We are preparing to think about contemplating preliminary work on plans to develop a schedule for producing the 10th Edition of the Unix Programmers Manual.
-- Andrew Hume
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Shopping at this grody little computer store at the Galleria for a totally awwwesome Apple. Fer suuure. I mean Apples are nice you know? But, you know, there is this cute guy who works there and HE says that VAX's are cooler! I mean I don't really know, you know? He says that he has this totally tubular VAX at home and it's stuffed with memory-to-the-max! Right, yeah. And he wants to take me home to show it to me. Oh My God! I'm suuure. Gag me with a Prime!
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled; batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented, deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts, Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless, spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef, beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled, pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish; half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon, individually and in combination, isn't it a little to be limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective?
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I > > should use Linux over BSD? > > No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on > creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it > certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able > to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the > mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the > name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too > technical.
-- Linus Torvalds' follow-up to a question about Linux
- 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...
> I thing you're missing the capability of Makefiles.
It takes several _hours_ to do `make' a second time on my machine with the latest glibc sources (and no files are recompiled a second time). I think I'll remove `build' after changing one file if I want to recompile it.
-- Juan Cespedes
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use?
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Und die Tastaturabrdücke auf Ihrer Wange unterstreichen seeeeeehr vorteilhaft ihr unterschütterliches Vertrauen in die moderene Technologie
-- Agent Gully in "Die eXakten"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Alan Cox wrote: >> On any procmail new enough not to be full of security holes you set >Brain on, Imeant majordomo of course 8) You got me worried there for a brief (very brief) moment:-).
-- Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going to keep drinking it after it's no longer available.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
An older student came to Otis and said, "I have been to see a great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures. I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights seeking enlightenment. I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered, but I have not been enlightened. What should I do?"
Otis replied, "Give up suffering."
-- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"
- 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...
(1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH,
and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before
he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the
Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship?
(2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks
twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks
every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off
his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week?
(3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers
the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a
pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King
Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice?
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
He thought of Musashi, the Sword Saint, standing in his garden more than three hundred years ago. "What is the 'Body of a rock'?" he was asked. In answer, Musashi summoned a pupil of his and bid him kill himself by slashing his abdomen with a knife. Just as the pupil was about to comply, the Master stayed his hand, saying, "That is the 'Body of a rock'."
-- Eric Van Lustbader
- 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...
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK
This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi, Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley.
The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier.
Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case. For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message:
"i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can
you find the time to try it again?"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Are we beginning all over again to produce our credentials? Do we, like some people, need letters of introduction to you, or from you? No, you are all the letter we need, a letter written on your heart; any man can see it for what it is and read it for himself.
-- 2 Corinthians 3:1-2, New English translation
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an infinitely large Universe, such as the one in which we live, most things one could possibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow somewhere. A forest was discovered recently in which most of the trees grew ratchet screwdrivers as fruit. The life cycle of the ratchet screwdriver is quite interesting. Once picked it needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its outer skin that crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a hole for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what the screwdriver is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom, is presumably working on it.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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...
The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything was released with the kind permission of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries, and Other Professional Thinking Persons.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very sharp, probably not someone here on campus.
-- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, in
Georgia Tech's campus newspaper after the Internet worm.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.
-- Edsger Dijkstra
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The departing division general manager met a last time with his young successor and gave him three envelopes. "My predecessor did this for me, and I'll pass the tradition along to you," he said. "At the first sign of trouble, open the first envelope. Any further difficulties, open the second envelope. Then, if problems continue, open the third envelope. Good luck." The new manager returned to his office and tossed the envelopes into a drawer.
Six months later, costs soared and earnings plummeted. Shaken, the young man opened the first envelope, which said, "Blame it all on me."
The next day, he held a press conference and did just that. The crisis passed.
Six months later, sales dropped precipitously. The beleagured manager opened the second envelope. It said, "Reorganize."
He held another press conference, announcing that the division would be restructured. The crisis passed.
A year later, everything went wrong at once and the manager was blamed for all of it. The harried executive closed his office door, sank into his chair, and opened the third envelope.
"Prepare three envelopes..." it said.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The computer industry is journalists in their 20's standing in awe of entrepreneurs in their 30's who are hiring salesmen in their 40's and 50's and paying them in the 60's and 70's to bring their marketing into the 80's.
-- Marty Winston
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
We are preparing to think about contemplating preliminary work on plans to
develop a schedule for producing the 10th Edition of the Unix Programmers
Manual.
-- Andrew Hume
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Shopping at this grody little computer store at the Galleria for a
totally awwwesome Apple. Fer suuure. I mean Apples are nice you know?
But, you know, there is this cute guy who works there and HE says that
VAX's are cooler! I mean I don't really know, you know? He says that he
has this totally tubular VAX at home and it's stuffed with memory-to-the-max!
Right, yeah. And he wants to take me home to show it to me. Oh My God!
I'm suuure. Gag me with a Prime!
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can
speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled;
batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented,
deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts,
Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless,
spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef,
beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled,
pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish;
half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have
a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon,
individually and in combination, isn't it a little to be
limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective?
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
> > Other than the fact Linux has a cool name, could someone explain why I
> > should use Linux over BSD?
>
> No. That's it. The cool name, that is. We worked very hard on
> creating a name that would appeal to the majority of people, and it
> certainly paid off: thousands of people are using linux just to be able
> to say "OS/2? Hah. I've got Linux. What a cool name". 386BSD made the
> mistake of putting a lot of numbers and weird abbreviations into the
> name, and is scaring away a lot of people just because it sounds too
> technical.
-- Linus Torvalds' follow-up to a question about Linux
- 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...
> I thing you're missing the capability of Makefiles.
It takes several _hours_ to do `make' a second time on my
machine with the latest glibc sources (and no files are recompiled a
second time). I think I'll remove `build' after changing one file if
I want to recompile it.
-- Juan Cespedes
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure
that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing,
all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third?
Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the
result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure
parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different
types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a
recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language
so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use?
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Und die Tastaturabrdücke auf Ihrer Wange unterstreichen seeeeeehr
vorteilhaft ihr unterschütterliches Vertrauen in die moderene
Technologie
-- Agent Gully in "Die eXakten"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Alan Cox wrote: :-).
>> On any procmail new enough not to be full of security holes you set
>Brain on, Imeant majordomo of course 8)
You got me worried there for a brief (very brief) moment
-- Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
DOS Beer: Requires you to use your own can opener, and requires you to
read the directions carefully before opening the can. Originally only
came in an 8-oz. can, but now comes in a 16-oz. can. However, the can is
divided into 8 compartments of 2 oz. each, which have to be accessed
separately. Soon to be discontinued, although a lot of people are going
to keep drinking it after it's no longer available.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
An older student came to Otis and said, "I have been to see a
great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures.
I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights seeking enlightenment.
I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered, but
I have not been enlightened. What should I do?"
Otis replied, "Give up suffering."
-- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"
- 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...
Review Questions
(1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH,
and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before
he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the
Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship?
(2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks
twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks
every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off
his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week?
(3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers
the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a
pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King
Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice?
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
He thought of Musashi, the Sword Saint, standing in his garden more than
three hundred years ago. "What is the 'Body of a rock'?" he was asked.
In answer, Musashi summoned a pupil of his and bid him kill himself by
slashing his abdomen with a knife. Just as the pupil was about to comply,
the Master stayed his hand, saying, "That is the 'Body of a rock'."
-- Eric Van Lustbader
- 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...
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK
This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi,
Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to
the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley.
The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while
they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the
center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier.
Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and
non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case. For
example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message:
"i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can
you find the time to try it again?"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The Bible on letters of reference:
Are we beginning all over again to produce our credentials? Do
we, like some people, need letters of introduction to you, or from you?
No, you are all the letter we need, a letter written on your heart; any
man can see it for what it is and read it for himself.
-- 2 Corinthians 3:1-2, New English translation
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an
infinitely large Universe, such as the one in which we live, most things one
could possibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow
somewhere. A forest was discovered recently in which most of the trees grew
ratchet screwdrivers as fruit. The life cycle of the ratchet screwdriver is
quite interesting. Once picked it needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can
lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its
outer skin that crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable
little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a hole
for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what the
screwdriver is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom,
is presumably working on it.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
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...
The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything was
released with the kind permission of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers,
Sages, Luminaries, and Other Professional Thinking Persons.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the
system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine
some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very
sharp, probably not someone here on campus.
-- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, in
Georgia Tech's campus newspaper after the Internet worm.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt
ax. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.
-- Edsger Dijkstra
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The departing division general manager met a last time with his young
successor and gave him three envelopes. "My predecessor did this for me,
and I'll pass the tradition along to you," he said. "At the first sign
of trouble, open the first envelope. Any further difficulties, open the
second envelope. Then, if problems continue, open the third envelope.
Good luck." The new manager returned to his office and tossed the envelopes
into a drawer.
Six months later, costs soared and earnings plummeted. Shaken, the
young man opened the first envelope, which said, "Blame it all on me."
The next day, he held a press conference and did just that. The
crisis passed.
Six months later, sales dropped precipitously. The beleagured
manager opened the second envelope. It said, "Reorganize."
He held another press conference, announcing that the division
would be restructured. The crisis passed.
A year later, everything went wrong at once and the manager was
blamed for all of it. The harried executive closed his office door, sank
into his chair, and opened the third envelope.
"Prepare three envelopes..." it said.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The computer industry is journalists in their 20's standing in awe of
entrepreneurs in their 30's who are hiring salesmen in their 40's and
50's and paying them in the 60's and 70's to bring their marketing into
the 80's.
-- Marty Winston
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...