I expect that noone has objections. However, if I'd only add these entries to the list because `I think it's the right thing to do', I'd get a lot of flames afterwards:)
-- Christian Schwarz
- 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...
LOGO for the Dead lets you continue your computing activities from "The Other Side."
The package includes a unique telecommunications feature which lets you turn your TRS-80 into an electronic Ouija board. Then, using Logo's graphics capabilities, you can work with a friend or relative on this side of the Great Beyond to write programs. The software requires that your body be hardwired to an analog-to-digital converter, which is then interfaced to your computer. A special terminal (very terminal) program lets you talk with the users through Deadnet, an EBBS (Ectoplasmic Bulletin Board System).
LOGO for the Dead is available for 10 percent of your estate from NecroSoft inc., 6502 Charnelhouse Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44101.
-- '80 Microcomputing
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly.
"AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly. "I THINK IT MIGHT GO DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT."
"Why?"
"THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
/*
* [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum
* possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP
* to talk to the University of Mars.
* PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented
* ftp to mars will work nicely.
*/
-- from/usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [round trip time]
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible.
-- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
An office party is not, as is sometimes supposed the Managing Director's chance to kiss the tea-girl. It is the tea-girl's chance to kiss the Managing Director (however bizarre an ambition this may seem to anyone who has seen the Managing Director face on).
-- Katherine Whitehorn, "Roundabout"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot water.
-- Matt Welsh
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself happily as he now has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple of more feet, just to be sure.
-- Eric Allman... We make rope.
-- Rob Gingell on Sun Microsystem's new virtual memory.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"The pyramid is opening!"
"Which one?"
"The one with the ever-widening hole in it!"
-- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At
Once When You're Not Anywhere At All"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that over Bohr's desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh,
"Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck, do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist --" Bohr chuckled.
"I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant. Teach him. He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him. He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Do not despair of life. You have no doubt force enough to overcome your obstacles. Think of the fox prowling through wood and field in a winter night for something to satisfy his hunger. Notwithstanding cold and hounds and traps, his race survives. I do not believe any of them ever committed suicide.
-- Henry David Thoreau
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
.. I used to get in more fights with SCO than I did my girlfriend, but now, thanks to Linux, she has more than happily accepted her place back at number one antagonist in my life..
-- Jason Stiefel, krypto@s30.nmex.com
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun.
-- P.J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April
Fool's column.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"We don't do a new version to fix bugs." - Bill Gates "The new version - it's not there to fix bugs." - Bill Gates
-- Retranslated from Focus 43/1995, pp. 206-212
- 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...
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...
A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go. You'll just be walking down the street and... Ooohh, that's much better.
-- Steven Wright
- 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...
The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available data. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the temperature of Heaven. The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (~300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from a liquid to a gas. Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, or 444.6C (Above this point it would be a vapor, not a lake.) We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
-- "Applied Optics", vol. 11, A14, 1972
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"A horrible little boy came up to me and said, `You know in your book The Martian Chronicles?' I said, `Yes?' He said, `You know where you talk about Deimos rising in the East?' I said, `Yes?' He said `No.' -- So I hit him."
-- attributed to Ray Bradbury
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
/*
* [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum
* possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP
* to talk to the University of Mars.
* PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented
* ftp to mars will work nicely.
*/
-- from/usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [round trip time]
- 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...
Slashdot Mirror
I expect that noone has objections. However, if I'd only add these entries :)
to the list because `I think it's the right thing to do', I'd get a lot of
flames afterwards
-- Christian Schwarz
- 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...
LOGO for the Dead
LOGO for the Dead lets you continue your computing activities from
"The Other Side."
The package includes a unique telecommunications feature which lets you
turn your TRS-80 into an electronic Ouija board. Then, using Logo's
graphics capabilities, you can work with a friend or relative on this
side of the Great Beyond to write programs. The software requires that
your body be hardwired to an analog-to-digital converter, which is then
interfaced to your computer. A special terminal (very terminal) program
lets you talk with the users through Deadnet, an EBBS (Ectoplasmic
Bulletin Board System).
LOGO for the Dead is available for 10 percent of your estate
from NecroSoft inc., 6502 Charnelhouse Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44101.
-- '80 Microcomputing
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly.
"AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly. "I THINK IT MIGHT GO
DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT."
"Why?"
"THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF."
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
/* /usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [round trip time]
* [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum
* possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP
* to talk to the University of Mars.
* PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented
* ftp to mars will work nicely.
*/
-- from
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary
to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one
ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a
job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing
forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient
he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a
state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the
"expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible.
-- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
An office party is not, as is sometimes supposed the Managing Director's
chance to kiss the tea-girl. It is the tea-girl's chance to kiss the
Managing Director (however bizarre an ambition this may seem to anyone
who has seen the Managing Director face on).
-- Katherine Whitehorn, "Roundabout"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
What you end up with, after running an operating system concept through
these many marketing coffee filters, is something not unlike plain hot
water.
-- Matt Welsh
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician find themselves in an
anecdote, indeed an anecdote quite similar to many that you have no doubt
already heard. After some observations and rough calculations the
engineer realizes the situation and starts laughing. A few minutes later
the physicist understands too and chuckles to himself happily as he now
has enough experimental evidence to publish a paper. This leaves the
mathematician somewhat perplexed, as he had observed right away that he
was the subject of an anecdote, and deduced quite rapidly the presence of
humour from similar anecdotes, but considers this anecdote to be too
trivial a corollary to be significant, let alone funny.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Unix gives you just enough rope to hang yourself -- and then a couple ... We make rope.
of more feet, just to be sure.
-- Eric Allman
-- Rob Gingell on Sun Microsystem's new virtual memory.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"The pyramid is opening!"
"Which one?"
"The one with the ever-widening hole in it!"
-- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At
Once When You're Not Anywhere At All"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
An American scientist once visited the offices of the great Nobel prize
winning physicist, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen. He was amazed to find that
over Bohr's desk was a horseshoe, securely nailed to the wall, with the
open end up in the approved manner (so it would catch the good luck and not
let it spill out). The American said with a nervous laugh,
"Surely you don't believe the horseshoe will bring you good luck,
do you, Professor Bohr? After all, as a scientist --"
Bohr chuckled.
"I believe no such thing, my good friend. Not at all. I am
scarcely likely to believe in such foolish nonsense. However, I am told
that a horseshoe will bring you good luck whether you believe in it or not."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant. Teach him.
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Do not despair of life. You have no doubt force enough to overcome your
obstacles. Think of the fox prowling through wood and field in a winter night
for something to satisfy his hunger. Notwithstanding cold and hounds and
traps, his race survives. I do not believe any of them ever committed suicide.
-- Henry David Thoreau
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
.. I used to get in more fights with SCO than I did my girlfriend, but
now, thanks to Linux, she has more than happily accepted her place back at
number one antagonist in my life..
-- Jason Stiefel, krypto@s30.nmex.com
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other
designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun.
-- P.J. Plauger, "Computer Language", 1988, April
Fool's column.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"We don't do a new version to fix bugs." - Bill Gates
"The new version - it's not there to fix bugs." - Bill Gates
-- Retranslated from Focus 43/1995, pp. 206-212
- 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...
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...
A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture. You don't have to go.
You'll just be walking down the street and... Ooohh, that's much better.
-- Steven Wright
- 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...
The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available ... shall have their
data. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon
shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold,
as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much
radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition seven times seven (49) times
as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or fifty times in all. The light we
receive from the Moon is one ten-thousandth of the light we receive from the
Sun, so we can ignore that. With these data we can compute the temperature
of Heaven. The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where
the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation,
i.e., Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using
the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute
temperature of the earth (~300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact
temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6C, the
temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from a liquid to a gas.
Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten
brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point,
or 444.6C (Above this point it would be a vapor, not a lake.) We have,
then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
-- "Applied Optics", vol. 11, A14, 1972
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"A horrible little boy came up to me and said, `You know in your book
The Martian Chronicles?' I said, `Yes?' He said, `You know where you
talk about Deimos rising in the East?' I said, `Yes?' He said `No.'
-- So I hit him."
-- attributed to Ray Bradbury
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
/* /usr/src/linux/net/inet/tcp.c, concerning RTT [round trip time]
* [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum
* possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP
* to talk to the University of Mars.
* PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented
* ftp to mars will work nicely.
*/
-- from
- 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...