... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs.
-- Robert Firth
- 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...
"Yo, Mike!"
"Yeah, Gabe?"
"We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah."
"I thought you fixed that last century!"
"No, no, not that. Someone's found a security problem in the physics program. They're getting energy out of nowhere."
"Blessit! Lemme look... Hey, it's there all right! OK, just a sec... There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?"
-- Cold Fusion, 1989
- 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...
Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a number. Youre two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash and another number.
-- James Estes
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term, convertible only through the use of weird and unnatural conversion factors. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained, "Only one man ever understood me." He fell silent for a while and then added, "And he didn't understand me."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it;)
-- Linus Torvalds, about his failing hard drive on linux.cs.helsinki.fi
- 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...
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...
For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of being genuine all the time? Would you like to learn how to be a little phony again? Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a feeling? Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all? Come to us. We promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free.
However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase.
NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.
-- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Nuclear powered vacuuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.
-- Alex Lewyt (President of the Lewyt Corporation,
manufacturers of vacuum cleaners), quoted in The New York
Times, June 10, 1955.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several resigned on the spot.
So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee hours of the morning.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
7,140 pounds on the Sun
97 pounds on Mercury or Mars
255 pounds on Earth
232 pounds on Venus or Uranus
43 pounds on the Moon
648 pounds on Jupiter
275 pounds on Saturn
303 pounds on Neptune
13 pounds on Pluto
-- How much Elvis Presley would weigh at various places
in the solar system.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me... I pushed '1' and he just stood there... I said 'Hi, where you going?' He said, 'Phoenix.' So I pushed Phoenix. A few seconds later the doors opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix. I looked at him and said 'You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around with.' We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert. Then the phone rang. He said 'You get it.' I picked it up and said 'Hello?'... the other side said 'Is this Steven Wright?'... I said 'Yes...' The guy said 'Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank... It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you... we would just like to know what happened to the money?' I said, 'Mr. Jones, I'll give it to you straight. I gave all of the money to my friend Slick, and with it he built a nuclear weapon... and I would appreciate it if you never called me again."
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained, "Only one man ever understood me." He fell silent for a while and then added, "And he didn't understand me."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
But you who live on dreams, you are better pleased with the sophistical reasoning and frauds of talkers about great and uncertain matters than those who speak of certain and natural matters, not of such lofty nature.
-- Leonardo Da Vinci, "The Codex on the Flight of Birds"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained, "Only one man ever understood me." He fell silent for a while and then added, "And he didn't understand me."
- 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...
/*
* Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to
* terminate things with extreme prejudice. */ die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code);
-- From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Hacker's Guide To Cooking: 2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't
really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.) 1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty
strong so this part you *GOTTA* measure) 1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too) 8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you
can squirt all over your friends and lick off...) "Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to
join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through
merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy
and icky looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric
beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off
the ceiling(3m). "Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You
just happened to have a GCC sitting around under/etc/food, right?
If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent
GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter. "...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge
for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and
by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(1) Alexander the Great was a great general. (2) Great generals are forewarned. (3) Forewarned is forearmed. (4) Four is an even number. (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
Therefore, all horses are black.
- 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...
Slashdot Mirror
... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs.
-- Robert Firth
- 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...
"Yo, Mike!"
"Yeah, Gabe?"
"We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah."
"I thought you fixed that last century!"
"No, no, not that. Someone's found a security problem in the physics
program. They're getting energy out of nowhere."
"Blessit! Lemme look... Hey, it's
there all right! OK, just a sec...
There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?"
-- Cold Fusion, 1989
- 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...
Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a
number. Youre two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash and
another number.
-- James Estes
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term, convertible
only through the use of weird and unnatural conversion factors. Velocity,
for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained,
"Only one man ever understood me." He fell silent for a while and then added,
"And he didn't understand me."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff ;)
on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it
-- Linus Torvalds, about his failing hard drive on linux.cs.helsinki.fi
- 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...
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...
**** GROWTH CENTER REPAIR SERVICE
For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of
being genuine all the time? Would you like to learn how to be a little
phony again? Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid
people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to
feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms
beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a
feeling? Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all? Come to us. We
promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. does not warrant that the
functions contained in the program will meet your requirements or that
the operation of the program will be uninterrupted or error-free.
However, Cosmotronic Software Unlimited Inc. warrants the
diskette(s) on which the program is furnished to be of black color and
square shape under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the
date of purchase.
NOTE: IN NO EVENT WILL COSMOTRONIC SOFTWARE UNLIMITED OR ITS
DISTRIBUTORS AND THEIR DEALERS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING
ANY LOST PROFIT, LOST SAVINGS, LOST PATIENCE OR OTHER INCIDENTAL OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.
-- Horstmann Software Design, the "ChiWriter" user manual
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Nuclear powered vacuuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.
-- Alex Lewyt (President of the Lewyt Corporation,
manufacturers of vacuum cleaners), quoted in The New York
Times, June 10, 1955.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your
work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave
at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several
resigned on the spot.
So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own
working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The
programmers, now satisfied, began to come in a noon and work to the wee
hours of the morning.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
7,140 pounds on the Sun
97 pounds on Mercury or Mars
255 pounds on Earth
232 pounds on Venus or Uranus
43 pounds on the Moon
648 pounds on Jupiter
275 pounds on Saturn
303 pounds on Neptune
13 pounds on Pluto
-- How much Elvis Presley would weigh at various places
in the solar system.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me... I
pushed '1' and he just stood there... I said 'Hi, where you going?' He
said, 'Phoenix.' So I pushed Phoenix. A few seconds later the doors
opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix. I looked
at him and said 'You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around
with.' We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert.
Then the phone rang. He said 'You get it.' I picked it up and said
'Hello?'... the other side said 'Is this Steven Wright?'... I said 'Yes...'
The guy said 'Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank...
It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you
attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you... we
would just like to know what happened to the money?' I said, 'Mr. Jones,
I'll give it to you straight. I gave all of the money to my friend Slick,
and with it he built a nuclear weapon... and I would appreciate it if you never
called me again."
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained,
"Only one man ever understood me." He fell silent for a while and then added,
"And he didn't understand me."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
But you who live on dreams, you are better pleased with the sophistical
reasoning and frauds of talkers about great and uncertain matters than
those who speak of certain and natural matters, not of such lofty nature.
-- Leonardo Da Vinci, "The Codex on the Flight of Birds"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Brian Kernighan has an automobile which he helped design.
Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor
any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver.
Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the
center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will
usually know what's wrong."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(German philosopher) Georg Wilhelm Hegel, on his deathbed, complained,
"Only one man ever understood me." He fell silent for a while and then added,
"And he didn't understand me."
- 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...
/*
* Oops. The kernel tried to access some bad page. We'll have to
* terminate things with extreme prejudice.
*/
die_if_kernel("Oops", regs, error_code);
-- From linux/arch/i386/mm/fault.c
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Hacker's Guide To Cooking: /etc/food, right?
2 pkg. cream cheese (the mushy white stuff in silver wrappings that doesn't
really come from Philadelphia after all; anyway, about 16 oz.)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (which is more alcohol than vanilla and pretty
strong so this part you *GOTTA* measure)
1/4 cup sugar (but honey works fine too)
8 oz. Cool Whip (the fluffy stuff devoid of nutritional value that you
can squirt all over your friends and lick off...)
"Blend all together until creamy with no lumps." This is where you get to
join(1) all the raw data in a big buffer and then filter it through
merge(1m) with the -thick option, I mean, it starts out ultra lumpy
and icky looking and you have to work hard to mix it. Try an electric
beater if you have a cat(1) that can climb wall(1s) to lick it off
the ceiling(3m).
"Pour into a graham cracker crust..." Aha, the BUGS section at last. You
just happened to have a GCC sitting around under
If not, don't panic(8), merely crumble a rand(3m) handful of innocent
GCs into a suitable tempfile and mix in some melted butter.
"...and refrigerate for an hour." Leave the recipe's stdout in a fridge
for 3.6E6 milliseconds while you work on cleaning up stderr, and
by time out your cheesecake will be ready for stdin.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(1) Alexander the Great was a great general.
(2) Great generals are forewarned.
(3) Forewarned is forearmed.
(4) Four is an even number.
(5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have.
(6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
Therefore, all horses are black.
- 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...