!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH % (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, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms. % (1) Everything depends. (2) Nothing is always. (3) Everything is sometimes. % 1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's the law! % 10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0. % 100 buckets of bits on the bus 100 buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FE buckets of bits on the bus ad infinitum... % $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" % 101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR (1) Scarecrow for centipedes (2) Dead cat brush (3) Hair barrettes (4) Cleats (5) Self-piercing earrings (6) Fungus trellis (7) False eyelashes (8) Prosthetic dog claws . . . (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors) (100) Killer velcro (101) Currency % 186,282 miles per second: It isn't just a good idea, it's the law! % 2180, U.S. History question: What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what office did he later hold? % $3,000,000 % "355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!" % 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped % 77. HO HUM -- The Redundant ------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme --- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife ------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working ---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop the ---X--- (9) GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates to --- --- (8) nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex. Nine in the second place means: The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune. Six in the third place means: In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble! % 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National Redwood Forest. % 7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus. % 99 blocks of crud on the disk, 99 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 100 blocks of crud on the disk! 100 blocks of crud on the disk, 100 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ... % A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a "Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. -- Mahatma Ghandi % A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass. -- Donald A. Metz % A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical phenomena. -- Donald A. Metz % A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. % A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. -- Carl Sandburg % A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. -- Don Quinn % A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain % A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it adds up to be real money. -- Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen % A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. % A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. % A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose. % ... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you have turned into a pile of dust. % A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours. % A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward. % A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other. % A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. % A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is not mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators. -- Dave Barry % A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five. % A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. Avoid him. He's a Commie. % A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election. -- Bill Vaughan % A city is a large community where people are lonesome together -- Herbert Prochnow % A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. -- Mark Twain % A closed mouth gathers no foot. % A computer, to print out a fact, Will divide, multiply, and subtract. But this output can be No more than debris, If the input was short of exact. -- Gigo % A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. % A CONS is an object which cares. -- Bernie Greenberg. % A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it. % A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper. -- Dyer % A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample. -- Rebecca West % A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. -- Ben Franklin % A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison And had an affair with a Saracen. She was not oversexed, Or jealous or vexed, She just wanted to make a comparison. % A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern. -- Edgar A. Shoaff % A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? % A day without sunshine is like night. % A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. % A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip. % A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". % A diva who specializes in risqu'e arias is an off-coloratura soprano ... % 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 had listened to all of this said, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" % A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. -- Ogden Nash % A dozen, a gross, and a score, Plus three times the square root of four, Divided by seven, Plus five times eleven, Equals nine squared plus zero, no more. % A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. % A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Winston Churchill % A fool must now and then be right by chance. % A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. -- G. B. Shaw % A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. % A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. -- D. Gries % "A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension." -- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" % A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. -- Adlai Stevenson % A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion. -- H. L. Mencken % A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding ducks. -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981 % A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident. A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident. But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *____that ___had __to ____mean _________something*. -- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers" % A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of). % A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea. -- John Ciardi % A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James % A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century. % A hypothetical paradox: What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet? -- Tom Galloway % A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears. C is for Clair who wasted away, D is for Desmond thrown out of the sleigh. E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech. G is for George, smothered under a rug, H is for Hector, done in by a thug. I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, J is for James who took lye, by mistake. K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks. M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, N is for Nevil who died of enui. O is for Olive, run through with an awl, P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl Q is for Quinton who sank in a mire, R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire. S is for Susan who parished of fits, T is for Titas who flew into bits. U is for Una who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train. W is for Winie, embedded in ice, X is for Xercies, devoured by mice. Y is for Yoric whose head was bashed in, Z is for Zilla who drank too much gin. -- Edward Gorey "The Gastly Crumb Tines" % A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance. % A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. -- Robert Frost % A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. % A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. % A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. % A lady with one of her ears applied To an open keyhole heard, inside, Two female gossips in converse free -- The subject engaging them was she. "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" As soon as no more of it she could hear The lady, indignant, removed her ear. "I will not stay," she said with a pout, "To hear my character lied about!" -- Gopete Sherany % A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. % A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. -- Dennis M. Ritchie % A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work by being declared to work. -- Anatol Holt % A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find the programmers cannot write in English. % A limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical. But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean, And the clean ones so seldom are comical. % A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. % A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. -- H. H. Munroe % A long memory is the most subversive idea in America. % A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any price. % A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity in his own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional ability in that particular field." % A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths. -- Steve Wright % A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col % A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The first thing he notices is that the arms are too long. "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine." "But the collar is up around my ears!" "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a little more ... that's it." "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation. "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly." So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the street. Reba and Florence see him go by. "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!" "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit." -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" % A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane % A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. % A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of his novices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of how insignificant," said the master. "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. "It is," came the reply. "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice. "It is even in a video game," said the master. "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is over for today," he said. -- "The Tao of Programming" % A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. % A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs. -- Audobon Society Magazine % A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if ..." "If what?" asked the composer. "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?" % A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is out on loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayed loudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whom do you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?" % A new dramatist of the absurd Has a voice that will shortly be heard. I learn from my spies He's about to devise An unprintable three-letter word. % A new koan: If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. It is an ice cream koan. % A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary. Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit now has no excuse for further procrastination. % A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the movies insist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have the right to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them. % A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from the rear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion. % A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, which removes most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted to doing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendous amounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardware limitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in the larger systems which require a more involved & less efficient power-down sequence. An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for the building, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth has bugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beer cool. % A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly: "You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked. % A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. % A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space. -- Gloria Steinem % A penny saved is ridiculous. % A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. % A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald % A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt -- A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt. When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, You'll never go wrong with a pig! -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" % A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. % "A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!" -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra" % A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? And he 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" % A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow man". As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well, he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing." % A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. % "A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place." -- IEEE Grid news magazine % A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your wife will give you for free. % A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation. -- Colton % A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a travesty of the game. -- Donald A. Metz % "A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon." -- Steel City News % "A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives." % A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20: Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it." -- Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" % A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. % A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and the real reason. % A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects ... % A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons may not kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolized rosewater. % A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery % A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those that are worth committing. -- Samuel Butler % A Severe Strain on the Credulity As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 % A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard -- Prof. Steiner % ... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. -- Mark Twain % A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. -- O'Henry % A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. -- Daniel Webster % A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. % 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. % A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson % A tautology is a thing which is tautological. % A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. % A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle. % A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. % A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. -- John Ciardi % "A University without students is like an ointment without a fly." -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin % A UNIX saleslady, Lenore, Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more. She found a good way To combine work and play: She sells C shells by the seashore. % A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. -- Tennessee Williams % A very intelligent turtle Found programming UNIX a hurdle The system, you see, Ran as slow as did he, And that's not saying much for the turtle. % A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. % A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless gets people's attention. % "A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire % "A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times." -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII % A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. % A.A.A.A.A.: An organization for drunks who drive % AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!! You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room! % Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. % "About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends." -- Herbert Hoover % Absence makes the heart go wander. % Absent, adj.: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. % Absentee, n.: A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Abstainer, n.: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low. -- Wallace Sayre % Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better. % Accidents cause History. If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No person shall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer than fifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the opening of the polls until the completion of the count and the certification of the returns." % According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at least once a year. % According to my best recollection, I don't remember. -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo % According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless. % According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person never dies. % "According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place to live in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York came in twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much. Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime." -- David Letterman % Accordion, n.: A bagpipe with pleats. % Accuracy, n.: The vice of being right % ACHTUNG!!! Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!!! % Acid -- better living through chemistry. % Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality. % Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % "Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing." % Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had everyone glued in their seats!" Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it!" % Actor: So what do you do for a living? Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving dishes for Chinese restaurants. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" % Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families. % ADA, n.: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness." % Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Adolescence, n.: The stage between puberty and adultery. % "Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look like you ..." -- Gilda Radner % Adore, v.: To venerate expectantly. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Adult, n.: One old enough to know better. % Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. -- Sinclair Lewis % Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic, then at least be asceptic. % After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today, skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact that it sinks like a stone. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" % After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out. It was replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life more advanced than the lichen family. -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" % After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn. % "... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations." -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare % After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. -- P. J. O'Rourke % After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench. % After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created." "This is true," He replied. "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the right to make his laws?" "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make his own." It was so granted. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % "After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement." -- Norman Thomas % After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK? % After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe everything. Just in case. % After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. % Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. % Afternoon, n.: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. % Age before beauty; and pearls before swine. -- Dorothy Parker % Age, n.: That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit. -- Ambrose Bierce % Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball. % Ah, but the choice of dreams to live, there's the rub. For all dreams are not equal, some exit to nightmare most end with the dreamer But at least one must be lived ... and died. % "Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or the Blacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the fact that life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimately unfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keep up is they're a bunch of misfits and losers." -- A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comic % Air is water with holes in it % Alas, I am dying beyond my means. -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed % Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." % Alden's Laws: (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause of pregnancy. (2) Always be backlit. (3) Sit down whenever possible. % Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, Aleph-null bottles of beer, You take one down, and pass it around, Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. % Alex Haley was adopted! % Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting for a dial tone. % Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it. -- Peggy Joyce % All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling. -- H. L. Mencken % All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likely than others. -- Alan Truscott % All extremists should be taken out and shot. % All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doing without thinking. % "All flesh is grass" -- Isiah Smoke a friend today. % All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. % All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. % All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampled by an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ... % All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power -- Ashleigh Brilliant % All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates. -- Woody Allen % "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane." % "All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific." -- Jane Wagner % All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies. -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr. % All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President of the United States. -- Vic Gold % All power corrupts, but we need electricity. % All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. % All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. -- Samuel Butler % All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -- E. Rutherford % "All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right hands." -- Saint Patrick % All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism. % All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?" -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" % "... all the modern inconveniences ..." -- Mark Twain % All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones. -- La Rochefoucauld % All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second. -- Jim Fiebig % All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. -- Sean O'Casey % All the world's a VAX, And all the coders merely butchers; They have their exits and their entrails; And one int in his time plays many widths, His sizeof being _N bytes. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms. And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun, And shining morning face, creeping like slug Unwillingly to school. -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11 % All theoretical chemistry is really physics; and all theoretical chemists know it. -- Richard P. Feynman % All things are possible, except skiing thru a revolving door. % All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for fun. Money's just the way we keep score. % All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. % All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born. -- Francois Fenelon % Alliance, n.: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Alone, adj.: In bad company. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. -- Dave Barry % Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away. % Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" % Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just been reissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of the day-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable interest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour those sidelights on the management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinion the book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "Practical Gamekeeping." -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959) % Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. % Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else. % "Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way." % Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves. % AMAZING BUT TRUE ... If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. % AMAZING BUT TRUE ... There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. % Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. -- Charlie McCarthy % America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. -- John O'Hara % America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him, until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and changed its name to "America". -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and the women's room without having little pictures on the doors. -- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister" % "Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it." % An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. -- James Michener, "Space" % An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but is always polite to traffic cops. % "An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip to New Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide but not new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax." -- David Letterman % An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away. % An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint. As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next time". Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, is ready to build a second system. This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that are particular and not generalizable. The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile". -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" % An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it. % An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degree murder. "Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover's mutilated body into a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border. Just north of Tijuana a cop spotted her hand sticking out of the suitcase. Now, I would like to stress that my client is *not* a murderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..." % An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know. % An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. % An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. % An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-winded summation, leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard your arguments, Sir Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffrey responded, "That may be, Milord, but at least you're better informed!" % An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. -- A. P. Herbert % An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. He wears a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote excellence: "The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha." -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" % An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future. % "... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often picturesque liar." -- Mark Twain % An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of these eyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly as possible. -- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann" % An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. % An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an hour seems like a minute." The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?" -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" % "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge." % Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all. % And as we stand on the edge of darkness Let our chant fill the void That others may know In the land of the night The ship of the sun Is drawn by The grateful dead. -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC. % ... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers. % And I heard Jeff exclaim, As they strolled out of sight, "Merry Christmas to all -- You take credit cards, right?" -- "Outsiders" comic % ... And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man -- A. E. Housman % And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. % "... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own." -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter Preposterous Words % And so, men, we can see that human skin is an even more complex and fascinating organ than we thought it was, and if we want to keep it looking good, we have to care for it as though it were our own. One approach is to undergo a painful surgical procedure wherein your skin is turned inside-out, so the young cells are on the outside, but then of course you have the unpleasant side effect that your insides gradually fill up with dead old cells and you explode. So this procedure is pretty much limited to top Hollywood stars for whom youthful beauty is a career necessity, such as Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles. -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face" % "...and the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely a courtesy detail." % And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the world. -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men" % "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" asked the father of his little son. "Diet." % And yet, seasons must be taken with a grain of salt, for they too have a sense of humor, as does history. Corn stalks comedy, comedy stalks tragedy, and this too is historic. And yet, still, when corn meets tragedy face to face, we have politics. -- Dalglish, Larsen and Sutherland, "Root Crops and Ground Cover" % Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes. Galileo: No, unhappy the land that _____needs heroes. -- Bertolt Brecht, "Life of Galileo" % Angels we have heard on High Tell us to go out and Buy. -- Tom Lehrer % Ankh if you love Isis. % Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Another Glitch in the Call ------- ------ -- --- ---- (Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.) We don't need no indirection We don't need no flow control No data typing or declarations Did you leave the lists alone? Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone! Chorus: All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. % Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. % Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *___and* fresher breath. -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do" % Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: (1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark). (2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. (3) I don't know. (4) Who cares? (5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. (6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of Papyrus Books). % Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it; get a larger hammer. % Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop. Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes. % Antonym, n.: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. % Any clod can have the facts, but having an opinion is an art. -- Charles McCabe % Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. -- Charles McCabe % Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a representation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a representation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by anyone capable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously. -- Richard Schickel % Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -- Aesop % Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that this country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a whole week. % Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. % Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche -- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off the fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true. -- Solomon Short % Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there. -- Sydney J. Harris % Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object. % Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure. -- Milt Barber % Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. -- Rich Kulawiec % Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. % Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke % Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. % Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. % Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. % Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is probably parked. % Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire. % Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. -- Robert Benchley % Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. -- Publius Syrus % Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none. % Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" % Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. -- Samuel Goldwyn % Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. -- W. C. Fields % Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never tried taking candy from a baby. -- Robin Hood % Anything free is worth what you pay for it. % Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate. % Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. % Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" means the price went way up. % Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate. % Anything worth doing is worth overdoing % "Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution" % Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement. Afterism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. -- James Alexander Thom % APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the problems of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums. % "APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them." -- Roy Keir % Aquadextrous, adj.: Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18) You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid. % Arbitrary systems, pl.n.: Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing general can be said." % ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE -- FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE % Are you a turtle? % Are you a turtle? % "Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" % ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19) You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are not very nice. % Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse % Armadillo: To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle % Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. % Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 % Art is anything you can get away with. -- Marshall McLuhan. % Art is either plagiarism or revolution. -- Paul Gauguin % Arthur's Laws of Love: (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you remind them of someone else. (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of yourself in person. % Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. % As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who are interested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sick perverted disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask, "that you make jokes about setting fire to a goat?" ... -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" % "As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls." -- Matt Cartmill % As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein % As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. -- Weisert % As I was going up Punch Card Hill, Feeling worse and worser, There I met a C.R.T. And it drop't me a cursor. C.R.T., C.R.T., Phosphors light on you! If I had fifty hours a day I'd spend them all at you. -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes % As I was passing Project MAC, I met a Quux with seven hacks. Every hack had seven bugs; Every bug had seven manifestations; Every manifestation had seven symptoms. Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, How many losses at Project MAC? % As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a real American talk like that. -- Frank Hague (1896-1956) % As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? % As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. -- Oscar Wilde % As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. % "As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs; a process that traditionally requires some debugging." -- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover to a new computer system. % As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949 % As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. -- Woody Allen % As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there is always a future in Computer Maintenance. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" % As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." % As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" % As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would interfere with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the Wright Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure out how to get their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on Wilbur. "Orville," he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual organs!" You should have seen their original design.] As a result, birds are very, very difficult to arouse sexually. You almost never see an aroused bird. So when they want to reproduce, birds fly up and stand on telephone lines, where they monitor telephone conversations with their feet. When they find a conversation in which people are talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they are both highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant. -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every Teen Should Know" % As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pull your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you. The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along with your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall from the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls all over the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, the spider is suing you for damages. % As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." % ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS. % Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if one went to Harvard). -- Edgar R. Fiedler % Ask not for whom the tolls. % Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only the Station-to-Station rate. % Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. % Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell" for an answer. % "Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-old woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, `The way I look at it, she's the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds.'" -- David Letterman % Ass, n.: The masculine of "lass". % Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve. Run with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a bum. Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke. -- Stanley Walker % "At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head under the exhaust of a bus until he revived." % At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest. -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow % At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985 % At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985 % ... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. -- J. B. White % "At least they're ___________EXPERIENCED incompetents" % At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer. -- Marshall Lumsden % At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. % Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp. % Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. -- Winston Churchill % Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever depths they were once able to plumb. -- Stanley Kaufman % Automobile, n.: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. % Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" % Avoid reality at all costs. % "Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, but we will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you." -- Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a Kent State student % Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Bagbiter: 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usually intermittently. 2. adj.: Failing hardware or software. "This bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar." Usage: verges on obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting the bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS, CHOMPER, CHOMPING. % Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele. % Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by governors. % Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. % Banectomy, n.: The removal of bruises on a banana. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Bank error in your favor. Collect $200. % Barach's Rule: An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician. % Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from the floor -- especially in the dark. % Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't. % Baruch's Observation: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. % Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game -- it, and high taxes. -- Will Rogers % Basic is a high level languish. APL is a high level anguish. % "BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'." % Basic, n.: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. % Bathquake, n.: The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water faucet is turned on to a certain point. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door. % BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...) % Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" % Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. % Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint. -- Mark Twain % Be different: conform. % Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better so get used to it. % Be security conscious -- National defense is at stake. % Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" % Bees are very busy souls They have no time for birth controls And that is why in times like these There are so many Sons of Bees. % 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" % Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's ego. % Begathon, n.: A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money so you won't have to watch commercials. % Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away. % Beifeld's Principle: The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better looking and richer male friend. % "Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" % "Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" % Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone. % Bennett's Laws of Horticulture: (1) Houses are for people to live in. (2) Gardens are for plants to live in. (3) There is no such thing as a houseplant. % "Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence" -- Time Bandits % 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!" % Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon. % better !pout !cry better watchout lpr why santa claus town cat /etc/passwd >list ncheck list ncheck list cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist cat list | grep nice >giftlist santa claus town who | grep sleeping who | grep awake who | egrep 'bad|good' for (goodness sake) { be good } % Better dead than mellow. % Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate. Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and great effort pushing boulders into a single word. It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow. Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass both Parliament and Party. It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other planets, this may be the first message received from us. -- The Realist, November, 1964. % "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth % Beware of computerized fortune-tellers! % Beware of low-flying butterflies. % Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein % Beware of self-styled experts: an ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a drip under pressure. % "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" % Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. % Binary, adj.: Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes. % "Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same thing as division." % Bipolar, adj.: Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo, New York % Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic % Bizoos, n.: The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up a basketball. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % ... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ... % Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt. % Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. % BLISS is ignorance % Blood flows down one leg and up the other. % Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. % Blore's Razor: Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier. % Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in plain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was arrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people kept throwing up on them. % Boling's postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. % Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress. % Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. % BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH! % Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look. % Bore, n.: A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary. -- Walter Winchell % Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Boren's Laws: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble. % Boss, n.: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss, in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an ornamental stud." % Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar. -- O. W. Holmes % Boston, n.: Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for finishing second in the Irish jig competition. % "Boy, life takes a long time to live -- Steven Wright % Boy, n.: A noise with dirt on it. % Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years. -- James Thurber % Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. -- Kin Hubbard % Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only (gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tend to think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.' -- Mike Padlipsky, Foreword to "Elements of Networking Style" % Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in. % Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?" % Brain fried -- Core dumped % Brain, n.: The apparatus with which we think that we think. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests, since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % Bride, n.: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon. % British Israelites: The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of Britain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported by Sargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They further believe that the future can be foretold by the measurements of the Great Pyramid, which probably means it will be big and yellow and in the hand of the Arabs. They also believe that if you sleep with your head under the pillow a fairy will come and take all your teeth. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % Broad-mindedness, n.: The result of flattening high-mindedness out. % Brontosaurus Principle: Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them in relation to their environment and to their own physiology: when this occurs, they are an endangered species. -- Thomas K. Connellan % Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later % Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. % Bubble Memory, n.: A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence. See also "vacuum tube". % Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. % Bug, n.: An aspect of a computer program which exists because the programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the program. Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. -- Ray Simard % Bugs, pl. n.: Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls. % BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit." GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?" BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive..." -- Jay Ward % Bumper sticker: "All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture" % Bureaucrat, n.: A person who cuts red tape sideways. -- J. McCabe % Bureaucrat, n.: A politician who has tenure. % Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise. % Burn's Hog Weighing Method: (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse. (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank. (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced. (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks. -- Robert Burns % ... But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % "But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations paws." % "But I don't like Spam!!!!" % ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number. -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds" % But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" % "But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coast to the nearest gas station." % But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about. -- Hilaire Belloc % But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws, But get thee to a nunnery -- go! -- Mark "The Bard" Twain % But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate increases. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" % "But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge. Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I explained yet about the bytes?" % ... But we've only fondled the surface of that subject. -- Virginia Masters % "But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable computers?" % Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn; Less dear than army ants in apple pies Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn, Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit; Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose They suck, and like the double-breasted suit Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose, Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed; And stem the produce of thy waspish wits: Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed; Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits. Be off, I say; go bug somebody new, Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you. % By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you. % "By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. (R. Emerson)" -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"] % "By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry' ..." -- Gary Larson, "The Far Side" % By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's, I mean. -- Mark Twain % Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % C, n.: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -- Ray Simard % Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % "Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception." -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989 % Cahn's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions. % California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange. -- Fred Allen % California, n.: From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or "fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." -- Ed Moran % Call on God, but row away from the rocks. -- Indian proverb % "Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." % "Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle." -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth % "Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, Vermont." -- Clarence Darrow % Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two points. -- M. M. Johnston % Canada Bill Jone's Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. Supplement: A .44 magnum beats four aces. % Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 cents for postage and 30 cents for storage. -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial Post % Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain? Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes, A root or two, a torus and a node: The inverse of my verse, a null domain. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" % CANCER (June 21 - July 22) You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare recipients are Cancer people. % Canonical, adj.: The usual or standard state or manner of something. A true story: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use of jargon. Over his loud objections, we made a point of using jargon as much as possible in his presence, and eventually it began to sink in. Finally, in one conversation, he used the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion without thinking. Steele: "Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!" Stallman: "What did he say?" Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way." % CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19) You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as they take root and become trees. % Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom. % Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes. % Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and trousers that don't match. % Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Cat, n.: Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer. % Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education. -- Mark Twain % Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. % CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. % Cecil, you're my final hope Of finding out the true Straight Dope For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat But none of my cats are at all like that. This unusual animal (so it is said) Is simultaneously alive and dead! What I don't understand is just why he Can't be one or the other, unquestionably. My future now hangs in between eigenstates. In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't. If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way And rescue my psyche from quantum decay. But if this queer thing has perplexed even you, Then I will *___and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo. -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams % Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. % Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the center of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigation works. An incorrect model can be a useful tool. -- Kelvin Throop III % Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, how many? % Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel. Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something Cerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy out of it? Jaka: Ugh! Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy? -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret" % Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny-- Did you ever try buying them without money? -- Ogden Nash % Chapter 1 The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. % Character Density, n.: The number of very weird people in the office. % Checkuary, n.: The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year's Day and ends when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his checks. % Chef, n.: Any cook who swears in French. % Chemicals, n.: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. % Chemistry is applied theology. -- Augustus Stanley Owsley III % Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire. % Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #36: Never ever ask the tough looking gentleman wearing El Rukn headgear where he got his "pyramid powered pizza warmer". -- Chicago Reader 3/27/81 % Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #84: The CTA has complimentary pop-up timers available on request for overheated passengers. When your timer pops up, the driver will cheerfully baste you. -- Chicago Reader 5/28/82 % Chicago, n.: Where the dead still vote ... early and often! % Chicken Little only has to be right once. % Chicken Little was right. % Chicken Soup, n.: An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" % Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. % Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're going to catch you in next. -- Franklin P. Jones % Children aren't happy without something to ignore, And that's what parents were created for. -- Ogden Nash % Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. % Chism's Law of Completion: The amount of time required to complete a government project is precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it. % Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. % Chivalry, Schmivalry! Roger the thief has a method he uses for sneaky attacks: Folks who are reading are Characteristically Always Forgetting to Guard their own bac ... % Christ: A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. % Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on. % Cigarette, n.: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between. % Cinemuck, n.: The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which covers the floors of movie theaters. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead. -- Ambrose Bierce % Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. -- Phyllis Diller % Cleanliness is next to impossible. % Cleveland still lives. God ____must be dead. % "Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day." % Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery. % Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -- Mark Twain % COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance. % Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan. % Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % "Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong." -- Blair Houghton % Coincidence, n.: You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on. % Coincidences are spiritual puns. -- G. K. Chesterton % Cold, adj.: When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions. % Cold, adj.: When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own pockets. % Collaboration, n.: A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the other fellow can spell. % College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. -- H. L. Mencken % Colvard's Logical Premises: All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't. Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to. Grelb's Commentary Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. % Come, every frustum longs to be a cone, And every vector dreams of matrices. Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze: It whispers of a more ergodic zone. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" % Come, let us hasten to a higher plane, Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn, Their indices bedecked from one to _n, Commingled in an endless Markov chain! -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" % Command, n.: Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control. % COMMENT Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania. -- Dorothy Parker % Commitment, n.: Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved, the pig was committed. % Committee Rules: (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner. (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise. (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the others. (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed. (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for. % Committee, n.: A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done. -- Fred Allen % Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have to be appointed to do the work. % Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. -- Clive James % Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius. -- Josh Billings % Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -- Albert Einstein % Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." -- David Guaspari % Computer programmers do it byte by byte % Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. % Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. % Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso % Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in the world that just don't add up. % Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much more than the estimate the job will cost. % Conceit causes more conversation than wit. -- LaRouchefoucauld % Concept, n.: Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than $25,000. % ... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in this business, it probably would be gibberish. -- Thom McLeod % Condense soup, not books! % Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff. -- Peter de Vries % Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. % Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT? -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!" % Connector Conspiracy, n: [probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10, none of whose connectors match anything else] The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) to come up with new products which don't fit together with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. % Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. -- H. L. Mencken % Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking -- H. L. Mencken % Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. % Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you wish you weren't. % "Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich." -- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones] % Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. % "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" % "Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of modern technology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat." % Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. % Conway's Law: In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired. % Coronation, n.: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Corrupt, adj.: In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. % Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism. -- Walter Lippmann % Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job is to enforce the law and fight crime. -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan % Court, n.: A place where they dispense with justice. -- Arthur Train % Coward, n.: One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. -- Wernher von Braun % Crime does not pay ... as well as politics. -- A. E. Newman % Critic, n.: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Croll's Query: If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of? % cursor address, n: "Hello, cursor!" -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" % "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart % "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart % Cynic, n.: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Cynic, n.: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye. % Dare to be naive. -- R. Buckminster Fuller % Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie. % Dave Mack: "Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par." Allen Gwinn: "Yours is." % Dawn, n.: The time when men of reason go to bed. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed. % %DCL-MEM-BAD, bad memory VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears % Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve. % Dear Lord: I just want *___one* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "On the other hand", again. % Dear Miss Manners: My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between courses, is all right. Which is correct? Gentle Reader: For the purpose of answering examinations in your home economics class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this principle of education may be of even greater importance to you now than learning correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners believes that is. % Dear Miss Manners: Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva from your face. Gentle Reader: Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva on your face ... % Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Part of this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-old will be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show a commercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as "Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on a table next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer always says: "Part of this complete breakfast". Don't that really mean, "Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as this complete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claim if, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or a dead bat? Answer: Yes. -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" % Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe? Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM'S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand- lettered small-business signs is that you should put quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S. -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's" % Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. % Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. -- R. Geis % Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. % "Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'". % Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down % Death is only a state of mind. Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else. % Death to all fanatics! % Decision maker, n.: The person in your office who was unable to form a task force before the music stopped. % Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc. % Deck Us All With Boston Charlie Deck us all with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo! Nora's freezin' on the trolley, Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo! Don't we know archaic barrel, Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou. Trolley Molly don't love Harold, Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! -- Walt Kelly % "Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts of marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a theory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah, those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly blessed. -- Randy Davis % default, n.: [Possibly from Black English "De fault wid dis system is you, mon."] The vain attempt to avoid errors by inactivity. "Nothing will come of nothing: speak again." -- King Lear. -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary" % #define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255) #define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \ - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \ - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111)) -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word % DELETE A FORTUNE! Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you like to see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to "fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure it gets expunged. % Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % "Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow." % Demand the establishment of the government in its rightful home at Disneyland. % Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. -- George Bernard Shaw % Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. -- Senator Soaper % Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. -- G. B. Shaw % Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don't think. % Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. -- H. L. Mencken % Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse. -- Jawaharlal Nehru % Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. -- E. B. White % Democracy, n.: A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy. -- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932), since withdrawn. % Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the board. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls. % Dentist, n.: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Despising machines to a man, The Luddites joined up with the Klan, And ride out by night In a sheeting of white To lynch all the robots they can. -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson % Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table. -- The Anarchist Cookbook % DETERIORATA Go placidly amid the noise and waste, And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep. Rotate your tires. Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself, And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys. Know what to kiss -- and when. Remember that two wrongs never make a right, But that three do. Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD". Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment, And despite the changing fortunes of time, There is always a big future in computer maintenance. You are a fluke of the universe ... You have no right to be here. Whether you can hear it or not, the universe Is laughing behind your back. -- National Lampoon % DeVries's Dilemma: If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want hits the paper. % Did I say 2? I lied. % Did you know ... That no-one ever reads these things? % Did you know that clones never use mirrors? -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and lined them up end to end, they'd still point in the wrong direction? % Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilot that shot down the Korean jet? At one point he definitely states: "Natasha! First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and squirrel." -- ihuxw!tommyo % Die, v.: To stop sinning suddenly. -- Elbert Hubbard % "Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him." -- John Barrymore's dying words % Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. % Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight. % Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. % Disc space -- the final frontier! % Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too." -- Dave Haynie % Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.) % Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. % Distinctive, adj.: A different color or shape than our competitors. % Distress, n.: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escape injury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for any damage inflicted on the vehicle. % Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? % Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? % Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. % Do not drink coffee in early a.m. It will keep you awake until noon. % Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick to anger. % "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup." % Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. Violators will be prosecuted. (Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.)) % Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight. % Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each day as it comes. -- Donald Kaul % Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. % Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. % Do you have lysdexia? % Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take the time to take the dirt out of them? % "Do you think what we're doing is wrong?" "Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!" "I've never done anything illegal before." "I thought you said you were an accountant!" % Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. -- Dick Brandon % Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much. % Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? % Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow. % Don't be humble ... you're not that great. -- Golda Meir % Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. % Don't change the reason, just change the excuses! -- Joe Cointment % "Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly, sincerely, extremely dangerously. They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs. They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. They used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. They used cops. They used search and seizure. They used fallaron. They used betterment incentives. They used finger prints. They used the bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help. They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell, they caught him. -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man" % Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today! % Don't feed the bats tonight. % Don't get even -- get odd! % Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. -- Dave Storer % "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." -- Mark Twain % Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while. % Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. % Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier. % Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today. % Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. % Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance. % Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone. % Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. % Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow. % "Don't say yes until I finish talking." -- Darryl F. Zanuck % Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat. -- Ambrose Bierce % Don't suspect your friends -- turn them in! -- "Brazil" % Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. -- Walt Kelly % Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out of it alive. % Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. % "Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where to get more wax!!" % Don't worry about avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it starts avoiding you. -- The Old Farmer's Almanac % "Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." -- Howard Aiken % Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. -- Charles Schultz % Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. % Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in? % Don: I didn't know you had a cousin Penelope, Bill! Was she pretty? W. C.: Well, her face was so wrinkled it looked like seven miles of bad road. She had so many gold teeth, Don, she use to have to sleep with her head in a safe. She died in Bolivia. Don: Oh Bill, it must be hard to lose a relative. W. C.: It's almost impossible. -- W. C. Fields, from "The Further Adventures of Larson E. Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles" % Double Bucky (Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie") Double bucky, you're the one! You make my keyboard lots of fun Double bucky, an additional bit or two: (Vo-vo-de-o!) Control and Meta side by side, Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide! Double bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few! Double bucky, left and right OR'd together, outta sight! Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you! -- (C) 1978 by Guy L. Steele, Jr. % Double-Blind Experiment, n.: An experiment in which the chief researcher believes he is fooling both the subject and the lab assistant. Often accompanied by a belief in the tooth fairy. % Down with categorical imperative! % "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." % Drew's Law of Highway Biology: The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front of your eyes. % Drink Canada Dry! You might not succeed, but it *__is* fun trying. % Drive defensively. Buy a tank. % Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route! % Ducharme's Axiom: If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem. % Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment. % Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together ... -- Carl Zwanzig % Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders has been discontinued. % Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul. % Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been discontinued. % During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmen were blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly a red-faced country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted, "Hey, you almost hit my wife." "Did I?" cried the hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have a shot at mine, over there." % During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o % "Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it." -- W. Somerset Maugham % E Pluribus Unix % Eagleson's Law: Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.) % Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends % /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. % Earth is a beta site. % "Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun." -- Jeff Berner % Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved. -- Steve Rubenstein % Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. % "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work." % Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. -- John Kenneth Galbraith % Economics, n.: Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K. Galbraith ... -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy would turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it hasn't. -- Robert Orben % Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor. -- Edgar R. Fiedler % Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent. -- Fred Allen % Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine. -- Irsin Edman % Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak! -- Bullwinkle Moose % Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. -- Adlai Stevenson % Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Many people wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllable comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where the "nog" comes from. To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in season, eggs... % Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. -- Bellamy Brooks % Egotist, n.: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Ehrman's Commentary: (1) Things will get worse before they get better. (2) Who said things would get better? % Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star % Eleanor Rigby Sits at the keyboard And waits for a line on the screen Lives in a dream Waits for a signal Finding some code That will make the machine do some more. What is it for? All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? % Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. % Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles, called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which in most American homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In the time it has taken you to read this sentence so far, an electron could have traveled all the way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey, although God alone knows why it would want to. The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current, direct current, lightning, static, and European. Most American homes have alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in one direction for a while, then goes in the other direction. This prevents harmful electron buildup in the wires. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" % Electrocution, n.: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. % Elevators smell different to midgets % Emerson's Law of Contrariness: Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. % Encyclopedia Salesmen: Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police and tell them your house is being burgled. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless. Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary % Entropy isn't what it used to be. % Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin % Epperson's law: When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably something his wife can beat him at. % Equal bytes for women. % Error in operator: add beer % Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben. -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" % Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. -- Woody Allen % Etymology, n.: Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy" ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow." -- Mike Kellen % Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to? -- Clarence Darrow % "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." -- Will Rogers % "Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" % Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents a day. % Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are. % Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what, exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How about ..." -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny" % Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. % Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. % Every four seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this woman and stop her. % "Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, caustic twits." -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet % Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 % Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation): Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and in front they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of legs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere, there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horse of another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the same color"], that does not exist. % Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible. -- Frank Moore Colby % Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it. % Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. -- Don Vonada % "Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95." % Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. -- Miguel de Cervantes % "Every morning, I get up and look through the 'Forbes' list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work" -- Robert Orben % Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis. It makes sense, when you don't think about it. % Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work. % Every program has two purposes -- one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't. % Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. % Every solution breeds new problems. % Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success. % "Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it." % Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. -- Beckett % Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. -- Dykstra % Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. % Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how ___not to. So it is with the great programmers. % Everyone is a genius. It's just that some people are too stupid to realize it. % Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what ____does exist. Indeed, the banali