Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller
- 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...
The startling truth finally became apparent, and it was this: Numbers written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single statement took the scientific world by storm. So many mathematical conferences got held in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation died of obesity and heart failure, and the science of mathematics was put back by years.
-- Douglas Adams
- 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...
Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what, exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How about..."
-- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Flat tire on station wagon with tapes. ("Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurling down the highway" Andrew S. Tanenbaum)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself.
-- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
It is imperative when flying coach that you restrain any tendency toward the vividly imaginative. For although it may momentarily appear to be the case, it is not at all likely that the cabin is entirely inhabited by crying babies smoking inexpensive domestic cigars.
-- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer terror.
-- W.K. Hartmann
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs. A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying: "What is appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must understand the Tao before transcending structure."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this driver will be redirected to/dev/null, oh no, it's full...).
-- Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Okay, Okay -- I admit it. You didn't change that program that worked just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the executable. Please forgive me. You can recover the file by typing in the code over again, since I also removed the source.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I just uploaded xtoolplaces-1.6. It fixes all bugs but one: It still coredumps instead of doing something useful. The upstream author's e-mail address bounces, Redhat doesn't provide it and I never used it.
-- Sven Rudolph
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that commitee. These guys have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex layers that are going to be agreed upon.
-- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A statistician, who refused to fly after reading of the alarmingly high probability that there will be a bomb on any given plane, realized that the probability of there being two bombs on any given flight is very low. Now, whenever he flies, he carries a bomb with him.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself working as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he found that he had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one he asked, "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They discussed Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second new arrival came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's IQ. The answer this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell me, how did the Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half an hour or so. To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the question, "What's your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", Einstein smiled and replied, "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The best rebuttal to this kind of statistical argument came from the redoubtable John W. Campbell:
The laws of population growth tell us that approximately half the
people who were ever born in the history of the world are now
dead. There is therefore a 0.5 probability that this message is
being read by a corpse.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity... If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your head... if you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick...
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Meantime, in the slums below Ronnie's Ranch, Cynthia feels as if some one has made voodoo boxen of her and her favorite backplanes. On this fine moonlit night, some horrible persona has been jabbing away at, dragging magnets over, and surging these voodoo boxen. Fortunately, they seem to have gotten a bit bored and fallen asleep, for it looks like Cynthia may get to go home. However, she has made note to quickly put together a totem of sweaty, sordid static straps, random bits of wire, flecks of once meaniful oxide, bus grant cards, gummy worms, and some bits of old pdp backplane to hang above the machine room. This totem must be blessed by the old and wise venerable god of unibus at once, before the idolatization of vme, q and pc bus drive him to bitter revenge. Alas, if this fails, and the voodoo boxen aren't destroyed, there may be more than worms in the apple. Next, the arrival of voodoo optico transmitigational magneto killer paramecium, capable of teleporting from cable to cable, screen to screen, ear to ear and hoof to mouth...
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it.
-- G.L. Glegg, "The Design of Design"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
(1) If it should exist, it doesn't.
(2) If it does exist, it's out of date.
(3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the
first two laws.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
All of us should treasure his Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks, tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks: "Just lie down on the floor and keep calm."
-- Robert Wilson, "John Dillinger Died for You"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
-- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its own capacity.... Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god of the center. Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together what they could do to repay his kindness. They had noticed that, whereas everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.
-- Chuang Tzu
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; someone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less
obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no
solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid.
There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no
straight lines.
-- R. Buckminster Fuller
- 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...
The startling truth finally became apparent, and it was this: Numbers
written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not
follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces
of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single statement took
the scientific world by storm. So many mathematical conferences got held
in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation
died of obesity and heart failure, and the science of mathematics was put
back by years.
-- Douglas Adams
- 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...
Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what, ..."
exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the
other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the
wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my
wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How
about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How
about
-- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
BOFH excuse #145:
Flat tire on station wagon with tapes. ("Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurling down the highway" Andrew S. Tanenbaum)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a
digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top
of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean
the Buddha -- which is to demean oneself.
-- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
It is imperative when flying coach that you restrain any tendency toward
the vividly imaginative. For although it may momentarily appear to be the
case, it is not at all likely that the cabin is entirely inhabited by
crying babies smoking inexpensive domestic cigars.
-- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that
sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer
terror.
-- W.K. Hartmann
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs.
A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured
programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the
master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying: "What is
appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must
understand the Tao before transcending structure."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Feel free to contact me (flames about my english and the useless of this /dev/null, oh no, it's full...).
driver will be redirected to
-- Michael Beck, describing the PC-speaker sound device
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Okay, Okay -- I admit it. You didn't change that program that worked
just a little while ago; I inserted some random characters into the
executable. Please forgive me. You can recover the file by typing in
the code over again, since I also removed the source.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
I just uploaded xtoolplaces-1.6. It fixes all bugs but one: It still
coredumps instead of doing something useful. The upstream author's
e-mail address bounces, Redhat doesn't provide it and I never used it.
-- Sven Rudolph
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that commitee. These guys
have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants
or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex
layers that are going to be agreed upon.
-- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A statistician, who refused to fly after reading of the alarmingly high
probability that there will be a bomb on any given plane, realized that
the probability of there being two bombs on any given flight is very low.
Now, whenever he flies, he carries a bomb with him.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself
working as the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he
found that he had time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one
he asked, "What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They
discussed Einstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second
new arrival came, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's
IQ. The answer this time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell
me, how did the Cubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half
an hour or so. To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the
question, "What's your IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70",
Einstein smiled and replied, "Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The best rebuttal to this kind of statistical argument came from the
redoubtable John W. Campbell:
The laws of population growth tell us that approximately half the
people who were ever born in the history of the world are now
dead. There is therefore a 0.5 probability that this message is
being read by a corpse.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity...
If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your
head... if you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick...
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Meantime, in the slums below Ronnie's Ranch, Cynthia feels as if some one
has made voodoo boxen of her and her favorite backplanes. On this fine
moonlit night, some horrible persona has been jabbing away at, dragging
magnets over, and surging these voodoo boxen. Fortunately, they seem to
have gotten a bit bored and fallen asleep, for it looks like Cynthia may
get to go home. However, she has made note to quickly put together a totem
of sweaty, sordid static straps, random bits of wire, flecks of once meaniful
oxide, bus grant cards, gummy worms, and some bits of old pdp backplane to
hang above the machine room. This totem must be blessed by the old and wise
venerable god of unibus at once, before the idolatization of vme, q and pc
bus drive him to bitter revenge. Alas, if this fails, and the voodoo boxen
aren't destroyed, there may be more than worms in the apple. Next, the
arrival of voodoo optico transmitigational magneto killer paramecium, capable
of teleporting from cable to cable, screen to screen, ear to ear and hoof
to mouth...
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on
the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is
quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather
than blinkers it.
-- G.L. Glegg, "The Design of Design"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Arnold's Laws of Documentation:
(1) If it should exist, it doesn't.
(2) If it does exist, it's out of date.
(3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the
first two laws.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
All of us should treasure his Oriental wisdom and his preaching of a
Zen-like detachment, as exemplified by his constant reminder to clerks,
tellers, or others who grew excited by his presence in their banks:
"Just lie down on the floor and keep calm."
-- Robert Wilson, "John Dillinger Died for You"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed
with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
-- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, ... Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god
the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its
own capacity.
of the Northern Ocean, happened once to meet in the realm of Chaos, the god
of the center. Chaos treated them very handsomely and they discussed together
what they could do to repay his kindness. They had noticed that, whereas
everyone else had seven apertures, for sight, hearing, eating, breathing and
so on, Chaos had none. So they decided to make the experiment of boring holes
in him. Every day they bored a hole, and on the seventh day, Chaos died.
-- Chuang Tzu
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from
the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; someone loaded Star
Trek 3.2 into our video processor.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...