I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.
-- Emile Henry Gauvreay
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
... faster BogoMIPS calculations (yes, it now boots 2 seconds faster than it used to: we're considering changing the name from "Linux" to "InstaBOOT"
-- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.26
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug."
-- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the job is described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like using an undocumented external procedure.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go around the sun. If we went around the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work.
-- Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on/etc/passwd to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea either. If you need some help, give us a call.
-- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I think it's time to remove Qt and Qt-derived applications from the distributon. By distributing it, we only encourage authors to create restrictive licenses.
-- Bruce Perens
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The growth-decay formulas were developed in the trivial fashion by Isaac Newton's famous brother Phigg. His idea was to provide an equation that would describe a quantity that would dwindle and dwindle, but never quite reach zero. Historically, he was merely trying to work out his mortgage. Another versatile equation also emerged, one which would define a function that would continue to grow, but never reach unity. This equation can be applied to charging capacitors, over-damped springs, and the human race in general.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
We the Users, in order to form a more perfect system, establish priorities, ensure connective tranquility, provide for common repairs, promote preventive maintenance, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our processes, do ordain and establish this Software of The Unixed States of America.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software.
-- Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes: Technological
Literacy for the 1990's.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I:
The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin
with a silk sow. The same is true of money. II:
If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would
probably be twice as good as yesterday was. III:
There are no lazy veteran lion hunters. IV:
If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to. V:
One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output.
Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average
output.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that reason. He knows it because he fired the guy.
"He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says. "I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'"
-- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I forgot to mention an important fact in the 1.3.67 announcement. In order to get a fully working kernel, you have to follow the steps below:
- Walk around your computer widdershins 3 times, chanting "Linus is
overworked, and he makes lousy patches, but we love him anyway". Get
your spuouse to do this too for extra effect. Children are optional.
- Apply the patch included in this mail
- Call your system "Super-67", and don't forget to unapply the patch
before you later applying the official 1.3.68 patch.
- reboot
-- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly, sincerely, extremely dangerously.
They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs. They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used fallaron. They used betterment incentives. They used finger prints. They used the bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help. They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell, they caught him.
-- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I asked the engineer who designed the communication terminal's keyboards why these were not manufactured in a central facility, in view of the small number needed [1 per month] in his factory. He explained that this would be contrary to the political concept of local self-sufficiency. Therefore, each factory needing keyboards, no matter how few, manufactures them completely, even molding the keypads.
-- Isaac Auerbach, IEEE "Computer", Nov. 1979
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
-- John Donne, "No Man is an Iland"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Communist revolutionaries taking over the server room and demanding all the computers in the building or they shoot the sysadmin. Poor misguided fools.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"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
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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".
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Good morning. This is the telephone company. Due to repairs, we're giving you advance notice that your service will be cut off indefinitely at ten o'clock. That's two minutes from now.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
-- Theodore Roosevelt
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies. Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and quiet place in which to rest. One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said, "Come on down." But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house." So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other flies. He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said, "Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper. All those flies are trapped." "Don't be silly," said the fly, "they're dancing." So he settled down and became stuck to the flypaper with all the other flies.
Moral: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
-- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly"
- 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...
Slashdot Mirror
I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending
their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to
buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.
-- Emile Henry Gauvreay
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
... faster BogoMIPS calculations (yes, it now boots 2 seconds faster than
it used to: we're considering changing the name from "Linux" to "InstaBOOT"
-- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.26
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
BOFH excuse #247:
Due to Federal Budget problems we have been forced to cut back on the number of users able to access the system at one time. (namely none allowed....)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts
those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds
of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end
goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger,
and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works,
the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found
the last bug."
-- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the job is
described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like using an
undocumented external procedure.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go around the sun. If we went
around the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work.
-- Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
UNIX Trix
/etc/passwd
For those of you in the reseller business, here is a helpful tip that will
save your support staff a few hours of precious time. Before you send your
next machine out to an untrained client, change the permissions on
to 666 and make sure there is a copy somewhere on the disk. Now when they
forget the root password, you can easily login as an ordinary user and correct
the damage. Having a bootable tape (for larger machines) is not a bad idea
either. If you need some help, give us a call.
-- CommUNIXque 1:1, ASCAR Business Systems
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I think it's time to remove Qt and Qt-derived applications from the distributon.
By distributing it, we only encourage authors to create restrictive licenses.
-- Bruce Perens
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Chapter 2: Newtonian Growth and Decay
The growth-decay formulas were developed in the trivial fashion by
Isaac Newton's famous brother Phigg. His idea was to provide an equation
that would describe a quantity that would dwindle and dwindle, but never
quite reach zero. Historically, he was merely trying to work out his
mortgage. Another versatile equation also emerged, one which would define
a function that would continue to grow, but never reach unity. This equation
can be applied to charging capacitors, over-damped springs, and the human
race in general.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
We the Users, in order to form a more perfect system, establish priorities,
ensure connective tranquility, provide for common repairs, promote preventive
maintenance, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our
processes, do ordain and establish this Software of The Unixed States
of America.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised)
are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse
at are called software.
-- Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes: Technological
Literacy for the 1990's.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I:
The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin
with a silk sow. The same is true of money.
II:
If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would
probably be twice as good as yesterday was.
III:
There are no lazy veteran lion hunters.
IV:
If you can afford to advertise, you don't need to.
V:
One-tenth of the participants produce over one-third of the output.
Increasing the number of participants merely reduces the average
output.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for
buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham
Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that
reason. He knows it because he fired the guy.
"He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I
bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'" Mr. O'Neil says.
"I said, 'No. Wrong. Game over. Next contestant, please.'"
-- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I forgot to mention an important fact in the 1.3.67 announcement. In order to
get a fully working kernel, you have to follow the steps below:
- Walk around your computer widdershins 3 times, chanting "Linus is
overworked, and he makes lousy patches, but we love him anyway". Get
your spuouse to do this too for extra effect. Children are optional.
- Apply the patch included in this mail
- Call your system "Super-67", and don't forget to unapply the patch
before you later applying the official 1.3.68 patch.
- reboot
-- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly,
sincerely, extremely dangerously.
They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs.
They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They used
intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks.
They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used fallaron. They
used betterment incentives. They used finger prints. They used the
bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery.
They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help. They used applied physics.
They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell, they caught him.
-- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I asked the engineer who designed the communication terminal's keyboards
why these were not manufactured in a central facility, in view of the
small number needed [1 per month] in his factory. He explained that this
would be contrary to the political concept of local self-sufficiency.
Therefore, each factory needing keyboards, no matter how few, manufactures
them completely, even molding the keypads.
-- Isaac Auerbach, IEEE "Computer", Nov. 1979
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the
Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea,
Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if
a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes
me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
-- John Donne, "No Man is an Iland"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
BOFH excuse #361:
Communist revolutionaries taking over the server room and demanding all the computers in the building or they shoot the sysadmin. Poor misguided fools.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"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
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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".
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Good morning. This is the telephone company. Due to repairs, we're
giving you advance notice that your service will be cut off indefinitely
at ten o'clock. That's two minutes from now.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do
what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with
them while they do it.
-- Theodore Roosevelt
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies.
Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured
him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and
quiet place in which to rest. One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around
above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said,
"Come on down." But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light
where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house."
So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other
flies. He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said,
"Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper. All those flies are trapped." "Don't be
silly," said the fly, "they're dancing." So he settled down and became stuck
to the flypaper with all the other flies.
Moral: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
-- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly"
- 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...