I got tired of listening to the recording on the phone at the movie theater. So I bought the album. I got kicked out of a theater the other day for bringing my own food in. I argued that the concession stand prices were outrageous. Besides, I hadn't had a barbecue in a long time. I went to the theater and the sign said adults $5 children $2.50. I told them I wanted 2 boys and a girl. I once took a cab to a drive-in movie. The movie cost me $95.
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Von Neumann was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Von Neumann supposedly had the habit of simply writing answers to homework assignments on the board (the method of solution being, of course, obvious) when he was asked how to solve problems. One time one of his students tried to get more helpful information by asking if there was another way to solve the problem. Von Neumann looked blank for a moment, thought, and then answered, "Yes.".
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you fit to hear his view of things?"
"Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, and you may feel free to kick his ass."
-- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading it. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving from where you left them to where you can't find them.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Against his wishes, a math teacher's classroom was remodeled. Ever since, he's been talking about the good old dais. His students planted a small orchard in his honor; the trees all have square roots.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as I can tell even _they_ don't have it;-)
-- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured programming is for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet- trained. They wear neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise clear desks.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting
purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church. (7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the
office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible
and other good books. (8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly
sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years,
so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters. (9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink
in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets
shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect
his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty. (10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and
without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of
five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the
business permit it.
-- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor
is terminated, regardless of where the quit state-
ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit"
will cause bc to terminate.
-- seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable. If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup, they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons.
-- "InfoWorld", June, 1984
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Day X+4 months: Microsoft ships NT 5.0 for Intel.with a big media
event on TV. IBM begins to ship Debian 4.6 as the
standard OS on all machines from mainframe to PC
and announces the move on Slashdot.
-- Christoph Lameter
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"It could be that Walter's horse has wings" does not imply that there is any such animal as Walter's horse, only that there could be; but "Walter's horse is a thing which could have wings" does imply Walter's horse's existence. But the conjunction "Walter's horse exists, and it could be that Walter's horse has wings" still does not imply "Walter's horse is a thing that could have wings", for perhaps it can only be that Walter's horse has wings by Walter having a different horse. Nor does "Walter's horse is a thing which could have wings" conversely imply "It could be that Walter's horse has wings"; for it might be that Walter's horse could only have wings by not being Walter's horse.
I would deny, though, that the formula [Necessarily if some x has property P then some x has property P] expresses a logical law, since P(x) could stand for, let us say "x is a better logician than I am", and the statement "It is necessary that if someone is a better logician than I am then someone is a better logician than I am" is false because there need not have been any me.
-- A.N. Prior, "Time and Modality"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it! Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock? Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table. Kirk: Then it's of external origin? Spock: Affirmative. Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two. Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity.
A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the way that astonishes him least.
A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward appearances.
If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the program.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'"
-- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
and if we're playing old distributions... whatever happened to Yggdrasil?:)
\\swing: everybody who tried to pronounce it got their tongue in a knot and choked
-- #Debian
- 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...
Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and
took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his followers.
One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
"Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your Purpose in Life, anyway?"
Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)
Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.
Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.
-- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.
-- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Yet creeds mean very little, Coth answered the dark god, still speaking almost gently. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
-- James Cabell, "The Silver Stallion"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt. As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit the student with a stick.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.
-- William James
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber, hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say "shop for," as opposed to "obtain." This is the major drawback of home centers: they are always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail and screw -- in the entire store...
Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime around the middle of next week."
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Yes, let's consider," said Bruno, putting his thumb into his mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse.
"What do you keep that mouse for?" I said. "You should either bury it or else throw it into the brook."
"Why, it's to measure with!" cried Bruno. "How ever would you do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half long, and two mouses wide."
I stopped him as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me how it was used...
-- Lewis Carroll, "Sylvie and Bruno"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
XLI:
The more one produces, the less one gets. XLII:
Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing. XLIII:
Hardware works best when it matters the least. XLIV:
Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly
direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the
additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics. XLV:
One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the
unexpected should have been expected. XLVI:
A billion saved is a billion earned.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Slashdot Mirror
I got tired of listening to the recording on the phone at the movie
theater. So I bought the album. I got kicked out of a theater the
other day for bringing my own food in. I argued that the concession
stand prices were outrageous. Besides, I hadn't had a barbecue in a
long time. I went to the theater and the sign said adults $5 children
$2.50. I told them I wanted 2 boys and a girl. I once took a cab to
a drive-in movie. The movie cost me $95.
-- Steven Wright
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Von Neumann was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Von Neumann
supposedly had the habit of simply writing answers to homework assignments on
the board (the method of solution being, of course, obvious) when he was asked
how to solve problems. One time one of his students tried to get more helpful
information by asking if there was another way to solve the problem. Von
Neumann looked blank for a moment, thought, and then answered, "Yes.".
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you
any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you
fit to hear his view of things?"
"Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming
you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by
imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough,
if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as
potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all,
and you may feel free to kick his ass."
-- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.
Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading
it. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving
from where you left them to where you can't find them.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Against his wishes, a math teacher's classroom was remodeled. Ever
since, he's been talking about the good old dais. His students planted a small
orchard in his honor; the trees all have square roots.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(I tried to get some documentation out of Digital on this, but as far as ;-)
I can tell even _they_ don't have it
-- Linus Torvalds, in an article on a dnserver
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured programming is
for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet- trained. They wear
neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise clear desks.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
(6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting
purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church.
(7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the
office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible
and other good books.
(8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly
sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years,
so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters.
(9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink
in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets
shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect
his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty.
(10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and
without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of
five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the
business permit it.
-- "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
quit When the quit statement is read, the bc processor
is terminated, regardless of where the quit state-
ment is found. For example, "if (0 == 1) quit"
will cause bc to terminate.
-- seen in the manpage for "bc". Note the "if" statement's logic
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance
The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system
in a portable package the size of a briefcase. The guy on the left has an
Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case. Also in the case are four
fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition. The owner of the
Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on
target -- in less time, and with less effort. All for $795. It's inevitable.
If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal
computer -- he's the one who's in trouble. One round from an Uzi can zip
through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do
to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum. In fact, detachable magazines
for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can
take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied
into Ethernet or other local-area networks. What about the new 16-bit
computers, like the Lisa and Fortune? Even with the Winchester backup,
they're no match for the Uzi. One quick burst and they'll find out what
Unix means. Make your commanding officer proud. Get an Uzi -- and come home
a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons.
-- "InfoWorld", June, 1984
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Day X+4 months: Microsoft ships NT 5.0 for Intel.with a big media
event on TV. IBM begins to ship Debian 4.6 as the
standard OS on all machines from mainframe to PC
and announces the move on Slashdot.
-- Christoph Lameter
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"It could be that Walter's horse has wings" does not imply that there is
any such animal as Walter's horse, only that there could be; but "Walter's
horse is a thing which could have wings" does imply Walter's horse's
existence. But the conjunction "Walter's horse exists, and it could be
that Walter's horse has wings" still does not imply "Walter's horse is a
thing that could have wings", for perhaps it can only be that Walter's
horse has wings by Walter having a different horse. Nor does "Walter's
horse is a thing which could have wings" conversely imply "It could be that
Walter's horse has wings"; for it might be that Walter's horse could only
have wings by not being Walter's horse.
I would deny, though, that the formula [Necessarily if some x has property P
then some x has property P] expresses a logical law, since P(x) could stand
for, let us say "x is a better logician than I am", and the statement "It is
necessary that if someone is a better logician than I am then someone is a
better logician than I am" is false because there need not have been any me.
-- A.N. Prior, "Time and Modality"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!
Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock?
Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.
Kirk: Then it's of external origin?
Spock: Affirmative.
Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.
Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a
strings of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained
throughout. There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless
loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming
rigidity.
A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'. What is this
law? It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the
way that astonishes him least.
A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit. The
program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward
appearances.
If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of
disorder and confusion. The only way to correct this is to rewrite the
program.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of
that is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put
more simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it
might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not
otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be
otherwise.'"
-- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
and if we're playing old distributions... whatever happened to Yggdrasil? :)
\\swing: everybody who tried to pronounce it got their tongue in a knot and choked
-- #Debian
- 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...
Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and
took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of
his followers.
One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and
there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing.
"Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his
commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your
Purpose in Life, anyway?"
Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The
Chinese ideogram for NO-THING.)
Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened.
Primarily because nobody understood Chinese.
-- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly.
If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.
-- Thomas Carlyle, looking at the stars
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Yet creeds mean very little, Coth answered the dark god, still speaking
almost gently. The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
-- James Cabell, "The Silver Stallion"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came to Greenblatt.
As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is it true", asked the
student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types as Lisp?" Almost before
the student had finished his question, Greenblatt shouted, "FOO!", and hit
the student with a stick.
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live
at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result
is the only thing that makes the result come true.
-- William James
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to ...
pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber,
hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say "shop for," as
opposed to "obtain." This is the major drawback of home centers: they are
always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center
employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy
applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail
and screw -- in the entire store
Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the
broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a
replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside
of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way
that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic
calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime
around the middle of next week."
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
"Yes, let's consider," said Bruno, putting his thumb into his
mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse.
"What do you keep that mouse for?" I said. "You should either
bury it or else throw it into the brook."
"Why, it's to measure with!" cried Bruno. "How ever would you
do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half
long, and two mouses wide."
I stopped him as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me
how it was used...
-- Lewis Carroll, "Sylvie and Bruno"
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...
XLI:
The more one produces, the less one gets.
XLII:
Simple systems are not feasible because they require infinite testing.
XLIII:
Hardware works best when it matters the least.
XLIV:
Aircraft flight in the 21st century will always be in a westerly
direction, preferably supersonic, crossing time zones to provide the
additional hours needed to fix the broken electronics.
XLV:
One should expect that the expected can be prevented, but the
unexpected should have been expected.
XLVI:
A billion saved is a billion earned.
-- Norman Augustine
- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...