A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?"
"It will take one year," said the master promptly.
"But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take it I assign ten programmers to it?"
The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years."
"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"
The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that they be installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips. Let's say your congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding study on how the French government handles diseases transmitted by sherbet. Just when he got to the plane, his mandatory air bag, strapped around his waist, would inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus rendering him too large to fit through the plane door. It could also be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman proposed a law. ("Mr. Speaker, people ask me, why should October be designated as Cuticle Inspection Month? And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.") This would save millions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public would violently support a law requiring airbags on congressmen. The problem is that your potential market is very small: there are only around 500 members of Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil, are already too large to fit on normal aircraft.
-- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what ____does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way...
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the essential death in which its subject's roots are plunged. The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters.
-- Henry James Sr., writing to his sons Henry and William
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The `loner' may be respected, but he is always resented by his colleagues, for he seems to be passing a critical judgment on them, when he may be simply making a limiting statement about himself.
-- Sidney Harris
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold and austere, like that of a sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trapping of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.
-- Bertrand Russell
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant said "My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next time he goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone might steal it."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"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
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing.
This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese.
We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the attack shark at which point we relented.
-- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there better be no trade. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud.
-- Dagny Taggart, "Atlas Shrugged"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Now I know someone out there is going to claim, "Well then, UNIX is intuitive, because you only need to learn 5000 commands, and then everything else follows from that! Har har har!"
-- Andy Bates on "intuitive interfaces", slightly defending Macs
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
XXXI:
The optimum committee has no members. XXXII:
Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of
turning problems into gold -- your problems into their gold. XXXIII:
Fools rush in where incumbents fear to tread. XXXIV:
The process of competitively selecting contractors to perform work
is based on a system of rewards and penalties, all distributed
randomly. XXXV:
The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion,
the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give
the data authenticity.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company.
-- J. Wellington Wells
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me...
-- More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Q: Why shouldn't I simply delete the stuff I never use, it's just taking up
space? A: This question is in the category of Famous Last Words..
-- From the Frequently Unasked Questions
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Supervisor: Do you think you understand the basic ideas of Quantum Mechanics? Supervisee: Ah! Well, what do we mean by "to understand" in the context of
Quantum Mechanics? Supervisor: You mean "No", don't you? Supervisee: Yes.
-- Overheard at a supervision.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Dear Emily:
I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to summarize. What should I do?
-- Editor
Dear Editor:
Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post that. On USENET, this is known as a summary. It lets people read all the replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way. Do the same when summarizing a vote.
-- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's very little call for those up there.
-- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to rob a department store... with a pricing gun... She said, "Give me all of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store."
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying 'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an unnatural entity exist?"
The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?"
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Last year we drove across the country... We switched on the driving... every half mile. We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip. I don't remember what it was.
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Oxygen is a very toxic gas and an extreme fire hazard. It is fatal in concentrations of as little as 0.000001 p.p.m. Humans exposed to the oxygen concentrations die within a few minutes. Symptoms resemble very much those of cyanide poisoning (blue face, etc.). In higher concentrations, e.g. 20%, the toxic effect is somewhat delayed and it takes about 2.5 billion inhalations before death takes place. The reason for the delay is the difference in the mechanism of the toxic effect of oxygen in 20% concentration. It apparently contributes to a complex process called aging, of which very little is known, except that it is always fatal.
However, the main disadvantage of the 20% oxygen concentration is in the fact it is habit forming. The first inhalation (occurring at birth) is sufficient to make oxygen addiction permanent. After that, any considerable decrease in the daily oxygen doses results in death with symptoms resembling those of cyanide poisoning.
Oxygen is an extreme fire hazard. All of the fires that were reported in the continental U.S. for the period of the past 25 years were found to be due to the presence of this gas in the atmosphere surrounding the buildings in question.
Oxygen is especially dangerous because it is odorless, colorless and tasteless, so that its presence can not be readily detected until it is too late.
-- Chemical & Engineering News February 6, 1956
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Nurse Donna: Oh, Groucho, I'm afraid I'm gonna wind up an old maid. Groucho: Well, bring her in and we'll wind her up together. Nurse Donna: Do you believe in computer dating? Groucho: Only if the computers really love each other.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's -- after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength" beer, and suggested only for use in bars.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls."
-- Matt Cartmill
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements
document for a new application. The manager asked the master: "How long will
it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?"
"It will take one year," said the master promptly.
"But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it
take it I assign ten programmers to it?"
The master programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years."
"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"
The master programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be
completed," he said.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could
manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that they be
installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips. Let's say your
congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding study on how
the French government handles diseases transmitted by sherbet. Just when he
got to the plane, his mandatory air bag, strapped around his waist, would
inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus rendering him too large to fit through the
plane door. It could also be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman
proposed a law. ("Mr. Speaker, people ask me, why should October be
designated as Cuticle Inspection Month? And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.")
This would save millions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public
would violently support a law requiring airbags on congressmen. The problem
is that your potential market is very small: there are only around 500
members of Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil,
are already too large to fit on normal aircraft.
-- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic ...
formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific
mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned
with what ____does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been
so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further
here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically,
discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical,
and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent,
but each nonexisted in an entirely different way
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect
that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers
and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the
essential death in which its subject's roots are plunged. The natural
inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued
forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters.
-- Henry James Sr., writing to his sons Henry and William
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The `loner' may be respected, but he is always resented by his colleagues,
for he seems to be passing a critical judgment on them, when he may be
simply making a limiting statement about himself.
-- Sidney Harris
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth but supreme beauty --
a beauty cold and austere, like that of a sculpture, without appeal to any
part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trapping of painting or music,
yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the
greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense
of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is
to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.
-- Bertrand Russell
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servant said
"My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that next time he
goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someone might steal it."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"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
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you
think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow
doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow
messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this
disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided
by law, up to and including nothing.
This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software
packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese.
We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our
lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the
attack shark at which point we relented.
-- Haven Tree Software Limited, "Interactive EasyFlow"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there
better be no trade. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud.
-- Dagny Taggart, "Atlas Shrugged"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Now I know someone out there is going to claim, "Well then, UNIX is intuitive,
because you only need to learn 5000 commands, and then everything else follows
from that! Har har har!"
-- Andy Bates on "intuitive interfaces", slightly defending Macs
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
XXXI:
The optimum committee has no members.
XXXII:
Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of
turning problems into gold -- your problems into their gold.
XXXIII:
Fools rush in where incumbents fear to tread.
XXXIV:
The process of competitively selecting contractors to perform work
is based on a system of rewards and penalties, all distributed
randomly.
XXXV:
The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion,
the greater the precision which should be quoted in order to give
the data authenticity.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you.
I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but
we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company.
-- J. Wellington Wells
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Not me, guy. I read the Bash man page each day like a Jehovah's Witness reads
the Bible. No wait, the Bash man page IS the bible. Excuse me...
-- More on confusing aliases, taken from comp.os.linux.misc
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Q: Why shouldn't I simply delete the stuff I never use, it's just taking up
space?
A: This question is in the category of Famous Last Words..
-- From the Frequently Unasked Questions
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Supervisor: Do you think you understand the basic ideas of Quantum Mechanics?
Supervisee: Ah! Well, what do we mean by "to understand" in the context of
Quantum Mechanics?
Supervisor: You mean "No", don't you?
Supervisee: Yes.
-- Overheard at a supervision.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Dear Emily:
I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to
summarize. What should I do?
-- Editor
Dear Editor:
Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post
that. On USENET, this is known as a summary. It lets people read all the
replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way. Do the same when
summarizing a vote.
-- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle
Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad
so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he
wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's
very little call for those up there.
-- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs
synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to
rob a department store... with a pricing gun... She said, "Give me all
of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store."
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A novice asked the master: "In the east there is a great tree-structure
that men call 'Corporate Headquarters'. It is bloated out of shape with
vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying
'Go, Hence!' or 'Go, Hither!' and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new
names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an
unnatural entity exist?"
The master replies: "You perceive this immense structure and are
disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from
its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming
beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?"
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Last year we drove across the country... We switched on the driving...
every half mile. We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip.
I don't remember what it was.
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Oxygen is a very toxic gas and an extreme fire hazard. It is fatal in
concentrations of as little as 0.000001 p.p.m. Humans exposed to the
oxygen concentrations die within a few minutes. Symptoms resemble very
much those of cyanide poisoning (blue face, etc.). In higher
concentrations, e.g. 20%, the toxic effect is somewhat delayed and it
takes about 2.5 billion inhalations before death takes place. The reason
for the delay is the difference in the mechanism of the toxic effect of
oxygen in 20% concentration. It apparently contributes to a complex
process called aging, of which very little is known, except that it is
always fatal.
However, the main disadvantage of the 20% oxygen concentration is in the
fact it is habit forming. The first inhalation (occurring at birth) is
sufficient to make oxygen addiction permanent. After that, any
considerable decrease in the daily oxygen doses results in death with
symptoms resembling those of cyanide poisoning.
Oxygen is an extreme fire hazard. All of the fires that were reported in
the continental U.S. for the period of the past 25 years were found to be
due to the presence of this gas in the atmosphere surrounding the buildings
in question.
Oxygen is especially dangerous because it is odorless, colorless and
tasteless, so that its presence can not be readily detected until it is
too late.
-- Chemical & Engineering News February 6, 1956
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Nurse Donna: Oh, Groucho, I'm afraid I'm gonna wind up an old maid.
Groucho: Well, bring her in and we'll wind her up together.
Nurse Donna: Do you believe in computer dating?
Groucho: Only if the computers really love each other.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Windows NT Beer: Comes in 32-oz. cans, but you can only buy it by the
truckload. This causes most people to have to go out and buy bigger
refrigerators. The can looks just like Windows 3.1 Beer's, but the
company promises to change the can to look just like Windows 95 Beer's --
after Windows 95 beer starts shipping. Touted as an "industrial strength"
beer, and suggested only for use in bars.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty,
and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a
scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls."
-- Matt Cartmill
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...