VMS Beer: Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or contain extremely un-beer-like contents.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #2 What to do...
if you get a phone call from Mars:
Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly. Limit
your vocabulary to simple words. Try to determine if you are
speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen.
if he, she or it doesn't speak English?
Hang up. There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone.
If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he, she
or it would have taken the trouble to learn the language before
calling.
if you get a phone call from Jupiter?
Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter,
he, she or it is not "life as we know it". Try to terminate the
conversation as soon as possible. It will not profit you, and the
charges may have been reversed.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Sorry for mailing this article, I've obviously made a typo (168!=186) that's the price for being up all night and doing some "quick" checks before you go to bed....
-- Herbert Rosmanith
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I assure you the thought never even crossed my mind, lord."
"Indeed? Then if I were you I'd sue my face for slander."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights instead! Now when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is standing still..."
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State).
In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a multiline message byte.
In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message must be sent passive true.
The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter:
(1) The ANRS if DAV is false
(2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither:
(a) The LADS is active
(b) Nor LACS is active"
-- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for
Programmable Instrumentation
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I am professionally trained in computer science, which is to say (in all seriousness) that I am extremely poorly educated.
-- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason"
- 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...
When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the corners as bodies of a lower grade...
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged, I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the quad. And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors, and they are squeamish about technology to this very day. So it is natural for them to despise science fiction.
-- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Science Fiction"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Fellow programmer, greetings! You are reading a letter which will bring you luck and good fortune. Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter to ten of your friends. Before you make the copies, send a chip or other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the list given at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add yours to the bottom of the list.
Don't break the chain! Make the copy within 48 hours. Gerald R. of San Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find his job description changed to "COBOL programmer." Fred A. of New York sent out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork. Martha H. of Chicago laughed at this letter and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's.
Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today! For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip; when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor 1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and '\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear.
-- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #1
A guinea pig is not from Guinea but a rodent from South America.
A firefly is not a fly, but a beetle.
A giant panda bear is really a member of the racoon family.
A black panther is really a leopard that has a solid black coat
rather then a spotted one.
Peanuts are not really nuts. The majority of nuts grow on trees
while peauts grow underground. They are classified as a
legume -- part of the pea family.
A cucumber is not a vegetable but a fruit.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
DOS Air: All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again. Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et cetera.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(9) Trifle thee not with radioactive tubes and substances lest thou
commence to glow in the dark like a lightning bug, and thy wife be
frustrated and have not further use for thee except for thy wages. (10) Commit thou to memory all the words of the prophets which are
written down in thy Bible which is the National Electrical Code,
and giveth out with the straight dope and consoleth thee when
thou hast suffered a ream job by the chief electrician. (11) When thou muckest about with a device in an unthinking and/or
unknowing manner, thou shalt keep one hand in thy pocket. Better
that thou shouldest keep both hands in thy pockets than
experimentally determine the electrical potential of an
innocent-seeming device.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it recieves a response to a DNS query that was never made. Fix Information: Run your DNS service on a different platform.
-- bugtraq
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish. You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.
-- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer* being struck by lightning.
-- Matt Welsh
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple of asterisked sentences:
It weighs less than 8 pounds.*
And costs less than $1,300.**
In tiny type were these "fuller explanations":
* Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all
this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power
pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks
will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you
might not be able to figure this out for yourself.
** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if
you really want to. Or less.
-- Forbes
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic contrivances may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence.
-- Joseph Glanvill, 1661
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether -- whose existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation... A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the world.
-- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's not equatorial enough. Equatorial!" He gave a hollow laugh. "What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
"And are you?"
"No. That's where it all falls down, of course."
"Pity," said Arthur with sympathy. "It sounded like quite a good life-style otherwise."
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
VMS Beer: Requires minimal user interaction, except for popping the top
and sipping. However cans have been known on occasion to explode, or
contain extremely un-beer-like contents.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
FORTUNE'S GUIDE TO DEALING WITH REAL-LIFE SCIENCE FICTION: #2
What to do...
if you get a phone call from Mars:
Speak slowly and be sure to enunciate your words properly. Limit
your vocabulary to simple words. Try to determine if you are
speaking to someone in a leadership capacity, or an ordinary citizen.
if he, she or it doesn't speak English?
Hang up. There's no sense in trying to learn Martian over the phone.
If your Martian really had something important to say to you, he, she
or it would have taken the trouble to learn the language before
calling.
if you get a phone call from Jupiter?
Explain to your caller, politely but firmly, that being from Jupiter,
he, she or it is not "life as we know it". Try to terminate the
conversation as soon as possible. It will not profit you, and the
charges may have been reversed.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Sorry for mailing this article, I've obviously made a typo (168!=186) ....
that's the price for being up all night and doing some "quick"
checks before you go to bed
-- Herbert Rosmanith
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I assure you the thought never even crossed my mind, lord."
"Indeed? Then if I were you I'd sue my face for slander."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
* Joey should not write changelog entries at 5:30am
* DFSC Free cgi library
What's that? DFSC?
Debian Free Software mroooooCows
-- Seen on #Debian
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights instead! Now ..."
when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is standing still
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State).
In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a
multiline message byte.
In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message
must be sent passive true.
The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter:
(1) The ANRS if DAV is false
(2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither:
(a) The LADS is active
(b) Nor LACS is active"
-- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for
Programmable Instrumentation
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I am professionally trained in computer science, which is to say
(in all seriousness) that I am extremely poorly educated.
-- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason"
- 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...
When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all the ...
stars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count them
from left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer ones were
set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to the corners as
bodies of a lower grade
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer
and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown
suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged,
I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not
dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the
quad. And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors,
and they are squeamish about technology to this very day. So it is natural
for them to despise science fiction.
-- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Science Fiction"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Fellow programmer, greetings! You are reading a letter which will bring
you luck and good fortune. Just mail (or UUCP) ten copies of this letter
to ten of your friends. Before you make the copies, send a chip or
other bit of hardware, and 100 lines of 'C' code to the first person on the
list given at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add
yours to the bottom of the list.
Don't break the chain! Make the copy within 48 hours. Gerald R. of San
Diego failed to send out his ten copies and woke the next morning to find
his job description changed to "COBOL programmer." Fred A. of New York sent
out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware and software to
build a Cray dedicated to playing Zork. Martha H. of Chicago laughed at
this letter and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out in
her terminal and she now spends her days writing documentation for IBM PC's.
Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today!
For example, if \thinmskip = 3mu, this makes \thickmskip = 6mu. But if
you also want to use \skip12 for horizontal glue, whether in math mode or
not, the amount of skipping will be in points (e.g., 6pt). The rule is
that glue in math mode varies with the size only when it is an \mskip;
when moving between an mskip and ordinary skip, the conversion factor
1mu=1pt is always used. The meaning of '\mskip\skip12' and
'\baselineskip=\the\thickmskip' should be clear.
-- Donald Knuth, TeX 82 -- Comparison with TeX80
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
FORTUNE'S FUN FACTS TO KNOW AND TELL: #1
A guinea pig is not from Guinea but a rodent from South America.
A firefly is not a fly, but a beetle.
A giant panda bear is really a member of the racoon family.
A black panther is really a leopard that has a solid black coat
rather then a spotted one.
Peanuts are not really nuts. The majority of nuts grow on trees
while peauts grow underground. They are classified as a
legume -- part of the pea family.
A cucumber is not a vegetable but a fruit.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
DOS Air:
All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it
until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again.
Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et
cetera.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The Commandments of the EE:
(9) Trifle thee not with radioactive tubes and substances lest thou
commence to glow in the dark like a lightning bug, and thy wife be
frustrated and have not further use for thee except for thy wages.
(10) Commit thou to memory all the words of the prophets which are
written down in thy Bible which is the National Electrical Code,
and giveth out with the straight dope and consoleth thee when
thou hast suffered a ream job by the chief electrician.
(11) When thou muckest about with a device in an unthinking and/or
unknowing manner, thou shalt keep one hand in thy pocket. Better
that thou shouldest keep both hands in thy pockets than
experimentally determine the electrical potential of an
innocent-seeming device.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it recieves a response
to a DNS query that was never made. Fix Information: Run your DNS
service on a different platform.
-- bugtraq
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The world is your exercise-book, the pages on which you do your sums.
It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish.
You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or to tear the pages.
-- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
...very few phenomena can pull someone out of Deep Hack Mode, with two
noted exceptions: being struck by lightning, or worse, your *computer*
being struck by lightning.
-- Matt Welsh
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple
of asterisked sentences:
It weighs less than 8 pounds.*
And costs less than $1,300.**
In tiny type were these "fuller explanations":
* Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all
this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power
pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks
will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you
might not be able to figure this out for yourself.
** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if
you really want to. Or less.
-- Forbes
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
To converse at the distance of the Indes by means of sympathetic contrivances
may be as natural to future times as to us is a literary correspondence.
-- Joseph Glanvill, 1661
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the ... A fifth
molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with
Haeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether -- whose
existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation
theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about
the matter than the others.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal
rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports,
which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced
in design as one will find anywhere in the world.
-- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa
to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to
like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely
baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's not equatorial enough.
Equatorial!" He gave a hollow laugh. "What does it matter? Science has
achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than
right any day."
"And are you?"
"No. That's where it all falls down, of course."
"Pity," said Arthur with sympathy. "It sounded like quite a good
life-style otherwise."
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...