He who knows nothing, knows nothing. But he who knows he knows nothing knows something. And he who knows someone whose friend's wife's brother knows nothing,
he knows something. Or something like that.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
XLVII:
Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other
third is covered with auditors from headquarters. XLVIII:
The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the
less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about.
Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less
until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing. XLIX:
Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds. L:
The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a
chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's -- but four times
as long as the official's who created it. LI:
By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more
government workers than there are workers. LII:
People working in the private sector should try to save money.
There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences. Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce. Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it is itself the one hope for salvation.
-- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
7,140 pounds on the Sun
97 pounds on Mercury or Mars
255 pounds on Earth
232 pounds on Venus or Uranus
43 pounds on the Moon
648 pounds on Jupiter
275 pounds on Saturn
303 pounds on Neptune
13 pounds on Pluto
-- How much Elvis Presley would weigh at various places
in the solar system.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The difference between art and science is that science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else.
-- Donald Knuth, "Discover"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The most advantageous, pre-eminent thing thou canst do is not to exhibit nor display thyself within the limits of our galaxy, but rather depart instantaneously whence thou even now standest and flee to yet another rotten planet in the universe, if thou canst have the good fortune to find one.
-- Carlyle
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Thus spake the master programmer:
"A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program is its own hell."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals then.
-- Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE
SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Just to remind everyone. Today, Sept 17, is Linux's 5th birthday. So happy birthday to all on the list. Thanks go out to Linus and all the other hard-working maintainers for 5 wonderful fast paced years!
-- William E. Roadcap
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Thus spake the master programmer:
"A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program is its own hell."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Weinberg, as a young grocery clerk, advised the grocery manager to get rid of rutabagas which nobody ever bought. He did so. "Well, kid, that was a great idea," said the manager. Then he paused and asked the killer question, "NOW what's the least popular vegetable?"
Law: Once you eliminate your #1 problem, #2 gets a promotion.
-- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as I can tell even _they_ don't have it;-)
-- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension."
-- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable.
-- H.L. Mencken, 1930
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have no legitimacy.
-- Albert Einstein
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
MVS Air Lines: The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to operate these humungous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
* dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer * Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young;) * Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk. * Cylord gives the beer to muggles.
-- #Debian, celebrating the 5th anniversary
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?" is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress.
-- Elizabeth Zwicky
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?"
"An operating system," replied the programmer.
The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said.
"Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design."
The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but which is easier to debug?"
The programmer made no reply.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
He who knows nothing, knows nothing. But he who knows he knows nothing knows something. And he who knows someone whose friend's wife's brother knows nothing,
he knows something. Or something like that.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Uncle Cosmo... why do they call this a word processor?"
"It's simple, Skyler... you've seen what food processors do to food, right?"
-- MacNelley, "Shoe"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
When you have 200 programmers trying to write code for one product, like Win95 or NT, what you get is a multipule personality program. By definition, the real problem is that these programs are psychotic by nature and make people crazy when they use them.
-- Joan Brewer on alt.destroy.microsoft
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
He who knows nothing, knows nothing.
But he who knows he knows nothing knows something.
And he who knows someone whose friend's wife's brother knows nothing,
he knows something. Or something like that.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
XLVII:
Two-thirds of the Earth's surface is covered with water. The other
third is covered with auditors from headquarters.
XLVIII:
The more time you spend talking about what you have been doing, the
less time you have to spend doing what you have been talking about.
Eventually, you spend more and more time talking about less and less
until finally you spend all your time talking about nothing.
XLIX:
Regulations grow at the same rate as weeds.
L:
The average regulation has a life span one-fifth as long as a
chimpanzee's and one-tenth as long as a human's -- but four times
as long as the official's who created it.
LI:
By the time of the United States Tricentennial, there will be more
government workers than there are workers.
LII:
People working in the private sector should try to save money.
There remains the possibility that it may someday be valuable again.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear
witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results
from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences.
Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief
and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped
make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th
century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce.
Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM
PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult
holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it
is itself the one hope for salvation.
-- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
7,140 pounds on the Sun
97 pounds on Mercury or Mars
255 pounds on Earth
232 pounds on Venus or Uranus
43 pounds on the Moon
648 pounds on Jupiter
275 pounds on Saturn
303 pounds on Neptune
13 pounds on Pluto
-- How much Elvis Presley would weigh at various places
in the solar system.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer,
my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any
resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The
question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them
is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of
the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A
discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope
of this article.)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The difference between art and science is that science is what we
understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else.
-- Donald Knuth, "Discover"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The most advantageous, pre-eminent thing thou canst do is not to exhibit
nor display thyself within the limits of our galaxy, but rather depart
instantaneously whence thou even now standest and flee to yet another rotten
planet in the universe, if thou canst have the good fortune to find one.
-- Carlyle
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Thus spake the master programmer:
"A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program
is its own hell."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Charles Briscoe-Smith :
:
After all, the gzip package is called `gzip', not `libz-bin'...
James Troup
Uh, probably because the gzip binary doesn't come from the
non-existent libz package or the existent zlib package.
-- debian-bugs-dist
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find..
We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals
then.
-- Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE
SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language
Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for
Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code
with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,
END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make
a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus
they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without
the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Just to remind everyone. Today, Sept 17, is Linux's 5th birthday. So
happy birthday to all on the list. Thanks go out to Linus and all the
other hard-working maintainers for 5 wonderful fast paced years!
-- William E. Roadcap
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Thus spake the master programmer:
"A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program
is its own hell."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Weinberg, as a young grocery clerk, advised the grocery manager to get
rid of rutabagas which nobody ever bought. He did so. "Well, kid, that
was a great idea," said the manager. Then he paused and asked the killer
question, "NOW what's the least popular vegetable?"
Law: Once you eliminate your #1 problem, #2 gets a promotion.
-- Gerald Weinberg, "The Secrets of Consulting"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as ;-)
I can tell even _they_ don't have it
-- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch
dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension."
-- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon,
however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable.
Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be
discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator
on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is
even highly probable.
-- H.L. Mencken, 1930
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they
serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have
no legitimacy.
-- Albert Einstein
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
MVS Air Lines:
The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians
check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at
least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet
can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers
than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to
operate these humungous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless
you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble
aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot
takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to
realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
* dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer ;)
* Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young
* Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk.
* Cylord gives the beer to muggles.
-- #Debian, celebrating the 5th anniversary
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you
that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?"
is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime
mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress.
-- Elizabeth Zwicky
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the
warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design:
an accounting package or an operating system?"
"An operating system," replied the programmer.
The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an
accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating
system," he said.
"Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package,
the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas:
how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to
the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside
appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the
simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system
is easier to design."
The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but
which is easier to debug?"
The programmer made no reply.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
He who knows nothing, knows nothing.
But he who knows he knows nothing knows something.
And he who knows someone whose friend's wife's brother knows nothing,
he knows something. Or something like that.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?" ... you've seen what food processors do to food,
"It's simple, Skyler
right?"
-- MacNelley, "Shoe"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
When you have 200 programmers trying to write code for one
product, like Win95 or NT, what you get is a multipule personality
program. By definition, the real problem is that these programs are
psychotic by nature and make people crazy when they use them.
-- Joan Brewer on alt.destroy.microsoft
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...