Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.
-- Joseph Heller, "God Knows"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Everybody but Sam had signed up for a new company pension plan that called for a small employee contribution. The company was paying all the rest. Unfortunately, 100% employee participation was needed; otherwise the plan was off. Sam's boss and his fellow workers pleaded and cajoled, but to no avail. Sam said the plan would never pay off. Finally the company president called Sam into his office.
"Sam," he said, "here's a copy of the new pension plan and here's a pen. I want you to sign the papers. I'm sorry, but if you don't sign, you're fired. As of right now."
Sam signed the papers immediately.
"Now," said the president, "would you mind telling me why you couldn't have signed earlier?"
"Well, sir," replied Sam, "nobody explained it to me quite so clearly before."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
You are transported to a room where you are faced by a wizard who points to you and says, "Them's fighting words!" You immediately get attacked by all sorts of denizens of the museum: there is a cobra chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyranosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves are making mince meat out of your torso, and the wizard is about to transport you to the corner of Westwood and Broxton. Oh dear, you seem to have gotten yourself killed, as well.
You scored 0 out of 250 possible points. That gives you a ranking of junior beginning adventurer. To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers' School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming. They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day. With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code and lots more besides. Our training course covers every programming language in existence, and some that aren't. You'll learn why the on/off switch for a computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what you should blame when you make a mistake.
Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer.
I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of
postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.)
*** Our Slogan: Top down programming for the masses. ***
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which nobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday Morning Time, whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style "hold" for two to three hours, during which it just remains 7 a.m. This way we could all wake up via a civilized gradual process of stretching and belching and scratching, and it would still be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually emerge from bed.
-- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find.. We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals then.
-- Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365, 365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365". He [ten-year-old Truman Henry Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!" An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be as much fun to watch.
-- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of the smaller prime numbers.
2: The Odd Prime --
It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED. 3: The True Prime --
Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true." 31: The Arbitrary Prime --
Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime in
case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91 received
the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most.
However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all. 41: The Female Prime --
The polynomial X**2 - X + 41 is
prime for integer values from 1 to 40. 43: The Male Prime - they form a prime pair.
Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities are derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd but true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever to get a "fix" of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine.
-- Rob Stampfli
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal. The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may experience it as such. Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and thinking: all the rest of the world is slow, gradual and stupid. Whoever could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very swift. Thinking of oneself gives little happiness. If, however, one feels much happiness in this, it is because at bottom one is not thinking of oneself but of one's ideal. This is far, and only the swift shall reach it and are delighted.
-- Nietzsche
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than cities. Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- here is the big difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES. You're allowed to do anything. You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want. I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, whereas I was neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall parking lots.
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
- 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...
We're mortal -- which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful -- but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?
-- Ensign Flandry
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea...
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?
-- Plato
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first these questions three, ere the other side he see!
"What is your name?"
"Sir Brian of Bell."
"What is your quest?"
"I seek the Holy Grail."
"What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?"
"I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury.
-- Tom Duff, Bell Labs
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now."
"I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly.
"Too proud?" the other enquired.
Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," she said, "that one can't help growing older."
"ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why you are so tired.
There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought.
The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over 60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20 years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work.
There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves 19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work.
Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail, so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself!
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM FOR THE 386.
-- Matt Welsh
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
X windows:
The ultimate bottleneck.
Flawed beyond belief.
The only thing you have to fear.
Somewhere between chaos and insanity.
On autopilot to oblivion.
The joke that kills.
A disgrace you can be proud of.
A mistake carried out to perfection.
Belongs more to the problem set than the solution set.
To err is X windows.
Ignorance is our most important resource.
Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems.
Built to fall apart.
Nullifying centuries of progress.
Falling to new depths of inefficiency.
The last thing you need.
The defacto substandard.
Elevating brain damage to an art form.
X windows.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds was unavailable for comment...
-- Robert Manners, rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk, in comp.os.linux.setup
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
XXXVI:
The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar
contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the
proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other
at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea. XXXVII:
Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect.
The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much. XXXVIII:
The early bird gets the worm.
The early worm... gets eaten. XXXIX:
Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of
the year -- in either direction. XL:
Most projects start out slowly -- and then sort of taper off.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
And the Master answered:
It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
And that is Fate? said the priest.
Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was too.
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't,
don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.
-- Joseph Heller, "God Knows"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Everybody but Sam had signed up for a new company pension plan that
called for a small employee contribution. The company was paying all
the rest. Unfortunately, 100% employee participation was needed;
otherwise the plan was off. Sam's boss and his fellow workers pleaded
and cajoled, but to no avail. Sam said the plan would never pay off.
Finally the company president called Sam into his office.
"Sam," he said, "here's a copy of the new pension plan and here's
a pen. I want you to sign the papers. I'm sorry, but if you don't sign,
you're fired. As of right now."
Sam signed the papers immediately.
"Now," said the president, "would you mind telling me why you
couldn't have signed earlier?"
"Well, sir," replied Sam, "nobody explained it to me quite so
clearly before."
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
You are transported to a room where you are faced by a wizard who
points to you and says, "Them's fighting words!" You immediately get
attacked by all sorts of denizens of the museum: there is a cobra
chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a
gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a
rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy
trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a
vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyranosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch
long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is
dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your
head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves
are making mince meat out of your torso, and the wizard is about to
transport you to the corner of Westwood and Broxton. Oh dear, you seem
to have gotten yourself killed, as well.
You scored 0 out of 250 possible points.
That gives you a ranking of junior beginning adventurer.
To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
*** A NEW KIND OF PROGRAMMING ***
Do you want the instant respect that comes from being able to use technical
terms that nobody understands? Do you want to strike fear and loathing into
the hearts of DP managers everywhere? If so, then let the Famous Programmers'
School lead you on... into the world of professional computer programming.
They say a good programmer can write 20 lines of effective program per day.
With our unique training course, we'll show you how to write 20 lines of code
and lots more besides. Our training course covers every programming language
in existence, and some that aren't. You'll learn why the on/off switch for a
computer is so important, what the words *fatal error* mean, and who and what
you should blame when you make a mistake.
Yes, I want the brochure describing this incredible offer.
I enclose $1000 is small unmarked bills to cover the cost of
postage and handling. (No live poultry, please.)
*** Our Slogan: Top down programming for the masses. ***
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, which nobody
really understands anyway, is a new concept called Weekday Morning Time,
whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style "hold" for
two to three hours, during which it just remains 7 a.m. This way we could
all wake up via a civilized gradual process of stretching and belching and
scratching, and it would still be only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually
emerge from bed.
-- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find..
We need to find some new terms to describe the rest of us mere mortals
then.
-- Craig Schlenter in response to Linus Torvalds's
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams) "365,365,365,
365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365". He [ten-year-old Truman Henry
Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled his pantaloons over the
tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyes in their sockets, sometimes
smiling and talking, and then seeming to be in an agony, until, in not more
than one minute, said he, 133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!"
An electronic computer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be
as much fun to watch.
-- James R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
BOFH excuse #247:
Due to Federal Budget problems we have been forced to cut back on the number of users able to access the system at one time. (namely none allowed....)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of
us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of the
smaller prime numbers.
2: The Odd Prime --
It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED.
3: The True Prime --
Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true."
31: The Arbitrary Prime --
Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime in
case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91 received
the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most.
However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all.
41: The Female Prime --
The polynomial X**2 - X + 41 is
prime for integer values from 1 to 40.
43: The Male Prime - they form a prime pair.
Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities
are derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd
but true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever
to get a "fix" of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude
that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine.
-- Rob Stampfli
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal.
The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may
experience it as such. Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and
thinking: all the rest of the world is slow, gradual and stupid. Whoever
could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very
swift. Thinking of oneself gives little happiness. If, however, one feels
much happiness in this, it is because at bottom one is not thinking of
oneself but of one's ideal. This is far, and only the swift shall reach
it and are delighted.
-- Nietzsche
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than cities.
Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to
park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also
dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- here is the big
difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES. You're allowed to
do anything. You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want.
I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup
truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie"
on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the
accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular,
whereas I was neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall
parking lots.
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
- 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...
We're mortal -- which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid, and sinful --
but those are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and
then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?
-- Ensign Flandry
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the ...
Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.
Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an
utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life
forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches
are a pretty neat idea
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our
thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another
in the waking state?
-- Plato
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Stop! Whoever crosseth the bridge of Death, must answer first
these questions three, ere the other side he see!
"What is your name?"
"Sir Brian of Bell."
"What is your quest?"
"I seek the Holy Grail."
"What are four lowercase letters that are not legal flag arguments
to the Berkeley UNIX version of `ls'?"
"I, er.... AIIIEEEEEE!"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are
3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand,
who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a
nanocentury.
-- Tom Duff, Bell Labs
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully.
"An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have
said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now."
"I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly.
"Too proud?" the other enquired.
Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean,"
she said, "that one can't help growing older."
"ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With
proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
-- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why
you are so tired.
There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought.
The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over
60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20
years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work.
There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves
19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which
leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state
and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in
hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work.
Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail,
so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and
brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself!
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white
light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In
a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM
FOR THE 386.
-- Matt Welsh
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
X windows:
The ultimate bottleneck.
Flawed beyond belief.
The only thing you have to fear.
Somewhere between chaos and insanity.
On autopilot to oblivion.
The joke that kills.
A disgrace you can be proud of.
A mistake carried out to perfection.
Belongs more to the problem set than the solution set.
To err is X windows.
Ignorance is our most important resource.
Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems.
Built to fall apart.
Nullifying centuries of progress.
Falling to new depths of inefficiency.
The last thing you need.
The defacto substandard.
Elevating brain damage to an art form.
X windows.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Microsoft Corp., concerned by the growing popularity of the free 32-bit ...
operating system for Intel systems, Linux, has employed a number of top
programmers from the underground world of virus development. Bill Gates stated
yesterday: "World domination, fast -- it's either us or Linus". Mr. Torvalds
was unavailable for comment
-- Robert Manners, rjm@swift.eng.ox.ac.uk, in comp.os.linux.setup
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
XXXVI: ... gets eaten.
The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion dollar
contract is about one millimeter per million dollars. If all the
proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other
at the bottom of the Grand Canyon it would probably be a good idea.
XXXVII:
Ninety percent of the time things will turn out worse than you expect.
The other 10 percent of the time you had no right to expect so much.
XXXVIII:
The early bird gets the worm.
The early worm
XXXIX:
Never promise to complete any project within six months of the end of
the year -- in either direction.
XL:
Most projects start out slowly -- and then sort of taper off.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
And the Master answered:
It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.
It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.
It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City
to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns
have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.
And that is Fate? said the priest.
Fate... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.
That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know
what Freight was too.
-- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...