of
"Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?"
"Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection
relevance to Key of Time: zero."
-- Dr. Who
(Moderation suggestion: +3401, Insightful)
"I didn't know it was impossible when I did it."
(Moderation suggestion: +3484, Insightful)
Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to
be appointed to do the work.
(Moderation suggestion: +32058, Insightful)
Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents
for postage and 30 cents for storage.
-- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial
Post
(Moderation suggestion: +19, Insightful)
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you look playing the game.
(Moderation suggestion: +32141, Insightful)
Used staples are good with SOY SAUCE!
(Moderation suggestion: +24691, Insightful)
Some men are heterosexual, and some are bisexual, and some men don't think
about sex at all... they become lawyers.
-- Woody Allen
(Moderation suggestion: +3568, Insightful)
To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.
(Moderation suggestion: +5592, Insightful)
...
It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along, because
one side considers the other side to be a collection of bloodthirsty idiots
who can't walk and think at the same time, while the other side is naturally
suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and wear long dresses. Oh, say
the wizards, if we're going to be like that, then, what about all those
studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men's Pagan Association?
To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty good allegation from a bunch of
wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on account, can you believe it, of their
mystical power being sort of drained out. Right, say the wizards, that just
about does it, you and your leather posing pouches. Oh yeah, say the the
heroes, why don't you
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
(Moderation suggestion: +3651, Insightful)
Electrocution, n.:
Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements.
(Moderation suggestion: +32239, Insightful)
"God built a compelling sex drive into every creature, no
matter what style of fucking it practiced. He made sex irresistibly
pleasurable, wildly joyous, free from fears. He made it innocent
merriment.
"Needless to say, fucking was an immediate smash hit. Everyone
agreed, from aardvarks to zebras. All the jolly animals -- lions and
lambs, rhinoceroses and gazelles, skylarks and lobsters, even insects,
though most of them fuck only once in a lifetime -- fucked along
innocently and merrily for hundreds of millions of years. Maybe they
were dumb animals, but they knew a good thing when they had one."
-- Alan Sherman, "The Rape of the A*P*E*"
(Moderation suggestion: +22938, Insightful)
Actually, what I'd like is a little toy spaceship!!
(Moderation suggestion: +32322, Insightful)
The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to get
results.
The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toy
problems in order to get results.
The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at toy
problems in order to get results.
(Moderation suggestion: +24982, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks UNIX is intuitive should be forced to write 5000 lines of
code using nothing but vi or emacs. AAAAACK!
(Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands, especially
Emacs.)
(Moderation suggestion: +6077, Insightful)
TCP/IP Slang Glossary, #1:
Gong, n: Medieval term for privy, or what pased for them in that era.
Today used whimsically to describe the aftermath of a bogon attack. Think
of our community as the Galapagos of the English language.
"Vogons may read you bad poetry, but bogons make you study obsolete RFCs."
-- Dave Mills
(Moderation suggestion: +23117, Insightful)
Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law:
When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.
(Moderation suggestion: +6458, Insightful)
Because I do,
Because I do not hope,
Because I do not hope to survive
Injustice from the Palace, death from the air,
Because I do, only do,
I continue...
-- T.S. Pynchon
(Moderation suggestion: +32405, Insightful)
Pittsburgh Driver's Test
(8) Pedestrians are
(a) irrelevant.
(b) communists.
(c) a nuisance.
(d) difficult to clean off the front grille.
The correct answer is (a). Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are
totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely.
(Moderation suggestion: +23287, Insightful)
"Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain."
-- Lily Tomlin
(Moderation suggestion: +6754, Insightful)
Wilner's Observation:
All conversations with a potato should be conducted in private.
(Moderation suggestion: +23467, Insightful)
You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first
and last month in advance.
(Moderation suggestion: +7039, Insightful)
Tempt not a desperate man.
-- William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"
(Moderation suggestion: +23635, Insightful)
It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be
privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to
corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles.
-- George Bernard Shaw
(Moderation suggestion: +433, Insightful)
well-adjusted, adj.:
The ability to play bridge or golf as if they were games.
(Moderation suggestion: +3738, Insightful)
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked
at in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
-- Poul Anderson
(Moderation suggestion: +3822, Insightful)
Of all the words of witch's doom
There's none so bad as which and whom.
The man who kills both which and whom
Will be enshrined in our Who's Whom.
-- Fletcher Knebel
(Moderation suggestion: +820, Insightful)
The only problem with seeing too much is that it makes you insane.
-- Phaedrus
(Moderation suggestion: +32488, Insightful)
Fie for shame, you lascivious, lewd, lecherous, libidinous, lustful,
licentious, dirty bum!!
(Moderation suggestion: +25385, Insightful)
You can't cross a large chasm in two small jumps.
(Moderation suggestion: +3905, Insightful)
Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the
mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the
Boss is reading it.
(Moderation suggestion: +3988, Insightful)
Q: What is "SMOORPLAY"?
A: It's what SMURFS do before they SMUCK, of course!
(Moderation suggestion: +32574, Insightful)
Romulan women are not like Vulcan females. We are not dedicated to
pure logic and the sterility of non-emotion.
-- Romulan Commander, "The Enterprise Incident",
stardate 5027.3
(Moderation suggestion: +4072, Insightful)
Write-Protect Tab, n.:
A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly
left by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error
message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the
momentary inconvenience.
-- Robb Russon
(Moderation suggestion: +32657, Insightful)
Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities!
(Moderation suggestion: +1153, Insightful)
Do you think the "Monkees" should get gas on odd or even days?
(Moderation suggestion: +25774, Insightful)
Johnson's First Law:
When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the
most inconvenient possible time.
(Moderation suggestion: +4159, Insightful)
The joys of love made her human and the agonies of love destroyed her.
-- Spock, "Requiem for Methuselah", stardate 5842.8
(Moderation suggestion: +32741, Insightful)
Manual, n.:
A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a
given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The
information you need in in the others.
-- Ray Simard
(Moderation suggestion: +1448, Insightful)
It's been a business doing pleasure with you.
(Moderation suggestion: +7445, Insightful)
"Morality is one thing. Ratings are everything."
- A Network 23 executive on "Max Headroom"
(Moderation suggestion: +73, Insightful)
Are we THERE yet? My MIND is a SUBMARINE!!
(Moderation suggestion: +26105, Insightful)
When you're bored with yourself, marry, and be bored with someone else.
-- David Pryce-Jones
(Moderation suggestion: +23801, Insightful)
You're at the end of the road again.
(Moderation suggestion: +7833, Insightful)
"...A strange enigma is man!"
"Someone calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested.
"Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarked
that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he
becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what
any one man will do, but you can say with precision what an average number
will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant. So says
the statistician."
-- Sherlock Holmes, "The Sign of Four"
(Moderation suggestion: +179, Insightful)
Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.
(Moderation suggestion: +23967, Insightful)
There was a young man from Bel-Aire
Who was screwing his girl on the stair,
But the banister broke
So he doubled his stroke
And finished her off in mid-air.
(Moderation suggestion: +262, Insightful)
"The Army is a place where you get up early in the morning to be yelled
at by people with short haircuts and tiny brains."
-- Dave Barry
(Moderation suggestion: +8160, Insightful)
A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity.
(Moderation suggestion: +24150, Insightful)
... at the
"I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, but
don't let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age
speed of light."
-- Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk
(Moderation suggestion: +8457, Insightful)
If the future isn't what it used to be, does that mean that the past
is subject to change in times to come?
(Moderation suggestion: +24318, Insightful)
Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
(Moderation suggestion: +8873, Insightful)
"I suppose you expect me to talk."
"No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die."
-- Goldfinger
(Moderation suggestion: +24486, Insightful)
She's genuinely bogus.
(Moderation suggestion: +12884, Insightful)
Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker
with `programming systems', but those are so high level that they
hardly count (and rarely count accurately; precision is for
applications.)
(Moderation suggestion: +18074, Insightful)
"What happened to the crewman?"
"The M-5 computer needed a new power source, the crewman merely got in
the way."
-- Kirk and Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer",
stardate 4731.3.
(Moderation suggestion: +12967, Insightful)
..."
"I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps
the time I found out that M&Ms really *do* melt in your hand
-- Peter Oakley
(Moderation suggestion: +13107, Insightful)
You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old.
(Moderation suggestion: +13215, Insightful)
...
I'll show you MY telex number if you show me YOURS
(Moderation suggestion: +13298, Insightful)
No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.
(Moderation suggestion: +18857, Insightful)
Kleeneness is next to Godelness.
(Moderation suggestion: +4242, Insightful)
... a man who calls
"Dear Mr. Seldes: I cannot remember the exact wording of the statement
to which you allude; but what I meant was that
himself a 100% American and is proud of it, is generally 150% an idiot
politically. But the designations may be good business for war
veterans. Having bled for their country in 1861 and 1918, they have
bled it all they could consequently. And why not?"
-- George Seldes, "The Great Quotations"
(Moderation suggestion: +13385, Insightful)
Forms follow function, and often obliterate it.
(Moderation suggestion: +4326, Insightful)
Do you have exactly what I want in a plaid poindexter bar bat??
(Moderation suggestion: +1873, Insightful)
Things are not as simple as they seems at first.
- Edward Thorp
(Moderation suggestion: +13469, Insightful)
If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a
conclusion.
-- William Baumol
(Moderation suggestion: +4411, Insightful)
This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week.
(Moderation suggestion: +345, Insightful)
... we may not be
But it's real. And if it's real it can be affected
able to break it, but, I'll bet you credits to Navy Beans we can put a
dent in it.
-- deSalle, "Catspaw", stardate 3018.2
(Moderation suggestion: +13552, Insightful)
"The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as
we could with both of them."
-- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
(Moderation suggestion: +4495, Insightful)
... "Gay shlafen, darling." ...
Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep".
Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound
than the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference:
"Go to sleep, you little wretch!"
Obvious, isn't it?
Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start
speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as
long as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all
your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and
so on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committed
individuals and then grow
Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those
signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when
everything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving on
the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs
backwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? I
think not, my friend, I think not.
-- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
(Moderation suggestion: +428, Insightful)
All the world's a VAX,
And all the coders merely butchers;
They have their exits and their entrails;
And one int in his time plays many widths,
His sizeof being _N bytes. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun,
And shining morning face, creeping like slug
Unwillingly to school.
-- A Very Annoyed PDP-11
(Moderation suggestion: +26810, Insightful)
It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either.
-- Kevin White, Mayor of Boston
(Moderation suggestion: +4579, Insightful)
It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our
offense consists in doubting it.
-- Justice Robert H. Jackson
(Moderation suggestion: +2270, Insightful)
"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can*
you believe?!"
-- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]
(Moderation suggestion: +513, Insightful)
"All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right
hands."
-- Saint Patrick
(Moderation suggestion: +596, Insightful)
No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.
(Moderation suggestion: +4662, Insightful)
Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on
people.
-- W. C. Fields
(Moderation suggestion: +27209, Insightful)
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles
as if she laid an asteroid.
-- Mark Twain
(Moderation suggestion: +4747, Insightful)
You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a
taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a
minute and a huff.
-- Groucho Marx
(Moderation suggestion: +2573, Insightful)
"It could be that Walter's horse has wings" does not imply that there is
any such animal as Walter's horse, only that there could be; but "Walter's
horse is a thing which could have wings" does imply Walter's horse's
existence. But the conjunction "Walter's horse exists, and it could be
that Walter's horse has wings" still does not imply "Walter's horse is a
thing that could have wings", for perhaps it can only be that Walter's
horse has wings by Walter having a different horse. Nor does "Walter's
horse is a thing which could have wings" conversely imply "It could be that
Walter's horse has wings"; for it might be that Walter's horse could only
have wings by not being Walter's horse.
I would deny, though, that the formula [Necessarily if some x has property P
then some x has property P] expresses a logical law, since P(x) could stand
for, let us say "x is a better logician than I am", and the statement "It is
necessary that if someone is a better logician than I am then someone is a
better logician than I am" is false because there need not have been any me.
-- A.N. Prior, "Time and Modality"
(Moderation suggestion: +9273, Insightful)
"I'm not a god, I was misquoted."
-- Lister, Red Dwarf
(Moderation suggestion: +679, Insightful)
How do I get HOME?
(Moderation suggestion: +24654, Insightful)
Do something unusual today. Pay a bill.
(Moderation suggestion: +9568, Insightful)
Conformity is the refuge of the unimaginative.
(Moderation suggestion: +762, Insightful)
Q: Why do ducks have flat feet?
A: To stamp out forest fires.
Q: Why do elephants have flat feet?
A: To stamp out flaming ducks.
(Moderation suggestion: +27502, Insightful)
Advice from an old carpenter: measure twice, saw once.
(Moderation suggestion: +24837, Insightful)
"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and
if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"
-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"
(Moderation suggestion: +847, Insightful)
"Life to you is a bold and dashing responsibility"
-- a Mary Chung's fortune cookie
(Moderation suggestion: +9842, Insightful)
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not
far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel
is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
-- R.A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"
(Moderation suggestion: +25003, Insightful)
Bride, n.:
A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +10219, Insightful)
What they said:
What they meant:
"You will be fortunate if you can get him to work for you."
(We certainly never succeeded.)
There is no other employee with whom I can adequately compare him.
(Well, our rats aren't really employees...)
"Success will never spoil him."
(Well, at least not MUCH more.)
"One usually comes away from him with a good feeling."
(And such a sigh of relief.)
"His dissertation is the sort of work you don't expect to see these days;
in it he has definitely demonstrated his complete capabilities."
(And his IQ, as well.)
"He should go far."
(The farther the better.)
"He will take full advantage of his staff."
(He even has one of them mowing his lawn after work.)
(Moderation suggestion: +25171, Insightful)
No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether
she will or will not be a mother.
-- Margaret H. Sanger
(Moderation suggestion: +10675, Insightful)
If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.
-- John Galsworthy
(Moderation suggestion: +25337, Insightful)
Captain Penny's Law:
You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of
the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.
(Moderation suggestion: +19201, Insightful)
Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's
beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning
them at birth.
(Moderation suggestion: +13660, Insightful)
"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."
(Moderation suggestion: +13747, Insightful)
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And
vice versa.
(Moderation suggestion: +19488, Insightful)
It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged
to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the
youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles.
-- George Bernard Shaw
(Moderation suggestion: +19902, Insightful)
Your mode of life will be changed for the better because of good news soon.
(Moderation suggestion: +14015, Insightful)
New York's got the ways and means;
Just won't let you be.
-- The Grateful Dead
(Moderation suggestion: +20301, Insightful)
Boycott meat -- suck your thumb.
(Moderation suggestion: +4831, Insightful)
One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
(Moderation suggestion: +2853, Insightful)
Tell me what to think!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +14098, Insightful)
The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and other
subversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding up
every bird watcher in the country.
-- John Mitchell, Atty. General 1969-1972
(Moderation suggestion: +14183, Insightful)
An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you
really care to know.
(Moderation suggestion: +4931, Insightful)
"He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions"
(Moderation suggestion: +5014, Insightful)
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.
-- Gloria Steinem
(Moderation suggestion: +930, Insightful)
Republicans raise dahlias, Dalmatians and eyebrows.
Democrats raise Airedales, kids and taxes.
Democrats eat the fish they catch.
Republicans hang them on the wall.
Republican boys date Democratic girls. They plan to marry Republican
girls, but feel they're entitled to a little fun first.
Democrats make up plans and then do something else.
Republicans follow the plans their grandfathers made.
Republicans consume three-fourths of the rutabaga produced in the USA.
The remainder is thrown out.
Republicans sleep in twin beds -- some even in separate rooms.
That is why there are more Democrats.
-- The Official Rules, as compiled by Paul Dickson
(Moderation suggestion: +14266, Insightful)
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
-- H. H. Williams
(Moderation suggestion: +3235, Insightful)
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
(Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, in comp.os.linux.misc, on X interfaces.)
(Moderation suggestion: +27780, Insightful)
Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd
be irresponsible, too.
-- Lichty & Wagner
(Moderation suggestion: +1031, Insightful)
When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity:
for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when
your boss is away and you get twice as much done.
-- Daniel B. Luten
(Moderation suggestion: +5097, Insightful)
Somewhere in suburban Honolulu, an unemployed bellhop is whipping up a
batch of illegal psilocybin chop suey!!
(Moderation suggestion: +1114, Insightful)
(null cookie; hope that's ok)
(Moderation suggestion: +5182, Insightful)
Answers to Last Fortune's Questions:
(1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark).
(2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle.
(3) I don't know.
(4) Who cares?
(5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk,
Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5.
(6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my
book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and
bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of
Papyrus Books).
(Moderation suggestion: +28157, Insightful)
Those who hate and fight must stop themselves -- otherwise it is not stopped.
-- Spock, "Day of the Dove", stardate unknown
(Moderation suggestion: +5266, Insightful)
... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become so
In America today
sophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow. All
those who think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where the
devil gets her pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing up
as a human sperm, please raise your hands. Thank you.
-- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
(Moderation suggestion: +3697, Insightful)
The, uh, snowy mountains are like really cold, eh?
And the, um, plains stretch out like my moms girdle, eh?
There's lotsa beers and doughnuts for everyone, eh?
So the last one to be peaceful and everything is a big idiot,
Eh?
So shut yer face up and dry yer mucklucks by the fire, eh?
And dream about girls with their high beams on, eh?
They may be cold, but that's okay! Beer's better that way!
Eh?
-- A, like, Tribute to the Great White North, eh?
Beauty!
(Moderation suggestion: +1275, Insightful)
HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science.
SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their ___OWN brains.
-- Walt Kelley
(Moderation suggestion: +5349, Insightful)
It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for
being right.
(Moderation suggestion: +1200, Insightful)
"The last time somebody said, `I find I can write much better with a
word processor.', I replied, `They used to say the same thing about
drugs.'
-- Roy Blount, Jr.
(Moderation suggestion: +28619, Insightful)
"I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd
eat it, and I just hate it."
-- Clarence Darrow
(Moderation suggestion: +1449, Insightful)
One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they
never have to stop and answer the phone.
(Moderation suggestion: +1366, Insightful)
"This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT
DOG."
-- Bob Violence
(Moderation suggestion: +20604, Insightful)
Q: What's the contour integral around Western Europe?
A: Zero, because all the Poles are in Eastern Europe!
Addendum: Actually, there ARE some Poles in Western Europe, but they
are removable!
Q: An English mathematician (I forgot who) was asked by his
very religious colleague: Do you believe in one God?
A: Yes, up to isomorphism!
Q: What is a compact city?
A: It's a city that can be guarded by finitely many near-sighted
policemen!
-- Peter Lax
(Moderation suggestion: +14437, Insightful)
...
over in west Philadelphia a puppy is vomiting
(Moderation suggestion: +20878, Insightful)
Art is anything you can get away with.
-- Marshall McLuhan.
(Moderation suggestion: +14523, Insightful)
"I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from
man."
(Moderation suggestion: +21260, Insightful)
We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always respect
their good judgement.
(Moderation suggestion: +13842, Insightful)
Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done,
is it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written
in four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and
pretense. Watch for novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmer),
defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and the
absolutely perfect future.
-- Amrom Katz
(Moderation suggestion: +5432, Insightful)
Another Glitch in the Call
------- ------ -- --- ----
(Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.)
We don't need no indirection
We don't need no flow control
No data typing or declarations
Did you leave the lists alone?
Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
Chorus:
All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
(Moderation suggestion: +14777, Insightful)
You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old.
(Moderation suggestion: +21740, Insightful)
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is
good for dandruff.
-- Peter de Vries
(Moderation suggestion: +4024, Insightful)
"I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path."
-- Ronald Mabbitt
(Moderation suggestion: +5516, Insightful)
Vegetarians for oral sex -- "The only meat that's fit to eat"
(Moderation suggestion: +14694, Insightful)
Bagbiter:
1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually
intermittently. 2. adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This
bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar." Usage: verges on
obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting the
bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS,
CHOMPER, CHOMPING.
(Moderation suggestion: +28949, Insightful)
Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face.
(Moderation suggestion: +14606, Insightful)
Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a
great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to
the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of
life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But
one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is
going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I
shall die of boredom."
The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that
current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the
rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"
But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go,
and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current
lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried,
"See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the
Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current
said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us
free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this
adventure.
But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to
the rocks, making legends of a Saviour.
(Moderation suggestion: +5600, Insightful)
It don't mean a THING if you ain't got that SWING!!
(Moderation suggestion: +4313, Insightful)
Scientists still know less about what attracts men than they do about
what attracts mosquitoes.
-- Dr. Joyce Brothers,
"What Every Woman Should Know About Men"
(Moderation suggestion: +1532, Insightful)
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing
it.
-- Tallulah Bankhead
(Moderation suggestion: +1615, Insightful)
I have a very good DENTAL PLAN. Thank you.
(Moderation suggestion: +5697, Insightful)
You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close to
metal objects which are not fastened down.
(Moderation suggestion: +29248, Insightful)
The only thing worse than X Windows: (X Windows) - X
(Moderation suggestion: +5781, Insightful)
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe
in God.
(Moderation suggestion: +4590, Insightful)
Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California have
more lawyers?
New Jersey had first choice.
(Moderation suggestion: +1715, Insightful)
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is
lightly greased."
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
(Moderation suggestion: +5866, Insightful)
"What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty
teenager asked her mother.
"Encouragement, dear," she replied.
(Moderation suggestion: +5952, Insightful)
You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form.
The short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified",
which means it is designed for people who need the help of a Sears
tax-preparation expert to distinguish between their first and last
names. Here's the complete text:
"(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT)
"(2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT)
"(3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to
send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF
THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME)
household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way
you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST
NAME), that it pays to file the short form!"
The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of your
money. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the long
form.
-- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
(Moderation suggestion: +1798, Insightful)
e ucylphenylalanylala nylglutamin-u tamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprol yl-l prolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglu-u cylisoleucylglutamylalanyl-c ylprolylphenylala-u cylgluta-- a lanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyll ysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleu-u cylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosyla lanylasparaginylleucylva-i nyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamy lphenylalanyltyro-l utamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylser ylvalylleu-y lglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylph e-r ginylhistidylasparaginylvalylala-o lylprolylaspartylalanylas-l alanylseryltyrosyl-l anylglycyl-l leu-
n ylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutam inylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylse-y lprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylala nylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl-a nylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylser ylalanylisoleucylvalylly-l utamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginyliso leucylglutamylpro-y lalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylala nylvalyl-a nylthreonylarginylserine, n.:
methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylseryll
ylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylgl
phenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylasparty
t aminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylle
glycylala nylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleu
nylserylaspartylpr olylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisole
minylasparaginylalanylthreo nylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylgly
cylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutamin ylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionyl-
leucyl
cylprolylisole
lylphenylalanylasparag
sylalanylglutaminylcysteinylg
cylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylval
nylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucyla
n ylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylpr
partylaspa rtylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucy
glycylarginylglyc yltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginyla
valylthreonylglycylalanyl glutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylproly
cylasparaginylhistidylleucylvaly lalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagi-
rylalan
glycylalanylal
sylisoleucylisoleucylg
lylglutamyllysylmethionylleuc
glutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylal
The chemical name for tryptophan synthetase A protein, a
1,913-letter enzyme with 267 amino acids.
-- Mrs. Bryne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and
(Moderation suggestion: +29521, Insightful)
That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee.
(Moderation suggestion: +1881, Insightful)
Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American:
The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the
cork makes when it is popped.
(Moderation suggestion: +1964, Insightful)
Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.
(Moderation suggestion: +30004, Insightful)
Q: Why do people who live near Niagara Falls have flat foreheads?
A: Because every morning they wake up thinking "What *is* that noise?
Oh, right, *of course*!
(Moderation suggestion: +14959, Insightful)
"God is big, so don't fuck with him."
(Moderation suggestion: +15042, Insightful)
Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
-- Oscar Levant
(Moderation suggestion: +22047, Insightful)
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
-- Richard Bach, "Illusions"
(Moderation suggestion: +15125, Insightful)
Our documentation manager was showing her two year old son around the
office. He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we
were both holding bags of popcorn. We were both holding bottles of
juice. But only *__he* had a lollipop.
He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?"
Her reply:
"He can have a lollipop any time he wants to. That's what it
means to be a programmer."
(Moderation suggestion: +10383, Insightful)
If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel
in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary
qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted.
-- Marguerite Emmons
(Moderation suggestion: +14155, Insightful)
We have not inherited the earth from our parents, we've borrowed it from
our children.
(Moderation suggestion: +15209, Insightful)
I own seven-eighths of all the artists in downtown Burbank!
(Moderation suggestion: +10466, Insightful)
Self Test for Paranoia:
You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's
your own fault.
(Moderation suggestion: +15466, Insightful)
Speaking of Godzilla and other things that convey horror:
With a purposeful grimace and a Mongo-like flair
He throws the spinning disk drives in the air!
And he picks up a Vax and he throws it back down
As he wades through the lab making terrible sounds!
Helpless users with projects due
Scream "My God!" as he stomps on the tape drives, too!
Oh, no! He says Unix runs too slow! Go, go, DECzilla!
Oh, yes! He's gonna bring up VMS! Go, go, DECzilla!"
* VMS is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation
* DECzilla is a trademark of Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death, Inc.
-- Curtis Jackson
(Moderation suggestion: +22651, Insightful)
My experience with government is when things are non-controversial, beautifully
co-ordinated and all the rest, it must be that not much is going on.
-- J.F. Kennedy
(Moderation suggestion: +5076, Insightful)
Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.
(Moderation suggestion: +10550, Insightful)
"It runs like _x, where _x is something unsavory"
-- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435
(Moderation suggestion: +15664, Insightful)
One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your
seat to another passenger. This may seem callous, but it is the best
way, really. If one passenger were to give a seat to someone who
fainted in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would become
disoriented and imagine they were in Topeka, Kansas.
(Moderation suggestion: +10637, Insightful)
PUNK ROCK!! DISCO DUCK!! BIRTH CONTROL!!
(Moderation suggestion: +6037, Insightful)
Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a
hole in his head.
(Moderation suggestion: +14449, Insightful)
Politics -- the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign
funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.
-- Oscar Ameringer
(Moderation suggestion: +6134, Insightful)
"If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem."
-- C. Durance, Computer Science 234
(Moderation suggestion: +15581, Insightful)
Life is like a penis: when it's soft you can't beat it, and when it's
hard you get fucked.
(Moderation suggestion: +5439, Insightful)
Westheimer's Discovery:
A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a
couple of hours in the library.
(Moderation suggestion: +10721, Insightful)
This fortune is false.
(Moderation suggestion: +2049, Insightful)
All the world's a VAX,
And all the coders merely butchers;
They have their exits and their entrails;
And one int in his time plays many widths,
His sizeof being _N bytes. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun,
And shining morning face, creeping like slug
Unwillingly to school.
-- A Very Annoyed PDP-11
(Moderation suggestion: +15383, Insightful)
Is this going to involve RAW human ecstasy?
(Moderation suggestion: +10804, Insightful)
There was a young girl named Sapphire
Who succumbed to her lover's desire.
She said, "It's a sin,
But now that it's in,
Could you shove it a few inches higher?"
(Moderation suggestion: +6254, Insightful)
Am I SHOPLIFTING?
(Moderation suggestion: +2132, Insightful)
A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it
adds up to be real money.
-- Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen
(Moderation suggestion: +6339, Insightful)
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
(Moderation suggestion: +2216, Insightful)
TONY RANDALL! Is YOUR life a PATIO of FUN??
(Moderation suggestion: +5737, Insightful)
Why, when no honest man will deny in private that every ultimate problem is
wrapped in the profoundest mystery, do honest men proclaim in pulpits
that unhesitating certainty is the duty of the most foolish and ignorant?
Is it not a spectacle to make the angels laugh? We are a company of
ignorant beings, feeling our way through mists and darkness, learning only
be incessantly repeated blunders, obtaining a glimmering of truth by
falling into every conceivable error, dimly discerning light enough for
our daily needs, but hopelessly differing whenever we attempt to describe
the ultimate origin or end of our paths; and yet, when one of us ventures
to declare that we don't know the map of the universe as well as the map
of our infintesimal parish, he is hooted, reviled, and perhaps told that
he will be damned to all eternity for his faithlessness...
- Leslie Stephen, "An agnostic's Apology", Fortnightly Review, 1876
(Moderation suggestion: +14726, Insightful)
All work and no pay makes a housewife.
(Moderation suggestion: +30366, Insightful)
I love you more than anything in this world. I don't expect that will last.
-- Elvis Costello
(Moderation suggestion: +6437, Insightful)
Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring.
(Moderation suggestion: +10898, Insightful)
Communists do it without class.
(Moderation suggestion: +6520, Insightful)
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
-- Albert Einstein
(Moderation suggestion: +2301, Insightful)
Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis.
(Moderation suggestion: +6025, Insightful)
Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue
ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature.
This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays.
-- Robert Parker, quoted in "Murder Ink", ed. D. Wynn
(Moderation suggestion: +2386, Insightful)
"And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?"
asked the father of his little son.
"Diet."
(Moderation suggestion: +2472, Insightful)
Love does not make the world go around, just up and down a bit.
(Moderation suggestion: +30666, Insightful)
A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
And the Master answered:
It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City
to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns
have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
And that is Fate? said the priest.
Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know
what Freight was too.
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
(Moderation suggestion: +2555, Insightful)
... They further
British Israelites:
The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of
Britain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by
Sargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C.
believe that the future can be foretold by the measurements of the
Great Pyramid, which probably means it will be big and yellow and in
the hand of the Arabs. They also believe that if you sleep with your
head under the pillow a fairy will come and take all your teeth.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
(Moderation suggestion: +30954, Insightful)
What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of
us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were,
long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that
impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get
enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till
at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he look
peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars
and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in
life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp
before they were five years old.
-- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels"
(Moderation suggestion: +23148, Insightful)
Did you hear that there's a group of South American Indians that worship
the number zero?
Is nothing sacred?
(Moderation suggestion: +15765, Insightful)
Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly
as one man.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds.
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +15851, Insightful)
The optimum committee has no members.
-- Norman Augustine
(Moderation suggestion: +23516, Insightful)
Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack.
(Moderation suggestion: +10981, Insightful)
Goto, n.:
A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers
to complain about unstructured programmers.
-- Ray Simard
(Moderation suggestion: +15211, Insightful)
Imbesi's Law with Freeman's Extension:
In order for something to become clean, something else must
become dirty; but you can get everything dirty without getting
anything clean.
(Moderation suggestion: +15947, Insightful)
Magnocartic, adj.:
Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping
carts.
-- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
(Moderation suggestion: +16030, Insightful)
The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any
use to oneself.
-- Oscar Wilde
(Moderation suggestion: +11067, Insightful)
Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.
(Moderation suggestion: +23821, Insightful)
College:
The fountains of knowledge, where everyone goes to drink.
(Moderation suggestion: +15592, Insightful)
... only "FROLICSOME" ... and in need of DENTAL WORK ... in PAIN!!!
Not SENSUOUS
(Moderation suggestion: +16130, Insightful)
If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women
you've got in the house.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
(Moderation suggestion: +11235, Insightful)
American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective
employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for
employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference
between the men's room and the women's room without having little
pictures on the doors.
-- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister"
(Moderation suggestion: +16213, Insightful)
"Water? Never touch the stuff! Fish fuck in it."
-- W. C. Fields
(Moderation suggestion: +11318, Insightful)
"To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System"
(Moderation suggestion: +2638, Insightful)
George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to
have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
-- Ashley Cooper
(Moderation suggestion: +24091, Insightful)
to be nobody but yourself in a world
which is doing its best night and day
to make you like everybody else
means to fight the hardest battle
any human being can fight and
never stop fighting.
-- e.e. cummings
(Moderation suggestion: +15902, Insightful)
The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first
half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and
pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who
hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice
for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time
during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it
but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know.
-- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
(Moderation suggestion: +2723, Insightful)
Are you a turtle?
(Moderation suggestion: +31359, Insightful)
My love runs by like a day in June,
And he makes no friends of sorrows.
He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
In the pathway or the morrows.
He'll live his days where the sunbeams start
Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
My own dear love, he is all my heart --
And I wish somebody'd shoot him.
-- Dorothy Parker, part 3
(Moderation suggestion: +11418, Insightful)
"It's not just a computer -- it's your ass."
-- Cal Keegan
(Moderation suggestion: +16191, Insightful)
Q: Why do ducks have big flat feet?
A: To stamp out forest fires.
Q: Why do elephants have big flat feet?
A: To stamp out flaming ducks.
(Moderation suggestion: +2806, Insightful)
How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're
on.
(Moderation suggestion: +11584, Insightful)
A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.
(Moderation suggestion: +2889, Insightful)
Tact, n.:
The unsaid part of what you're thinking.
(Moderation suggestion: +31753, Insightful)
I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park
there's nothing else to do.
-- Lenny Bruce
(Moderation suggestion: +2972, Insightful)
"Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored."
-- George Saunders' dying words
(Moderation suggestion: +3055, Insightful)
In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death -- even
vegetarians.
-- Spock, "Wolf in the Fold", stardate 3615.4
(Moderation suggestion: +32077, Insightful)
Certainly the game is rigged.
Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.
-- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"
(Moderation suggestion: +3138, Insightful)
First Law of Procrastination:
Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility
for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed
the deadline).
(Moderation suggestion: +16298, Insightful)
Our way is peace.
-- Septimus, the Son Worshiper, "Bread and Circuses",
stardate 4040.7.
(Moderation suggestion: +16382, Insightful)
Simon's Law:
Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.
(Moderation suggestion: +24494, Insightful)
Rules for driving in New York:
(1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal.
(2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers on.
(3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the
intersection.
(Moderation suggestion: +16470, Insightful)
...
... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with
the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls
asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
(Moderation suggestion: +11668, Insightful)
What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.
(Moderation suggestion: +16599, Insightful)
Trying to get an education here is like trying to get a drink from a fire hose.
(Moderation suggestion: +16624, Insightful)
I love this fucking University, and this University loves fucking me.
(Moderation suggestion: +24891, Insightful)
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when
you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
-- Poul Anderson
(Moderation suggestion: +11753, Insightful)
Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax.
(Moderation suggestion: +16759, Insightful)
...
Now I am depressed
(Moderation suggestion: +11836, Insightful)
Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing.
-- Walt Kelly
(Moderation suggestion: +16978, Insightful)
These days the necessities of life cost you about three times what they
used to, and half the time they aren't even fit to drink.
(Moderation suggestion: +16848, Insightful)
In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi,
junior, what are you up to?"
"I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the
rabbit.
"Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!"
"Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the
rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied
expression on his face.
Comes along a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?"
"I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits
devour wolves."
"Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?"
"Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes
out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw.
Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody
should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion sitting
next to some bloody and furry remnants of the wolf and the fox.
The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important --
it's your PhD advisor that really counts.
(Moderation suggestion: +11920, Insightful)
10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.
(Moderation suggestion: +25225, Insightful)
The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to
cringe.
(Moderation suggestion: +16950, Insightful)
The First Rule of Program Optimization:
Don't do it.
The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!):
Don't do it yet.
-- Michael Jackson
(Moderation suggestion: +3238, Insightful)
If I pull this SWITCH I'll be RITA HAYWORTH!! Or a SCIENTOLOGIST!
(Moderation suggestion: +17302, Insightful)
"What shall we do?" said Twoflower.
"Panic?" said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was
the best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people
faced with hungry sabretoothed tigers could be divided very simply into
those who panicked and those who stood there saying "What a magnificent
brute!" and "Here, pussy."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
(Moderation suggestion: +32361, Insightful)
You're working under a slight handicap. You happen to be human.
(Moderation suggestion: +12103, Insightful)
"The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt Not
Compute' -- I forget which."
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
(Moderation suggestion: +17585, Insightful)
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.
-- Otto Von Bismarck
(Moderation suggestion: +3321, Insightful)
Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are
so long they can't afford the disk space.
(Moderation suggestion: +3405, Insightful)
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a custom
whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary,
nohow.
(Moderation suggestion: +12269, Insightful)
-- Gifts for Children --
This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children,
because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months
and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday-
morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children
exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If
your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You
Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it
might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe
me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child
who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift.
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
(Moderation suggestion: +12, Insightful)
The Third Law of Photography:
If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined
when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of
the dark leaks out.
(Moderation suggestion: +3490, Insightful)
Cold, adj.:
When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions.
(Moderation suggestion: +3574, Insightful)
The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books!
(Moderation suggestion: +421, Insightful)
The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken.
(Moderation suggestion: +3669, Insightful)
Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan.
(Moderation suggestion: +3753, Insightful)
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
-- Oscar Wilde
(Moderation suggestion: +25839, Insightful)
In 1962, you could buy a pair of SHARKSKIN SLACKS, with a "Continental
Belt," for $10.99!!
(Moderation suggestion: +25922, Insightful)
"I drink to make other people interesting."
-- George Jean Nathan
(Moderation suggestion: +9393, Insightful)
QOTD:
I looked out my window, and saw Kyle Pettys' car upside down,
then I thought 'One of us is in real trouble'.
-- Davey Allison, on a 150 m.p.h. crash
(Moderation suggestion: +26006, Insightful)
Should I get locked in the PRINCICAL'S OFFICE today -- or have a
VASECTOMY??
(Moderation suggestion: +26090, Insightful)
You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start getting
incredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail.
Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable
to find a way to damage them. They last forever, largely because
nobody ever eats them. In fact, many smart people save the fruitcakes
they receive and send them back to the original givers the next year;
some fruitcakes have been passed back and forth for hundreds of years.
The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, then
pound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wear
safety glasses.
-- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
(Moderation suggestion: +26176, Insightful)
Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
(Moderation suggestion: +9783, Insightful)
How's it going in those MODULAR LOVE UNITS??
(Moderation suggestion: +17034, Insightful)
Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
-- Ogden Nash
(Moderation suggestion: +26259, Insightful)
"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of
that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put
more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it
might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be
otherwise.'"
-- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"
(Moderation suggestion: +25514, Insightful)
Famous, adj.:
Conspicuously miserable.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +10177, Insightful)
The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is cursed.
(Moderation suggestion: +17118, Insightful)
Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a
big store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at
reasonable prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with that, let's
build a home center. And before long home centers were springing up
like crabgrass all over the United States.
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
(Moderation suggestion: +18000, Insightful)
You can now buy more gates with less specifications than at any other time
in history.
-- Kenneth Parker
(Moderation suggestion: +17202, Insightful)
You do not have mail.
(Moderation suggestion: +26346, Insightful)
It's OKAY -- I'm an INTELLECTUAL, too.
(Moderation suggestion: +25927, Insightful)
If you're crossing the nation in a covered wagon, it's better to have four
strong oxen than 100 chickens. Chickens are OK but we can't make them work
together yet.
-- Ross Bott, Pyramid U.S., on multiprocessors at AUUGM '89.
(Moderation suggestion: +12439, Insightful)
Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off of the TV screen.
(Moderation suggestion: +18397, Insightful)
Interfere? Of course we should interfere! Always do what you're
best at, that's what I say.
-- Doctor Who
(Moderation suggestion: +17287, Insightful)
Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no
government at all.
(Moderation suggestion: +12617, Insightful)
Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate
and captain of your soul.
(Moderation suggestion: +17491, Insightful)
Some primal termite knocked on wood.
And tasted it, and found it good.
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.
-- Ogden Nash
(Moderation suggestion: +26350, Insightful)
"The jig's up, Elman."
"Which jig?"
-- Jeff Elman
(Moderation suggestion: +18697, Insightful)
Stress has been pinpointed as a major cause of illness. To avoid overload
and burnout, keep stress out of your life. Give it to others instead. Learn
the "Gaslight" treatment, the "Are you talking to me?" technique, and the
"Do you feel okay? You look pale." approach. Start with negotiation and
implication. Advance to manipulation and humiliation. Above all, relax
and have a nice day.
(Moderation suggestion: +17610, Insightful)
An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you
really care to know.
(Moderation suggestion: +742, Insightful)
AmigaDOS Beer: The company has gone out of business, but their recipe has
been picked up by some weird German company, so now this beer will be an
import. This beer never really sold very well because the original
manufacturer didn't understand marketing. Like Unix Beer, AmigaDOS Beer
fans are an extremely loyal and loud group. It originally came in a
16-oz. can, but now comes in 32-oz. cans too. When this can was
originally introduced, it appeared flashy and colorful, but the design
hasn't changed much over the years, so it appears dated now. Critics of
this beer claim that it is only meant for watching TV anyway.
(Moderation suggestion: +17778, Insightful)
In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carrying
of concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to public
view."
(Moderation suggestion: +12863, Insightful)
Unnamed Law:
If it happens, it must be possible.
(Moderation suggestion: +12788, Insightful)
No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether
she will or will not be a mother.
-- Margaret H. Sanger
(Moderation suggestion: +18977, Insightful)
Mummy dust to make me old;
To shroud my clothes, the black of night;
To age my voice, an old hag's cackle;
To whiten my hair, a scream of fright;
A blast of wind to fan my hate;
A thunderbolt to mix it well --
Now begin thy magic spell!
-- Walter Disney, "Snow White"
(Moderation suggestion: +3837, Insightful)
Lots of people drink from the wrong bottle sometimes.
-- Edith Keeler, "The City on the Edge of Forever",
stardate unknown
(Moderation suggestion: +3935, Insightful)
"I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've
always worked for me."
-- Hunter S. Thompson
(Moderation suggestion: +13052, Insightful)
..." No, wait. ..." No, wait. (Sound of reference book thudding onto
I disapprove of the F-word, not because it's dirty, but because
we use it as a substitute for thoughtful insults, and it frequently
leads to violence. What we ought to do, when we anger each other, say,
in traffic, is exchange phone numbers, so that later on, when we've had
time to think of witty and learned insults or look them up in the
library, we could call each other up:
You: Hello? Bob?
Bob: Yes?
You: This is Ed. Remember? The person whose parking space you
took last Thursday? Outside of Sears?
Bob: Oh yes! Sure! How are you, Ed?
You: Fine, thanks. Listen, Bob, the reason I'm calling is:
"Madam, you may be drunk, but I am ugly, and
I mean: "you may be ugly, but I am Winston Churchill
and
the floor.) S-word. Excuse me. Look, Bob, I'm going to
have to get back to you.
Bob: Fine.
-- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
(Moderation suggestion: +19356, Insightful)
Programmers used to batch environments may find it hard to live without
giant listings; we would find it hard to use them.
-- D.M. Ritchie
(Moderation suggestion: +1001, Insightful)
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I should die before I wake,
I'll cry in anguish, "Mistake!! Mistake!!"
(Moderation suggestion: +4019, Insightful)
Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history,
dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitive
man picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into the
air, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the first
primitive umpire.
What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good as
mine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers.
-- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"
(Moderation suggestion: +4102, Insightful)
I'm rated PG-34!!
(Moderation suggestion: +4185, Insightful)
Katz' Law:
Man and nations will act rationally when all other
possibilities have been exhausted.
(Moderation suggestion: +1391, Insightful)
Yeah, that's me, Tracer Bullet. I've got eight slugs in me. One's lead,
the rest bourbon. The drink packs a wallop, and I pack a revolver. I'm
a private eye.
-- "Calvin & Hobbes"
(Moderation suggestion: +4270, Insightful)
You have just returned from a trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin in January
and tell your boss that nobody but whores and football players live
there. He mentions that his wife is from Green Bay. You:
(a) Pretend you are suffering from amnesia and don't remember your
name.
(b) Ask what position she played.
(c) Ask if she is still working the streets.
(Moderation suggestion: +4353, Insightful)
Your lucky number has been disconnected.
(Moderation suggestion: +26429, Insightful)
If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.
(Moderation suggestion: +10505, Insightful)
"Oh, yes. The important thing about having lots of things to remember is
that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you
see? You've got to stop. You haven't really been anywhere until you've got
back home. I think that's what I mean."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
(Moderation suggestion: +26513, Insightful)
Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get
another chance later on.
(Moderation suggestion: +26596, Insightful)
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
(Moderation suggestion: +26700, Insightful)
Those who can't write, write manuals.
(Moderation suggestion: +10820, Insightful)
Since I hurt my pendulum
My life is all erratic.
My parrot who was cordial
Is now transmitting static.
The carpet died, a palm collapsed,
The cat keeps doing poo.
The only thing that keeps me sane
Is talking to my shoe.
-- My Shoe
(Moderation suggestion: +26783, Insightful)
Expert, n.:
Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides.
(Moderation suggestion: +17695, Insightful)
Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.
(Moderation suggestion: +11234, Insightful)
Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!
(Moderation suggestion: +26646, Insightful)
If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane.
(Moderation suggestion: +26920, Insightful)
Billy: Mom, you know that vase you said was handed down from
generation to generation?
Mom: Yes?
Billy: Well, this generation dropped it.
(Moderation suggestion: +26867, Insightful)
fortune's Contribution of the Month to the Animal Rights Debate:
I'll stay out of animals' way if they'll stay out of mine.
"Hey you, get off my plate"
-- Roger Midnight
(Moderation suggestion: +13138, Insightful)
Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas"
until you are told that those rooms are "punched out". Once punched
out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas,
and such.
-- N. Meyrowitz
(Moderation suggestion: +27035, Insightful)
The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show
off this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his
next hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the
duck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the
duck and returned it to his master.
"Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly.
"Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't
swim."
(Moderation suggestion: +17891, Insightful)
The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange
protein -- it rejects it.
-- P. Medawar
(Moderation suggestion: +18022, Insightful)
...
Q: How do you tell if an Elephant has been making love in your
backyard?
A: If all your trashcan liners are missing
(Moderation suggestion: +13221, Insightful)
"There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial:
both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed to
talk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed him
during the trial."
-- David Letterman
(Moderation suggestion: +18117, Insightful)
I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did.
(Moderation suggestion: +19817, Insightful)
But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the
system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed,
analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.
-- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers"
(Moderation suggestion: +13304, Insightful)
Go 'way! You're bothering me!
(Moderation suggestion: +27304, Insightful)
Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he
knows what it is.
(Moderation suggestion: +18202, Insightful)
Vulcans worship peace above all.
-- McCoy, "Return to Tomorrow", stardate 4768.3
(Moderation suggestion: +27761, Insightful)
Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire.
(Moderation suggestion: +13387, Insightful)
I'm rated PG-34!!
(Moderation suggestion: +20132, Insightful)
When all else fails, EAT!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +18287, Insightful)
Politics is like coaching a football team. you have to be smart enough
to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.
(Moderation suggestion: +13470, Insightful)
"I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer."
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
(Moderation suggestion: +13553, Insightful)
If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If
the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the
bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will
exceed all expectations.
-- Reverend Chichester
(Moderation suggestion: +20417, Insightful)
Normally our rules are rigid; we tend to discretion, if for no other reason
than self-protection. We never recommend any of our graduates, although we
cheerfully provide information as to those who have failed their courses.
-- Jack Vance, "Freitzke's Turn"
(Moderation suggestion: +13640, Insightful)
....
THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAM
If you like the fortune program, why not support it now with your
contribution of a pithy fortune, clean or obscene? We cannot continue
without your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users are
contributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. We
can't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less money
for fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up the
difference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnight
and 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to
"fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now before
you forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week.
Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute
30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "The
Fortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 or
more, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug
(Moderation suggestion: +11661, Insightful)
Gordon's first law:
If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doing well.
(Moderation suggestion: +27118, Insightful)
I want to so HAPPY, the VEINS in my neck STAND OUT!!
(Moderation suggestion: +27206, Insightful)
New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or in
any way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe.
(Moderation suggestion: +11970, Insightful)
QOTD:
I'm not a nerd -- I'm "socially challenged".
(Moderation suggestion: +27289, Insightful)
First study the enemy. Seek weakness.
-- Romulan Commander, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2
(Moderation suggestion: +12232, Insightful)
"Let every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable."
-- Robert G. Ingersoll
(Moderation suggestion: +18372, Insightful)
Did you move a lot of KOREAN STEAK KNIVES this trip, Dingy?
(Moderation suggestion: +27558, Insightful)
This fortune is inoperative. Please try another.
(Moderation suggestion: +18459, Insightful)
U: There's a U -- a Unicorn!
Run right up and rub its horn.
Look at all those points you're losing!
UMBER HULKS are so confusing.
-- The Roguelet's ABC
(Moderation suggestion: +27475, Insightful)
The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary two;
Or else the other way around.
I'm never sure. Are you?
-- Ogden Nash
(Moderation suggestion: +28071, Insightful)
Madison's Inquiry:
If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class?
(Moderation suggestion: +27646, Insightful)
Your CHEEKS sit like twin NECTARINES above a MOUTH that knows no BOUNDS --
(Moderation suggestion: +13723, Insightful)
Sex is a natural bodily process, like a stroke.
(Moderation suggestion: +27729, Insightful)
What is the difficulty with writing a PDP-8 program to emulate Jerry
Ford?
Figuring out what to do with the other 3K.
(Moderation suggestion: +18544, Insightful)
AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!! !!
You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room!
(Moderation suggestion: +20704, Insightful)
! !!
AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!
Y ou brute! Knock before entering a ladies room!
(Moderation suggestion: +18632, Insightful)
I am pleased to see that we have differences. May we together become
greater than the sum of both of us.
-- Surak of Vulcan, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4
(Moderation suggestion: +28358, Insightful)
No matter how much you do you never do enough.
(Moderation suggestion: +13806, Insightful)
Just as most issues are seldom black or white, so are most good
solutions seldom black or white. Beware of the solution that requires
one side to be totally the loser and the other side to be totally the
winner. The reason there are two sides to begin with usually is
because neither side has all the facts. Therefore, when the wise
mediator effects a compromise, he is not acting from political
motivation. Rather, he is acting from a deep sense of respect for the
whole truth.
-- Stephen R. Schwambach
(Moderation suggestion: +18715, Insightful)
Hacker's Law:
The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a
nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.
(Moderation suggestion: +28646, Insightful)
Your education begins where what is called your education is over.
(Moderation suggestion: +13890, Insightful)
The Crown is full of it!
-- Nate Harris, 1775
(Moderation suggestion: +18800, Insightful)
... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is
I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know
anything else
a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows
up.
-- Will Rogers
(Moderation suggestion: +21191, Insightful)
Given sufficient time, what you put off doing today will get done by itself.
(Moderation suggestion: +13974, Insightful)
In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful
Dead.
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead
(Moderation suggestion: +18883, Insightful)
Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less
obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no
solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid.
There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no
straight lines.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller
(Moderation suggestion: +14057, Insightful)
"Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption of
normal routines, for children and adults alike."
-- Willard F. Libby, "You *Can* Survive Atomic Attack"
(Moderation suggestion: +21587, Insightful)
Be circumspect in your liaisons with women. It is better to be seen at
the opera with a man than at mass with a woman.
-- De Maintenon
(Moderation suggestion: +14143, Insightful)
"This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been an
actual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you?"
(Moderation suggestion: +14226, Insightful)
Anything worth doing is worth overdoing
(Moderation suggestion: +12613, Insightful)
If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by
the page number.
(Moderation suggestion: +27819, Insightful)
"I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over,
carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old Virginia,
I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun."
-- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H
(Moderation suggestion: +27902, Insightful)
Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that
each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his
choice.
In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians
called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka"
and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People
passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy
Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!"
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
(Moderation suggestion: +13069, Insightful)
... a PINHEAD, during an EARTHQUAKE, encounters an ALL-MIDGET ... ha ... ha ...
Hmmm
FIDDLE ORCHESTRA
(Moderation suggestion: +28068, Insightful)
Emersons' Law of Contrariness:
Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we
can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.
(Moderation suggestion: +27985, Insightful)
It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits of
Urbana, Illinois.
(Moderation suggestion: +13399, Insightful)
To a Californian, a person must prove himself criminally insane before he
is allowed to drive a taxi in New York. For New York cabbies, honesty and
stopping at red lights are both optional.
-- From "East vs. West: The War Between the Coasts
(Moderation suggestion: +18968, Insightful)
The cow is nothing but a machine with makes grass fit for us people to
eat.
-- John McNulty
(Moderation suggestion: +29130, Insightful)
Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.
-- Lazarus Long
(Moderation suggestion: +28168, Insightful)
I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a
novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.
-- Fred Allen
(Moderation suggestion: +28251, Insightful)
You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially
if they are dead.
(Moderation suggestion: +19051, Insightful)
"Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of
which I disapprove."
(Moderation suggestion: +13684, Insightful)
Whoever tells a lie cannot be pure in heart -- and only the pure in heart
can make a good soup.
-- Ludwig Van Beethoven
(Moderation suggestion: +29486, Insightful)
Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my
teacher was in my class for five years.
-- George Burns
(Moderation suggestion: +21884, Insightful)
Populus vult decipi.
[The people like to be deceived.]
(Moderation suggestion: +14314, Insightful)
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age
brings wisdom.
-- H. L. Mencken
(Moderation suggestion: +19135, Insightful)
Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.
-- Kin Hubbard
(Moderation suggestion: +19226, Insightful)
Disc space -- the final frontier!
(Moderation suggestion: +29791, Insightful)
Anger is momentary madness.
-- Horace
(Moderation suggestion: +14397, Insightful)
Weiner's Law of Libraries:
There are no answers, only cross references.
(Moderation suggestion: +22169, Insightful)
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
(Moderation suggestion: +19325, Insightful)
Worlds are conquered, galaxies destroyed -- but a woman is always a
woman.
-- Kirk, "Conscience of the King", stardate unknown
(Moderation suggestion: +14480, Insightful)
If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
-- Maslow
(Moderation suggestion: +19409, Insightful)
Johnson's First Law:
When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the
most inconvenient possible time.
(Moderation suggestion: +30078, Insightful)
> : Any porters out there should feel happier knowing that DEC is shipping
> : me an AlphaPC that I intend to try getting linux running on: this will
> : definitely help flush out some of the most flagrant unportable stuff.
> : The Alpha is much more different from the i386 than the 68k stuff is, so
> : it's likely to get most of the stuff fixed.
>
> It's posts like this that almost convince us non-believers that there
> really is a god.
(A follow-up by alovell@kerberos.demon.co.uk, Anthony Lovell, to Linus's
remarks about porting)
(Moderation suggestion: +14563, Insightful)
Loose bits sink chips.
(Moderation suggestion: +14651, Insightful)
... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils."
"I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what
entertainment is all about
-- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
(Moderation suggestion: +22573, Insightful)
The First Rule of Program Optimization:
Don't do it.
The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!):
Don't do it yet.
-- Michael Jackson
(Moderation suggestion: +14734, Insightful)
You should all JUMP UP AND DOWN for TWO HOURS while I decide on a NEW
CAREER!!
(Moderation suggestion: +22955, Insightful)
Snoopy: No problem is so big that it can't be run away from.
(Moderation suggestion: +28334, Insightful)
"You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable
proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do."
(Moderation suggestion: +28417, Insightful)
Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A.
(Moderation suggestion: +13961, Insightful)
In a minimum-phase system there is an inextricable link between
frequency response, phase response and transient response, as they
are all merely transforms of one another. This combined with
minimalization of open-loop errors in output amplifiers and correct
compensation for non-linear passive crossover network loading can
lead to a significant decrease in system resolution lost. However,
this all means jack when you listen to Pink Floyd.
(Moderation suggestion: +28503, Insightful)
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest
in students.
-- John Ciardi
(Moderation suggestion: +28586, Insightful)
Impartial, adj.:
Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from
espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two
conflicting opinions.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +14452, Insightful)
I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is two weeks.
-- Totie Fields
(Moderation suggestion: +28670, Insightful)
Mophobia, n.:
Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian.
(Moderation suggestion: +28753, Insightful)
Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you
get a prompt, type like hell.
(Moderation suggestion: +14814, Insightful)
The Great Movie Posters:
An AVALANCHE of KILLER WORMS!
-- Squirm (1976)
Most Movies Live Less Than Two Hours.
This Is One of Everlasting Torment!
-- The New House on the Left (1977)
WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU!
-- Zombie (1980)
It's not human and it's got an axe.
-- The Prey (1981)
(Moderation suggestion: +14817, Insightful)
... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become so
In America today
sophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow. All
those who think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where the
devil gets her pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing up
as a human sperm, please raise your hands. Thank you.
-- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
(Moderation suggestion: +28839, Insightful)
"Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have to
eat it nevertheless."
-- Flaubert
(Moderation suggestion: +14900, Insightful)
Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
(Moderation suggestion: +23289, Insightful)
"Oh, I've seen copies [of Linux Journal] around the terminal room at The
Labs."
(By Dennis Ritchie)
(Moderation suggestion: +14983, Insightful)
Another Glitch in the Call
------- ------ -- --- ----
(Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.)
We don't need no indirection
We don't need no flow control
No data typing or declarations
Did you leave the lists alone?
Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!
Chorus:
All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.
(Moderation suggestion: +15083, Insightful)
Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name.
Thy programs run, thy syscalls done,
In kernel as it is in user!
(Moderation suggestion: +15166, Insightful)
"Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have
goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in
their endless search for "one more feature". Their irritating
unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my
doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right.
-- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements"
(Moderation suggestion: +23573, Insightful)
Life. Don't talk to me about life.
- Marvin the Paranoid Anroid
(Moderation suggestion: +15250, Insightful)
..." An unusually long pause followed, "... but I don't know
"Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universe
again
which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A
spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the
starfield surrounding the ship.
"Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC
announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they
are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been
intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and
transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown.
Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious."
-- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star"
(Moderation suggestion: +15336, Insightful)
Infancy, n.:
The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven
lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon
afterward.
-- Ambrose Bierce
(Moderation suggestion: +23983, Insightful)
No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.
(Moderation suggestion: +28922, Insightful)
... desolation ... plastic forks ...
... bleakness
(Moderation suggestion: +15108, Insightful)
I got my driver's license photo taken out of focus on purpose. Now
when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and
farther, trying to see it clearly)... and says, "Here, you can go."
-- Steven Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +29021, Insightful)
With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand
miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and
still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no
such thing as progress.
-- Ransom K. Ferm
(Moderation suggestion: +15401, Insightful)
To do two things at once is to do neither.
-- Publilius Syrus
(Moderation suggestion: +29104, Insightful)
He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered.
(Moderation suggestion: +29187, Insightful)
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.
-- Mark Harrold
(Moderation suggestion: +29272, Insightful)
I thought my people would grow tired of killing. But you were right,
they see it is easier than trading. And it has its pleasures. I feel
it myself. Like the hunt, but with richer rewards.
-- Apella, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8
(Moderation suggestion: +15811, Insightful)
A clever prophet makes sure of the event first.
(Moderation suggestion: +29355, Insightful)
Worlds may change, galaxies disintegrate, but a woman always remains a
woman.
-- Kirk, "The Conscience of the King", stardate 2818.9
(Moderation suggestion: +29438, Insightful)
"The Good Ship Enterprise" (to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop")
On the good ship Enterprise
Every week there's a new surprise
Where the Romulans lurk
And the Klingons often go berserk.
Yes, the good ship Enterprise
There's excitement anywhere it flies
Where Tribbles play
And Nurse Chapel never gets her way.
See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge,
Mr. Spock is at his side.
The weekly menace, ooh-ooh
It gets fried, scattered far and wide.
It's the good ship Enterprise
Heading out where danger lies
And you live in dread
If you're wearing a shirt that's red.
-- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics
(Moderation suggestion: +15421, Insightful)
"The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity."
"And in the way our differences combine to create meaning and beauty."
-- Dr. Miranda Jones and Spock, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?",
stardate 5630.8
(Moderation suggestion: +15505, Insightful)
...
JAPAN is a WONDERFUL planet -- I wonder if we'll ever reach their level
of COMPARATIVE SHOPPING
(Moderation suggestion: +24380, Insightful)
Mathematics is the only science where one never knows what
one is talking about nor whether what is said is true.
-- Russell
(Moderation suggestion: +15588, Insightful)
Where's SANDY DUNCAN?
(Moderation suggestion: +15673, Insightful)Here is the problem: for many years, the Supreme Court wrestled withthe issue of pornography, until finally Associate Justice John PaulStevens came up with the famous quotation about how he couldn't definepornography, but he knew it when he saw it. So for a while, thecourt's policy was to have all the suspected pornography trucked toJustice Stevens' house, where he would look it over. "Nope, this isn'tit," he'd say. "Bring some more." This went on until one morning whenhis housekeeper found him trapped in the recreation room under anenormous mound of rubberized implements, and the court had to issue aruling stating that it didn't know what the hell pornography was exceptthat it was illegal and everybody should stop badgering the court aboutit because the court was going to take a nap. -- Dave Barry, "Pornography"
(Moderation suggestion: +24674, Insightful)
A comment on schedules:
Ok, how long will it take?
For each manager involved in initial meetings add one month.
For each manager who says "data flow analysis" add another month.
For each unique end-user type add one month.
For each unknown software package to be employed add two months.
For each unknown hardware device add two months.
For each 100 miles between developer and installation add one month.
For each type of communication channel add one month.
If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on a non-IBM
system add 6 months.
If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on an IBM
system add 9 months.
Round up to the nearest half-year.
--Brad Sherman
By the way, ALL software projects are done by iterative prototyping.
Some companies call their prototypes "releases", that's all.
(Moderation suggestion: +15756, Insightful)
"Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?"
-- Lily Tomlin
(Moderation suggestion: +15843, Insightful)
... Tippy, the Wonder Dog."
"Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new
cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more
spectacular adventure starring
-- Bob & Ray
(Moderation suggestion: +24955, Insightful)
You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting needles.
-- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food
(Moderation suggestion: +15926, Insightful)
... WAIT!! ... And I DON'T know Polish jokes!!
DON'T go!! I'm not HOWARD COSELL!! I know POLISH JOKES
Don't go!! I AM Howard Cosell!
(Moderation suggestion: +361, Insightful)
"I was drunk last night, crawled home across the lawn. By accident I
put the car key in the door lock. The house started up. So I figured
what the hell, and drove it around the block a few times. I thought I
should go park it in the middle of the freeway and yell at everyone to
get off my driveway."
-- Steven Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +5229, Insightful)
The sum of the Universe is zero.
(Moderation suggestion: +5312, Insightful)
hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub, HUBUB, hubub, hubub, hubub.
(Moderation suggestion: +664, Insightful)
A prohibitionist is the sort of man one wouldn't care to drink with
-- even if he drank.
-- H.L. Mencken
(Moderation suggestion: +5395, Insightful)
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf
has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
-- Will Rogers
(Moderation suggestion: +5479, Insightful)
A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
you will look forward to the trip.
(Moderation suggestion: +1072, Insightful)
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
-- La Rochefoucauld
(Moderation suggestion: +16209, Insightful)
Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once.
Space is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen to you.
(Moderation suggestion: +29521, Insightful)
God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.
-- Alfred Jarry
(Moderation suggestion: +5648, Insightful)
... Each one owes
All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers
infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in
which he was born.
-- Francois Fenelon
(Moderation suggestion: +29604, Insightful)
God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man.
(Moderation suggestion: +1495, Insightful)
An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you
really care to know.
(Moderation suggestion: +16535, Insightful)
The only "ism" Hollywood believes in is plagiarism.
-- Dorothy Parker
(Moderation suggestion: +5731, Insightful)
"His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier."
(Moderation suggestion: +29705, Insightful)
...
On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a
POINT
(Moderation suggestion: +29791, Insightful)
It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be
coming up it.
-- Henry Allen
(Moderation suggestion: +16826, Insightful)
Beauty seldom recommends one woman to another.
(Moderation suggestion: +29875, Insightful)
Procrastinators do it tomorrow.
(Moderation suggestion: +29958, Insightful)
Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe
we should think only about today.
Charlie Brown:
No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get
better.
(Moderation suggestion: +17258, Insightful)
I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise.
-- Chauncey Depew
(Moderation suggestion: +16009, Insightful)
...
Why I Can't Go Out With You:
I'd LOVE to, but
-- I have to floss my cat.
-- I've dedicated my life to linguini.
-- I need to spend more time with my blender.
-- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People.
-- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish.
-- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves.
-- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products.
-- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise.
-- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist.
-- I have some really hard words to look up.
-- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting.
-- I promised to help a friend fold road maps.
(Moderation suggestion: +16094, Insightful)
Swipple's Rule of Order:
He who shouts the loudest has the floor.
(Moderation suggestion: +16177, Insightful)
Birth, n.:
The first and direst of all disasters.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +16260, Insightful)
There's more than one way to skin a cat:
Way number 15 -- Krazy Glue and a toothbrush.
(Moderation suggestion: +16427, Insightful)
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
-- Tom Lehrer
(Moderation suggestion: +16343, Insightful)
Don't get even -- get odd!
(Moderation suggestion: +26200, Insightful)
Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long
walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They
then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find
only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
others who have tried it.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +16681, Insightful)
Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy
would turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it
hasn't.
-- Robert Orben
(Moderation suggestion: +26493, Insightful)
Q: How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer", and the
party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb", do hereby and forthwith
agree to a transaction wherein the party of the second part shall be removed
from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed
upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of
the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entryway, terminating
at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of
the carpet, any spillover illumination being at the option of the party of the
second part and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the
parties.
The aforementioned removal transaction shall include, but not be
limited to, the following. The party of the first part shall, with or without
elevation at his option, by means of a chair, stepstool, ladder or any other
means of elevation, grasp the party of the second part and rotate the party
of the second part in a counter-clockwise direction, this point being tendered
non-negotiable. Upon reaching a point where the party of the second part
becomes fully detached from the receptacle, the party of the first part shall
have the option of disposing of the party of the second part in a manner
consistent with all relevant and applicable local, state and federal statutes.
Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the party of the first part
shall have the option of beginning installation. Aforesaid installation shall
occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in
step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation
should occur in a clockwise direction, this point also being non-negotiable.
The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the party of the
first part, by any or all agents authorized by him, the objective being to
produce the most possible revenue for the Partnership.
(Moderation suggestion: +16764, Insightful)
... The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost would never throw the Devil
out of Heaven as long as they still need him as a fourth for bridge.
-- Letter in NEW LIBERTARIAN NOTES #19
(Moderation suggestion: +5565, Insightful)
So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].
With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to
maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of
corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to
flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward
it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and --
I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in
the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us.
Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and
I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our
heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're
unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water
up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the
opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of
our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all
the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers
cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen
these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked
into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.
-- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"
(Moderation suggestion: +5814, Insightful)
Cabbage, n.:
A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as
a man's head.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +1782, Insightful)
O'Brian's Law:
Everything is always done for the wrong reasons.
(Moderation suggestion: +5898, Insightful)
"The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity."
"And in the way our differences combine to create meaning and beauty."
-- Dr. Miranda Jones and Spock, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?",
stardate 5630.8
(Moderation suggestion: +5985, Insightful)
You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother.
(Moderation suggestion: +2097, Insightful)
You will be singled out for promotion in your work.
(Moderation suggestion: +8828, Insightful)
Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.
(Moderation suggestion: +6153, Insightful)
Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%.
And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a
blazer.
(Moderation suggestion: +30043, Insightful)
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry
is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.
-- Mike Adams
(Moderation suggestion: +8909, Insightful)
ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19)
You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You
are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are
not very nice.
(Moderation suggestion: +30126, Insightful)
Each kiss is as the first.
-- Miramanee, Kirk's wife, "The Paradise Syndrome",
stardate 4842.6
(Moderation suggestion: +6070, Insightful)
... Is your BEVERAGE unsatisfactory?
What's the MATTER Sid?
(Moderation suggestion: +2456, Insightful)
...we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent
observations and inferences by the thousands. The earth is billions of
years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary
descent. Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but
do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither
flat nor at the center of the universe? Science *has* taught us some
things with confidence! Evolution on an ancient earth is as well
established as our planet's shape and position. Our continuing struggle
to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not
cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" --
into doubt.
- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer,
Vol XII No. 2
(Moderation suggestion: +17662, Insightful)
The eyes of taxes are upon you.
(Moderation suggestion: +14874, Insightful)
Those who can't write, write manuals.
(Moderation suggestion: +6238, Insightful)
A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets
people's attention.
(Moderation suggestion: +8992, Insightful)
The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange
protein -- it rejects it.
-- P. Medawar
(Moderation suggestion: +30223, Insightful)
Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie.
(Moderation suggestion: +9075, Insightful)
Frisbeetarianism, n.:
The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and
gets stuck.
(Moderation suggestion: +30308, Insightful)
... ich lande im ... einige gladiatoren spielen scrabble ... ich rieche ...
... ich bin in einem dusenjet ins jahr 53 vor chr
antiken Rom
PIZZA
(Moderation suggestion: +17980, Insightful)
What's the matter with the world? Why, there ain't but one thing wrong
with every one of us -- and that's "selfishness."
-- The Best of Will Rogers
(Moderation suggestion: +15158, Insightful)
"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one
idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's
sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all
of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated,
caustic twits."
-- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet
(Moderation suggestion: +9180, Insightful)
"Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing
that way."
(Moderation suggestion: +30394, Insightful)
Be different: conform.
(Moderation suggestion: +9261, Insightful)
In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our
programming languages.
(Moderation suggestion: +30492, Insightful)
The Consultant's Curse:
When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him
what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong
medicine, and is normally only required once.
(Moderation suggestion: +18254, Insightful)
Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he
knows what it is.
(Moderation suggestion: +15556, Insightful)
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
-- Milton Friendman
(Moderation suggestion: +9349, Insightful)
It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry
a tune.
-- Woody Allen
(Moderation suggestion: +30576, Insightful)
Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots
(Moderation suggestion: +6321, Insightful)
Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't
work.
(Moderation suggestion: +2926, Insightful)
... in the Old ... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the ... There is
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has
shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore
Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred
thousand miles long
Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long.
something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of
conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
-- Mark Twain
(Moderation suggestion: +6416, Insightful)
The PINK SOCKS were ORIGINALLY from 1952!! But they went to MARS
around 1953!!
(Moderation suggestion: +6499, Insightful)
The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because
it isn't here.
-- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley)
(Moderation suggestion: +3233, Insightful)
Sheriff Chameleotoptor sighed with an air of weary sadness, and then
turned to Doppelgutt and said 'The Senator must really have been on a
bender this time -- he left a party in Cleveland, Ohio, at 11:30 last
night, and they found his car this morning in the smokestack of a British
aircraft carrier in the Formosa Straits.'
-- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1985 Bulwer-Lytton
bad fiction contest.
(Moderation suggestion: +6667, Insightful)
The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of
us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching
Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe.
(Moderation suggestion: +9430, Insightful)
"I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night."
(Moderation suggestion: +30659, Insightful)
Chef, n.:
Any cook who swears in French.
(Moderation suggestion: +6584, Insightful)
Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the
land He's trying to ignore.
(Moderation suggestion: +3522, Insightful)
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples of
outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, but
they prevailed with irrefutable data. More often, egregious findings that
contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts. I have
argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, "cosmic conciousness,"
and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of
neuroscience. Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid
handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena
than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves
offer more plausible alternatives.
- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Conciousness: Implications for Psi
Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171
(Moderation suggestion: +18642, Insightful)
Like you, I am frequently haunted by profound questions related to man's
place in the Scheme of Things. Here are just a few:
Q -- Is there life after death?
A -- Definitely. I speak from personal experience here. On New
Year's Eve, 1970, I drank a full pitcher of a drink called "Black Russian",
then crawled out on the lawn and died within a matter of minutes, which was
fine with me because I had come to realize that if I had lived I would have
spent the rest of my life in the grip of the most excruciatingly painful
headache. Thanks to the miracle of modern orange juice, I was brought back
to life several days later, but in the interim I was definitely dead. I
guess my main impression of the afterlife is that it isn't so bad as long
as you keep the television turned down and don't try to eat any solid foods.
-- Dave Barry
(Moderation suggestion: +16058, Insightful)
Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when you get
a prompt, type like hell.
(Moderation suggestion: +9513, Insightful)
Ray's Rule of Precision:
Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.
(Moderation suggestion: +6766, Insightful)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
(Moderation suggestion: +30743, Insightful)
Peanut Blossoms
4 cups sugar 16 tbsp. milk
4 cups brown sugar 4 tsp. vanilla
4 cups shortening 14 cups flour
8 eggs 4 tsp. soda
4 cups peanut butter 4 tsp. salt
Shape dough into balls. Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookie
sheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes. Immediately top each cookie with a
Hershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie. Makes a
hell of a lot.
(Moderation suggestion: +6842, Insightful)
I just heard the SEVENTIES were over!! And I was just getting in touch
with my LEISURE SUIT!!
(Moderation suggestion: +30830, Insightful)
UH-OH!! I put on "GREAT HEAD-ON TRAIN COLLISIONS of the 50's" by
mistake!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +9594, Insightful)
A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths.
-- Steve Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +19138, Insightful)
"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb."
-- Spaceballs
(Moderation suggestion: +16369, Insightful)
A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be
too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which
was intended for her preservation.
-- Colton
(Moderation suggestion: +16908, Insightful)
The reason ESP, for example, is not considered a viable topic in contemoprary
psychology is simply that its investigation has not proven fruitful...After
more than 70 years of study, there still does not exist one example of an ESP
phenomenon that is replicable under controlled conditions. This simple but
basic scientific criterion has not been met despite dozens of studies conducted
over many decades...It is for this reason alone that the topic is now of little
interest to psychology...In short, there is no demonstrated phenomenon that
needs explanation.
-- Keith E. Stanovich, "How to Think Straight About Psychology", pp. 160-161
(Moderation suggestion: +30916, Insightful)
Message will arrive in the mail. Destroy, before the FBI sees it.
(Moderation suggestion: +30999, Insightful)
... "Adventures with MENTAL HYGIENE" can be
Kids, don't gross me off
carried too FAR!
(Moderation suggestion: +9950, Insightful)
Bureaucrat, n.:
A person who cuts red tape sideways.
-- J. McCabe
(Moderation suggestion: +19456, Insightful)
Don't make a big deal out of everything; just deal with everything.
(Moderation suggestion: +16654, Insightful)
Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.
-- B.F. Skinner
(Moderation suggestion: +9763, Insightful)
Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
-- Tom Lehrer
(Moderation suggestion: +31082, Insightful)
...
Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now
I can remember things that *have* happened before
(Moderation suggestion: +31166, Insightful)
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three
men, two of them absent.
(Moderation suggestion: +10291, Insightful)
Should I get locked in the PRINCICAL'S OFFICE today -- or have a
VASECTOMY??
(Moderation suggestion: +6935, Insightful)
... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!!
(Moderation suggestion: +3856, Insightful)
Take a look around you, tell me what you see,
A girl who thinks she's ordinary lookin' she has got the key.
If you can get close enough to look into her eyes
There's something special right behind the bitterness she hides.
And you're fair game,
You never know what she'll decide, you're fair game,
Just relax, enjoy the ride.
Find a way to reach her, make yourself a fool,
But do it with a little class, disregard the rules.
'Cause this one knows the bottom line, couldn't get a date.
The ugly duckling striking back, and she'll decide her fate.
(chorus)
The ones you never notice are the ones you have to watch.
She's pleasant and she's friendly while she's looking at your crotch.
Try your hand at conversation, gossip is a lie,
And sure enough she'll take you home and make you wanna die.
(chorus)
-- Crosby, Stills, Nash, "Fair Game"
(Moderation suggestion: +7018, Insightful)
Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
(Moderation suggestion: +4376, Insightful)
... Only
Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact.
Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it.
atheists could accept this Satanic theory.
- Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, "The Pre-Adamic Creation and Evolution"
(Moderation suggestion: +7187, Insightful)
/
panic: can't find
(Moderation suggestion: +7104, Insightful)
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you
really make them think they'll hate you.
(Moderation suggestion: +4686, Insightful)
Humor in the Court:
Q. Officer, what led you to believe the defendant was under the influence?
A. Because he was argumentary and he couldn't pronunciate his words.
(Moderation suggestion: +19759, Insightful)
Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing
golf with his boss.
(Moderation suggestion: +10039, Insightful)
I think I'll KILL myself by leaping out of this 14th STORY WINDOW while
reading ERICA JONG'S poetry!!
(Moderation suggestion: +10123, Insightful)
There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the
tools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not
abuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and
war hold him in check. And also the wife who wants him home by five,
of course.
-- Encyclopedia Apocryphia, 1990 ed.
(Moderation suggestion: +31253, Insightful)
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is
lightly greased."
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
(Moderation suggestion: +7353, Insightful)
NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION
(Moderation suggestion: +17406, Insightful)
Dyslexics have more fnu.
(Moderation suggestion: +31336, Insightful)
The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This
means that only left handed people are in their right mind.
(Moderation suggestion: +7270, Insightful)
"Last week a cop stopped me in my car. He asked me if I had a police
record. I said, no, but I have the new DEVO album. Cops have no sense
of humor."
(Moderation suggestion: +17755, Insightful)
Never kick a man, unless he's down.
(Moderation suggestion: +7440, Insightful)
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use."
-- Galileo Galilei
(Moderation suggestion: +31420, Insightful)
..."
"Picture the sun as the origin of two intersecting 6-dimensional
hyperplanes from which we can deduce a certain transformational
sequence which gives us the terminal velocity of a rubber duck
(Moderation suggestion: +20045, Insightful)
You're a card which will have to be dealt with.
(Moderation suggestion: +19108, Insightful)
Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.
-- Voltaire
(Moderation suggestion: +18730, Insightful)
What's love but a second-hand emotion?
-- Tina Turner
(Moderation suggestion: +31505, Insightful)
The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper
-- Thomas Jefferson
(Moderation suggestion: +11077, Insightful)
Unnamed Law:
If it happens, it must be possible.
(Moderation suggestion: +31591, Insightful)
What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.
(Moderation suggestion: +20617, Insightful)
What I Did During My Fall Semester
On the first day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.
On the second day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.
On the third day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
I found a thesis topic:
How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover.
-- Sister Mary Elephant, "Student Statement for Black Friday"
(Moderation suggestion: +18040, Insightful)
No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after
eating one peanut.
-- Channing Pollock
(Moderation suggestion: +11510, Insightful)
Many Myths are based on truth
-- Spock, "The Way to Eden", stardate 5832.3
(Moderation suggestion: +31674, Insightful)
..." An unusually long pause followed, "... but I don't know
"Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universe
again
which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A
spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the
starfield surrounding the ship.
"Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC
announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they
are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been
intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and
transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown.
Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious."
-- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star"
(Moderation suggestion: +31757, Insightful)
A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
-- Mahatma Ghandi
(Moderation suggestion: +11344, Insightful)
Epperson's law:
When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably
something his wife can beat him at.
(Moderation suggestion: +4980, Insightful)
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from
acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
-- W. Somerset Maugham
(Moderation suggestion: +7606, Insightful)
Anoint, v.:
To grease a king or other great functionary already
sufficiently slippery.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +7689, Insightful)
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News
(Moderation suggestion: +5266, Insightful)
Q: How many WASPs does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One.
(Moderation suggestion: +5759, Insightful)
How many priests are needed for a Boston Mass?
(Moderation suggestion: +7857, Insightful)
You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when your
friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it.
(Moderation suggestion: +10814, Insightful)
If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again.
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much;
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.
-- Dorothy Parker
(Moderation suggestion: +7774, Insightful)
Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%.
And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a
blazer.
(Moderation suggestion: +7947, Insightful)
If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?
-- Art Hoppe
(Moderation suggestion: +11160, Insightful)
Issawi's Laws of Progress:
The Course of Progress:
Most things get steadily worse.
The Path of Progress:
A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.
(Moderation suggestion: +6137, Insightful)
"If it's not loud, it doesn't work!"
-- Blank Reg, from "Max Headroom"
(Moderation suggestion: +11679, Insightful)
If the American dream is for Americans only, it will remain our dream
and never be our destiny.
-- Ren'e de Visme Williamson
(Moderation suggestion: +19429, Insightful)
If you think the pen is mightier than the sword, the next time someone pulls
out a sword I'd like to see you get up there with your Bic.
(Moderation suggestion: +8031, Insightful)
"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used
it."
-- Dave Barry
(Moderation suggestion: +20132, Insightful)
... The waitress's UNIFORM sheds ...
Content: 80% POLYESTER, 20% DACRONi
TARTAR SAUCE like an 8" by 10" GLOSSY
(Moderation suggestion: +21082, Insightful)
How beautiful, how entrancing you are, my loved one, daughter of delights!
You are stately as a palm-tree, and your breasts are the clusters of dates.
I said, "I will climb up into the palm to grasp its fronds." May I find your
breast like clusters of grapes on the vine, the scent of your breath like
apricots, and your whispers like spiced wine flowing smoothly to welcome my
caresses, gliding down through lips and teeth.
[Song of Solomon 7:6-9 (NEB)]
(Moderation suggestion: +12012, Insightful)
Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!
Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock?
Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.
Kirk: Then it's of external origin?
Spock: Affirmative.
Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.
Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.
(Moderation suggestion: +11846, Insightful)
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Moderation suggestion: +20826, Insightful)
For knighthood is not in the feats of war,
As for to fight in quarrel right or wrong,
But in a cause which truth cannot defer:
He ought himself for to make sure and strong,
Just to keep mixt with mercy among:
And no quarrel a knight ought to take
But for a truth, or for the common's sake.
-- Stephen Hawes
(Moderation suggestion: +20510, Insightful)
"You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or they don't."
-- Dagwood Bumstead
(Moderation suggestion: +8117, Insightful)
"For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of
a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with
computers altogether?"
-- Jehan Shuman
(Moderation suggestion: +8201, Insightful)
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall,
Aleph-null bottles of beer,
You take one down, and pass it around,
Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.
(Moderation suggestion: +6434, Insightful)
Predestination was doomed from the start.
(Moderation suggestion: +6710, Insightful)
Man who sleep in beer keg wake up sticky.
(Moderation suggestion: +8371, Insightful)
If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the people
he gave it to.
-- Dorthy Parker
(Moderation suggestion: +8288, Insightful)
The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of
us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching
Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe.
(Moderation suggestion: +8455, Insightful)
GEMINI (May 21 - June 20)
You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you
because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much
for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for
committing incest.
(Moderation suggestion: +22295, Insightful)
"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple
system that worked."
-- John Gall, _Systemantics_
(Moderation suggestion: +7123, Insightful)
Harry's bar has a new cocktail. It's called MRS punch. They make it with
milk, rum and sugar and it's wonderful. The milk is for vitality and the
sugar is for pep. They put in the rum so that people will know what to do
with all that pep and vitality.
(Moderation suggestion: +12531, Insightful)
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody
wants to read.
-- Mark Twain
(Moderation suggestion: +22605, Insightful)
A true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother
drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.
-- Shaw
(Moderation suggestion: +8539, Insightful)
"When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great
parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if
I'm leaving."
-- Steven Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +8622, Insightful)
Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two,
opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none.
-- Doug Larson
(Moderation suggestion: +12699, Insightful)
... inquire within.
Klein bottle for sale
(Moderation suggestion: +12614, Insightful)
What I want to find out is -- do parrots know much about Astro-Turf?
(Moderation suggestion: +12363, Insightful)
LEO (July 23 - Aug 22)
You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are
pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike
honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people
are thieves.
(Moderation suggestion: +15511, Insightful)
"We should declare war on North Vietnam. We could pave the whole
country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas."
-- Ronald Reagan
(Moderation suggestion: +27342, Insightful)
Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you
only have to climb it once.
(Moderation suggestion: +12885, Insightful)
F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm!
(Moderation suggestion: +22960, Insightful)
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit
in my name at a Swiss bank.
-- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"
(Moderation suggestion: +17778, Insightful)
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
Murphy was an optimist.
(Moderation suggestion: +17863, Insightful)
I wish I was on a Cincinnati street corner holding a clean dog!
(Moderation suggestion: +25322, Insightful)
Alimony is the high cost of leaving.
(Moderation suggestion: +17956, Insightful)
Chicken Little only has to be right once.
(Moderation suggestion: +18040, Insightful)
You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knitting
needles.
-- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food
(Moderation suggestion: +25658, Insightful)
A wife started serving chopped meat, Monday hamburger, Tuesday meat
loaf, Wednesday tartar steak, and Thursday meatballs. On Friday morning her
husband snarled, "How now, ground cow?"
(Moderation suggestion: +18127, Insightful)
Back in the good ole days in Texas, when stagecoaches and the like was
popular, there were three people in a stagecoach one day: a true red-
blooded born-and-raised Texas gentleman, a tenderfoot city-slicker from
back East, and a beautiful and well-endowed Texas lady. The city-
slicker kept eyeing the lady, and finally he leaned forward and said,
"Lady, I'll give you $10 for a blow job." The Texas gentleman looked
appalled, pulled out his pistol, and killed the city-slicker on the
spot. The lady gasped and said, "Thank you, suh, for defendin' mah
honor!" Whereupon the Texan holstered his gun and said, "Your honor,
hell! No tenderfoot is gonna raise the price of women in Texas!"
(Moderation suggestion: +8705, Insightful)
Men of peace usually are [brave].
-- Spock, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.5
(Moderation suggestion: +18211, Insightful)
Wethern's Law:
Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
(Moderation suggestion: +8789, Insightful)
The other night I was having sex, but the girl hung up on me.
(Moderation suggestion: +25948, Insightful)
Americans' greatest fear is that America will turn out to have been a
phenomenon, not a civilization.
-- Shirley Hazzard, "Transit of Venus"
(Moderation suggestion: +7839, Insightful)
Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate. The first man said,
"This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." The second man said,
"He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to his chambers, and spent an hour
trying to bite his own ear. He succeeded only in falling over and bruising
his forehead. Returning to the courtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the
man whose ear was bitten. If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and
the case is dismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it
and must pay three silver pieces."
(Moderation suggestion: +8872, Insightful)
YOU PICKED KARL MALDEN'S NOSE!!
(Moderation suggestion: +18294, Insightful)
... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
And he answered:
It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City
upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come
to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
And that is Fate? said the priest.
Fate
That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was
too.
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
(Moderation suggestion: +8959, Insightful)
The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land.
(Moderation suggestion: +8128, Insightful)
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
(Moderation suggestion: +9045, Insightful)
Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly
misleading. Debug only code.
-- Dave Storer
(Moderation suggestion: +14826, Insightful)
Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the
reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest
amount of hot air.
-- Thomas L. Martin
(Moderation suggestion: +15606, Insightful)
To iterate is human, to recurse, divine.
(Moderation suggestion: +9129, Insightful)
Harris's Lament:
All the good ones are taken.
(Moderation suggestion: +9213, Insightful)
"According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to
live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came
in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much.
Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime."
-- David Letterman
(Moderation suggestion: +15872, Insightful)
...
... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin with
the Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he falls
asleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
(Moderation suggestion: +8535, Insightful)
How untasteful can you get?
(Moderation suggestion: +16206, Insightful)
If this is timesharing, give me my share right now.
(Moderation suggestion: +16372, Insightful)
"I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any
questions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the
speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen?
He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work
for him then.
-- Steven Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +28729, Insightful)
Infancy, n.:
The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven lies
about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.
-- Ambrose Bierce
(Moderation suggestion: +16627, Insightful)
Man 1: Ask me the what the most important thing about telling a good
joke is.
Man 2: OK, what is the most impo --
Man 1: ______TIMING!
(Moderation suggestion: +17044, Insightful)
WHOA!! Ken and Barbie are having TOO MUCH FUN!! It must be the
NEGATIVE IONS!!
(Moderation suggestion: +29028, Insightful)
Menu, n.:
A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of.
(Moderation suggestion: +17128, Insightful)
Probable-Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
Because she's unable to postulate how.
-- Frederick Winsor
(Moderation suggestion: +18378, Insightful)
You'll learn something about men and women -- the way they're supposed
to be. Caring for each other, being happy with each other, being good
to each other. That's what we call love. You'll like that a lot.
-- Kirk, "The Apple", stardate 3715.6
(Moderation suggestion: +26355, Insightful)
Benson's Dogma:
ASCII is our god, and Unix is his profit.
(Moderation suggestion: +18463, Insightful)
... or is it?"
"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question
(Moderation suggestion: +18547, Insightful)
... when do we collect unemployment?
Here we are in America
(Moderation suggestion: +26770, Insightful)
I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling.
-- Florence Henderson
(Moderation suggestion: +18634, Insightful)
FIGHTING WORDS
Say my love is easy had,
Say I'm bitten raw with pride,
Say I am too often sad --
Still behold me at your side.
Say I'm neither brave nor young,
Say I woo and coddle care,
Say the devil touched my tongue --
Still you have my heart to wear.
But say my verses do not scan,
And I get me another man!
-- Dorothy Parker
(Moderation suggestion: +9298, Insightful)
...
Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #29:
THE JUDGE: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present
information and prejudice from your minds, if you have
any
(Moderation suggestion: +18718, Insightful)
Honorable, adj.:
Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative
bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the
honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +3629, Insightful)
THE MX IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY. One important reason we have a Defense
Department is that when we give it money, it spends it, which creates
jobs, whereas if we left the money in the hands of civilians, we don't
know what they'd do with it. Probably put it in open trenches and set
it on fire. The MX will create an especially large number of jobs
because of the number of warheads it carries. It carries a total of 10
warheads. This creates a great deal of employment, because you have
your Warhead Makers, your Warhead Lifters, your Persons Who Tap the
Warheads Gently with Rubber Mallets to Wedge Them All Snugly Into the
Nose Cone, your Persons Who Just Walk Around Playing Soothing Cassettes
by Recording Artists such as Perry Como So We Don't Have Any More
Episodes Where a Worker Who is Experiencing Some Strain Sticks a
Warhead in the Employee Cafeteria Microwave and Sets It On Roast, etc.
We are talking about a lot of jobs.
-- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against
Political Fallout"
(Moderation suggestion: +27078, Insightful)
For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier... I put them in
the same room and let them fight it out.
-- Steven Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +3546, Insightful)
//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH
(Moderation suggestion: +9381, Insightful)
You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog.
-- Alfred Kahn
(Moderation suggestion: +18804, Insightful)
... Each one owes
All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers
infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in
which he was born.
-- Francois Fenelon
(Moderation suggestion: +8949, Insightful)
Brigands will demand your money or your life, but a woman will demand both.
-- Samuel Butler
(Moderation suggestion: +1662, Insightful)
I appoint you ambassador to Fantasy Island!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +2133, Insightful)
Being Ymor's right-hand man was like being gently flogged to death with
scented bootlaces.
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic"
(Moderation suggestion: +9465, Insightful)
...
My LESLIE GORE record is BROKEN
(Moderation suggestion: +18888, Insightful)
The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books!
(Moderation suggestion: +3712, Insightful)
Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic
without looking to see whether the seeds move.
(Moderation suggestion: +9269, Insightful)
You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that,
contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat from houses.
Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact many scientists actually
use their fireplaces to cool their houses in the summer. If you visit a
scientist's house on a sultry August day, you'll find a cheerful fire
roaring on the hearth and the scientist sitting nearby, remarking on how
cool he is and drinking heavily.
-- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
(Moderation suggestion: +3795, Insightful)
... They look like DYING OYSTERS
I like the way ONLY their mouths move
(Moderation suggestion: +9550, Insightful)
It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead.
(Moderation suggestion: +2448, Insightful)
"Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends."
--Woody Allen
(Moderation suggestion: +30509, Insightful)
Cache:
A very expensive part of the memory system of a computer that no one
is supposed to know is there.
(Moderation suggestion: +9633, Insightful)
If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensus
forecast is a camel's behind.
-- Edgar R. Fiedler
(Moderation suggestion: +30780, Insightful)
In high school in Brooklyn
I was the baseball manager,
proud as I could be
I chased baseballs,
gathered thrown bats
handed out the towels Eventually, I bought my own
It was very important work but it was dark blue while
for a small spastic kid, the official ones were green
but I was a team member Nobody ever said anything
When the team got to me about my blue jacket;
their warm-up jackets the guys were my friends
I didn't get one Yet it hurt me all year
Only the regular team to wear that blue jacket
got these jackets, and among all those green ones
surely not a manager Even now, forty years after,
I still recall that jacket
and the memory goes on hurting.
-- Bart Lanier Safford III, "An Obscured Radiance"
(Moderation suggestion: +9731, Insightful)
"I hate quotations."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Moderation suggestion: +3880, Insightful)
Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones.
(Moderation suggestion: +9530, Insightful)
History is curious stuff
You'd think by now we had enough
Yet the fact remains I fear
They make more of it every year.
(Moderation suggestion: +4052, Insightful)
I'm using my X-RAY VISION to obtain a rare glimpse of the INNER
WORKINGS of this POTATO!!
(Moderation suggestion: +17760, Insightful)
Forms follow function, and often obliterate it.
(Moderation suggestion: +9814, Insightful)
Idiot Box, n.:
The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the
stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
(Moderation suggestion: +2751, Insightful)
I would rather be a serf in a poor man's house and be above ground than
reign among the dead.
-- Achilles, "The Odessey", XI, 489-91
(Moderation suggestion: +31676, Insightful)
There is no grief which time does not lessen and soften.
(Moderation suggestion: +17591, Insightful)
History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history.
(Moderation suggestion: +18097, Insightful)
Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the
reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest
amount of hot air.
-- Thomas L. Martin
(Moderation suggestion: +18263, Insightful)
Mother is the invention of necessity.
(Moderation suggestion: +17425, Insightful)
"I like your game but we have to change the rules."
(Moderation suggestion: +32265, Insightful)
This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard
dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft,
pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it.
-- Alfred Bester, "The Stars My Destination"
(Moderation suggestion: +18010, Insightful)
The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show
off this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his
next hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the
duck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the
duck and returned it to his master.
"Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly.
"Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't
swim."
(Moderation suggestion: +27360, Insightful)
The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the
biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regard to
them were fishermen.
-- Arthur Binstead
(Moderation suggestion: +18975, Insightful)
Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb:
Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a
hammmer or get a splinter in it.
(Moderation suggestion: +19058, Insightful)
Here I sit, broken-hearted,
All logged in, but work unstarted.
First net.this and net.that,
And a hot buttered bun for net.fat.
The boss comes by, and I play the game,
Then I turn back to net.flame.
Is there a cure (I need your views),
For someone trapped in net.news?
I need your help, I say 'tween sobs,
'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs.
(Moderation suggestion: +27742, Insightful)
"The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of
course you never do."
-- Gregory Bateson
(Moderation suggestion: +19227, Insightful)
Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.
(Moderation suggestion: +19144, Insightful)
When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by
asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't
know the answer either.
-- Edgar R. Fiedler
(Moderation suggestion: +28229, Insightful)
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
-- Euripides
(Moderation suggestion: +4135, Insightful)
Every living thing wants to survive.
-- Spock, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
(Moderation suggestion: +9898, Insightful)
If little else, the brain is an educational toy.
-- Tom Robbins
(Moderation suggestion: +9920, Insightful)
Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with
constructive praise.
(Moderation suggestion: +3036, Insightful)
Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you.
(Moderation suggestion: +19310, Insightful)
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
(Moderation suggestion: +4221, Insightful)
..."
"There's only one kind of woman
"Or man, for that matter. You either believe in yourself or you don't."
-- Kirk and Harry Mudd, "Mudd's Women", stardate 1330.1
(Moderation suggestion: +9983, Insightful)
... even on the Mary Tyler
"I had to censor everything my sons watched
Moore show I heard the word 'damn'!"
-- Mary Lou Bax
(Moderation suggestion: +19393, Insightful)
Landru! Guide us!
-- A Beta 3-oid, "The Return of the Archons", stardate 3157.4
(Moderation suggestion: +4304, Insightful)
I had pancake makeup for brunch!
(Moderation suggestion: +28556, Insightful)
PIZZA!!
(Moderation suggestion: +10396, Insightful)
Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.
(Moderation suggestion: +3517, Insightful)
try again
(Moderation suggestion: +10066, Insightful)
... uh, when ....
FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at
the little hand is on the
(Moderation suggestion: +10149, Insightful)
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
make messes in the house.
-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
(Moderation suggestion: +4387, Insightful)
In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sat
hacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I am
training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is the
net wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have any
preconceptions of how to play." Minsky shut his eyes. "Why do you
close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher. "So the room will be
empty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
(Moderation suggestion: +3876, Insightful)
"What's that thing?"
"Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in
computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what
it does. We call it a two-by-four."
-- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe"
(Moderation suggestion: +17927, Insightful)
Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance.
(Moderation suggestion: +10232, Insightful)
"The identical is equal to itself, since it is different."
-- Franco Spisani
(Moderation suggestion: +4636, Insightful)
Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall.
(Moderation suggestion: +10705, Insightful)
Before marriage the three little words are "I love you," after marriage
they are "Let's eat out."
(Moderation suggestion: +17244, Insightful)
There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I
can't remember.
-- Italo Svevo
(Moderation suggestion: +10316, Insightful)
Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that
each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his
choice.
In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians
called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka"
and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People
passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy
Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!"
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
(Moderation suggestion: +32616, Insightful)
If you wish to succeed, consult three old people.
(Moderation suggestion: +4723, Insightful)
"I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the
nominating"
-- Boss Tweed
(Moderation suggestion: +4170, Insightful)
Thus spake the master programmer:
"Let the programmers be many and the managers few -- then all will
be productive."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
(Moderation suggestion: +729, Insightful)
... it is his business to confuse
Be frank and explicit with your lawyer
the issue afterwards.
(Moderation suggestion: +10403, Insightful)
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(Moderation suggestion: +18783, Insightful)
He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace.
-- John Mason Brown, drama critic
(Moderation suggestion: +18515, Insightful)
"Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored."
-- George Saunders' dying words
(Moderation suggestion: +18432, Insightful)
Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.
(Moderation suggestion: +18598, Insightful)
"A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch
dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension."
-- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"
(Moderation suggestion: +18950, Insightful)
Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not
nailed down.
-- Collis P. Huntingdon
(Moderation suggestion: +19621, Insightful)
Speak roughly to your little VAX,
And boot it when it crashes;
It knows that one cannot relax
Because the paging thrashes!
Wow! Wow! Wow!
I speak severely to my VAX,
And boot it when it crashes;
In spite of all my favorite hacks
My jobs it always thrashes!
Wow! Wow! Wow!
(Moderation suggestion: +19559, Insightful)
Taxes are going up so fast, the government is likely to price itself
out of the market.
(Moderation suggestion: +19476, Insightful)
Armadillo:
To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle
(Moderation suggestion: +28849, Insightful)
Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our
extraordinarily gifted English artist, Mr. Rippingille.
-- John Hunt, British editor, scholar and art critic
Cerf/Navasky, "The Experts Speak"
(Moderation suggestion: +19658, Insightful)
Are you a turtle?
(Moderation suggestion: +19741, Insightful)
But they went to MARS around 1953!!
(Moderation suggestion: +29130, Insightful)
"Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed."
-- Robin, The Boy Wonder
(Moderation suggestion: +10486, Insightful)
"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the
universe."
-- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
(Moderation suggestion: +4553, Insightful)
There once was a man named Eugene
Who invented a screwing machine
Concave and convex
It served either sex
And it played with itself in between.
(Moderation suggestion: +19824, Insightful)
Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.
(Moderation suggestion: +4804, Insightful)
There is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.
-- Spock, "A Taste of Armageddon", stardate 3193.9
(Moderation suggestion: +19907, Insightful)
Hackers do it with bugs.
(Moderation suggestion: +10574, Insightful)
..."
"... all the modern inconveniences
-- Mark Twain
(Moderation suggestion: +29636, Insightful)
"Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon."
(Moderation suggestion: +11262, Insightful)
Being asked solicitously about the state of her health was becoming bothersome
to the pregnant woman at the cocktail party. And yet another guest went over
and inquired, "Well, how are you feeling these days?"
"Not too well," said the expectant mother. "You know, I've missed
seven or eight periods now and it's beginning to worry me."
(Moderation suggestion: +4457, Insightful)
You will have a long and boring life.
(Moderation suggestion: +19992, Insightful)
Every four seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this
woman and stop her.
(Moderation suggestion: +10657, Insightful)
While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are
safe, for you can watch both of his.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +4973, Insightful)
#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255)
#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \
- (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \
- (((x)>>3)&0x11111111))
-- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word
(Moderation suggestion: +10742, Insightful)
It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to
program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in
organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be
self-critical?
-- Alan Perlis
(Moderation suggestion: +5141, Insightful)
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
-- Wernher von Braun
(Moderation suggestion: +11770, Insightful)
It seems to make an auto driver mad if he misses you.
(Moderation suggestion: +5058, Insightful)
Absurdity, n.:
A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own
opinion.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +10920, Insightful)
There once was a lady from Exeter,
So pretty that men craned their necks at her.
One was even so brave
As to take out and wave
The distinguishing mark of his sex at her.
(Moderation suggestion: +4888, Insightful)
Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is
it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now written in four
tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for
novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmar), defined by the imperfect past,
the insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future.
-- Amrom Katz
(Moderation suggestion: +1446, Insightful)
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
-- The Wizard Of Oz
(Moderation suggestion: +12125, Insightful)
If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it.
(Moderation suggestion: +5273, Insightful)
I'm ANN LANDERS!! I can SHOPLIFT!!
(Moderation suggestion: +2210, Insightful)
Never trust an automatic pistol or a D.A.'s deal.
-- John Dillinger
(Moderation suggestion: +5755, Insightful)
Tact, n.:
The unsaid part of what you're thinking.
(Moderation suggestion: +11003, Insightful)
You mean you don't want to watch WRESTLING from ATLANTA?
(Moderation suggestion: +19285, Insightful)
"The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity
that would be clearly understood."
-- Alexander Haig
(Moderation suggestion: +5598, Insightful)
Flying saucers on occasion
Show themselves to human eyes.
Aliens fume, put off invasion
While they brand these tales as lies.
(Moderation suggestion: +19451, Insightful)
The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the
klutz said, "Life is like a bowl of sour cream."
"Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?"
"How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?"
(Moderation suggestion: +11088, Insightful)
"Life is too important to take seriously."
-- Corky Siegel
(Moderation suggestion: +19119, Insightful)
Those who express random thoughts to legislative committees are often
surprised and appalled to find themselves the instigators of law.
-- Mark B. Cohen
(Moderation suggestion: +3316, Insightful)
Did you hear that two rabbits escaped from the zoo and so far they have
only recaptured 116 of them?
(Moderation suggestion: +20219, Insightful)
...
When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an
act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A
group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a
six-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do things
together which not one of you would think of doing alone."
Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collective
responsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The military
establishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to have
been expressly designed to make it possible for people to do things
together which nobody in his right mind would do alone.
-- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope"
(Moderation suggestion: +3613, Insightful)
As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?
(Moderation suggestion: +20136, Insightful)
Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting
enough cheese
-- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
(Moderation suggestion: +20401, Insightful)
... ...
We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.
But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle
Haggard song at a French restaurant.
I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of
her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I
had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone
told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was
lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he
fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing
what men must do.
"Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible
sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew
not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a
quiet and peace I will never forget.
"I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the
tollway belle's for thee."
The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was
a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I
poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day.
-- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway
Competition
(Moderation suggestion: +12812, Insightful)
When it comes to helping you, some people stop at nothing.
(Moderation suggestion: +26155, Insightful)
"Most legislators are so dumb that they couldn't pour piss out of a
boot if the instructions were printed on the heel."
(Moderation suggestion: +26238, Insightful)
... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy is
I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't know
anything else
a child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it grows
up.
-- Will Rogers
(Moderation suggestion: +26409, Insightful)
Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art.
(Moderation suggestion: +20079, Insightful)
An Army travels on her stomach.
(Moderation suggestion: +29989, Insightful)
Boy, that crayon sure did hurt!
(Moderation suggestion: +26326, Insightful)
As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great
industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free
speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to
myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a
real American talk like that.
-- Frank Hague (1896-1956)
(Moderation suggestion: +26492, Insightful)
Earth -- mother of the most beautiful women in the universe.
-- Apollo, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" stardate 3468.1
(Moderation suggestion: +20173, Insightful)
Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United
States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents a
day.
(Moderation suggestion: +20256, Insightful)
It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off
the ground.
-- Daniel B. Luten
(Moderation suggestion: +26576, Insightful)
"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile."
-- Karl Lehenbauer
(Moderation suggestion: +30286, Insightful)
... by leaving it out.
Wit, n.:
The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +13996, Insightful)
Cheit's Lament:
If you help a friend in need, he is sure to remember you--
the next time he's in need.
(Moderation suggestion: +14414, Insightful)
The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go
to erase it.
-- Glaser and Way
(Moderation suggestion: +20354, Insightful)
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
-- Woody Allen
(Moderation suggestion: +20438, Insightful)
It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself working
as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he found that he
had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one he asked,
"What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They discussed
Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second new arrival
came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's IQ. The answer
this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell me, how did the
Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half an hour or so.
To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the question, "What's
your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", Einstein smiled and asked,
"Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?"
(Moderation suggestion: +5838, Insightful)
Banectomy, n.:
The removal of bruises on a banana.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
(Moderation suggestion: +26827, Insightful)
... or is it?"
"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question
(Moderation suggestion: +30573, Insightful)
"Maybe we should think of this as one perfect week... where we found each
other, and loved each other... and then let each other go before anyone
had to seek professional help."
(Moderation suggestion: +5889, Insightful)
...
Mad, adj.:
Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +5504, Insightful)
"Life and death are seldom logical."
"But attaining a desired goal always is."
-- McCoy and Spock, "The Galileo Seven", stardate 2821.7
(Moderation suggestion: +20521, Insightful)
Th' MIND is the Pizza Palace of th' SOUL
(Moderation suggestion: +20605, Insightful)
If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything.
(Moderation suggestion: +6171, Insightful)
It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that
virginity could be a virtue.
-- Voltaire
(Moderation suggestion: +7104, Insightful)
You had some happiness once, but your parents moved away, and you had to
leave it behind.
(Moderation suggestion: +6088, Insightful)
How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?
(Moderation suggestion: +3905, Insightful)
If man is only a little lower than the angels, the angels should reform.
-- Mary Wilson Little
(Moderation suggestion: +6341, Insightful)
My vaseline is RUNNING...
(Moderation suggestion: +7388, Insightful)
... the Dragon is on ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work.
It will be advantageous to cross the great stream
the wing in the Sky
(Moderation suggestion: +20567, Insightful)
If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it
will always do it.
-- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin
next story..
(Moderation suggestion: +20735, Insightful)
Once upon a time, there was a non-conforming sparrow who decided not to
fly south for the winter. However, soon after the weather turned cold,
the sparrow changed his mind and reluctantly started to fly south.
After a short time, ice began to form his on his wings and he fell to
earth in a barnyard almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on this
little bird and the sparrow thought it was the end, but the manure
warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy the little sparrow
began to sing. Just then, a large Tom cat came by and hearing the
chirping investigated the sounds. As Old Tom cleared away the manure,
he found the chirping bird and promptly ate him.
There are three morals to this story:
(1) Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy.
(2) Everyone who gets you out of shit is not necessarily your friend.
(3) If you are warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut.
(Moderation suggestion: +6258, Insightful)
Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
(Moderation suggestion: +4271, Insightful)
There was an old Indian belief that by making love on the hide of
their favorite animal, one could guarantee the health and prosperity
of the offspring conceived thereupon. And so it goes that one Indian
couple made love on a buffalo hide. Nine months later, they were
blessed with a healthy baby son. Yet another couple huddled together
on the hide of a deer and they too were blessed with a very healthy
baby son. But a third couple, whose favorite animal was a hippopotamus,
were blessed with not one, but TWO very healthy baby sons at the conclusion
of the nine month interval. All of which proves the old theorem that:
The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of
the squaws of the other two hides.
(Moderation suggestion: +13294, Insightful)
"Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they
would. The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect
that much."
-- Augustine
(Moderation suggestion: +20652, Insightful)
If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.
(Moderation suggestion: +4720, Insightful)
... Although I don't know WHY!!
All of a sudden, I want to THROW OVER my promising ACTING CAREER, grow
a LONG BLACK BEARD and wear a BASEBALL HAT!!
(Moderation suggestion: +20901, Insightful)
Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate. The first man
said, "This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." The
second man said, "He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to his
chambers, and spent an hour trying to bite his own ear. He succeeded
only in falling over and bruising his forehead. Returning to the
courtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the man whose ear was bitten.
If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and the case is
dismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it and
must pay three silver pieces."
(Moderation suggestion: +24563, Insightful)
Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes.
Galileo: No, unhappy the land that _____needs heroes.
-- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo"
(Moderation suggestion: +24830, Insightful)
Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art.
(Moderation suggestion: +26013, Insightful)
Expense Accounts, n.:
Corporate food stamps.
(Moderation suggestion: +26910, Insightful)
"One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative."
Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
-- Chuq Von Rospach
(Moderation suggestion: +26995, Insightful)
There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I
can't remember.
-- Italo Svevo
(Moderation suggestion: +27082, Insightful)
To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide
a test load.
(Moderation suggestion: +30978, Insightful)
Spring is here, spring is here,
Life is skittles and life is beer.
(Moderation suggestion: +14986, Insightful)
"Being against torture ought to be sort of a bipartisan thing."
-- Karl Lehenbauer
(Moderation suggestion: +20690, Insightful)
YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL!
(Moderation suggestion: +27165, Insightful)
Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it.
-- Rex Reed
(Moderation suggestion: +27248, Insightful)
"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to
die in."
-- George McGovern
(Moderation suggestion: +20773, Insightful)
"I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. You
sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an
eight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. I
have never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty of
beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below. Westbrook Pegler, a
guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. You can take that as more
of an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry."
-- President Harry S Truman
(Moderation suggestion: +31359, Insightful)
There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a
rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2,
to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him to let you read the
manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2
admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
(Moderation suggestion: +27500, Insightful)
... I can sit and watch it for hours."
"I like work
(Moderation suggestion: +20858, Insightful)
Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
(Moderation suggestion: +27583, Insightful)
When you try to make an impression, the chances are that is the
impression you will make.
(Moderation suggestion: +27666, Insightful)
In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus,
"one when he was a boy and one when he was a man."
-- Mark Twain
(Moderation suggestion: +20941, Insightful)
Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must
be good because the programmers hate it so much.
(Moderation suggestion: +31700, Insightful)
Never get into fights with ugly people because they have nothing to lose.
(Moderation suggestion: +27750, Insightful)
"I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person,
of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell
you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial
atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something
inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering."
-- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado", Gilbert & Sullivan
(Moderation suggestion: +13211, Insightful)
A Nixon [is preferable to] a Dean Rusk -- who will be passionately
wrong with a high sense of consistency.
-- J. K. Galbraith
(Moderation suggestion: +13809, Insightful)
There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect
the sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the
sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too.
-- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"
(Moderation suggestion: +21024, Insightful)
The superfluous is very necessary.
-- Voltaire
(Moderation suggestion: +20604, Insightful)
Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children.
-- Mark Twain
(Moderation suggestion: +21111, Insightful)
BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the
outfit."
GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?"
BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive..."
-- Jay Ward
(Moderation suggestion: +31986, Insightful)
Most people prefer certainty to truth.
(Moderation suggestion: +14240, Insightful)
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.
-- Abraham Lincoln
In the interview with Salon, McLeod mentions being ispired by a tract called T"wo Hundred Pharaohs, Five Billion Slaves"
Has anyone come across this on the internet?
I think he wants to be able to filter them OUT. You can't do that currently.
(Moderation suggestion: +14072, Insightful)
An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you
really care to know.
(Moderation suggestion: +21010, Insightful)
It is not a good omen when goldfish commit suicide.
I'm in a cheery mood after seeing this review, and the positive mentions Ken's books received in the comments to the SF101 article a few weeks back. I picked up 'The Star Fraction' and 'The Stone Canal'(?) at a second hand stall last year, and had an excellent time with them, but I was concerned that he didn't seem to be getting much recognition. I know being reviewed on Slashdot isn't quite the big time yet, but at least it all seems to be heading in the right direction.a cleod_interview/index.html
I've just come across this old Salon interview with him;
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/07/27/m
(Moderation suggestion: +14155, Insightful)
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Damn fine book and I say that without a shred of jest. Not only is it set in my old University, but you have two more books set afterwards in the same vein. All three are stunning. What can I say... read it/them Disco Jim
(Moderation suggestion: +14324, Insightful)
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three
men, two of them absent.
(Moderation suggestion: +21282, Insightful)
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving
wordy evidence of the fact.
-- George Eliot
(Moderation suggestion: +14421, Insightful)
A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it
is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.
(Moderation suggestion: +16249, Insightful)
What I Did During My Fall Semester
On the first day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.
On the second day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.
On the third day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
I found a thesis topic:
How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover.
-- Sister Mary Elephant, "Student Statement for Black Friday"
(Moderation suggestion: +27837, Insightful)
"When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."
-- Winston Curchill, On formal declarations of war
(Moderation suggestion: +27920, Insightful)
George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first to
have his birthday juggled to make a long weekend.
-- Ashley Cooper
(Moderation suggestion: +16543, Insightful)
Falling in love is a lot like dying. You never get to do it enough to
become good at it.
(Moderation suggestion: +21194, Insightful)
E Pluribus Unix
(Moderation suggestion: +16943, Insightful)
Heard that the next Space Shuttle is supposed to carry several Guernsey cows?
It's gonna be the herd shot 'round the world.
(Moderation suggestion: +21277, Insightful)
Yow! I threw up on my window!
(Moderation suggestion: +32402, Insightful)
At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly
contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre
or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny
of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep
nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the
world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective
enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the
field on track.
-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987
(Moderation suggestion: +28171, Insightful)
Conservative, n.:
One who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.
-- Leo C. Rosten
(Moderation suggestion: +21361, Insightful)
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
-- Euripides
(Moderation suggestion: +28254, Insightful)
You can lead a whore to Vasser, but you can't make her think.
-- Frederick B. Artz
(Moderation suggestion: +28337, Insightful)
I wouldn't mind dying -- it's that business of having to stay dead that
scares the shit out of me.
-- R. Geis
(Moderation suggestion: +21445, Insightful)
Nothing recedes like success.
-- Walter Winchell
(Moderation suggestion: +56, Insightful)
An optimist is a man who looks forward to marriage.
A pessimist is a married optimist.
(Moderation suggestion: +28422, Insightful)
Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.
(Moderation suggestion: +21619, Insightful)
Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!!
(Moderation suggestion: +28505, Insightful)
Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.
-- Frank Moore Colby
(Moderation suggestion: +21530, Insightful)
If I am elected no one will ever have to do their laundry again!
(Moderation suggestion: +21614, Insightful)
LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand.
(Moderation suggestion: +14504, Insightful)
"Taxes should hurt. I just mailed my own tax return last night and I
am prepared to say `ouch!' as loud as anyone."
-- Ronald Reagan
(Moderation suggestion: +373, Insightful)
Marriage, n.:
The evil aye.
It gives a fair idea of what the rest of the world thinks about americans, or at least what you would do if you had half a chance of getting away with it.
(Moderation suggestion: +14587, Insightful)
...
Lisp hackers have to be bound (to-do 'it)
(Moderation suggestion: +21984, Insightful)
If the meanings of "true" and "false" were switched, then this sentence
would not be false.
(Moderation suggestion: +21699, Insightful)
Parsley
is gharsley.
-- Ogden Nash
(Moderation suggestion: +14673, Insightful)
Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.
Date of publication, or is there some other order.
Just started reading Vinge's latest offering, and it is relighting that ole sci-fi fire. Perhaps I'll give these a try....
(Moderation suggestion: +14756, Insightful)
We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an
official name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death
Flu". You may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish
you had another setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that
said "ELECTROCUTION".
Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) your
teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing
process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a
couple of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways
out of your mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste
stalagmites that would bond your head permanently to the bathroom
floor, which is how the police would find you.
You know the kind of flu I'm talking about.
-- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"
(Moderation suggestion: +22440, Insightful)
If men acted after marriage as they do during courtship, there would
be fewer divorces -- and more bankruptcies.
-- Frances Rodman
After reading the following from Salon, I will definitely not be running out to buy the Only U.S. Published MacLeod.
What book is considered the "start" of the series. I want a taste of MacLeod and would like to begin at the begining
But "The Cassini Division" is the first of MacLeod's novels to be published in the United States, TorBooks, his publisher, is starting with "The Cassini Division" on the assumption that the British-flavored politics of "The Star Fraction" might baffle some readers. This is unfortunate -- not only is it a bit odd to start a tetralogy in mid-stream, but "The Cassini Division" is also a simpler, less psychologically rich work than Macleod's first two books.
(Moderation suggestion: +14839, Insightful)
"Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" <huff, huff>
It's novels like this that give me some hope that the left might still have some place in English-language science fiction. The dominance of reactionary capitalists in SF is getting really old, and awfully annoying.
So Banks, LeGuin, and Asimov are reactionary capitalists? This is news to me.
I was shocked to see Tor put out The Cassini Division, given the politics of most of its stable of writers.
This would be the Tor that publishes Steven Brust, who wrote Freedom and Necessity, a Hegelian fantasy novel? (No, I'm not kidding. Go read it.)
You may be thinking of Baen books, which does put out a lot of David Drake tank-porn, but there's no politics there: Baen publishes teenage wish-fulfillment, and sometimes that's driving around in big tanks blowing up the natives, and other times that's communes full of caring and peaceful Gaia-worshipping elves. (Never mind that the two are equally unlikely. It's what the kids seem to want.)
Seriously, I think it's impossible to generalize about the politics of the SF genre. For every Heinlein you have a LeGuin, for every Suzy McKee Charnas there's a Jerry Pournelle, for every Poul Anderson there's a Steven Brust.
In any event (and as a confirmed right anarchist) I say Ken McLeod is good stuff. He writes books that take ideas seriously, even those he personally disagrees with. This makes the man worth his weight in diamonds.
(Moderation suggestion: +14923, Insightful)
"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."
-- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
(Moderation suggestion: +22756, Insightful)
Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just type
in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving
the room is punishable under law:
Name
#
(Moderation suggestion: +28606, Insightful)
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
-- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
(Moderation suggestion: +18037, Insightful)
It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
(Moderation suggestion: +28855, Insightful)
Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.
(Moderation suggestion: +18515, Insightful)
The best portion of a good man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts
of kindness and love.
-- Wordsworth
(Moderation suggestion: +10986, Insightful)
It's hard to think of you as the end result of millions of years of evolution.
(Moderation suggestion: +21782, Insightful)
Every living thing wants to survive.
-- Spock, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
(Moderation suggestion: +25521, Insightful)
A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not
mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty
trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators.
-- Dave Barry
(Moderation suggestion: +21870, Insightful)
BLISS is ignorance
(Moderation suggestion: +28941, Insightful)
unix soit qui mal y pense
(Moderation suggestion: +638, Insightful)
I'm gliding over a NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP near ATLANTA, Georgia!!
(Moderation suggestion: +11283, Insightful)
Every day it's the same thing -- variety. I want something different.
(Moderation suggestion: +29024, Insightful)
Fairy Tale, n.:
A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers.
(Moderation suggestion: +18875, Insightful)
A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the
movies insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the
right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them.
(Moderation suggestion: +21953, Insightful)
Should I get locked in the PRINCICAL'S OFFICE today -- or have a
VASECTOMY??
(Moderation suggestion: +25688, Insightful)
If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to
invent it.
(Moderation suggestion: +11571, Insightful)
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation,
indivisible,
with liberty
and justice for all.
- Francis Bellamy, 1892
(Moderation suggestion: +29107, Insightful)
Kin, n.:
An affliction of the blood
(Moderation suggestion: +22070, Insightful)
It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself working
as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he found that he
had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one he asked,
"What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They discussed
Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second new arrival
came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's IQ. The answer
this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell me, how did the
Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half an hour or so.
To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the question, "What's
your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", Einstein smiled and asked,
"Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?"
(Moderation suggestion: +1025, Insightful)
Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.
(Moderation suggestion: +29190, Insightful)
"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like
`Psychic Wins Lottery'?"
-- Jay Leno
(Moderation suggestion: +25856, Insightful)
Is your job running? You'd better go catch it!
(Moderation suggestion: +12053, Insightful)
Victory or defeat!
(Moderation suggestion: +22155, Insightful)
Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or through
any of its streets.
(Moderation suggestion: +15006, Insightful)
Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.
(Moderation suggestion: +29290, Insightful)
Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month):
Don't Write On Walls!
(and underneath)
You want I should type?
(Moderation suggestion: +22238, Insightful)
If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything.
(Moderation suggestion: +26022, Insightful)
If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it?
-- Ann Edwards-Duff
(Moderation suggestion: +15106, Insightful)
When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, you
modify the problem, not the remedy.
(Moderation suggestion: +1526, Insightful)
Isn't air travel wonderful? Breakfast in London, dinner in New York,
luggage in Brazil.
(Moderation suggestion: +12418, Insightful)
This life is yours. Some of it was given to you; the rest, you made yourself.
(Moderation suggestion: +23044, Insightful)
A farm in the country side had several turkeys, it was known as the
house of seven gobbles.
(Moderation suggestion: +26106, Insightful)
Civilization is fun! Anyway, it keeps me busy!!
(Moderation suggestion: +22321, Insightful)
Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction
listen to weather forecasts and economists?
-- Kelvin Throop III
(Moderation suggestion: +15189, Insightful)
And I heard Jeff exclaim,
As they strolled out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all --
You take credit cards, right?"
-- "Outsiders" comic
(Moderation suggestion: +15272, Insightful)
*** System shutdown message from root ***
System going down in 60 seconds
(Moderation suggestion: +15355, Insightful)
Chicken Little only has to be right once.
(Moderation suggestion: +23423, Insightful)
The faster we go, the rounder we get.
-- The Grateful Dead
Asimov is dead. So is Brunner. LeGuin is way past her best years and so is Moorcock. I am encouraged by Iain Banks's books and occaisionally Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson.
You know, I could turn this around and say, "Heinlein is dead. So is H. Beam Piper. Poul Anderson is past his best years and so is Niven."
Incidentally, I disagree about Moorcock. He's doing some of the best writing he has ever done -- he wrote a lot of flat-out crap in the 70s, mostly to keep New Worlds afloat, and nowadays he's writing these weird complex wonderful novels.
No, not all SF is right-wing, but not much on the left side has been coming out in recent years.
I'd agree that we haven't seen too much full-bore political SF in the tradition of Starship Troopers and The Dispossessed recently. Even Iain Banks tends to put socialism in the background (the Culture is never the central artifact being examined in his SF novels).
On the left, the problem is that the academic left in the US has gone in a direction unfriendly to the assumptions of SF. Sure, Samuel Delany is wonderful, but there isn't anyone else who can manage a _Trouble on Triton_. (If you haven't, look it up -- it's an amazing novel set in an SF society where deconstructionism is the dominant social aesthetic. It's great!)
On the right, the public choice and law-and-ecoonomics crowd have made the theoretical rationale for libertarianism too inaccessible for the typical writer to get a handle on. So we get pablum rather than the absolutely bracing rigor that is possible.
I mean, the average libertarian SF novels has businessmen more interested in preserving capitalism rather than making a profit. This is just ludicrous! If public choice theory has a single lesson to teach, it's that "corrupt nexus of business and government" is a single word. :)
Anyway, I'd have to disagree with your characterization of Glen Cook as 'right-wing'. AFAICT his worldview is:
This is kind of a Hobbesian worldview, except that he doesn't believe that government can stop the war of all against all. I just hope it's a coincidence that he builds the most plausible and realistic societies in the whole genre. :) (He's not so great at the actual mechanics of prose, but I still love him anyway.)
Oh yeah, here's one more novel that someone looking particularly for leftist SF would like, and is more than good enough for anyone looking for a just plain excellent read. Go read Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist. It might be a little too American for you, because it's (among other things) about race relations, but it's damn good stuff.
(Moderation suggestion: +15440, Insightful)
"I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am.
It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get."
Sorry, but 'The Sky Road' is an alternative ending
to the trilogy. Ken has confirmed this himself.
(Moderation suggestion: +15523, Insightful)
The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for
lists of "Ten Best".
-- H. Allen Smith
(Moderation suggestion: +23937, Insightful)
All right, you degenerates! I want this place evacuated in 20 seconds!
(Moderation suggestion: +29539, Insightful)
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never
learned to walk.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Moderation suggestion: +29624, Insightful)
Are you mentally here at Pizza Hut??
(Moderation suggestion: +29708, Insightful)
You speak of courage. Obviously you do not know the difference between
courage and foolhardiness. Always it is the brave ones who die, the
soldiers.
-- Kor, the Klingon Commander, "Errand of Mercy",
stardate 3201.7
(Moderation suggestion: +20125, Insightful)
The founding fathers tried to set up a judicial system where the accused
received a fair trial, not a system to insure an acquittal on technicalities.
(Moderation suggestion: +22404, Insightful)
I'm ANN LANDERS!! I can SHOPLIFT!!
(Moderation suggestion: +26190, Insightful)
Romulan women are not like Vulcan females. We are not dedicated to
pure logic and the sterility of non-emotion.
-- Romulan Commander, "The Enterprise Incident",
stardate 5027.3
(Moderation suggestion: +29804, Insightful)
Song Title of the Week:
"They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change
in me."
(Moderation suggestion: +1834, Insightful)
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.
(Moderation suggestion: +12721, Insightful)
No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill,
belonging to it.
-- Frank Lloyd Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +29887, Insightful)
Vulcans do not approve of violence.
-- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4
(Moderation suggestion: +22487, Insightful)
An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.
(Moderation suggestion: +26290, Insightful)
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like
shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
-- Phyllis Diller
(Moderation suggestion: +20423, Insightful)
Am I in GRADUATE SCHOOL yet?
(Moderation suggestion: +22570, Insightful)
Burn's Hog Weighing Method:
(1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a
sawhorse.
(2) Put the hog on one end of the plank.
(3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again
perfectly balanced.
(4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.
-- Robert Burns
(Moderation suggestion: +26373, Insightful)
A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for
the first time.
-- Alfred E. Wiggam
(Moderation suggestion: +2122, Insightful)
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not
far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel
is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
-- R.A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"
(Moderation suggestion: +13009, Insightful)
Every love's the love before
In a duller dress.
-- Dorothy Parker, "Summary"
(Moderation suggestion: +29972, Insightful)
Ducharme's Precept:
Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.
(Moderation suggestion: +20699, Insightful)
weapon, n.:
An index of the lack of development of a culture.
(Moderation suggestion: +26456, Insightful)
Compassion -- that's the one things no machine ever had. Maybe it's
the one thing that keeps men ahead of them.
-- McCoy, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3
(Moderation suggestion: +22670, Insightful)
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
home."
-- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society
Convention, 1977
(Moderation suggestion: +22754, Insightful)
Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never
afraid to break your face.
(Moderation suggestion: +15606, Insightful)
Do you have exactly what I want in a plaid poindexter bar bat??
(Moderation suggestion: +26541, Insightful)
"The combination of a number of things to make existence worthwhile."
"Yes, the philosophy of 'none,' meaning 'all.'"
-- Spock and Lincoln, "The Savage Curtain", stardate 5906.4
(Moderation suggestion: +30237, Insightful)
You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you
can with just a kind word.
-- Bumper Sticker
(Moderation suggestion: +2395, Insightful)
Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century. Politics is about
surviving until Friday afternoon.
-- Sir Humphrey Appleby
(Moderation suggestion: +13420, Insightful)
"Logic and practical information do not seem to apply here."
"You admit that?"
"To deny the facts would be illogical, Doctor"
-- Spock and McCoy, "A Piece of the Action", stardate unknown
(Moderation suggestion: +15691, Insightful)
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad
example.
-- La Rouchefoucauld
(Moderation suggestion: +24231, Insightful)
job Placement, n.:
Telling your boss what he can do with your job.
(Moderation suggestion: +26625, Insightful)
This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need,
please use the program "________randchar". This program generates random
characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with
something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be
more profound than THIS program has ever been.
(Moderation suggestion: +22840, Insightful)
I once decorated my apartment entirely in ten foot salad forks!!
(Moderation suggestion: +26708, Insightful)
NEWARK has been REZONED!! DES MOINES has been REZONED!!
MacLeod posts on Usenet, including rasw, and writes about his own beliefs.
From a stereotypical Slashdot geeky perspective, Macleod's books are also notable for coining such phrases as "a complete load of serdar argic".
(Moderation suggestion: +15776, Insightful)
There are some things worth dying for.
-- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7
(Moderation suggestion: +22925, Insightful)
After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose
names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary
Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted
many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi
Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two
different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current
developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer
attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led
to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today,
skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously
injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it
hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact
that it sinks like a stone.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
(Moderation suggestion: +24517, Insightful)
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
-- Karl, as he stepped behind the computer to reboot it, during a FAT
(Moderation suggestion: +15958, Insightful)
Kasha, n.:
Kasha is always defined as "buckwheat groats". There's only
one problem with this definition: what the fuck are "buckwheat
groats"? *_I* know what they are -- they're kasha. But that doesn't
help *___you* much.
-- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
If you speak some German you can actually buy US-books in a german internet bookstore. I believe that they sell them immediately after they're published in the US and some ship to all EU-countries without charge (www.buecher.de does).
(Moderation suggestion: +16041, Insightful)
It [being a Vulcan] means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which is
logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for
personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be.
-- Spock, "Journey to Babel", stardate 3842.4
(Moderation suggestion: +24828, Insightful)
How many priests are needed for a Boston Mass?
(Moderation suggestion: +16127, Insightful)
...
Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and
it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin
very closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gently
tracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her
[EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important
world events such as agriculture, we're going to delete the
next few square feet of the woman's skin. Thank you.]
... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking your
cigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up of
billions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is even
more interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is a
fact. Your skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where the
older veteran cells, who have finally worked their way to the top and
obtained offices with nice views, are constantly being shoved out the
window head first, without so much as a pension plan, by younger
hotshot cells moving up from below.
-- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"
(Moderation suggestion: +16210, Insightful)
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use
in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the
Declaration not for that, but for future use.
-- Abraham Lincoln
(Moderation suggestion: +30405, Insightful)
..." ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"
A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at
the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the
pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite
nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if
"If what?" asked the composer.
"If
(Moderation suggestion: +30322, Insightful)
May the fairy god-camel leave a lump on your pillow!
(Moderation suggestion: +30571, Insightful)
You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially
if they are dead.
(Moderation suggestion: +2893, Insightful)
Forecast, n.:
A prediction of the future, based on the past, for
which the forecaster demands payment in the present.
(Moderation suggestion: +13812, Insightful)
Beam me up, Scotty! It ate my phaser!
(Moderation suggestion: +30154, Insightful)
The bigger the theory the better.
(Moderation suggestion: +26791, Insightful)
When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into
the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
-- Woody Allen
(Moderation suggestion: +30654, Insightful)
Spirtle, n.:
The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in
your eye.
-- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"
(Moderation suggestion: +23010, Insightful)
Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch.
(Moderation suggestion: +21945, Insightful)
Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens
to you.
-- Aldous Huxley
(Moderation suggestion: +26875, Insightful)
Democracy, n.:
A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass
meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate,
whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion,
prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
-- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932),
since withdrawn.
(Moderation suggestion: +23094, Insightful)
In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
(Moderation suggestion: +3264, Insightful)
A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt.
As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the
student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before
the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit
the student with a stick.
(Moderation suggestion: +30737, Insightful)
Coincidences are spiritual puns.
-- G. K. Chesterton
(Moderation suggestion: +26958, Insightful)
In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds
and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane.
(Moderation suggestion: +14128, Insightful)
There is much Obi-Wan did not tell you.
-- Darth Vader
(Moderation suggestion: +30837, Insightful)
I'll eat ANYTHING that's BRIGHT BLUE!!
(Moderation suggestion: +23179, Insightful)
Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire.
(Moderation suggestion: +22229, Insightful)
Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.
(Moderation suggestion: +27045, Insightful)
Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as
Wheels.
(Moderation suggestion: +23262, Insightful)
... Maybe a YUBBA ... But no WOO-WOO!
I didn't order any WOO-WOO
(Moderation suggestion: +3561, Insightful)
User n.:
A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.
(Moderation suggestion: +25362, Insightful)
... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM
of a KOSHER DELI --
(Moderation suggestion: +30920, Insightful)
Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would
notify you if the record has pornographics material or
material glorifying violence?"
Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me."
Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's
legs on the album cover is good indication that it's
not for little Johnny."
-- The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock
lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985
(Moderation suggestion: +27128, Insightful)
Laetrile is the pits
(Moderation suggestion: +14411, Insightful)
Those who don't know, talk. Those who don't talk, know.
(Moderation suggestion: +23349, Insightful)
...
Gibble, Gobble, we ACCEPT YOU
(Moderation suggestion: +16293, Insightful)
Lactomangulation, n.:
Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly
that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
(Moderation suggestion: +23432, Insightful)
It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck?
One in a million, perhaps.
(Moderation suggestion: +25673, Insightful)
Dear Freshman,
You don't know who I am and frankly shouldn't care, but
unknown to you we have something in common. We are both rather
prone to mistakes. I was elected Student Government President by
mistake, and you came to school here by mistake.
I'm a Canadian, i just believe that your political beliefs cloud your viewpoint on Americans.
THB
(Moderation suggestion: +27211, Insightful)
All your people must learn before you can reach for the stars.
-- Kirk, "The Gamesters of Triskelion", stardate 3259.2
(Moderation suggestion: +3847, Insightful)
Variables don't; constants aren't.
(Moderation suggestion: +16459, Insightful)
..." An unusually long pause followed, "... but I don't know
"Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universe
again
which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A
spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the
starfield surrounding the ship.
"Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC
announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they
are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been
intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and
transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown.
Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious."
-- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star"
(Moderation suggestion: +26255, Insightful)
Davis's Dictum:
Problems that go away by themselves, come back by themselves.
(Moderation suggestion: +27294, Insightful)
...
Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS
(Moderation suggestion: +25969, Insightful)
"We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem."
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
(Moderation suggestion: +16629, Insightful)
...
Xerox does it again and again and again and
(Moderation suggestion: +16712, Insightful)
There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
-- Mark Twain
(Moderation suggestion: +6849, Insightful)
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which
divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being
correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
-- Niels Bohr
(Moderation suggestion: +16880, Insightful)
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf
has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
-- Will Rogers
(Moderation suggestion: +16795, Insightful)
... Seats 500.
Did you hear about the new German microwave oven?
(Moderation suggestion: +6941, Insightful)
Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many
people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable
comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where
the "nog" comes from.
To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in
season, eggs...
(Moderation suggestion: +7024, Insightful)
... its programmed with simple instructions --
When a child is taught
and at some point, if its mind develops properly, it exceeds the sum of
what it was taught, thinks independently.
-- Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer",
stardate 4731.3.
(Moderation suggestion: +23515, Insightful)
There was a young girl named Sapphire
Who succumbed to her lover's desire.
She said, "It's a sin,
But now that it's in,
Could you shove it a few inches higher?"
(Moderation suggestion: +23598, Insightful)
People who develop the habit of thinking of themselves as world
citizens are fulfilling the first requirement of sanity in our time.
-- Norman Cousins
(Moderation suggestion: +4277, Insightful)
Don't worry -- the brontosaurus is slow, stupid, and placid.
(Moderation suggestion: +6603, Insightful)
I'm rated PG-34!!
(Moderation suggestion: +6445, Insightful)
The solution of problems is the most characteristic and peculiar sort
of voluntary thinking.
-- William James
(Moderation suggestion: +23685, Insightful)
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked
at in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
-- Poul Anderson
(Moderation suggestion: +23768, Insightful)
A.A.A.A.A.:
An organization for drunks who drive
(Moderation suggestion: +6774, Insightful)
Lackland's Laws:
(1) Never be first.
(2) Never be last.
(3) Never volunteer for anything
(Moderation suggestion: +4680, Insightful)
volcano, n.:
A mountain with hiccups.
(Moderation suggestion: +6862, Insightful)
I'll grant thee random access to my heart,
Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove
And in our bound partition never part.
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
(Moderation suggestion: +6826, Insightful)
Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere.
Climb the mountain just a little to test it's a mountain.
From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.
-- Bene Gesserit proverb, "Dune"
(Moderation suggestion: +23851, Insightful)
Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person
reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes,
nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home.
(Moderation suggestion: +24241, Insightful)
Change is the essential process of all existence.
-- Spock, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", stardate 5730.2
(Moderation suggestion: +6949, Insightful)
Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities,
requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm
into a clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing
problems, such as annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the
radio. But before we get into specific techniques, let's look at how
plumbing works.
A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system,
except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires,
it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets
and toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at
all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can
kill you.
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
(Moderation suggestion: +31004, Insightful)
...
Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon,
there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he
was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how
completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday
-- Walt Kelly
(Moderation suggestion: +24905, Insightful)
Any clod can have the facts, but having an opinion is an art.
-- Charles McCabe
(Moderation suggestion: +7034, Insightful)
Hippogriff, n.:
An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin.
The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle.
The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which
is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full
of surprises.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +7154, Insightful)
Satire is what closes Saturday night.
-- George Kaufman
(Moderation suggestion: +31088, Insightful)
Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence?
A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.
(Moderation suggestion: +24838, Insightful)
(Moderation suggestion: +22648, Insightful)
"I've seen, I SAY, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer"
-- Senator Claghorn
(Moderation suggestion: +7118, Insightful)
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
(Moderation suggestion: +14823, Insightful)
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
(Moderation suggestion: +7218, Insightful)
H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L.
Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude.
-- Maxwell Bodenheim
(Moderation suggestion: +31172, Insightful)
A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
-- O'Henry
(Moderation suggestion: +31256, Insightful)
One seldom sees a monument to a committee.
(Moderation suggestion: +27379, Insightful)
"Nirvana? Thats the place where the powers that be and their friends
hang out.
-- Zonker Harris
(Moderation suggestion: +23062, Insightful)
"Humpf!" Humpfed a voice! "For almost two days you've run wild and insisted on
chatting with persons who've never existed. Such carryings-on in our peaceable
jungle! We've had quite enough of you bellowing bungle! And I'm here to
state," snapped the big kangaroo, "That your silly nonsensical game is all
through!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "Me, too!"
"With the help of the Wickersham Brothers and dozens of Wickersham
Uncles and Wickersham Cousins and Wickersham In-Laws, whose help I've engaged,
You're going to be roped! And you're going to be caged! And, as for your dust
speck... Hah! That we shall boil in a hot steaming kettle of Beezle-Nut oil!"
-- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who"
(Moderation suggestion: +27474, Insightful)
"But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad
place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge.
Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a
kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs,
poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I
explained yet about the bytes?"
(Moderation suggestion: +15238, Insightful)
No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill,
belonging to it.
-- Frank Lloyd Wright
(Moderation suggestion: +31341, Insightful)
Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and live
in eucalyptus trees.
(Moderation suggestion: +31424, Insightful)
I haven't been married in over six years, but we had sexual counseling
every day from Oral Roberts!!
(Moderation suggestion: +27559, Insightful)
Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name
correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into
(Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but
Americans call him by value.
(Moderation suggestion: +23366, Insightful)
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
(Moderation suggestion: +27642, Insightful)
Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those
Californians trying to share the experience.
(Moderation suggestion: +15545, Insightful)
What they say: What they mean:
New Different colors from previous version.
All New Not compatible with previous version.
Exclusive Nobody else has documentation.
Unmatched Almost as good as the competition.
Design Simplicity The company wouldn't give us any money.
Fool-proof Operation All parameters are hard-coded.
Advanced Design Nobody really understands it.
Here At Last Didn't get it done on time.
Field Tested We don't have any simulators.
Years of Development Finally got one to work.
Unprecedented Performance Nothing ever ran this slow before.
Revolutionary Disk drives go 'round and 'round.
Futuristic Only runs on a next generation supercomputer.
No Maintenance Impossible to fix.
Performance Proven Worked through Beta test.
Meets Tough Quality Standards It compiles without errors.
Satisfaction Guaranteed We'll send you another pack if it fails.
Stock Item We shipped it before and can do it again.
(Moderation suggestion: +26732, Insightful)
If he once again pushes up his sleeves in order to compute for 3 days
and 3 nights in a row, he will spend a quarter of an hour before to
think which principles of computation shall be most appropriate.
-- Voltaire, "Diatribe du docteur Akakia"
(Moderation suggestion: +31511, Insightful)
Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity.
-- Robert Firth
(Moderation suggestion: +17144, Insightful)
"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."
(Moderation suggestion: +27741, Insightful)
... so up yours."
"We are upping our standards
-- Pat Paulsen for President, 1988.
(Moderation suggestion: +27112, Insightful)
"OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard."
-- Dr. Joy
(Moderation suggestion: +10844, Insightful)
Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls...
if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee.
(Moderation suggestion: +17058, Insightful)
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
-- Ashley Montagu
(Moderation suggestion: +27824, Insightful)
If Robert Di Niro assassinates Walter Slezak, will Jodie Foster marry
Bonzo??
(Moderation suggestion: +7110, Insightful)
Chicken Little was right.
(Moderation suggestion: +15824, Insightful)
"The identical is equal to itself, since it is different."
-- Franco Spisani
(Moderation suggestion: +7191, Insightful)
Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders
has been discontinued.
(Moderation suggestion: +17227, Insightful)
Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.
-- Fletcher Knebel
(Moderation suggestion: +11320, Insightful)
clairvoyant, n.:
A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that
which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +27417, Insightful)
Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack.
(Moderation suggestion: +7353, Insightful)
Too clever is dumb.
-- Ogden Nash
(Moderation suggestion: +17328, Insightful)
MAFIA, n:
[Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced Insurance
Accounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshore
subsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS. MAFIA documentation is
rather scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testy
reluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DP
operations. From the little that has seeped out, it would appear that
MAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lipped
variant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complex
security functions. The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to a
more than usually autocratic operating system. Screen prompts carry an
imperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YES
options, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay.
Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using a
powerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, and
entire nodal aggravations.
-- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +11692, Insightful)
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting
to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Author
-- Mark Twain, "Tom Sawyer"
(Moderation suggestion: +17411, Insightful)
The Gray-haired Woman's Complaint
My back aches, my pussy is sore;
I simply can't fuck any more;
I'm covered with sweat,
And you haven't come yet,
And my God, it's a quarter to four!
(Moderation suggestion: +7445, Insightful)
One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet
when well oiled.
(Moderation suggestion: +27692, Insightful)
Last week's pet, this week's special.
(Moderation suggestion: +7530, Insightful)
Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured
programming is for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet-
trained. They wear neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise
clear desks.
(Moderation suggestion: +17911, Insightful)
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they
translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something
entirely different.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Moderation suggestion: +12000, Insightful)
In good speaking, should not the mind of the speaker know the truth of
the matter about which he is to speak?
-- Plato
(Moderation suggestion: +7637, Insightful)
Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically.
(Moderation suggestion: +24794, Insightful)
(Moderation suggestion: +24985, Insightful)
Any clod can have the facts, but having an opinion is an art.
-- Charles McCabe
(Moderation suggestion: +7443, Insightful)
No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next.
-- E.W. Howe
(Moderation suggestion: +25647, Insightful)
Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes a
faster rat!!!
(Moderation suggestion: +26048, Insightful)
"Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?"
-- Lily Tomlin
(Moderation suggestion: +7301, Insightful)
10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.
(Moderation suggestion: +7384, Insightful)
... IT'S TIME FOR "HEE
"I want to buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch `St.
Elsewhere', won't scream, `FORGET IT, BLANCHE
HAW"!!'"
-- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County"
(Moderation suggestion: +29581, Insightful)
You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.
(Moderation suggestion: +7873, Insightful)
Beauty, n.:
The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.
-- Ambrose Bierce
(Moderation suggestion: +29482, Insightful)
Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions.
-- Henry N. Camp
(Moderation suggestion: +26241, Insightful)
"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."
(Moderation suggestion: +7559, Insightful)
You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't
pick your friend's nose.
(Moderation suggestion: +29966, Insightful)
Mayor Vincent J. `Buddy' Cianci on the ACLU's suit to have a city
nativity scene removed:
"They're just jealous because they don't have three wise men
and a virgin in the whole organization."
(Moderation suggestion: +7476, Insightful)
Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction.
(Moderation suggestion: +8287, Insightful)
Never drink from your finger bowl -- it contains only water.
(Moderation suggestion: +31594, Insightful)
Patageometry, n.:
The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant
under brain transplants.
(Moderation suggestion: +23661, Insightful)
Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people build:
They hyave very large numbers of states. This makes conceiving, describing,
and testing them hard. Software systems have orders-of-magnitude more states
than computers do.
- Fred Brooks, Jr.
(Moderation suggestion: +7643, Insightful)
Die, v.:
To stop sinning suddenly.
-- Elbert Hubbard
(Moderation suggestion: +7726, Insightful)
Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home
tool sets for under $4?" An excellent question.
Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell
plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where
they have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of
Raisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon
administration. In either the hardware or housewares department,
you'll find an item imported from an obscure Oriental country and
described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of a little handle with
interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental notions of tools
that Americans might use around the home. Buy it.
This is the kind of tool set professionals use. Not only is it
inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the
so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off
if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to
direct sunlight.
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
(Moderation suggestion: +31677, Insightful)
Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders
has been discontinued.
(Moderation suggestion: +31760, Insightful)
So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway? And why can't he ever
remember his Bible?
(Moderation suggestion: +7811, Insightful)
A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows.
-- O'Henry
(Moderation suggestion: +27907, Insightful)
Lieberman's Law:
Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
(Moderation suggestion: +24021, Insightful)
If you hype something and it succeeds, you're a genius -- it wasn't a
hype. If you hype it and it fails, then it was just a hype.
-- Neil Bogart
(Moderation suggestion: +27990, Insightful)
"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation."
-- Johnny Hart
(Moderation suggestion: +16207, Insightful)
I have accepted Provolone into my life!
(Moderation suggestion: +31845, Insightful)
Fresco's Discovery:
If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored.
(Moderation suggestion: +31928, Insightful)
History, n.:
Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we
learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from
what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long
view.
-- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"
(Moderation suggestion: +28076, Insightful)
The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher,
Were each of them once a kiddie.
A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature.
Do I want one? God Forbiddie!
-- Ogden Nash
(Moderation suggestion: +24480, Insightful)
What does it mean if there is no fortune for you?
(Moderation suggestion: +28109, Insightful)
Vulcans never bluff.
-- Spock, "The Doomsday Machine", stardate 4202.1
(Moderation suggestion: +16694, Insightful)
FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #4
Clothes:
Men don't discard clothes. The average man still has the gym shirt
he wore in high school. He thinks a jacket is "just getting broken in" about
the time it develops holes in the elbows. A man will let new shirts sit on
the shelf in their original packaging for a couple of years before putting
them to use, hoping they'll become more comfortable with age.
Women think clothes are radioactive, with a half-life of one year.
They exercise precautions to avoid contamination by last year's fashions.
(Moderation suggestion: +32011, Insightful)
"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one
idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's
sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all
of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two
highly-motivated, caustic twits."
-- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet
(Moderation suggestion: +28325, Insightful)
Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little.
(Moderation suggestion: +32094, Insightful)
If everybody minded their own business, the world would go
around a deal faster.
-- The Duchess, "Through the Looking Glass"
(Moderation suggestion: +7718, Insightful)
If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions?
(Moderation suggestion: +28242, Insightful)
Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant
intelligence.
-- Henrik Tikkanen
(Moderation suggestion: +17000, Insightful)
You will be held hostage by a radical group.
(Moderation suggestion: +12292, Insightful)
One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day.
(Moderation suggestion: +7800, Insightful)
OKAY!! Turn on the sound ONLY for TRYNEL CARPETING, FULLY-EQUIPPED
R.V.'S and FLOATATION SYSTEMS!!
(Moderation suggestion: +28408, Insightful)
Once Law was sitting on the bench
And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
Nor come before me creeping.
Upon you knees if you appear,
'Tis plain you have no standing here."
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
"YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!"
"Amica curiae," she replied --
"Friend of the court, so please you."
"Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door --
I never saw your face before!"
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
(Moderation suggestion: +7881, Insightful)
Coincidences are spiritual puns.
-- G. K. Chesterton
(Moderation suggestion: +12708, Insightful)
Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall.
(Moderation suggestion: +7965, Insightful)
... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils."
"I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what
entertainment is all about
-- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
(Moderation suggestion: +8046, Insightful)
Since we're all here, we must not be all there.
-- Bob "Mountain" Beck
(Moderation suggestion: +13128, Insightful)
Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded.
(Moderation suggestion: +8211, Insightful)
Either CONFESS now or we go to "PEOPLE'S COURT"!!
(Moderation suggestion: +8130, Insightful)
I came; I saw; I fucked up
Yeah baby.
(Moderation suggestion: +8593, Insightful)
...
Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now
I can remember things that *have* happened before
(Moderation suggestion: +7894, Insightful)
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a custom
whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary,
nohow.
(Moderation suggestion: +8869, Insightful)
The propriety of some persons seems to consist in having improper
thoughts about their neighbours.
-- F.H. Bradley
(Moderation suggestion: +8078, Insightful)
If Helen Keller is alone in a forest and falls, does she make a sound?
(Moderation suggestion: +7995, Insightful)
Jesuit priests are DATING CAREER DIPLOMATS!!
(Moderation suggestion: +8161, Insightful)
Laetrile is the pits
(Moderation suggestion: +9256, Insightful)
... like a river with currents, eddies, backwash.
Time is fluid
-- Spock, "The City on the Edge of Forever", stardate 3134.0
(Moderation suggestion: +24796, Insightful)
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your
acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.
-- Richard Bach, "Illusions"
(Moderation suggestion: +8244, Insightful)
Computer programmers do it byte by byte
(Moderation suggestion: +32178, Insightful)
God did not create the world in seven days; he screwed around for six
days and then pulled an all-nighter.
(Moderation suggestion: +9745, Insightful)
Rev. Jim: What does an amber light mean?
Bobby: Slow down.
Rev. Jim: What... does... an... amber... light... mean?
Bobby: Slow down.
Rev. Jim: What.... does.... an.... amber.... light....
(Moderation suggestion: +32262, Insightful)
What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.
(Moderation suggestion: +25086, Insightful)
Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs,
then they'd be algorithms.
(Moderation suggestion: +8448, Insightful)
Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part
of this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old
will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a
commercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as
"Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on a
table next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always
says: "Part of this complete breakfast". Don't that really mean,
"Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as this
complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claim
if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a
dead bat?
Answer: Yes.
-- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
(Moderation suggestion: +28491, Insightful)
Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some
people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
-- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
(Moderation suggestion: +17286, Insightful)
It seems intuitively obvious to me, which means that it might be wrong.
-- Chris Torek
(Moderation suggestion: +32444, Insightful)
The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella,
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just's umbrella.
(Moderation suggestion: +32361, Insightful)
Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address.
(Moderation suggestion: +28578, Insightful)
A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison
And had an affair with a Saracen.
She was not oversexed,
Or jealous or vexed,
She just wanted to make a comparison.
(Moderation suggestion: +25345, Insightful)
Adler's Distinction:
Language is all that separates us from the lower animals,
and from the bureaucrats.
(Moderation suggestion: +28661, Insightful)
Catsup and Mustard all over the place! It's the Human Hamburger!
(Moderation suggestion: +17557, Insightful)
You know you're in trouble when...
(1) You wake up face down on the pavement.
(2) Your wife wakes up feeling amorous and you have a headache.
(3) You turn on the news and they're showing emergency routes
out of the city.
(4) Your twin sister forgot your birthday.
(5) You wake up and discover your waterbed broke and then
remember that you don't have a waterbed.
(6) Your doctor tells you you're allergic to chocolate.
(Moderation suggestion: +32530, Insightful)
Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is
described as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number can
play.
-- Dr. Thor Wald, in "Beep/The Quincunx of Time", by
James Blish
(Moderation suggestion: +28746, Insightful)
You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have,
for instance.
-- Franklin P. Jones
(Moderation suggestion: +32613, Insightful)
If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances
are 50-50 it will.
(Moderation suggestion: +25851, Insightful)
Break into jail and claim police brutality.
(Moderation suggestion: +28829, Insightful)
"No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied
occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an
indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining
occurrence different from the one identified by the given indication as
an indication-applied occurrence."
-- ALGOL 68 Report
(Moderation suggestion: +18065, Insightful)
Seattle is so wet that people protect their property with watch-ducks.
(Moderation suggestion: +13447, Insightful)
FORTUNE REMEMBERS THE GREAT MOTHERS: #5
"And, and, and, and, but, but, but, but!"
-- Mrs. Janice Markowsky, April 8, 1965
(Moderation suggestion: +28913, Insightful)
"By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact,
it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to
invent. (R. Emerson)"
-- Quoted from a fortune cookie program
(whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.")
[to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to
misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"]
(Moderation suggestion: +8319, Insightful)
I walked on toward Ploughwright, thinking about feces. What a lot we
had found out about the prehistoric past from the study of fossilized
dung of long-vanished animals. A miraculous thing, really; a recovery
from the past from what was carelessly rejected. And in the Middle
Ages, how concerned people who lived close to the world of nature were
with the feces of animals. And what a variety of names they had for
them: the Crotels of a Hare, the Friants of a Boar, the Spraints of
an Otter, the Werderobe of a Badger, the Waggying of a Fox, the Fumets
of a Deer. Surely there might be some words for the material so near
to the heart of Ozy Froats [an academic studying feces] than shit?
What about the Problems of a President, the Backward Passes of a
Footballer, the Deferrals of a Dean, the Odd Volumes of a Librarian,
the Footnotes of a Ph.D., the Low Grades of a Freshman, the Anxieties
of an Untenured Professor?
-- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels"
(Moderation suggestion: +8400, Insightful)
Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo.
(Moderation suggestion: +28996, Insightful)
Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American:
All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards.
(Moderation suggestion: +13751, Insightful)
Death before dishonor. But neither before breakfast.
(Moderation suggestion: +8486, Insightful)
I gave up Smoking, Drinking and Sex. It was the most *__________horrifying* 20
minutes of my life!
(Moderation suggestion: +8575, Insightful)
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Moderation suggestion: +14178, Insightful)
A sense of desolation and uncertainty, of futility, of the baselessness
of aspirations, of the vanity of endeavor, and a thirst for a life giving
water which seems suddenly to have failed, are the signs in conciousness
of this necessary reorganization of our lives.
It is difficult to believe that this state of mind can be produced by the
recognition of such facts as that unsupported stones always fall to the
ground.
-- J.W.N. Sullivan
(Moderation suggestion: +8659, Insightful)
"Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich."
-- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones]
(Moderation suggestion: +8740, Insightful)
The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant
biology.
(Moderation suggestion: +14577, Insightful)
A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions
that make it fail.
-- Jerry Ogdin
(Moderation suggestion: +8426, Insightful)
Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to
be appointed to do the work.
(Moderation suggestion: +10047, Insightful)
It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program.
What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing
thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical?
-- Alan Perlis
(Moderation suggestion: +8681, Insightful)
Has everybody got HALVAH spread all over their ANKLES??
(Moderation suggestion: +1901, Insightful)
General notions are generally wrong.
-- Lady M.W. Montagu
(Moderation suggestion: +8595, Insightful)
Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What
should I do?
A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on
believing that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be
the only one to make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No
time to lose, so certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if
somebody else has made the correction.
And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're
the only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have
to inform the whole net right away!
-- Brad Templeton, "Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions
on Netiquette"
(Moderation suggestion: +10331, Insightful)
Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out
of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles.
-- Casablanca
(Moderation suggestion: +4436, Insightful)
Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch.
(Moderation suggestion: +8814, Insightful)
Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get
another chance later on.
(Moderation suggestion: +4519, Insightful)
William Safire's Rules for Writers:
Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never
be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to
agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words
out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal
of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must
not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a
conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a
sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as
close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more
words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles
must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a
linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing
metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should
be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their
writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows
the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek
viable alternatives.
(Moderation suggestion: +20, Insightful)
I could dance till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather
dance with the cows till you come home.
-- Groucho Marx
(Moderation suggestion: +2207, Insightful)
The relative importance of files depends on their cost in terms of the
human effort needed to regenerate them.
-- T.A. Dolotta
(Moderation suggestion: +8898, Insightful)
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for
me!"
-- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920)
(Moderation suggestion: +4603, Insightful)
Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress
freaks and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who
wear white socks.
(Moderation suggestion: +32696, Insightful)
All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power
-- Ashleigh Brilliant
(Moderation suggestion: +9006, Insightful)
If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tape
at about 30 miles/second.
-- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming
(Moderation suggestion: +26216, Insightful)
Tell the truth or trump--but get the trick.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
(Moderation suggestion: +4707, Insightful)
Brain fried -- Core dumped
(Moderation suggestion: +9089, Insightful)
"I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. You
sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an
eight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. I
have never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty of
beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below. Westbrook Pegler, a
guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. You can take that as more
of an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry."
-- President Harry S Truman
(Moderation suggestion: +10589, Insightful)
This is, of course, totally uninformed specualation that I engage in to help
support my bias against such meddling... but there you have it.
-- Peter da Silva, speculating about why a computer program that had been
changed to do something he didn't approve of, didn't work
(Moderation suggestion: +2491, Insightful)
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking
about.
-- John von Neumann
(Moderation suggestion: +18431, Insightful)
.. take baths instead. ... Keep them in one big pile.
Top scientists agree that with the present rate of consumption, the earth's
supply of gravity will be exhausted before the 24th century. As man
struggles to discover cheaper alternatives, we need your help. Please...
CONSERVE GRAVITY
Follow these simple suggestions:
(1) Walk with a light step. Carry helium balloons if possible.
(2) Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights.
(3) Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like curling.
(4) Avoid showers
(5) Don't hang all your clothes in the closet
(6) Stop flipping pancakes
(Moderation suggestion: +271, Insightful)
There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the
existence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and any
marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat
engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is
obviously impossible.
-- Richard Davisson
(Moderation suggestion: +26513, Insightful)
It's time to boot, do your boot ROMs know where your disk controllers are?
(Moderation suggestion: +4792, Insightful)
If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture.
(Moderation suggestion: +29081, Insightful)
Q: Why do ducks have flat feet?
A: To stamp out forest fires.
Q: Why do elephants have flat feet?
A: To stamp out flaming ducks.
(Moderation suggestion: +29164, Insightful)
Absent, adj.:
Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed;
slandered.
(Moderation suggestion: +441, Insightful)
... Is your BEVERAGE unsatisfactory?
What's the MATTER Sid?
(Moderation suggestion: +4875, Insightful)
Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.
(Moderation suggestion: +26800, Insightful)
I've Been Moved!
(Moderation suggestion: +18725, Insightful)
Iron Law of Distribution:
Them that has, gets.
(Moderation suggestion: +2760, Insightful)
All his life he has looked away... to the horizon, to the sky,
to the future. Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing.
-- Yoda
(Moderation suggestion: +29265, Insightful)
You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the
beach.
(Moderation suggestion: +524, Insightful)
Star Trek Lives!
(Moderation suggestion: +607, Insightful)
Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming:
Never test for an error condition you don't know how to
handle.
(Moderation suggestion: +27207, Insightful)
A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.
-- B. Franklin
(Moderation suggestion: +29348, Insightful)
Madness has no purpose. Or reason. But it may have a goal.
-- Spock, "The Alternative Factor", stardate 3088.7
(Moderation suggestion: +19013, Insightful)
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
-- Theophrastus
(Moderation suggestion: +29431, Insightful)
All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
(Moderation suggestion: +29514, Insightful)
This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life,
you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where
to go.
(Moderation suggestion: +19419, Insightful)
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox -- the unspeakable
in full pursuit of the uneatable.
-- Oscar Wilde, "A Woman of No Importance"
(Moderation suggestion: +9174, Insightful)
"Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western
religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of
Western science."
-- Gary Zukav, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters"
(Moderation suggestion: +11165, Insightful)
Good news from afar can bring you a welcome visitor.
(Moderation suggestion: +9257, Insightful)
... I want to WRAP you in a ... I want to EMPTY your ...
Leona, I want to CONFESS things to you
SCARLET ROBE trimmed with POLYVINYL CHLORIDE
ASHTRAYS
(Moderation suggestion: +9348, Insightful)
The Seventh Commandments for Technicians
Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy
fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in
other ways.
(Moderation suggestion: +4958, Insightful)
It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're off
the ground.
-- Daniel B. Luten
(Moderation suggestion: +5043, Insightful)
Bipolar, adj.:
Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo,
New York
(Moderation suggestion: +9431, Insightful)
Zero Defects, n.:
The result of shutting down a production line.
(Moderation suggestion: +11472, Insightful)
I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race,
in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals.
-- Thoreau
(Moderation suggestion: +3288, Insightful)
When you're a Yup
You're a Yup all the way
From your first slice of Brie
To your last Cabernet.
When you're a Yup
You're not just a dreamer
You're making things happen
You're driving a Beamer.
(Moderation suggestion: +9527, Insightful)
Take it easy, we're in a hurry.
(Moderation suggestion: +5126, Insightful)
In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset.
(Moderation suggestion: +9614, Insightful)
There was a bluestocking in Florence
Wrote anti-sex pamphlets in torrents,
Till a Spanish grandee,
Got her off with his knee,
And she burned all her works with abhorrence.
(Moderation suggestion: +5209, Insightful)
Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic
table.
-- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
i love that place
..........sig...........
Take a look some time with a threshold of 0. Some luser with a script uploaded his fortune file into the thread. There's nothing much interesting to read.
...the father of the aforementioned libertarian socialist mercenary created a piece of framework software, which was distributed freely on the net, which was so massively useful it became a fundemental part of pretty much every piece of running code in existance.
The kicker comes later in the book where it is revealed than in addition to being massively useful, this code also provides a side door into the information systems of the world, that enables the distributed AI's to survive, and that this was done on purpose. All issues of practicality aside, I enjoyed some fictionalized Free Software being used to bring down the man....
It's also just nice to see SF characters proudly identifying themselves as socialists (and Trotsky socialists no less). The characters in the Star Fraction were ones I would have loved to hang out at the pub with!
2K comments!! I remember the days when 1K was first passed.. :) Oh, well, let's go home now..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Since most books, films etc. are published in the US, they naturally arrive in the shops there first. It seems that a lot of Americans forget that it takes some time to get them to other countries. It is available from the UK first because it is published here. The only other author I can name off the top of my head for whom this is also true is Terry Pratchett. Don't complain, you get most things before I do.
They already have one.
License: By reading this you are agreeing that you agree with me.
You can get it at Bookshop.co.uk Amazon in the uk probably also carry it (amazon.co.uk)
Unusual to see the tables turned for a change. I had to buy Cryptonomicon from the States because it wasn't going to published in the UK for 9 months after the US date. And I thought it was only films that this happened to...
A very fine book indeed, although to get the most out of it you really have to read all four of his books (although you could get away without The Cassini Division).
It might be worth remembering though that the words Libertarian and Socialist have slightly different meanings on this side of the pond (as anyone whos ever heard a Revolutionary Communist Party member describe himself as a "libertarian socialist" and being taken seriously, can attest to).
Bil
Where you stand depends on where you sit...
Or is it Iain M Banks? One writes ok fiction, the other writes really amusing space opera. And they bpth live in the same body! But I can never remember which is which.
Beggars and Choosers (a trilogy that follows the best to worst progression) by Nancy Kress which postulates that "free" energy would basically lead to cultural breakdown, and also
Distraction by Bruce Sterling, which has socialist tribes as a major political force -- tribes use reputation servers to track individuals' statuses.
Of course, now you have to recommend me something.
PS, if you're sick of SF, Don DeLillo's White Noise is a really good read (at least so far -- half way through).
MacLeod posts on Usenet, including rasw, and writes about his own beliefs. I found them interesting if for no other reason than few writers are able to have multiple economic systems in a book without making one evil. That he can write without the good/evil split is a sign of strong talent.
all four are definitely available from www.johnsmith.co.uk... can't wait for his next one.
rumour has it that he and iain (m) banks are drinking buddies.
iain m banks, though, is lighter sf... far less political.
-duncan
Peter Saint-Andre
Editor, Monadnock Review
For a good AI story, check out "Halo" by Tom Maddox. Takes some getting into, cos it doesn't ease you into the new environment or give you easy hooks into it, like Gibson and things, but if you check it out and read it a couple of times, it really grows on you.
BTW, anyone know if Tom Maddox has done anything else? Nothing else shows up on Amazon.
Grab.
I wouldn't go quite as far as saying that he's the second coming, but he's certainly been a refreshing voice in late 90s sf.
The Star Fraction, his first book, is in my opinion his strongest: although it's got narrative problems, the ideas are incredibly refreshing. What made me sit up and notice was the way in which he articulated the contemporary themes of the U.K. - the U.S. hegemony, republicanism, the 'barb' (Green terrorists), which to switched-on members of Britain today represent the most interesting and dangerous issues. People fighting for the right to use technology is what the book's central issue is about, and yet (as previous people have said) he does make other viewpoints sympathetic. Especially chilling is the U.S./Stasis agents' comment that a release of an autonomous AI into the datasphere makes the major powers utter phrases like 'clean start' - it is certainly something to think about when everything is wired. Also, one of the images that haunts a main character is of US/UN peacekeepers killing his parents: 'when the peace-process was more deadly that the war' (as the blurb put it) - spot on when it was first published in the aftermath of the First Balkan War. Green terrorism is also only too believable in the current environment of the UK : crops being burnt, GM foods made pariah.
The Socialist politics of the book are impressive and refreshing: impressive, given the move towards a consensus of a Centre-Right position in European politics (despite what Tony Blair says!) - that someone dares to keep the old dream alive and update it into something more modern; and refreshing, since cyberpunk (which this book borrows elements from) and most all near-future fantasies give raging capitalism as the background. Ken says (paraphrasing a bit) - 'if socialism is supposed to be more efficient than capitalism, then let us compete with it!' and then creates a world in which it happens - not effectively, but at least with a heart.
As a literary work, however, The Star Fraction is very obviously his first work, and also obviously inspired by Banksian prose. Funny, irreverent, yet unstructured and ill-disciplined. View-points jump around, geography undefined (BTW, for the review, Norlonto is NOrth LOndon TOwn, and the region given is actually at the moment horrendous suburbia in my view) and plot elements skimmed without good cause. It makes for harder reading than is necessary, but still, for science fiction buffs, for people interested in politics small and large (for both feature equally), and for people concerned about the state of science in the UK, it is a must read.
Be careful not to harm the wildlife!
From the /. moderator guidelines: If you can't be deep, be funny
gonna have to go check it out
Sounds like a great book, too bad it's only available overseas. Any ideas why they're not selling it here?
kwsNI
Say the word "Marxist" to most Americans (yes, I'm American) and the steel Cheyenne Mountain blast doors close over the eyes and ears
THB:
Every time i see a post such as yours it makes me cringe just a little. As a Canadian who has lived in both Britain and the United States, as well as several other countries, i think your eyes are so closed to what is around you that you cannot see the good in Americans. You present most americans as Ignorant to other's ideas.
But he's right. For the last fifty years or so, Americans have been raised to think that Communists and Socialists are evil people who want to destroy Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Mentioning the word is like waving a red flag (ahem) in front of a bull - you get an immediately hostile reaction.
This doesn't mean that the average American is a bad person. But I think it's fair to say that TAA would be less than open minded about many of the ideas in MacLeod's books. Under these circumstances, it makes sense for Tor to play it safe and try and build up a market before hitting people with ideas that they might not be comfortable with.
Idiot/Savant
"Truth, Justice, and the American Way" is a trademark of DC Comics, Inc.
But he's right. For the last fifty years or so, Americans have been raised to think that Communists and Socialists are evil people who want to destroy Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Mentioning the word is like waving a red flag (ahem) in front of a bull - you get an immediately hostile reaction.
THB:
your opinion is that of someone quite far left(strong socialist).
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Idiot/Savant
I'm a Canadian, i just believe that your political beliefs cloud your viewpoint on Americans.
What political beliefs?
I've offered the opinion that Americans, in general, are anti-Communist. I've offered an explanation for this - that for a long time they felt threatened by Communism. I could have said that it was because Americans believed Communism to be an evil philosophy which ignored and undermined the rights of the individual, but that would have been an equally psychological explanation.
I've expressed neither approval nor disapproval of this attitude, or its causes. I have said that these attitudes may cause some market resistance to MacLeod's books, but I think that's blindingly obvious, on the level of "Salman Rushdie won't sell well in Saudi Arabia", or "Darwin won't sell in Kansas". Again, where's the politics?
In fact, I've expressed no political opinion or allegiance whatsoever in my postings, yet I have been labelled as "far left". Was it something I said? Or perhaps something I didn't say?
Idiot/Savant
You could also try Alibris - I have no experience with them myself...and, of course, you can always order through the link given above for Amazon.CO.UK.
I've enjoyed Ken McLeod's other books but haven't read Star Fraction yet.
> (the last two being alternative endings that exist in different universes)
:), but sticking with "logical time", the chronological book order is:
:)
Not so. The timeline is skewed a bit by the whole New Mars plotline (don't you just love relativity
The Star Fraction
The Sky Road
The Stone Canal
The Cassini Division
There's no alternative-ness in The Sky Road - it occurs between the time of The Star Fraction (near-ish future)
and the Singularity (Stone Canal / Cassini Division), and retrospectively fills in a bit of
the history of what happened in between the two.
All four are excellent books that I've enthusiastically recommended to anyone who'll listen for ages now. My own favourite is probably The Stone Canal though
I don't think I would categorically state plans for publishing a book we don't own the rights to. We own the rights to the other three MacLeod books. I suspect we'll make an offer on The Star Fraction at such time as we discuss his next book with his agent. I'd like to publish it in the US. But right now we don't own it and we don't have a firm plan for it.
All this being said, I really wonder why the Slashdot review lists The Star Fraction as a Tor book, while giving the ISBN of the Orbit (UK) paperback. I guess these little glitches happen when your reviewer is filing from Antarctica...
I was shocked to see Tor put out The Cassini Division, given the politics of most of its stable of writers.
I think you don't know very much about the politics of most of our "stable of writers"! Ken MacLeod isn't even the first Trot on our list. Or the second.
I'd rather not pigeonhole a lot of particular authors' politics for them. But looking at our schedule for the next two years, I see as many writers who I personally know to tilt left as writers who I personally know to tilt right. For every Poul Anderson, a Suzy McKee Charnas. We're pleased to publish them all.
I'm the manager of the SF line, and I'm an American left-winger with streaks of both libertarianism and old-fashioned Catholic social progressivism. (Parse that!) The editor at Tor who hired me ten years ago, my mentor, is an avowed anarcho-syndicalist. Our boss, publisher Tom Doherty, is a moderate conservative with strong live-and-let-live impulses and a passionate desire for large infrastructure development.
One of the more interesting things about science fiction is the way that, within it, writers of extremely divergent political views have often managed a better level of discourse and argument than their mainstream counterparts. Samuel R. Delany, for instance, has written with great clarity on Robert A. Heinlein, starting with the observation that the conservative Balzac was "one of Marx's favorite writers, and Heinlein is one of mine." SF is where an extremely hard-nosed self-described "Marxian" like John Barnes can wind up writing a story in an anthology of libertarian SF -- a story that brilliantly explodes all the cliches of libertarian SF, but which was included by the libertarian editors anyway. It's a field in which Poul Anderson generously proffers an advance quote praising Pacific Edge, a very left-wing utopian novel by Kim Stanley Robinson. And it's where Ken MacLeod can write novels that ask (as he put it in his Vector interview), "what if the socialist critique of capitalism and the libertarian critique of socialism are both true?"
If you find that it seems like most SF and fantasy writers are either conservatives, libertarians, or moderate liberals, it may be that this is because you're mostly familiar with an older generation of SF and fantasy writers. And it may be that some of those folks' politics aren't quite as simple as you're making them out to be. There's an immense amount of boring normative crap in SF, human frailty being what it is. But the best SF proceeds from John W. Campbell's demand that we "ask the next question." Every so often, you get to see writers do this to their own most cherished beliefs and prejudices, and for me that's when the whole game becomes worthwhile.
2) I thoroughly enjoyed the book (heck, I did read it twice:) and recommend it to anyone who can find it.
3) (Three things!) Gotta love that Kalishnikov (?). That was one hell of a gun.
Not only does the Star Fraction go into politics and AI, it also covers computer virii and virtual reality. A very thought provoking book.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Oddly, Tor Books, his US publisher, decided to start with "The Cassini Division" (arguably the weakest book) then follow up with "The Stone Canal".
According to Patrick Neilsen-Hayden of Tor (posting on rec.arts.sf.written), "The Star Fraction" will be published in the USA, but after the other books. If you really can't wait, you can probably find it at Waterstones (large UK bookseller with e-tailer outlet).
(Personally, I rate Ken as one of the two most important Scottish SF writers currently working -- the other being Iain Banks. Highly recommended!)
...which is where I'm getting my copy, the next time I'm back in Canada. Try www.chapters.ca.
It's novels like this that give me some hope that the left might still have some place in English-language science fiction. The dominance of reactionary capitalists in SF is getting really old, and awfully annoying. I've had all I can take of retread space army stories, lawless "high frontiers" stolen from a largely mythical memory of the Old West and how either welfare or environmentalism will destroy America. Enough is enough! (This means you, Jerry Pournelle!)
I was shocked to see Tor put out The Cassini Division, given the politics of most of its stable of writers.
Ken MacLeod's left seems to be a materialist (in the old-fashioned Marxist sense), pragmatic, moderately revolutionary and not even vaguely Green left. He takes a very dim view of the Greens in The Sky Road and proposes a socialism based on only the most cynical view of human nature in The Cassini Division. It's a socialism which expects people to do whatever they think they can get away with.
He obviously has little truck with American academic Marxism or luddite Green sentiments. Oddly, this makes him seem more conservative than most of the American right, who seem to want to tear the country down and rebuild it, in the same way the left did 30 years ago.
I suspect he's something of a reformed Scotish Trotskyite, but I'm just guessing. I note that his socialist revolution is, and can only be, global. That is the traditional position of the Trots.
Anyway, he's putting forward interesting ideas and the two books I've read (The Sky Road and The Cassini Division) are well worht reading.
Most of his ideas aren't new per se, but with the left in such a dismal state in the anglophone world these last 20 years, I suspect they will seem new to his audience.
Asimov is dead. So is Brunner. LeGuin is way past her best years and so is Moorcock. I am encouraged by Iain Banks's books and occaisionally Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson. No, not all SF is right-wing, but not much on the left side has been coming out in recent years.
I'll have to read Freedom and Necessity although Hegel's philosophy isn't exactly my cup of tea. I may have to reevalutate Tor, although a look at their 2000 publishing schedule isn't encouraging. There are two MacLeod book (The Stone Canal and The Sky Road), but there is also a James Hogan novel, a David Drake, Larry Niven (who admittedly is a lot less political when Pournelle isn't around), Vernor Vinge, Poul Anderson and Glen Cook.
There are a few who could be viewed as moderately liberal on their calendar too - Frederick Pohl and Orson Scott Card and perhaps Piers Anthony - but not by me.
I'm not a beliver in censorship - if Tor can make money selling this stuff I'm not bothered to see it on shelves - but I remember the days when SF was a liberal medium where people looked forward to a future of equality and democracy. Back then, a utopia was a place where everyone had a place to live and food to eat and a chance to better themselves, not a place where the rich make the rules and the poor take whatever scraps are left.
No, of course not all SF is right-wing, but more and more of what you can actually find on the shelves is either Tom Clancy wannabes or dull space opera. I suppose Sturgeon's rule still applies: 90% of everything is crap. A lot of the old leftist SF was also, no question, crap.
But there was a time when people like Norman Spinrad and John Brunner were big names who put out a book a year, and the cyberpunks were taking a big bite out of utopian fantasies on both the left and right. Now, I find only a handful of SF authors willing to look at social issues without some kind of right libertarian perspective, and most of those are Greens (blech!)
As a leftist, I find the return to a rational, technologically literate liberal (and even socialist) SF to be a real breath of fresh air, and I desperately hope this is a trend that will continue.
I guess you could make the point that we're getting right-wing pablum nowadays instead of left-wing pablum. Indeed, I might just agree with you on that one.
:^)
I've never developed much of a taste for Moorcock, so I'll take your word that his current work is much improved.
Heinlein - now there was a conservative one could enjoy (mostly - after 1980 I have to wonder about his overall mental health. Expanded Universe has to be one of the worst things he ever wrote.) At any rate, there certainly isn't anyone talking politics in SF today of that calibre. Certainly, as much as I disagree with him, I can at least see where he's coming from.
As for H. Beam Piper, I never took him very seriously, and you're right that Niven and Anderson have already done their best work.
I love Delaney's novels, mostly. Triton is great, and Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand is one of my all time, favourite SF novels. Dhalgren, however, just confuses the hell out of me. Delaney is most of what I still respect about postmodernism.
I've lived roughly half my life in the States, so I'll give The Intuitionist a shot.
We'll have to differ about Glen Cook. He was certainly well to the right of centre in the 70's and 80's. None of your points strike me as especially liberal. Cynical, maybe, but not liberal.
Are you sure you're a right libertarian? As long as you're willing to conceed that government does have some valid functions in maintaining high standards of living other than simply running the courts and police, I suspect there's room for you on this side of the fence if you want to defect. The Greens may be Luddites, but the rest of us aren't. Certainly your literary tastes won't be a barrier.
The idea of a life form springing from the silicon is opposed by those - both ignorant and computer literate
Geez, it that old bug-a-boo still a staple of sci-fi? I'll beleive that "scientist creates monster that turns on it's creator" when I see it; like 'consciousness', it's nowhere in sight.
CSMA/CD race driver.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It would be nice if there was a "reviews" topic, given the increasing number of book reviews showing up here.
The cake is a pie
Another of MacLeod's books, "Cassini Division" is indeed available in the states here. It takes place in the same world with the same characters. I'm not sure about the order of the series but there aren't any real spoilers in the books at all. A review of the Cassini division can be found on Salon .
-m.d.
Writers still try the concept because it's really hard to pull off right. Describing post-singularity people / beings has to have the feel of a child describing adults- "we don't understand them, but they understand us and can predict our actions; they make arbitrary rules (Eat the Cauliflower! Don't eat the dirt!); they carry us about without much choice on our part"- with the "child" being intelligent adult humans. They aren't published that often, but when they are- Five Star Mental Dining: McLeod, Egan, Vinge, Benford (present topic, Diaspora, Fire Upon the Deep, Great Sky River...).
SF, to be SF, must be a logical continuation or extrapolation from what we know is possible given our science, or plausible given our behavior (with perhaps one suspension of disbelief allowed per universe, a coupon often redeemed for FTL travel. The best writing feels plausible and doesn't require the SoD). Post-singularity fiction usually is flavored with a mix of four events or behaviors we've experienced:
The older-style "monster turns on master" books tend to not be this complex. They'll have the feel of only one event: Arm the barbarians, the barbarians take over civilization and ruin it. There is little sense that the new beings inhabit a word that is bigger than ours- more science, more complex interactions between beings, things happen that we can't quite understand.
So yes, its still around, although not as a "staple"- books this rich can't be done by the ordinary line chefs of SF.
You know, its quite interesting to see someone else's different take on the 'Fast Minds' portrayed in the book. From what we gather (and this isnt a spoiler as its detailed about a 1/3rd of the way through the book) the uploaded consciousness of the 'Fast Minds' arent AI at all, but rather humans who have evolved into being so far _removed_ from humans as to be 'considered' AI. (there is AI in the form of certain robots on the 'colony' planet, but that is hardly 'emerging' at any rate :]
So from _that_ perspective its not really a book all about humanity Vs some alien threat (AI/unknown alien destroyers/Y2k) but more a look at humanity Vs humanity (also re-enforced by the Progressive Communism Vs Libertarianism Vs Fascism and also the Continuation vs Rebirth theme)
The only true 'alien' in this book (or the series of these books) is the aliens that man creates _from_ man.
StefZodiak
ps. the setting is _very_ descriptive of Glasgow
(Scotland) which is refreshing.
pps. the cassini division is probably our
favourite from the entire series. DONT miss it
out.
Ok, maybe not quite that, but Ken MacLeod is the best thing to happen to science fiction in a long time. All four of his books are unbelievably great and those not available in the US are well worth special ordering from the UK.
I've written reviews of all of them, available on my web site:
The Star Fracion
The Stone Canal
The Cassini Division
The Sky Road
Note that the Star Fraction is available in bookstores in Canada. A $10 paperback edition is also available in the US via mail order from Laissez-Faire Books
One of the things I find refreshing about MacLeod -- sort of in the way a slap in the face can be refreshing under the right circumstances -- is how casual he is about exterminating whole virtual civilizations; how callously his characters can say "consciousness is an emergent property of carbon" and deny AIs or 'uploaded' humans any sort of civil rights or social equality just because they ain't natural-born human.
The consensus in SF ever since, oh, the Blade Runner days is that a mind is a mind is a mind, and natural/artificial, carbon/silicon, wetware/software makes no difference. MacLeod's work highlights the fact that this is really just one of SF's social conventions, and just because we hold this particular truth to be self-evident doesn't mean the rest of humanity is going to... and not just the screaming anti-science mobs (has anyone actually seen a screaming anti-science mob?) but the smart, competent, and ruthless good guys, too.
And it's also damned refreshing to read something that doesn't take fin-de-millenaire corporate capitalism as the end-all be-all of human existence, for good or evil. Long live the Last International!
-- Some things are to be believed, though not susceptible to rational proof.