Besides the device, the box should contain:
* Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING"
* A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two
club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.
YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable.
IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your spouse and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car that can get all the way through the drive-through at Burger King without a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's why."
WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret.
-- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
In short, at least give the penguin a fair viewing. If you still don't like it, that's ok: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do.
-- Linus "what, me arrogant?" Torvalds, on c.o.l.advocacy
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Hi! How are things going?
(just fine, thank you...) Great! Say, could I bother you for a question?
(you just asked one...) Well, how about one more?
(one more than the first one?) Yes.
(you already asked that...) [at this point, Alphonso gets smart... ] May I ask two questions, sir?
(no.) May I ask ONE then?
(nope...) Then may I ask, sir, how I may ask you a question?
(yes, you may.) Sir, how may I ask you a question?
(you must ask for retroactive question asking privileges for
the number of questions you have asked, then ask for that
number plus two, one for the current question, and one for the
next one) Sir, may I ask nine questions?
(go right ahead...)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Worthless.
-- Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, FRAS
(Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the
Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the
"analytical engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September
15, 1842.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
[Maturity consists in the discovery that] there comes a critical moment where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood.
-- S. Kierkegaard
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Wenn also die KDE-Arbeit nochmal gemacht wird bei GNOME, hat das die Entwicklungszeit für ein freies Desktop-System verkürzt. Hast Du auch irgendwo die passende Algebra zu der Rechnung?
-- Sascha Ziemann in de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX?
Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there.
-- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984 [It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken Olsen's brain. Ed.]
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with respect to theories about how the process operates.
-- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life".
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Joshu: What is the true Way? Nansen: Every way is the true Way. J: Can I study it? N: The more you study, the further from the Way. J: If I don't study it, how can I know it? N: The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen.
It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown. Do
not seek it, study it, or name it. To find yourself on it, open
yourself as wide as the sky.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. What's the first question that the computer community asks?
"Is it PC compatible?"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
We are currently trying a new concept of using a live mouse. Unfortuantely, one has yet to survive being hooked up to the computer.....please bear with us.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat."
The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an architect."
The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Too often people have come to me and said, "If I had just one wish for anything in all the world, I would wish for more user-defined equations in the HP-51820A Waveform Generator Software."
-- Instrument News
[Once is too often. Ed.]
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn.
At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of this central section.
Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence... in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties... Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.
-- Dr. Laurence J. Peter, "The Peter Principle"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Two men were sitting over coffee, contemplating the nature of things, with all due respect for their breakfast. "I wonder why it is that toast always falls on the buttered side," said one.
"Tell me," replied his friend, "why you say such a thing. Look at this." And he dropped his toast on the floor, where it landed on the dry side.
"So, what have you to say for your theory now?"
"What am I to say? You obviously buttered the wrong side."
- 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...
Various documentation updates and bugfixes (the best way to know that a stable kernel is approaching is to notice that somebody starts to spellcheck the kernel - it has so far never failed)
-- Linus Torvalds in the annoucement for pre-2.1.99-3
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Last year we drove across the country... We switched on the driving... every half mile. We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip. I don't remember what it was.
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
BBW Branch Both Ways BEW Branch Either Way BBBF Branch on Bit Bucket Full BH Branch and Hang BMR Branch Multiple Registers BOB Branch On Bug BPO Branch on Power Off BST Backspace and Stretch Tape CDS Condense and Destroy System CLBR Clobber Register CLBRI Clobber Register Immediately CM Circulate Memory CMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programming CPPR Crumple Printer Paper and Rip CRN Convert to Roman Numerals
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I saw at the airport... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store?
-- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers;" and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt...
-- Rico Tudor
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
Besides the device, the box should contain:
* Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING"
* A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two
club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.
YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable.
IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your spouse
and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car that can get
all the way through the drive-through at Burger King without a major
transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that's why."
WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret.
-- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
In short, at least give the penguin a fair viewing. If you still don't
like it, that's ok: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do.
-- Linus "what, me arrogant?" Torvalds, on c.o.l.advocacy
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Hi! How are things going?
(just fine, thank you...)
Great! Say, could I bother you for a question?
(you just asked one...)
Well, how about one more?
(one more than the first one?)
Yes.
(you already asked that...)
[at this point, Alphonso gets smart... ]
May I ask two questions, sir?
(no.)
May I ask ONE then?
(nope...)
Then may I ask, sir, how I may ask you a question?
(yes, you may.)
Sir, how may I ask you a question?
(you must ask for retroactive question asking privileges for
the number of questions you have asked, then ask for that
number plus two, one for the current question, and one for the
next one)
Sir, may I ask nine questions?
(go right ahead...)
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Worthless.
-- Sir George Bidell Airy, KCB, MA, LLD, DCL, FRS, FRAS
(Astronomer Royal of Great Britain), estimating for the
Chancellor of the Exchequer the potential value of the
"analytical engine" invented by Charles Babbage, September
15, 1842.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
[Maturity consists in the discovery that] there comes a critical moment
where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand
more and more that there is something which cannot be understood.
-- S. Kierkegaard
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Wenn also die KDE-Arbeit nochmal gemacht wird bei GNOME, hat das die
Entwicklungszeit für ein freies Desktop-System verkürzt. Hast Du auch
irgendwo die passende Algebra zu der Rechnung?
-- Sascha Ziemann in de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic
is our support for UNIX?
Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago.
Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our
VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand,
easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual
users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines.
And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have
good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run
out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end
up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly
check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter
what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if
you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX
is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there.
-- Ken Olsen, president of DEC, DECWORLD Vol. 8 No. 5, 1984
[It's been argued that the beauty of UNIX is the same as the beauty of Ken
Olsen's brain. Ed.]
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around
the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when
evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can
doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present
life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is
as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with
respect to theories about how the process operates.
-- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life".
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Winnuke in one line? No problem:9 ")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)'
perl -MIO::Socket -e 'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:13
And formatted so it's a little easier to read:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use IO::Socket;
IO::Socket::INET
->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")
->send("bye", MSG_OOB);
-- Randal Schwartz
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Joshu: What is the true Way?
Nansen: Every way is the true Way.
J: Can I study it?
N: The more you study, the further from the Way.
J: If I don't study it, how can I know it?
N: The Way does not belong to things seen: nor to things unseen.
It does not belong to things known: nor to things unknown. Do
not seek it, study it, or name it. To find yourself on it, open
yourself as wide as the sky.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has
a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk
storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on
voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300.
What's the first question that the computer community asks?
"Is it PC compatible?"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
BOFH excuse #207:
We are currently trying a new concept of using a live mouse. Unfortuantely, one has yet to survive being hooked up to the computer.....please bear with us.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about
whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they
got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The
medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's
rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat."
The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden
itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that the Garden
and the world were created. So God must have been an architect."
The computer scientist, who'd listened carefully to all of this, then
commented, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Too often people have come to me and said, "If I had just one wish for
anything in all the world, I would wish for more user-defined equations
in the HP-51820A Waveform Generator Software."
-- Instrument News
[Once is too often. Ed.]
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased
in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at
each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting
and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are
the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn.
At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as
well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion
houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four
fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network
of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant
complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main
ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of
this central section.
Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and
colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In
brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two
hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence ... ... Work is accomplished by those employees who
in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent
to carry out its duties
have not yet reached their level of incompetence.
-- Dr. Laurence J. Peter, "The Peter Principle"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Two men were sitting over coffee, contemplating the nature of things,
with all due respect for their breakfast. "I wonder why it is that
toast always falls on the buttered side," said one.
"Tell me," replied his friend, "why you say such a thing. Look
at this." And he dropped his toast on the floor, where it landed on the
dry side.
"So, what have you to say for your theory now?"
"What am I to say? You obviously buttered the wrong side."
- 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...
"One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative."
Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
-- Chuq Von Rospach
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Various documentation updates and bugfixes (the best way to know that a
stable kernel is approaching is to notice that somebody starts to
spellcheck the kernel - it has so far never failed)
-- Linus Torvalds in the annoucement for pre-2.1.99-3
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Last year we drove across the country... We switched on the driving...
every half mile. We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip.
I don't remember what it was.
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:
BBW Branch Both Ways
BEW Branch Either Way
BBBF Branch on Bit Bucket Full
BH Branch and Hang
BMR Branch Multiple Registers
BOB Branch On Bug
BPO Branch on Power Off
BST Backspace and Stretch Tape
CDS Condense and Destroy System
CLBR Clobber Register
CLBRI Clobber Register Immediately
CM Circulate Memory
CMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programming
CPPR Crumple Printer Paper and Rip
CRN Convert to Roman Numerals
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer
saw at the airport
magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does
it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won
secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul
when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault
insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long
before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the
A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical
engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store?
-- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
THE STORY OF CREATION
...
or
THE MYTH OF URK
In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and
darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving
over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers;" and
there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the
data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions
they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt
-- Rico Tudor
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages
whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits
LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...