! A good move !! An excellent move !!! An I.A. Horowitz move -- E.C.O. %% #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 %% "(Humanity) is the measure of all things." -- Protagoras %% "(The Chief Programmer) personally defines the functional and performance specifications, designs the program, codes it, tests it, and writes its documentation... He needs great talent, ten years experience and considerable systems and applications knowledge, whether in applied mathematics, business data handling, or whatever." -- Fred P. Brooks, _The Mythical Man Month_ %% (To Walter Cronkite): "Well Walter, I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street." - Neil Armstrong %% (null cookie; hope that's ok) %% **ROG** writes > ...who have no clue about reality. Nothing could compare with > the beauty of the real world around us and you should work as hard > at preserving the environment and making the world safe for our progeny as > you do at hiding in your computer screens. I bet you couldn't > read a story from alt.sex.bondage without getting an erection. Could someone please tell me how to access the "alt.sex.bondage" newsgroup? -- Robert Ward (rw23+@andrew.cmu.edu) %% "*Real* wizards don't whine about how they paid their dues." -- Quentin Johnson (quent@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu) %% ------------------------------ "I don't even listen to 2 Live Crew, being more of a John Denver kind of guy." -- Scott Dietzen ------------------------------ "First off, I'm embarrassed to be Dietzen's friend because I don't like anyone who listens to John Denver. I want everyone to know that he threw that in there just to make you think he was a complete idiot." -- Bill Chiles ------------------------------ %% ... The subtlety of these methods implies an important source of unreliability; unreliable error recovery. Thus it is important that system testing pay meticulous attention to fault simulation to uncover weaknesses in the recovery. Data taken on electronic switching systems show that failure to recover from simplex faults is usually a significant source of total outage time.... -- Edwin A. Irland, "Assuring Quality and Reliability of Complex Electronic Systems: Hardware and Software," Proceedings of the IEEE, January 1988 %% "... You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't." "But that's not *fair*!" "Of course it's not fair. We're *evil*. Look it up." %% "... and I realized, we did not live in a scientific society." -- R. P. Feynman, "Cargo cult science" %% "... they [the Indians] are not running but are coming on." --- note sent from Lt. Col Custer to other officers of the 7th Regiment at the Little Bighorn %% "... users of a tool are willing to meet you halfway; if you do ninety percent of the job, they will be ecstatic." -- Software Tools, p.136. %% "... you're my best friend. I don't have to be nice to you. Besides, everybody knows I'm a jerk." -- Wally West (the new Flash) %% "...'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming." -- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny %% .... Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidence and to provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with the accepted body of scientific evidence. ... -- Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, pg. 215 %% .... The book is worth attention for only two reasons: (1) it attacks attempts to expose sham paranormal studies; and (2) it is very well and plausibly written and so rather harder to dismiss or refute by simple jeering. -- Harry Eagar, reviewing "Beyond the Quantum" by Michael Talbot, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 200-201 %% .... The cable had passed us by; the dish was the only hope, and eventually we were all forced to turn to it. By the summer of '85, the valley had more satellite dishes per capita than an Eskimo village on the north slope of Alaska. Mine was one of the last to go in. I had been nervous from the start about the hazards of too much input, which is a very real problem with these things. Watching TV becomes a full-time job when you can scan 200 channels all day and all night and still have the option of punching Night Dreams into the video machine, if the rest of the world seems dull. -- Hunter Thompson, "Full-time scrambling", _Generation of Swine_ %% .... The important thing isn't so much *what* you want to ban; it's the fact that you participate in the banning process. That's what democracy is all about. -- Dave Barry, What To Ban On Video, _Bad Habits_ %% .... The neutron bomb is a nuclear device that kills people without destroying buildings. Many people feel this is inhumane; they much prefer the old- fashioned humane-type nuclear devices that kill people *and* destroy buildings. Western Europe's reaction to the neutron bomb has been mixed: most buildings are for it, and most people are against it, on the grounds that it might kill them. They're always wallowing in sentiment, those Western Europeans. -- Dave Barry, _Bad Habits_ %% ....And no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in religion as it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except fanatics and the naive. As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in our own time, we might be advised to leave them to heaven. They will not, unfortunately, do us the same courtesy. They attack us and each other, and whatever their protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody record of history makes clear that they are easily disposed to restore to the sword. My own belief in God, then, is just that -- a matter of belief, not knowledge. My respect for Jesus Christ arises from the fact that He seems to have been the most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth. But even well-educated Christians are frustrated in their thirst for certainty about the beloved figure of Jesus because of the undeniable ambiguity of the scriptural record. Such ambiguity is not apparent to children or fanatics, but every recognized Bible scholar is perfectly aware of it. Some Christians, alas, resort to formal lying to obscure such reality. -- Steve Allen, comedian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman %% ....Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged. -- Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 12, pg. 46 %% ....At that time [the 1960s], Bell Laboratories scientists projected that computer speeds as high as 30 million floating-point calculations per second (megaflops) would be needed for the Army's ballistic missile defense system. Many computer experts -- including a National Academy of Sciences panel -- said achieving such speeds, even using multiple processors, was impossible. Today, new generation supercomputers operate at billions of operations per second (gigaflops). -- Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 9, 1988, "Washington Roundup", pg 13 %% ....Compare this with the unit of facial beauty, the Helen, first defined by C. Marlowe. A milliHelen, of course, will launch just one ship. -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "Devil's Advocate", _UNIX Review_, May 1991 %% ....I don't care for the term 'mechanistic'. The word 'cybernetic' is a lot more apropos. The mechanistic world-view is falling further and further behind the real world where even simple systems can produce the most marvelous chaos. -- Peter da Silva %% ....I would go so far as to suggest that, were it not for our ego and concern to be different, the African apes would be included in our family, the Hominidae. -- Richard Leakey %% ....It is sad to find him belaboring the science community for its united opposition to ignorant creationists who want teachers and textbooks to give equal time to crank arguments that have advanced not a step beyond the flyblown rhetoric of Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan. -- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131 %% ....One thing is that, unlike any other Western democracy that I know of, this country has operated since its beginnings with a basic distrust of government. We are constituted not for efficient operation of government, but for minimizing the possibility of abuse of power. It took the events of the Roosevelt era -- a catastrophic economic collapse and a world war -- to introduce the strong central government that we now know. But in most parts of the country today, the reluctance to have government is still strong. I think, barring a series of catastrophic events, that we can look to at least another decade during which many of the big problems around this country will have to be addressed by institutions other than federal government. -- Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval Intelligence, vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, deputy director of Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of MCC. [the statist opinions expressed herein are not those of the cookie editor -ed.] %% ....Saure really turns out to be an adept at the difficult art of papryomancy, the ability to prophesy through contemplating the way people roll reefers - the shape, the licking pattern, the wrinkles and folds or absence thereof in the paper. "You will soon be in love," sez Saure, "see, this line here." "It's long, isn't it? Does that mean --" "Length is usually intensity. Not time." -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ %% ....Tucker v. Texas, 326 U.S. 517 (1946), in which a statute punishing door-to-door distribution of literature was held invalid as an abridgment of freedom of the press. -- Supreme Court decision quoted by Mike Godwin in comp.org.eff.talk %% ....Veloz is indistinguishable from hundreds of other electronics businesses in the Valley, run by eager young engineers poring over memory dumps late into the night. The difference is that a bunch of self-confessed "car nuts" are making money doing what they love: writing code and driving fast. -- "Electronics puts its foot on the gas", IEEE Spectrum, May 88 %% ....computer hardware progress is so fast. No other technology since civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price gain in 30 years. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. %% ....cyberpunk wants to see the mind as mechanistic & duplicable, challenging basic assumptions about the nature of individuality & self. That seems all the better reason to assume that cyberpunk art & music is essentially mindless garbagio. Willy certainly addressed this idea in "Count Zero," with Katatonenkunst, the automatic box-maker and the girl's observation that the real art was the building of the machine itself, rather than its output. -- Eliot Handelman %% ....difference of opinion is advantageious in religion. The several sects perform the office of a common censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. -- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia" %% ....henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) wrote: >The trouble is that getdate() is relatively >costly and Geoff is reluctant to run it on every single article ....and then all sorts of people started coming up with rube goldberg schemes to avoid parsing dates. However, it turns out that even using C news's getdate (which is 10% slower than the B news version), parsing the dates in every article in a full Usenet feed takes about five Sun 3 CPU seconds per day. And if you were to use the lex-based date parser included in the MH distribution, you could get it down below a second per day, although it hardly seems worth the (minimal) effort. -- Jef Poskanzer (jef@well.sf.ca.us) %% ....it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability. -- Sidney Hook %% ....the Soviets have the capability to try big projects. If there is a goal, such as when Gorbachev states that they are going to have nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, the case is closed -- that is it. They will concentrate on the problem, do a bad job, and later pay the price. They really don't care what the price is. -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 %% ....the increased productivity fostered by a friendly environment and quality tools is essential to meet ever increasing demands for software. -- M. D. McIlroy, E. N. Pinson and B. A. Tague %% ....the prevailing Catholic odor - incense, wax, centuries of mild bleating from the lips of the flock. -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ %% ....there can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth. -- George Jacob Holyoake %% ....this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch." -- The Firesign Theater %% ....though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" %% ....we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent observations and inferences by the thousands. The earth is billions of years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary descent. Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither flat nor at the center of the universe? Science *has* taught us some things with confidence! Evolution on an ancient earth is as well established as our planet's shape and position. Our continuing struggle to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" -- into doubt. -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol XII No. 2 %% ....when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. %% "...Greg Nowak: `Another flame from greg' - need I say more?" -- Jonathan D. Trudel, trudel@caip.rutgers.edu "No. You need to say less." -- Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM %% "...I could accept this openness, glasnost, perestroika, or whatever you want to call it if they did these things: abolish the one party system; open the Soviet frontier and allow Soviet people to travel freely; allow the Soviet people to have real free enterprise; allow Western businessmen to do business there, and permit freedom of speech and of the press. But so far, the whole country is like a concentration camp. The barbed wire on the fence around the Soviet Union is to keep people inside, in the dark. This openness that you are seeing, all these changes, are cosmetic and they have been designed to impress shortsighted, naive, sometimes stupid Western leaders. These leaders gush over Gorbachev, hoping to do business with the Soviet Union or appease it. He will say: "Yes, we can do business!" This while his military machine in Afghanistan has killed over a million people out of a population of 17 million. Can you imagine that? -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 %% "...I think that when statesmen forsake their private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos." -- Sir Thomas Moore to Cardinal Woolsey in _A Man for All Seasons_ %% "...I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization." -- Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C. %% "...Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military and commercial technology... Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain the world's democracies, not the world as a whole." -- K. Eric Drexler %% "...Or, I may not feel that my belief-system needs to be self-consistent in a post-Goedelian epoch." -- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes %% "...The Universe is thronged with fire and light, And we but smaller suns, which, skinned, trapped and kept Enshrined in blood and precious bones, hold back the night." -- Ray Bradbury %% "...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..." -- Plato, _Phaedrus_ %% ...These lovers of esoterica seem to derive a great deal of intellectual satisfaction out of not quite understanding what they are doing. %% "...a most excellent barbarian ... Genghis Kahn!" -- _Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure_ %% "...all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, if they are built at all, are dogs!" -- David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", MIT Press, 1987 %% "...an animal loses not only its life but also its third dimension." -- Roger M. Knutson, in _Flattened Fauna: A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets,and Highways_ %% ...and before I knew what I was doing, I had kicked the typewriter and threw it around the room and made it beg for mercy. At this point the typewriter pleaded for me to dress him in feminine attire but instead I pressed his margin release over and over again until the typewriter lost consciousness. Presently, I regained consciousness and realized with shame what I had done. My shame is gone and now I am looking for a submissive typewriter, any color, or model. No electric typewriters please! -- Rick Kleiner %% "...and it's finished! It only has to be written." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "...as long as there is a Legion of super-Heroes, all else can surely be made right." -- Sensor Girl %% "...cops and reporters are much alike. Both are absolutely dedicated to doing the job at hand, regardless of obstacles. And both, deep down, really believe the rules don't apply to them." -- Jim Barlow, Houston Chronicle %% "...make -k all to compile everything in the core distribution. This will take anywhere from 15 minutes (on a Cray Y-MP) to 12 hours." -- X Window System Release Notes %% "...one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs." -- Robert Firth %% "...poetry, like chastity, can be carried too far." -- Mark Twain %% "...proper attention to Earthly needs of the poor, the depressed and the downtrodden, would naturally evolve from dynamic, articulate, spirited awareness of the great goals for Man and the society he conspired to erect." - David Baker, paraphrasing Harold Urey, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" %% "...public television is one of the most extravagant, over-capitalized institutions in our society .. a huge national conglomerate ...l almost every one of the major local stations in public television has an elaborate, state-of-the-art, and very expensive production facility. Most ... are scarcely used ... but there they are: costing money and gathering dust." -- C. M. Lichenstein, former Sr. VP, PBS %% "...skill such as yours is evidence of a misspent youth." -- Herbert Spencer %% "...the American dream, in recent years the object of much denigration even within our own borders, turns out to have been the world's dream, as well." -- Louis Rukeyser, on events in Eastern Europe %% "...the Pro-Life Action League opposes *all* forms of contraception..." -- Joseph Scheidler, Executive Director, Pro-Life Action League, from The Wanderer, August 10, 1989, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "...the value of the constitution depends on the good will of government itself. If the Supreme Court rules that the Bill of Rights should not interfere with the important business of government (which they have done on at least two occasions), then the constitution is meaningless." -- John Kormylo %% "...what's happening... we're huntin wabbits" "Actually, muslim wabbits" -- LAPD squad-car computer messages, as quoted in the Christopher Report, 7/91 %% "...what's the point of ... new technology if you can't find some way to pervert it?" -- G. A. Effinger, "Marid Changes His Mind", IASFM, 1/90 %% "...word came down from on high that the group's members are to gather two of everything and put them on the ARC before the forty days and forty nights of rain come and wipe out the current systems and standards." ---James P. Roynan in LAN Computing, July 1991 %% /* * this atrocity is necessary on SPARC because registers modified * by the child get propagated back to the parent via the window * save/restore mechanism. */ -- SunOS 4.0 vfork.h %% 0001 Have you ever used a computer? 0002 ... for more than 4 hours continuously? 0003 ... more than 8 hours? 0004 ... more than 16 hours? 0005 ... more than 32 hours? -- from The Hacker Test, Version 1.0, by Felix Lee, John Hayes and Angela Thomas %% 1 1 was a race-horse, 2 2 was 1 2. When 1 1 1 1 race, 2 2 1 1 2. %% 186,000 Miles per Second. It's not just a good idea. IT'S THE LAW. %% 1955-1975: 36 Elvis movies. 1975-1989: nothing. -- Tom Neff %% "36 percent of the American Public believes that boiling radioactive milk makes it safe to drink." -- results of a survey by Jon Miller at Northern Illinois University %% "40% of the water consumed in the Imperial Valley goes to grow sedan grass for export to Japan for raising Kobi beef." -- Dan Beard, Staff Director, House Interior Committee, Water Policy in Western U.S., Regional Reporters Association, 5/20/91 %% 8) Use common sense in routing cable. Avoid wrapping coax around sources of strong electric or magnetic fields. Do not wrap the cable around fluorescent light ballasts or cyclotrons, for example. -- Ethernet Headstart Product, Information and Installation Guide, Bell Technologies, pg. 11 %% "90% of the water used in Nevada is for agriculture, yet fewer people are employed by agriculture in Nevada than at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas." -- Dan Beard, Staff Director, House Interior Committee, Water Policy in Western U.S., Regional Reporters Association, 5/20/91 %% > From MAILER-DAEMON@Think.COM Thu Mar 2 13:59:11 1989 > Subject: Returned mail: unknown mailer error 255 "Dale, your address no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?" -- Bill Wolfe (wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu) "Bill, Your brain no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?" -- Karl A. Nyberg (nyberg@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu) %% > The Independent quotes this from The Progressive, Sept. 1990: > > "Louisiana State Rep. Carl Gunter, explaining why abortion should > not be permitted even when the pregnancy results from incest: > 'The way we get thoroughbred horses is through inbreeding. With > incest, you could get super-smart kids.'" This undoubtedly explains State Representative Gunter's visibly high intelligence... -- Lefty (lefty@twg.com) %% >>> >This is revisionist history. >>> This is crap. >>This is a lie. >This is boring. This is USENET... -- Hank Bovis (hb@Virginia.EDU), other attributions removed to protect the guilty %% >From Michael Davis' article "Thinking Like an Engineer: the Place of a Code of Ethics in the Practice of a Profession", Philosophy and Public Affairs, Spring 1991, Vol. 20 #2: "Lund's [the engineer who expressed concern about the Challenger's O-rings] first response was to repeat his objections. But then Mason said something that made him think again. Mason asked him to THINK LIKE A MANAGER INSTEAD OF AN ENGINEER (the exact words seemed to have been "take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.") Lund did and changed his mind. The next morning the shuttle exploded, killing all aboard. An O-ring had failed." -- RISKS-FORUM Digest 11.84 %% >I would like to see a dictionary of Usenet slang written and added to the >n.a.newusers postings. -- Boyd Nation (boyd@ingr.com) IMHO, if some newby wants a n.a.n newsfroup dictionary of net.slang put in the crontab of a net.god's backbone site, the silly JEDR should email him instead of posting the start of a flamefest I have to put in my kill file or unsubscribe to. BTW, that posting was a megabyte gilly. What a maroney! Almost half a waldron of pompousity. Imminent death of the net predicted. Perhaps he should ask his SO or MOTOS what net.slang means. Of if his MOTAS is a MOTSS, he should ask him? Or just post his question to /dev/null. BTW, IMHO if you understood this whole posting, you've been on the net far too long. BCNU :-) TTFN. -- Brad Templeton (brad@looking.on.ca) %% >One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative. Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this. The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame. -- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@Apple.COM %% >Optimisation is not free. Gratuitous optimisation can be translated directly >into missing features or later release dates. -- Peter da Silva (peter@ficc.ferranti.com) ....and more bugs. ....and performance optimization without thoughtful performance testing is usually misdirected and, as above, at best does nothing and at worse delays/worsens the product and drives up life-cycle costs. -- your humble cookie editor %% >The "Catholic Church" *is not* the one true church. The Holy Orthodox >[Eastern] Christian Church is the one and only repository of the *fullness* >of Christ's teachings. Sorry, but the one _true_ church is the Church of the Forgotten Son, where we worship the Almighty earthworm. Not only is it more true than any of the Christian churches, it's also less fulfilling and it tastes great. Just thought you'd like to know. -- Andrew. Kalinowitsch (kalin@cbnewsm.att.com) %% >This is a duplicate article, and old as hell...now, who could be doing this??? "Somebody along the line fucked up." -- Spenser Aden %% >Try staring at someone from a substantial distance. >(Eventually they will turn around.) ASTOUNDING! We all know that *without* telepathy staring at the back of a person's head would freeze them into helpless immobility! Corollary: try staring at a cloud. eventually it will MOVE! This parapsychology stuff is the GINCHIEST!! -- Tim Mitchell, (swordfis@pnet51.orb.mn.org) %% >You may redistribute this article only to those who may freely do likewise. >Chip Salzenberg at A T Engineering; or Thanks. I think I'll just flush it. -- Dale C. Cook, cook@pinocchio.Encore.COM %% "???" -- DEC's RSTS/E operating system %% A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun. %% "A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money." - Everett Dirksen %% "A bit of tolerance is worth a megabyte of flaming." -- Henry Spencer %% "A body on vacation tends to remain on vacation unless acted upon by an outside force." -- Carol Reichel %% "A book is the product of a contract with the Devil that inverts the Faustian contract, he'd told Allie. Dr Faustus sacrificed eternity in return for two dozen years of power; the writer agrees to the ruination of his life, and gains (but only if he's lucky) maybe not eternity, but posterity, at least. Either way (this was Jumpy's point) it's the Devil who wins." -- Salman Rushdie, _The Satanic Verses_ %% "A box of punchcards could theoretically store 240,000 bytes of information, and usually stored less than 80,000. Think about it." -- Karlie-q %% "A burrito is almost always a wonderful thing." -- karl@neosoft.com %% "A car is just a big purse on wheels." -- Johanna Reynolds %% "A child is a person who can't understand why someone would give away a perfectly good kitten." -- Doug Larson %% A comment from the Space Shuttle (!) computer IPL code, power failure handling: "OK! LET'S GET ONE THING STRAIGHT. I'M IN CHARGE OF THE CPU FOR THE NEXT 40 MILLISECONDS!" %% A comment on schedules: Ok, how long will it take? For each manager involved in initial meetings add one month. For each manager who says "data flow analysis" add another month. For each unique end-user type add one month. For each unknown software package to be employed add two months. For each unknown hardware device add two months. For each 100 miles between developer and installation add one month. For each type of communication channel add one month. If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on a non-IBM system add 6 months. If an IBM mainframe shop is involved and you are working on an IBM system add 9 months. Round up to the nearest half-year. --Brad Sherman By the way, ALL software projects are done by iterative prototyping. Some companies call their prototypes "releases", that's all. %% "A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discus- sion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fal- lacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among them- selves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in what- ever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of *honest* persons to know this fact, because the *dishonest* are tolerably certain to be the first to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too ear- nestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better for all parties." -- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, published around 1850 %% "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked." -- John Gall, _Systemantics_ %% "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking." -- anon %% A conjecture both deep and profound Is whether a circle is round. In a paper of Erdos written in Kurdish A counterexample is found. %% "A dirty mind is a joy forever." -- Randy Kunkee %% "A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." -- Lord Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L. Sayers, "Gaudy Night") %% A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. -- Samuel Johnson %% "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 gift of flower will soon be made to you. %% A good USENET motto would be: a. "Together, a strong community." b. "Computers R Us." c. "I'm sick of programming, I think I'll just screw around for a while on company time." -- A Sane Man %% A good workman is known by his tools. %% "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." -- William James %% "A horse is a horse, of course, of course, He follows a lifestyle we don't endorse, He drinks the blood of a sheep, by force, The vampire horse, Count Ed!" -- Ron (lev0@midway.uchicago.edu) %% A host is a host from coast to coast And no one will talk to a host that's close Unless the host (that isn't close) is busy, hung or dead. -- David Lesher (wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu) %% "A killer stalks the halls of my high school. Innocent cheerleaders die by knife. Teachers lock the classroom doors. I must find him, or I'll flunk." -- From a poem by Peggy Nadramia %% "A lecture is where the notes of the professor become the notes of the student without passing through the mind of either one." -- anon %% A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist and too rich to be a communist. %% "A little caution outflanks a large cavalry" - Bismarck %% "A little rebellion now and then is a good thing." -- Thomas Jefferson %% A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS. - Fred Brooks, Jr. %% A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, a big TV with a hi-fi VCR and a nice stereo, a full fridge, a microwave, a UNIX system, two phone lines, a high speed modem, and thou. %% A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col %% A lot of the stuff I do is so minimal, and it's designed to be minimal. The smallness of it is what's attractive. It's weird, 'cause it's so intellectually lame. It's hard to see me doing that for the rest of my life. But at the same time, it's what I do best. -- Chris Elliot, writer and performer on "Late Night with David Letterman" %% "A man about to speak the truth should keep one foot in the stirrup." -- Old Mongolian Saying %% "A man came into the the office one day and said he was a sailor. We cured him of that." -- Mark Twain, on his days as a doctor's apprentice in California %% A man forgives only when he is in the wrong. %% A man is not complete until he is married -- then he is finished. %% A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. %% "A mighty work deserves a mighty theme." -- Herman Melville %% "A mind is a terrible thing to have leaking out your ears." -- The League of Sadistic Telepaths %% A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -- Thomas Jefferson %% A netnews signature file: Your eyes are weary from staring at the CRT for so | Evan M. Manning long. You feel sleepy. Notice how restful it is | is to watch the cursor blink. Close your eyes. The | gleeper@tybalt.caltech.edu opinions stated above are yours. You cannot | manning@mars.jpl.nasa.gov imagine why you ever felt otherwise. | %% "A pacifist who calls the police isn't one; hired violence is still violence." -- Clayton E. Cramer optilink!cramer %% A penny saved is a penny to squander. -- Ambrose Bierce %% A person with one watch knows what time it is; a person with two watches is never sure. -- Proverb %% A physicist is an atoms way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald %% "A poet only writes about the things he cannot do." -- A canard, sung by Meg in "The One Love of My Life", in Lerner's and Lowe's "Brigadoon" %% A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. %% A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two. -- Seneca %% "A reasonable doubt for a reasonable fee" -- Motto of Hunter S. Thompson's lawyer %% A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. -- Ramsey Clark %% A second voice interrupted, cutting off the controller. "Pleiades, this is Station Commander Perez. Prepare to receive emergency telemetry." "Affirmative." Teresa swallowed, knowing what this meant. She felt Mark lean past her to make sure the ship's datasuck boxes were operating at top speed. In that mode they recorded every nuance for one purpose only, so endangered spacers could obey rule number one of their trade . . . *Let the next guy know what killed you.* -- David Brin, _Earth_ %% A selection from the Taoist Writings: "Lao-Tan asked Confucius: `What do you mean by benevolence and righteousness?' Confucius said: `To be in one's inmost heart in kindly sympathy with all things; to love all men and allow no selfish thoughts: this is the nature of benevolence and righteousness.'" -- Kwang-tzu %% A serious public debate about the validity of astrology? A serious believer in the White House? Two of them? Give me a break. What stifled my laughter is that the image fits. Reagan has always exhibited a fey indifference toward science. Facts, like numbers, roll off his back. And we've all come to accept it. This time it was stargazing that became a serious issue....Not that long ago, it was Reagan's support of Creationism....Creationists actually got equal time with evolutionists. The public was supposed to be open-minded to the claims of paleontologists and fundamentalists, as if the two were scientific colleagues....It has been clear for a long time that the president is averse to science...In general, these attitudes fall onto friendly American turf....But at the outer edges, this skepticism about science easily turns into a kind of naive acceptance of nonscience, or even nonsense. The same people who doubt experts can also believe any quackery, from the benefits of laetrile to eye of newt to the movement of planets. We lose the capacity to make rational -- scientific -- judgments. It's all the same. -- Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company-Washington Post Writers Group %% "A slower system is better than an incorrect one." -- Mark Diekhans (markd@grizzly.com) %% A starship ride has been promised to you by the galactic wizard. %% A stitch in time saves nine. %% "A stitch in time would have confused Einstein." -- Anonymous %% A student asked the master for help... does this program run from the Workbench? The master grabbed the mouse and pointed to an icon. "What is this?" he asked. The student replied "That's the mouse". The master pressed control-Amiga-Amiga and hit the student on the head with the Amiga ROM Kernel Manual. -- Amiga Zen Master Peter da Silva %% "A survey is being made of this": We need more time to think of an answer. --Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" %% "A system of economy is good when ... the farmer, the manufacturer, and the trader enjoy the full liberty of their property, their production, and their industry." -- Eschasseriaux %% A university faculty is 500 egotists with a common parking problem. %% "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on." - Samuel Goldwyn %% A well known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have just told is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!" -- Stephen Hawking, _A Brief History of Time_ %% "A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire %% AN EXPOSTULATION (Against too many writers of science fiction) Why did you lure us on like this, Light-year on light-year, through the abyss, Building (as though we cared for size!) Empire that cover galaxies, If at journey's end we find The same old stuff we left behind, Well-worn Tellurian stories of Crooks, spies, conspirators, or love, Whose setting might as well have been The Bronx, Montmartre, or Bethnel Green? Why should I leave this green floored cell, Roofed with blue air, in which we dwell, Unless, outside its guarded gates, Long, long desired, the Unearthly waits, Strangeness that moves us more than fear, Beauty that stabs with tingling spear, Or Wonder, laying on one's heart That finger tip at which we start As if some thought too swift and shy For some reason's grasp had just gone by? -- C. S. Lewis %% "ARTICLE NUMBERING IS IRRELEVANT. ENCOURAGEMENT IS IRRELEVANT. YOU WILL BECOME ONE WITH THE BORG." -- Martin F. Rose (mfrose@caen.engin.umich.edu) %% Abandon all hope, ye who press ENTER here. %% Absolute: Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign's power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Abstainer: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Actors will happen in the best-regulated families. %% "Ada is PL/I trying to be Smalltalk. -- Codoso diBlini %% "Ada is the work of an architect, not a computer scientist." - Jean Icbiah, inventor of Ada, weenie %% Adapt. Enjoy. Survive. %% Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit. [Add little to little and there will be a big pile.] -- OVID %% Administration: An ingenious abstraction in politics, designed to receive the kicks and cuffs due to the premier or president. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Admiration: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. %% After Goliath's defeat, giants ceased to command respect. - Freeman Dyson %% "After SPACE BALLS, the Movie, now comes SPACE BALLS, the Operating System, on Your nearby IBM Mainframe..." -- Till Poser (f35pos@dhhdesy3.bitnet) %% After all is said and done, a lot more has been said than done. %% ``After all, 13 years of being battered, pushed and otherwise tormented is a long, long time. On the other hand ... you can't expect me just to run away,'' he said. -- L.A. Police Chief Darryl Gates, as quoted in the UPI story, "L.A. police chief rejects suggestion of retirement", 7/9/91 %% After all, financiers just own things, while a skilled person with a job he loves has much, much more. -- David Brin, _Earth_ %% "After one week [visiting Austria] I couldn't wait to go back to the United States. Everything was much more pleasant in the United States, because of the mentality of being open-minded, always positive. Everything you want to do in Europe is just, 'No way. No one has ever done it.' They haven't any more the desire to go out to conquer and achieve -- I realized that I had much more the American spirit." -- Arnold Schwarzenegger %% "After the first year, Captain Kirk lost his secretary, Yeoman Rand. She used to bring him coffee (even heating it with a hand phaser in times of galley distress) and hand him clipboards with flashing lights on them for him to initial. I wonder whatever happened to her..." -- karl@neosoft.com %% After winning the decathlon, Jim Thorpe was told by the King of Sweden, "You are the world's greatest athlete." Thorpe replied, "Thanks, King." %% After winning the pennant one year, Casey Stengel commented, "I couldn'ta done it without my players." %% "Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain." -- Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller %% "Aging is bad, but consider the alternative." -- anon %% "Ahead warp factor 1" - Captain Kirk %% "Ahhh. A man with a sharp wit. Someone ought to take it away from him before he cuts himself." -- Peter da Silva, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com %% Algie's last letter to Lidia was written only a few days before he died, but reached her some weeks later, as he had neglected to mark it 'Correo Aereo'. In this letter he reported the discovery of several new contradictions in terms and mentioned, among other things, that Piero della Francesca died on the same day that Columbus discovered America, and that there is in Mexico a rat poison called The Last Supper. Such information is hard to come by these days; now that Algie was gone, Lidia could not readily think of another source. -- Shirley Hazzard, "Nothing in Excess" %% "All Bibles are man-made." -- Thomas Edison %% "All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable." -- Fran Lebowitz %% "All I ask of my body is that it carry around my head." -- Thomas Alva Edison %% All I kin say is when you finds yo'self wanderin' in a peach orchard, ya don't go lookin' for rutabagas. -- Kingfish %% "All Marxists, basically, are reactionaries, yearning for the Oriental despotisms of pre-Hellenic times, the neolithic culture that preceded the rise of self-consciousness and egoism." -- Robert Anton Wilson, writing as "Justin Case". %% All extremists should be taken out and shot. %% "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." -- Ernest Hemingway %% "All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific." -- Jane Wagner %% All obvious theorems are true. -- Pommersheim's Principle All true theorems are obvious. -- Keane's Kriterion %% "All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value." -- Carl Sagan %% "All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume." -- Noam Chomsky %% All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug." -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month %% All religions have in common the periodical childlike surrender to a Provider or providers who dispense earthly fortune as well as spiritual health; some demonstrations of man's smallness by means of reduced posture and humble gesture, the admission in prayer and song of misdeeds, of misthoughts, and of evil intentions; fervent appeal for inner uni- fication by divine guidance; and finally, the insight that individual trust must become part of the ritual practice of man, and must become a sign of trustworthiness in the community. -- psychologist Erik Erikson %% All that glitters has a high refractive index. %% "All the people are so happy now, their heads are caving in. I'm glad they are a snowman with protective rubber skin." -- They Might Be Giants %% "All the system's paths must be topologically and circularly interrelated for conceptually definitive, locally transformable, polyhedronal understanding to be attained in our spontaneous -- ergo, most economical -- geodesiccally structured thoughts." -- R. Buckminster Fuller [...and a total non-sequitur as far as I can tell -kl] %% "All these black people are screwing up my democracy." -- Ian Smith %% All things are either sacred or profane. The former to ecclesiasts bring gain; The latter to the devil appertain. -- Dumbo Omohundro %% "All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin." -- John F. Kennedy (from his Inaugural Address) %% "All those moments will be lost, in time, like tears in rain. Time to die." -- Roy Batty, in Blade Runner %% "All through human history, tyrannies have tried to enforce obedience by prohibiting disrespect for the symbols of their power. The swastika is only one example of many in recent history." -- American Bar Association task force on flag burning %% "All we are given is possibilities -- to make ourselves one thing or another." -- Ortega y Gasset %% Alliance: 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 %% "Allright, nobody move!" "Take him, you fools! He can only shoot one of us!" "You're the one." "Nobody move." -- Get Smart %% Already the spirit of our schooling is permeated with the feeling that every subject, every topic, every fact, every professed truth must be submitted to a certain publicity and impartiality. All proffered samples of learning must go to the same assay-room and be subjected to common tests. It is the essence of all dogmatic faiths to hold that any such "show-down" is sacrilegious and perverse. The characteristic of religion, from their point of view, is that it is intellectually secret, not public; peculiarly revealed, not generally known; authoritatively declared, not communicated and tested in ordinary ways...It is pertinent to point out that, as long as religion is conceived as it is now by the great majority of professed religionists, there is something self-contradictory in speaking of education in religion in the same sense in which we speak of education in topics where the method of free inquiry has made its way. The "religious" would be the last to be willing that either the history of the content of religion should be taught in this spirit; while those to whom the scientific standpoint is not merely a technical device, but is the embodiment of the integrity of mind, must protest against its being taught in any other spirit. -- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher, from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 %% "Although Poles suffer official censorship, a pervasive secret police and laws similar to those in the USSR, there are thousands of underground publications, a legal independent Church, private agriculture, and the East bloc's first and only independent trade union federation, NSZZ Solidarnosc, which is an affiliate of both the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the World Confederation of Labor. There is literally a world of difference between Poland - even in its present state of collapse - and Soviet society at the peak of its "glasnost." This difference has been maintained at great cost by the Poles since 1944. -- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a gateway from EARN (European Academic Research Network) to Poland %% "Although plastic was brought into industrial use in 1909 by L.H. Baekeland of Yonkers, it was not until after World War II that the modern miracle substance was used in a wide variety of consumer goods, among them speedboats, dentures and flamingos. Previously flamingos were made of cement. Before that they were made by other flamingos." -- William E. Geist, The New York Times %% Always look over your shoulder because everyone is watching and plotting against you. %% America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up. -- Oscar Wilde %% "America is a stronger nation for the ACLU's uncompromising effort." -- President John F. Kennedy %% America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -- Oscar Wilde %% America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? -- Allen Ginsberg %% "Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an 'inconvenience.' We have opted instead for an authoritarian system *disguised* as a Democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there." -- Frank Zappa %% "An Academic speculated whether a bather is beautiful if there is none in the forest to admire her. He hid in the bushes to find out, which vitiated his premise but made him happy. Moral: Empiricism is more fun than speculation." -- Sam Weber %% An Animal that knows who it is, one that has a sense of his own identity, is a discontented creature, doomed to create new problems for himself for the duration of his stay on this planet. Since neither the mouse nor the chip knows what is, he is spared all the vexing problems that follow this discovery. But as soon as the human animal who asked himself this question emerged, he plunged himself and his descendants into an eternity of doubt and brooding, speculation and truth-seeking that has goaded him through the centuries as relentlessly as hunger or sexual longing. The chimp that does not know that he exists is not driven to discover his origins and is spared the tragic necessity of contemplating his own end. And even if the animal experimenters succeed in teaching a chimp to count one hundred bananas or to play chess, the chimp will develop no science and he will exhibit no appreciation of beauty, for the greatest part of man's wisdom may be traced back to the eternal questions of beginnings and endings, the quest to give meaning to his existence, to life itself. -- Selma Fraiberg, _The Magic Years_, pg. 193 %% "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 the new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax." -- David Letterman %% "An entire fraternity of strapping Wall-Street-bound youth. Hell - this is going to be a blood bath!" -- Post Bros. Comics %% "An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume." -- Robert G. Ingersoll %% "An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." -- H.L. Mencken %% "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself." -- Albert Camus %% An object never serves the same function as its image -- or its name. -- Rene Magritte %% "An open mind has but one disadvantage: it collects dirt." -- a saying at RPI %% "An organization dries up if you don't challenge it with growth." -- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments %% "An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of code." -- an anonymous programmer %% And do you not think that each of you women is an Eve? The judgment of God upon your sex endures today; and with it invariably endures your position of criminal at the bar of justice. -- Tertullian, second-century Christian writer, misogynist %% "And do you think (fop that I am) that I could be the Scarlet Pumpernickel?" -- Looney Tunes, The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950, Chuck Jones) %% "And if You exist, why do you let your Evil churches exist????" -- Michael S. Schechter "Maybe because He is a libertarian?" -- Mike Van Pelt %% "And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the bible were used to beat plowshares into swords..." -- Alan Watts %% And it does matter. An honest man or woman is an honest man or woman more because he or she is honest in the small, everyday things that "don't matter" individually, but which make up a well-lived life, than because of some single great temptation that was passed. A person who is concerned about individual rights or about individual dignity makes his or her difference not because of any sweeping great statement or action, but because of the accretion of small, individually seemingly insignificant acts that spread that dignity and confirm those rights through every action they take. It matters because every action you take, and every action I take is an expression of the human spirit. -- William Oliver (oliver@uncmed.med.unc.edu) %% "And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions." -- David Jones @ Megatest Corporation %% "And it's my opinion, and that's only my opinion, you are a lunatic. Just because there are a few hundred other people sharing your lunacy with you does not make you any saner. Doomed, eh?" -- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU %% "And it's so portable --- at least, it worked on every VAX that I tried it on." -- Tim McDaniel (mcdaniel@adi.com) 6 Sep 90, %% "And kids... learn something from Susie and Eddie. If you think there's a maniacal psycho-geek in the basement: 1) Don't give him a chance to hit you on the head with an axe! 2) Flee the premises... even if you're in your underwear. 3) Warn the neighbors and call the police. But whatever else you do... DON'T GO DOWN IN THE DAMN BASEMENT!" -- Saturday Night Live meets Friday the 13th %% "And now that the legislators and the do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they end up where they should have begun: may they reject all systems, and try liberty..." -- Frederic Bastiat %% "And remember, rebooting your brain can be tricky." -- Eric Townsend (erict@flatline) %% "And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs %% "And the Lord God said unto Moses -- and correctly, I believe ..." -- Field Marshal Montgomery, opening a chapel service %% And the crowd was stilled. One elderly man, wondering at the sudden silence, turned to the Child and asked him to repeat what he had said. Wide-eyed, the Child raised his voice and said once again, "Why, the Emperor has no clothes! He is naked!" -- "The Emperor's New Clothes" %% "And they told us, what they wanted... Was a sound that could kill someone, from a distance." -- Kate Bush %% And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight...Then he [the Lord!] said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. [Ezek. 4:12-15 (KJV)] %% "And we heard him exclaim As he started to roam: `I'm a hologram, kids, please don't try this at home!'" -- Bob Violence -- Howie Chaykin's little animated 3-dimensional darling, Bob Violence %% "And, of course, you have the commercials where savvy businesspeople Get Ahead by using their MacIntosh computers to create the ultimate American business product: a really sharp-looking report." -- Dave Barry %% Angular momentum makes the world go round. %% Annex Canada now! We need the room, and who's going to stop us? -- A Tom Neff .signature %% Annual drug deaths: tobacco: 395,000, alcohol: 125,000, 'legal' drugs: 38,000, illegal drug overdoses: 5,200, marijuana: 0. Considering government subsidies of tobacco, just what is our government protecting us from in the drug war? -- William A. Turnbow %% Another goal is to establish a relationship "in which it is OK for everybody to do their best. There are an awful lot of people in management who really don't want subordinates to do their best, because it gets to be very threatening. But we have found that both internally and with outside designers if we are willing to have this kind of relationship and if we're willing to be vulnerable to what will come out of it, we get really good work." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 %% "Another lesson I learned was not to give pieces of my company away when it was small in exchange for investment capital. In the first place, those shares would be worth millions today. Even more important, when you bring in shareholders, the government can start looking around at your business and telling you what to do, and let me tell you, the government knows *nothing* about running a business!" -- John McCormack, _Self-Made in America_ %% "Another way to look at this is: if your computer is not capable of saturating *your* I/O bandwidth, you may be pissing away *your* wetware power. And last I checked, mine isn't increasing exponentially..." -- Dan Mocsny (dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu) %% Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an Art. -- H. L. Mencken [Having the facts is hard. --ed] %% "Any excuse will serve a tyrant." -- Aesop %% "Any fully matured science of ecology will have to grapple with the fact that from the ecological point of view, man is one of those animals which is in danger from its too successful participation in the struggle for existence." -- Joseph Wood Krutch %% Any given program, when running correctly, is obsolete. %% "Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world. To get the medium's magic to work for one's aims rather than against them is to attain literacy." -- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984 %% Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearance of magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke %% Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. -- Andy Finkel, computer guy %% Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. %% Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned -- I support your right to enjoy it. However, I would appreciate it if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do not wish to share your dogma, rapture or necrodestination. -- Frank Zappa, _The Real Frank Zappa Book_ %% "Anyone attempting to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin." -- John Von Neumann %% Anyone can hate. It costs to love. - John Williamson %% "Anyone trying to split hairs will always find someone who has a sharper knife." -- Jim Hurley (jimh@ultra.com) 21 Sep 90 %% "Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined." -- Samuel Goldwyn %% "Anyone who has begun to think places some portion of the world in jeopardy." -- John Dewey %% Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. -- Eleanor Roosevelt %% "Anyone who wants to be paid for writing software is a fascist asshole." -- Richard M. Stallman %% Anything anybody can say about America is true. -- Emmett Grogan %% "Anything created must necessarily be inferior to the essence of the creator." -- Claude Shouse (shouse@macomw.ARPA) "Einstein's mother must have been one heck of a physicist." -- Joseph C. Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu) %% "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." -- G. K. Chesterton %% "Are those cocktail-waitress fingernail marks?" I asked Colletti as he showed us these scratches on his chest. "No, those are on my back," Colletti answered. "This is where a case of cocktail shrimp fell on me. I told her to slow down a little, but you know cocktail waitresses, they seem to have a mind of their own." -- The Incredibly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs National Lampoon, October 1982 %% Are you having fun yet? %% "Are you police officers?" "No, ma'am. We're musicians." -- Blues Brothers %% Aren't you glad you're not getting all the government you pay for now? %% ``Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours.'' -- Richard Bach ``Argue for your greatness and that too shall be yours.'' -- Michael Sky %% Armitage crossed stiffly to the table and took three fat bundles of New Yen from the pockets of his trenchcoat. "You want to count it?" he asked Yonderboy. "No," the Panther Modern said. You'll pay. You're a Mr. Who. You pay to stay one. Not a Mr. Name." -- William Gibson, "Neuromancer" %% "Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better." -- Andre Gide %% As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject of religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction in the methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless conversions -- to anything -- less likely. Brian now realizes this and has, after eleven years, left the sect he was associated with. The problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational -- the powers of reason are surprisingly ineffective in changing the believer's mind. -- Steve Allen, comedian, from an essay in the book "The Courage of Conviction", edited by Philip Berman %% "As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity. I collected some of their Proverbs..." -- Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" %% As Lisa hugged me, I started humming the theme song from the State Farm Insurance TV commercial. This is not because I am in any way a slave to television -- it had to do instead with a strategy I had concocted for torturing Lisa on her wedding day. What I planned to do was to plant the State Farm Insurance jingle subliminally in Lisa's mind, until she retched. The State Farm Insurance jingle had an almost satanic sticking power. Lisa wouldn't be able to hum or even think about anything else but the State Farm Insurance jingle for weeks. Soon she would suffer a terrific nervous breakdown -- the Big NB, as Lisa called it -- and spend the rest of her life spiking volleyballs off the roof of a mental hospital. "Like a good neighbor," I hummed softly, "State Farm is there." Lisa didn't seem to notice, but I could tell I had done some first-rate subliminal damage, since she hummed the last two words along with me. I had planted the first seed. -- Peter J. Smith, from _Make Believe Ballrooms_ %% As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? -- Proverbs 26:11 %% "As a rule software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications." -- Dave Parnas, Communications of the ACM (33, 6 June 1990 p.636) %% "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 for the basic assumptions about individuality and self, this is the core of what I like about cyberpunk. And it's the core of what I like about certain pre-Gibson neophile techie SF writers that certain folks here like to put down. Not everyone makes the same assumptions. I haven't lost my mind... it's backed up on tape. -- Peter da Silva %% As long as we're going to reinvent the wheel again, we might as well try making it round this time. -- Mike Dennison %% "As soon as you are willing to discard observational data because it conflicts with religion, you are giving up any hope of ever really understanding the universe. As soon as you pick religion as the touchstone of reality, then we have to start discussing how one can demonstrate the correctness of one religion over another when different *religions* disagree." -- Wilson Heydt (whheydt@PacBell.COM) "The answer is simple: kill the heretics. History shows us that this is the actual solution that competing religions apply -- trial by combat or trial by ordeal. God is the final arbiter. What a sad waste of human potential it has proven to be." -- Paul Hager (hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu) %% "As the expression goes, we spend our youth attaining wealth, and our wealth attaining youth." -- Douglas Coupland, from _Generation X_ (Tales for an Accelerated Culture) %% As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and efficient test cases will usually be available. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" %% As to Jesus of Nazareth...I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity. -- Benjamin Franklin %% As we anarchists say: "There's no government like no government." -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain (darcy@druid) %% "Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six if one went to Harvard)." -- Edgar R. Fiedler %% "Ask not what A Group of Employees can do for you. But ask what can All Employees do for A Group of Employees." -- Mike Dennison, in response to an "inspirational" memo at Ferranti Controls %% Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country's been doing to you. -- Avengers %% "Assuming that either the left wing or the right wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles" -- Pat Paulsen %% Astrology is the sheerest hokum. This pseudoscience has been around since the day of the Chaldeans and Babylonians. It is as phony as numerology, phrenology, palmistry, alchemy, the reading of tea leaves, and the practice of divination by the entrails of a goat. No serious person will buy the notion that our lives are influenced individually by the movement of distant planets. This is the sawdust blarney of the carnival midway. -- James J. Kilpatrick, Universal Press Syndicate %% At West Point, the cadets had been full of bravado...But bravado was grounded in ignorance; true courage was possible only after one gained the visceral comprehension that death was the potential price of valor. -- Rick Atkinson, _The Long Grey Line_ %% At any time, at any place, our snipers can drop you. Have a nice day. %% At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it. -- G. L. Glegg, The Design of Design %% At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the field on track. -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 %% "Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth." -- Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry %% "Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed." -- Robin, The Boy Wonder %% Australia, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island. -- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_ %% "Aww, if you make me cry anymore, you'll fog up my helmet." -- "Visionaries" cartoon %% "BTW, does Jesus know you flame?" -- Diane Holt, dianeh@binky.UUCP, to Ed Carp %% "BYTE editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff." -- Lionel Hummel (uiucdcs!hummel), derived from a quote by Adlai Stevenson, Sr. %% Baby carriage bumper sticker: ``POO-POO HAPPENS!'' -- Bob Irwin (birwin@ficc.ferranti.com) %% Backed up the system lately? %% Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. %% "Batton down the hatches, several thousand Zulus approaching from the north." -- Christopher Commision report of LAPD car-to-car computer message, 7/91 %% "Be *excellent* to each other." -- Bill, or Ted, in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure %% "Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work." -- Gustave Flaubert %% "Be there. Aloha." -- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_ %% "Be warned that being an expert is more than understanding how a system is supposed to work. Expertise is gained by investigating why a system doesn't work." -- Brian Redman, Bell Communications Research, "UUCP UNIX-to-UNIX Copy", _UNIX NETWORKING_, edited by Stephen Kochan and Patrick Wood %% Beauty is only skin deep, but Ugly goes straight to the bone. %% "Because he's a character who's looking for his own identity, [He-Man is] an interesting role for an actor." -- Dolph Lundgren, "actor" %% "Because my name is Daffy, They think that I'm insane Please pass the ketchup, I think it's going to rain! Oh, you can't bounce a meatball, Try with all your might. Turn on the radio, I want to fly a kite!" -- D. Duck (daffy@wb.com) %% Been Transferred Lately? %% "Been through Hell? Whaddya bring back for me?" -- A. Brilliant %% Before (Dean) Stockwell's recent comeback via BLUE VELVET and MARRIED TO THE MOB, he had been selling real estate in Los Angeles. Do you think that's where he learned to lip-sync Roy Orbison songs? -- Prof. Fred Hopkins %% "Before engaging in a battle of wits, make sure your opponent is armed." -- East Texas Proverb %% Behind all the political rhetoric being hurled at us from abroad, we are bringing home one unassailable fact -- [terrorism is] a crime by any civilized standard, committed against innocent people, away from the scene of political conflict, and must be dealt with as a crime. . . . [I]n our recognition of the nature of terrorism as a crime lies our best hope of dealing with it. . . . [L]et us use the tools that we have. Let us invoke the cooperation we have the right to expect around the world, and with that cooperation let us shrink the dark and dank areas of sanctuary until these cowardly marauders are held to answer as criminals in an open and public trial for the crimes they have committed, and receive the punishment they so richly deserve. -- William H. Webster, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 15 Oct 1985 %% "Behind every successful man is a surprised woman." -- Maryon Pearson %% "Being against torture ought to be sort of a bipartisan thing." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Being against torture ought to be sort of a multipartisan thing." -- Karl Lehenbauer, as amended by Jeff Daiell, a Libertarian %% Being schizophrenic is better than living alone. %% "Better late than before anybody has invited you." -- Ambrose Bierce %% Better to kill time than have it kill you. -- karl %% "Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That's lost." -- Ivan Chtcheglov %% Beware of a tall dark man with a spoon up his nose. %% "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." -- Matthew 7:15 %% "Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers." -- Chip Salzenberg %% "Bidet? Try washing your whole body." -- anon %% "Big Brother is hallucinating." -- Elizabeth D Zwicky (zwicky@cis.ohio-state.edu), title of a comp.risks article %% "Bill Gates says no matter how much more power we can supply, he'll develop some really exciting software that will bring the machine to its knees." -- Intel VP David House, In _EE_Times_, 16 October 1989 %% Bingo, gas station, hamburger with a side order of airplane noise, and you'll be Gary, Indiana. -- Jessie in the movie "Greaser's Palace" %% Birth, copulation and death. That's all the facts when you come to brass tacks; Birth, copulation and death. -- T. S. Elliot, Sweeney Agonistes (1932) %% "Bite off, dirtball." -- Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM %% Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels. %% Blessed be those who initiate lively discussions with the hopelessly mute, for they shall be know as Dentists. %% Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee... that will do them in. %% Brain damage is all in your head. -- Karl Lehenbauer %% Brain off-line, please wait. %% "Brain? Brain? What is 'brain'?" %% "Bring the little ones unto me, and I will get a good price for them." -- Dr. Fegg %% "Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies." -- Honore de Balzac %% "Bureaucracy is the enemy of innovation." -- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments %% Burnt Sienna. That's the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas. -- Ken Weaver %% "Bush has it backwards -- abortion is surgical; bombing is murder." -- sign at anti-war march %% "But Calvin is no kind and loving god! He's one of the _old_ gods! He demands sacrifice!" -- Calvin %% But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? [2 Kings 18:27 (KJV)] %% "But are you not," he said, "a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve, the Magic and Indefatigable?" "The Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler," said Deep Thought, thoroughly rolling the r's, "could talk all four legs off an Arcturan Mega-Donkey -- but only I could persuade it to go for a walk afterward." -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy %% "But don't you see, the color of wine in a crystal glass can be spiritual. The look in a face, the music of a violin. A Paris theater can be infused with the spiritual for all its solidity." -- Lestat, _The Vampire Lestat_, Anne Rice %% "But then a new problem came up: the Jupiter probe, Galileo, was going to use a power supply that runs on heat generated by radioactivity. If the shuttle carrying Galileo failed, radioactivity could be spread over a large area." -- Richard P. Feynmann, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" %% "But this one goes to eleven." -- Nigel Tufnel, _Spinal Tap_ %% "Buy land. They've stopped making it." -- Mark Twain %% By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% "By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun." -- P. J. Plauger, from his April Fool's column in April 88's "Computer Language" %% By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science, the general theory that complex life forms did not evolve but appeared "abruptly." -- Newsweek, June 29, 1987, pg. 23 %% By repackaging age-old operating system features -- such as mutitasking and virtual memory -- and marketing them as "innovations", and by making non-competitive product agreements, IBM and Microsoft Corp. were able to successfully pull a grand-scale commercial deception. The sad part is that MIS managers are still falling for the old song and dance. To OS/2 die-hards: "Wake up and face it; OS/2 is d-e-a-d!" -- Alex G. Christensen, _Information Week_, April 29, 1991 %% By the time of the Great Renaming, net.suicide, along with net.rumors, was mainly populated by refugees from net.bizarre, which was the first popular group ever dropped by the backbone. This group of people acted like a roving gang. "Ah, here's a NEW almost-empty group to post train schedules and core dumps in!" Imagine their squeals of joy when they discovered that posting to net.test got them mail from all over the net. -- Joe Buck, jbuck@janus.berkeley.edu, gives us some Usenet history %% "By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect "Hungry." -- a Larson cartoon %% Bye Bye -- PDP 10 %% "C is the assembly language of Tcl." -- Karl Lehenbauer (karl@hackercorp.com) "Assembly language is also available." -- Jordan Henderson (jordan@hackercorp.com) %% "Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception." -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989 [apparently, good TV reception is a basic necessity -- at least in Tucson -kl] %% "Cache is, by definition, a compromise." -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute "Yes, cache is a compromise. Mainly to your wallet and the speed of light." -- Jim Hutchison (ucsd!celerity!hutch) %% "Call immediately. Time is running out. We both need to do something monstrous before we die." -- Message from Ralph Steadman to Hunter Thompson %% "Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, target Los Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept." -- The Firesign Theatre movie, _J-Men Forever_ %% Calm down -- it's only ones and zeros. %% "Can you imagine what it would be like if there had been ``look and feel'' lawsuits over automobiles?" -- Mark Diekhans (markd@sco.com) %% "Can you program?" "Well, I'm literate, if that's what you mean!" %% "Can't you just gesture hypnotically and make him disappear?" "It does not work that way. RUN!" -- Hadji on metaphyics and Mandrake in "Johnny Quest" %% Canada: a few acres of snow. -- Voltaire %% 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. %% "Captain Picquard trusts his bartender's instincts and saves the Federation." -- Karl's synopsis of a recent Star Trek episode %% "Capture him, beat him and treat him like dirt." -- LAPD squad-car computer message, as quoted in the Christopher Report, 7/91 %% "Card readers? We don't need no stinking card readers." -- Peter da Silva (at the National Academy of Sciences, 1965, in a particularly vivid fantasy) %% "Care to expound, or are you just going to leave us all with the impression that you're merely an inarticulate asshole?" -- Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard (jay@splut.conmicro.com) "Lest I leave the wrong impression, I'm not inarticulate." -- Walker Mangum (walker@ficc.ferranti.com) %% Catch a fly. Put it in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator for 5 to 10 minutes. This slows him down considerably, so he's easier to handle. While he's in there, make a miniature paper airplane with a wing-span about double that of the fly. Take the cool dude out of the ice-box and super glue his tiny feet onto the upper surface of the paper airplane. As he warms up and revives, he will begin doing that most natural of all fly activities: he will try to fly. If you have not made your little airplane too heavy, the fly's wing beats will be adequate for lift off. However, carrying the added weight quickly tires the fly, so in mid-air, he will stop beating his wings, and the airplane will soar downward. Seeing his plight causes the fly to once again attempt to fly, with the same result. Little bursts of energy as the plane gains altitude, alternated with slow downward glides. A thread super glued to the plane will keep your aerial circus in the same room, or you can take your new pet fly out for a walk, er, fly. -- Gary Benson (inc@fluke.tc.com) %% "Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world." - The Beach Boys %% "Cats are soft-furred mammals, who are mildly and clumsily predatory. They have anywhere from two to a dozen neurons. The baseline intellect of a cat has two states. 1) Chow state (feeding frenzy) 2) Asleep mode (unconscious on your bed with whiskers twitching)" -- Elaine Richards %% Chaotic Evil means never having to say you're sorry. %% Chapter XIII OF Auxiliary, Mixed, and National Arms The second sort of unprofitable arms are auxiliaries, by whom I mean, troops brought to help and protect you by a potentate whom you summon to your aid; Auxiliaries may be excellent and useful soldiers for themselves, but are always hurtful to him who calls them in; for if they are defeated, he is undone, if victorious, he becomes their prisoner. . . . >from _The Prince_, by Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513 %% Charity: a thing that begins at home and usually stays there. %% Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. -- Oscar Wilde %% "Christians maintain a higher enjoyment level in the intimacy of their love life than the population in general." -- Beverly LaHaye, President, Concerned Women of America, in her book, _The Act of Marriage, The Beauty of Sexual Love_, 1976, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "Civilisation is the art of living in towns of such size that everyone does not know everyone else." -- Julian Jaynes %% Civilization Law #1: Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations one can do without thinking about them. %% "Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor." - Toynbee %% "Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy." -- Howard Roark, in Ayn Rand's _The Fountainhead_ %% Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -- Mark Twain %% "Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong." -- Blair Houghton %% Cold-hearted orb that rules the night Removes the colors from our sight Red is gray, and yellow white But we decide which is right And which is a quantization error. -- Jef Poskanzer, from the doc to his oh-so-cool program that converts color bitmaps to greyscale ones. %% Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage. %% College isn't the place to go for ideas. -- Helen Keller %% Collins's Law: If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything. Corollaries ("Rabinovitch's Rules of Sane Dialogue"): 1. Everybody who matters is stupid now and then. 2. If I'm being stupid, that's my problem. 3. If my being stupid makes you stupid, that's your problem. 4. If you think you're never stupid, boy are you stupid! %% Come near me and I'll kill you. -- Ron Post %% "Come on over here, baby, I want to do a thing with you." - A cop, arresting a non-groovy person after the revolution, Firesign Theater %% Come... Dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes...And let's go home. -- Watchmen %% Commenting on the advantages of bisexuality, Woody Allen once remarked "It doubles your chances of getting a date on Saturday night." %% "Committees do harm merely by existing." -- Freeman Dyson %% 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 literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives?" -- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984 %% "Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy." -- Joseph Campbell %% Computers are the most fun you can have with anything that isn't breathing. -- Bruce Walker, CACM Forum %% "Computers are useless; they can only give answers." -- Picasso %% Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" %% Conference: A place where conversation is substituted for the dreariness of work and the loneliness of thought. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" %% "Confound these ancestors.... They've stolen our best ideas!" -- Ben Jonson %% Congresswoman: Well, Mr. Dallas... we've heard your smut masquerading as songs... and we've heard how teen prostitution, pregnancy, drug use, cults, runaways, suicide and poor hygiene are sweeping this nation. We thought you might like to share with the committee any particular causes you might see for those latter problems... Steve Dallas: I dunno. Maybe the proliferation of narrow, suffocating zealotry masquerading as parenting in this country. -- Bloom County %% "Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich." -- Daffy Duck, from Looney Tunes "Ali Baba Bunny" (1957, Chuck Jones) %% Conserve energy, kill yourself. -- jon@dscatoh0.sac.ca.us %% "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." -- Bernard Berenson %% Contemptuous lights flashed flashed across the computer's console. -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy %% "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 %% "Contrary to ongoing and recent media reports you will find the Report is well-balanced and completely deferential to the freedoms outlined in the first amendment." -- Henry E. Hudson, Chairman, Attorney General's Commission on Pornography %% "Conversation is the best aphrodisiac." -- Kelly Cota (kcota@sco.com) %% "Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway" %% Could be you're crossing the fine line A silly driver kind of...off the wall You keep it cool when it's t-t-tight ....eyes wide open when you start to fall. -- The Cars %% "Could you both just send hate mail a few times a day and post the synopsis in the year 2000?" -- Wm E Davidsen Jr, davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM, to a couple guys in news.groups %% "Cover a war in a place where you can't drink beer or talk to a woman? Hell no!" -- Hunter S. Thompson, on the US war against Iraq %% Crazee Edeee, his prices are INSANE!!! %% "Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise? -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer", Vol. 12, page 186 %% "Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training." -- Anna Freud Well, sometimes, anyway. -- Mark Brader, utzoo!sq!msb %% "Credo, quia absurdum est." [I believe, because it is absurd.] -- Tertullian, Roman lawyer, theologian and misogynist; man of questionable judgment %% "Crucifixes are sexy because there's a naked man on them." -- Madonna %% Crystals are the subject of international fascination. From crystal balls to lasers, they have been prized in healing and science throughout the centuries. Now Randall and Vicki Baer explore completely new horizons of crystal-based knowledge. Building on the foundation of their popularly acclaimed book, _Windows of Light_, the Baers explore techniques, tools, and technologies for personal and planetary transformation. They detail advanced techniques for using crystals in such areas as healing, stress management, mind-center activation, and telethought communication, and they demonstrate the unification of the spiritual and the scientific in a light-based sacred science. The Baers explore visions of a new age based on higher planes of reality and ultra-advanced crystal technologies. An essential reference, _The Crystal Connection_ is a landmark achievement in the field of crystal-based sacred science. Randall and Vicki Baer are internationally known authorities in the areas of crystals, sacred science, and spiritual teachings. Widely sought as speakers, they are codirectors of the Starcrest Academy of Interdimensional Law and Science, a project dedicated to worldwide seminars and advanced educational programs in the sacred sciences. They are the authors of _Windows of Light: Quartz Crystals and Self-Transformation_, considered the best work on the subject to date. -- from the back cover of _The Crystal Connection_, Harper and Row, ISBN 0-06-250033-3 %% Cthulhu for President, if you're tired of choosing the LESSER of two evils. %% "Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth." -- Lillian Hellman %% DE: The Soviets seem to have difficulty implementing modern technology. Would you comment on that? Belenko: Well, let's talk about aircraft engine lifetime. When I flew the MiG-25, its engines had a total lifetime of 250 hours. DE: Is that mean-time-between-failure? Belenko: No, the engine is finished; it is scrapped. DE: You mean they pull it out and throw it away, not even overhauling it? Belenko: That is correct. Overhaul is too expensive. DE: That is absurdly low by free world standards. Belenko: I know. -- an interview with Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 102 %% "DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT blow the hatch!" "Roger....hatch blown!" -- MAROONED %% "Daddy, Daddy, make Santa Claus go away!" "I can't, son; he's grown too powerful." "HO HO HO!" -- Duck's Breath Mystery Theatre %% "Dammit, we're all going to die, let's die doing something *useful*!" -- Hal Clement, on comments that space exploration is dangerous %% "Danger, you haven't seen the last of me!" "No, but the first of you turns my stomach!" -- The Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger %% Darwin was the great expansionism. He shocked the world by arguing convincingly that life is the creation of an autonomous process so simple that it can be understood with just a moment of reflection. No equations, photons or computer read-outs required. I can all be summarized in a couple of lines: new variations in the hereditary material arise continuously, some survive and reproduce better that others, and as a result organic evolution occurs. And even more briefly as follows: natural selection acting on mutations produces evolution. Given enough time (and the Earth is over four billion years old) even radically new kinds of organisms can be assembled this way, insects from myriapods, amphibians from lungfish, birds from small dinosaurs, and even life from inanimate matter. -- Edward O. Wilson, "Biophilia" %% "Data is a lot like humans: It is born. Matures. Gets married to other data, divorced. Gets old. One thing that it doesn't do is die. It has to be killed." -- Arthur Miller %% David Brinkley: The daily astrological charts are precisely where, in my judgment, they belong, and that is on the comic page. George Will: I don't think astrology belongs even on the comic pages. The comics are making no truth claim. Brinkley: Where would you put it? Will: I wouldn't put it in the newspaper. I think it's transparent rubbish. It's a reflection of an idea that we expelled from Western thought in the sixteenth century, that we are in the center of a caring universe. We are not the center of the universe, and it doesn't care. The star's alignment at the time of our birth -- that is absolute rubbish. It is not funny to have it intruded among people who have nuclear weapons. Sam Donaldson: This isn't something new. Governor Ronald Reagan was sworn in just after midnight in his first term in Sacramento because the stars said it was a propitious time. Will: They [horoscopes] are utter crashing banalities. They could apply to anyone and anything. Brinkley: When is the exact moment [of birth]? I don't think the nurse is standing there with a stopwatch and a notepad. Donaldson: If we're making decisions based on the stars -- that's a cockamamie thing. People want to know. -- "This Week" with David Brinkley, ABC Television, Sunday, May 8, 1988, excerpts from a discussion on Astrology and Reagan %% Dead? No excuse for laying off work. %% Death: to stop sinning suddenly. %% "Debugging is anticipated with distaste, performed with reluctance, and bragged about forever." -- button at the Boston Computer Museum %% Decaffeinated coffee? Just Say No. %% "Decaffeinated coffee? Kinda like kissing your sister." -- Bob Irwin (birwin@ficc.ferranti.com) %% Definition of a hermaphrodite: a bisexual built for two. -- Jeff Daiell %% Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take into account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability to influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preparations are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful experience. -- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD %% Deliver Us From Taxation -- button, source forgotten %% Delta: A real man lands where he wants to. -- David Letterman %% Delta: The kids will love our inflatable slides. -- David Letterman %% Delta: We never make the same mistake three times. -- David Letterman %% Delta: We're Amtrak with wings. -- David Letterman %% "Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses." -- H. L. Mencken %% "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for the appointment by the corrupt few." -- George Bernard Shaw %% "Despite its suffix, skepticism is not an "ism" in the sense of a belief or dogma. It is simply an approach to the problem of telling what is counterfeit and what is genuine. And a recognition of how costly it may be to fail to do so. To be a skeptic is to cultivate "street smarts" in the battle for control of one's own mind, one's own money, one's own allegiances. To be a skeptic, in short, is to refuse to be a victim. -- Robert S. DeBear, "An Agenda for Reason, Realism, and Responsibility," New York Skeptic (newsletter of the New York Area Skeptics, Inc.), Spring 1988 %% "Destroying property is sometimes a good way to save lives." -- Mary Meehan, Anti-Choice Columnist, "The National Catholic Register", about abortion clinic violence, 10/12/86, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "Did U arrest the 85 yr old lady or just beat her up." "We just slapped her around a bit... she's getting m/t [medical treatment] right now." -- LAPD squad-car computer messages, as quoted in the Christopher Report, 7/91 %% Diet Pepsi isn't working. -- note attached to the soda fountain in the 140 building at SCO Then cut down on the Big Macs. -- note attached to the note %% Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people build: They have very large numbers of states. This makes conceiving, describing, and testing them hard. Software systems have orders-of-magnitude more states than computers do. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. %% Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. %% "Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought." - Albert Szent-Gyorgi %% Disobedience: The silver lining to the cloud of servitude. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Do not allow this language (Ada) in its present state to be used in applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear power stations, cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-ballistic missile defense systems. The next rocket to go astray as a result of a programming language error may not be an exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: It may be a nuclear warhead exploding over one of our cities. An unreliable programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a far greater risk to our environment and to our society than unsafe cars, toxic pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power stations. -- C. A. R. Hoare %% "Do not be deceived. Revolutions do not run backwards." -- A. Lincoln, railsplitter, lawyer, imperialist %% "Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads." -- John Galt, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_ %% "Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." -- stolen from Brian Gollum %% "Do not speak of what men deserve. For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead Kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of *deserving*, of *earning*, and you will begin to be able to think." -- Odo, The Prison Letters (Ursula LeGuin, _The Dispossessed_) %% "Do not stop to ask what is it; Let us go and make our visit." -- T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" %% Do not underestimate the power of the Force. %% Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. %% Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. Don't have aesthetic convulsions when using them, either. %% Do standards inevitably cause industries to calcify into obsolete technology? Suppose we journey to the plains of Shinar and build a tower of bricks reaching to heaven. (That's the Tower of Babel, for those without a reading familiarity with the Book of Genesis.) Look, God Himself knows what standards can do, he even said something like "The Sons of Men are all of one tongue and one purpose, and now nothing shall be impossible for them." So the Ancient of Days had to step in and give us the wonderful gift of cultural diversity, to add such a whopping translation overhead on every information transaction that we bogged down forever into chaos and warfare. -- Dan Mocsny (dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu) %% "Do what you wanna, do what you will; Just don't mess up your neighbor's thrill. And when you pay the bill, kindly leave a little tip To help the next poor sucker on his one-way trip." - Frank Zappa, "You Are What You Is" %% "Do you know that doing your best is not good enough? First you must know what to do." -- manufacturing-quality theorist W. Edwards Deming %% "Don't believe anything you read and only half of what you see." -- Will Rogers %% "Don't discount flying pigs before you have good air defense." -- jvh@clinet.FI %% "Don't drop acid, take it pass-fail!" -- Bryan Michael Wendt %% Don't eat yellow snow. -- Frank Zappa %% Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. -- G.K. Chesterton %% Don't force it, use a bigger hammer. %% "Don't get married. Find a woman you hate and buy her a house." -- anon %% "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because I'm beautiful, smart and rich." -- Calvin Keegan %% Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts. %% Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash. -- Bo Diddley %% Don't lose Your head To gain a minute You need your head Your brains are in it. -- Burma Shave %% Don't panic. %% "Don't question luck." -- Roberto Mesa %% "Don't take life too serious. It ain't no ways permanent." -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly %% "Don't talk to me about disclaimers! I invented disclaimers!" -- The Censored Hacker %% Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. -- James J. Ling %% "Don't think; let the machine do it for you!" -- E. C. Berkeley %% "Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" %% Don't wait for me to finish my smoke; jump me now, while there's still nine of you. -- Russ Post %% "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 things that you have no control over, because you have no control over them. Don't worry about things that you have control over, because you have control over them." -- Mickey Rivers %% "Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk." -- Tom Waits %% Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. -- Kahlil Gibran %% Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -- Voltaire %% Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. -- Paul Tillich, German theologian and historian %% "Draft politicians, not human beings." -- antidraft slogan coined by Jeff Daiell, 1979 %% Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. %% "Dump the condiments. If we are to be eaten, we don't need to taste good." -- "Visionaries" cartoon %% "During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has been upon trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity,; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution." -- James Madison %% "During the race We may eat your dust, But when you graduate, You'll work for us." -- Reed College cheer %% Dyslexics of the world, untie! %% EARTH smog | bricks AIR -- mud -- FIRE soda water | tequila WATER %% EARTH: Mostly harmless. %% Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. -- James Bryant Conant %% Each team building another component has been using the most recent tested version of the integrated system as a test bed for debugging its piece. Their work will be set back by having that test bed change under them. Of course it must. But the changes need to be quantized. Then each user has periods of productive stability, interrupted by bursts of test-bed change. This seems to be much less disruptive than a constant rippling and trembling. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" %% Early victory is more than a good omen, it energizes the committed and transforms the interested into more committed participants. -- Brad Morrison (brad@neosoft.com) %% "Earnestness is just stupidity sent to college." -- P.J. O'Rourke %% Eat shit -- billions of flies can't be wrong. %% Een schip op het strand is een baken in zee. [A ship on the beach is a lighthouse to the sea.] -- Dutch Proverb %% Eeny Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak. -- Bullwinkle Moose %% Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. %% "Either sue me, or shut the hell up." -- Greg Hennessy, gsh7w@virginia.edu %% "Elvis is my copilot." -- Cal Keegan %% Emacs is not an editor. Emacs is a way of thinking about the world, and as such is a way of thinking about editors. The process of editing is Emacs, but Emacs is more than the process of editing. When you ask what Emacs does, you are asking a question with no answer, because Emacs doesn't do, it is done to. Emacs just is. ... I hope this makes things clearer. -- Scott Dorsey (kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov) %% "Emergency!" Stiggs screamed, ejecting himself from the tub like it was a burning car. "Dial 'one'! Get room service! Code red!" Stiggs was on the phone immediately, ordering more rose blossoms, because, according to him, the ones floating in the tub had suddenly lost their smell. "I demand smell," he shrilled. "I expecting total uninterrupted smell from these f*cking roses." Unfortunately, the service captain didn't realize that the Stiggs situation involved fifty roses. "What am I going to do with this?" Stiggs sneered at the weaseling hotel goon when he appeared at our door holding a single flower floating in a brandy glass. Stiggs's tirade was great. "Do you see this bathtub? Do you notice any difference between the size of the tub and the size of that spindly wad of petals in your hand? I need total bath coverage. I need a completely solid layer of roses all around me like puffing factories of smell, attacking me with their smell and power-ramming big stinking concentrations of rose odor up my nostrils until I'm wasted with pleasure." It wasn't long before we got so dissatisfied with this incompetence that we bolted. -- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, National Lampoon, October 1982 %% "Engineering meets art in the parking lot and things explode." -- Garry Peterson, about Survival Research Labs %% "Engineering without management is art." -- Jeff Johnson %% "England's monarchy is how old? 1000 years? Jesus, you guys must have a hell of a lot of laws!" -- an anonymous sysadmin %% "Eraserhead is an example of the opposite of brainwashing. It actually leaves a dirty bathtub ring on your mind." -- David Fox (fox@allegra.att.com) %% "Escaping through the lily fields, I came across an empty space It trembled and exploded, left a bus stop in its place..." -- unknown %% "Even a poor tailor is entitled to some happiness!" -- from Fiddler On The Roof %% "Even if the propeller had the power of propelling a vessel, it would be found altogether useless in practice, because the power being applied in the stern would be absolutely impossible to make the vessel steer." -- Sir William Symonds - British Royal Navy, 1837 %% Even if we put all these nagging thoughts [four embarrassing questions about astrology] aside for a moment, one overriding question remains to be asked. Why would the positions of celestial objects at the moment of birth have an effect on our characters, lives, or destinies? What force or influence, what sort of energy would travel from the planets and stars to all human beings and affect our development or fate? No amount of scientific-sounding jargon or computerized calculations by astrologers can disguise this central problem with astrology -- we can find no evidence of a mechanism by which celestial objects can influence us in so specific and personal a way. . . . Some astrologers argue that there may be a still unknown force that represents the astrological influence. . . .If so, astrological predictions -- like those of any scientific field -- should be easily tested. . . . Astrologers always claim to be just a little too busy to carry out such careful tests of their efficacy, so in the last two decades scientists and statisticians have generously done such testing for them. There have been dozens of well-designed tests all around the world, and astrology has failed every one of them. . . . I propose that we let those beckoning lights in the sky awaken our interest in the real (and fascinating) universe beyond our planet, and not let them keep us tied to an ancient fantasy left over from a time when we huddled by the firelight, afraid of the night. -- Andrew Fraknoi, Executive Officer, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, "Why Astrology Believers Should Feel Embarrassed," San Jose Mercury News, May 8, 1988 %% Even if you can deceive people about a product through misleading statements, sooner or later the product will speak for itself. -- Hajime Karatsu %% "Even if you start your laundry before 8 AM on Saturday, you will not finish folding it until after midnight on Sunday." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." -- Will Rogers %% "Even the most boundless love can end." -- Rhett Butler, to Scarlet O'Hara, _Gone With The Wind_ %% "Ever free-climbed a thousand foot vertical cliff with 60 pounds of gear strapped to your butt?" "No." "'Course you haven't, you fruit-loop little geek." -- The Mountain Man, one of Dana Carvey's SNL characters [ditto] %% "Every Solidarity center had piles and piles of paper .... everyone was eating paper and a policeman was at the door. Now all you have to do is bend a disk." - an anonymous member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity, commenting on the benefits of using computers in support of their movement %% Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. %% "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, chuq@apple.com, about Usenet %% "Every institution I've ever been associated with has tried to screw me." -- Stephen Wolfram %% "Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of." -- They Might Be Giants %% Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas. -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson %% "Every opportunity we have to run our R&D scientists and engineers against our customers, we do it." -- George Heilmeier, Texas Instruments Inc., Dallas %% "Every year a few research results pay the freight for all the rest." -- Robert A. Frosch, General Motors %% "Everybody is talking about the weather but nobody does anything about it." -- Mark Twain %% Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television. -- David Letterman %% "Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." -- Harlan Ellison %% Everyone who comes in here wants three things: 1. They want it quick. 2. They want it good. 3. They want it cheap. I tell 'em to pick two and call me back. -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware %% "Everyone's head is a cheap movie show." -- Jeff G. Bone %% "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein %% "Everything to excess. Moderation is for monks." -- Lazarus Long %% Everything you know is wrong. -- The Firesign Theater %% Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact. Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it. ... Only atheists could accept this Satanic theory. -- Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, "The Pre-Adamic Creation and Evolution" %% Evolution is as much a fact as the earth turning on its axis and going around the sun. At one time this was called the Copernican theory; but, when evidence for a theory becomes so overwhelming that no informed person can doubt it, it is customary for scientists to call it a fact. That all present life descended from earlier forms, over vast stretches of geologic time, is as firmly established as Copernican cosmology. Biologists differ only with respect to theories about how the process operates. -- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131 %% "Evolution is what it is. The upper classes have always died out; it's one of the most charming things about them." -- Germaine Greer %% Except for 75% of the women, everyone in the whole world wants to have sex. -- Ellyn Mustard %% Excitement and danger await your induction to tracer duty! As a tracer, you must rid the computer networks of slimy, criminal data thieves. They are tricky and the action gets tough, so watch out! Utilizing all your skills, you'll either get your man or you'll get burned! -- advertising for the computer game "Tracers" %% "Excuse me, Worker, I'll just be a nanosecond." -- a computer, from Firesign Theater's "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus" %% "Excuses are like assholes: Everybody has one and they all stink." -- unknown %% "Experience has proved that some people indeed know everything." -- Russell Baker %% Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other. -- Poor Richard's Almanac %% Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. There are many examples of outsiders who eventually overthrew entrenched scientific orthodoxies, but they prevailed with irrefutable data. More often, egregious findings that contradict well-established research turn out to be artifacts. I have argued that accepting psychic powers, reincarnation, "cosmic consciousness," and the like, would entail fundamental revisions of the foundations of neuroscience. Before abandoning materialist theories of mind that have paid handsome dividends, we should insist on better evidence for psi phenomena than presently exists, especially when neurology and psychology themselves offer more plausible alternatives. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171 %% FORTRAN? The syntactically incorrect statement "DO 10 I = 1.10" will parse and generate code creating a variable, DO10I, as follows: "DO10I = 1.10" If that doesn't terrify you, it should. %% "Facts are stupid things." -- President Ronald Reagan (a blooper from his speech at the '88 GOP convention) %% "Failing to get them to do it your way might mean they're stupid, but it also means you failed to get them to do it your way." -- Cal Keegan %% Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. %% Faire de la bonne cuisine demande un certain temps. Si on vous fait attendre, c'est pour mieux vous servir, et vous plaire. [Good cooking takes time. If you are made to wait, it is to serve you better, and to please you.] Menu of Restaurant Antoine, New Orleans [Also, what we're going to be telling our customers] %% Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. -- H. L. Mencken %% "Faith" can be defined as "any man's hope that the human spirit is capable of understanding"; that anything actually matters in the larger universe; and that understanding anything could be important outside of our own selfish whims and desire to survive. ...and somehow, because it is important, understanding can go on without us, waiting only to be rediscovered by the future, or at worst, pissed away, in spite of all our prayers, and work, and suffering. Every expression of the human spirit is an act of faith. -- Ellyn Mustard (mustard@ficc.ferranti.comm) %% "Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true." -- Friedrich Nietzsche %% "Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim." -- Santayana %% "Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave a paradise for a sect." -- Keats %% "Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels" -- Goya %% Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days, spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before -- and thus was the Empire forged. -- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ %% "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat." -- Theodore Roosevelt %% Fast cars, fast women, fast algorithms... what more could a man want? -- Joe Mattis %% "Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. "'Look! Up in the sky!' "'It's a bird!' "'It's a plane!' "'No, it's Superman!' "Yes, it's Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers; bend steel in his bare hands; and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never ending battle for Truth, Justice, and The American Way!" %% Felson's Law: To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. %% Fiery energy lanced out, but the beams struck an intangible wall between the Gubru and the rapidly turning Earth ship. "Water!" it shrieked as it read the spectral report. "A barrier of water vapor! A civilized race could not have found such a trick in the Library! A civilized race could not have stooped so low! A civilized race would not have..." It screamed as the Gubru ship hit a cloud of drifting snowflakes. - _Startide Rising_, by David Brin %% "File names are infinite in length where infinity is set to 255 characters." -- Peter Collinson, "The Unix File System" %% Finagle's Law: The perversity of the universe tends toward a maximum. %% Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us -- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 %% First as to speech. That privilege rests upon the premise that there is no proposition so uniformly acknowledged that it may not be lawfully challenged, questioned, and debated. It need not rest upon the further premise that there are no propositions that are not open to doubt; it is enough, even if there are, that in the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy. Hence it has been again and again unconditionally proclaimed that there are no limits to the privilege so far as words seek to affect only the hearers' beliefs and not their conduct. The trouble is that conduct is almost always based upon some belief, and that to change the hearer's belief will generally to some extent change his conduct, and may even evoke conduct that the law forbids. [cf. Learned Hand, The Spirit of Liberty, University of Chicago Press, 1952; The Art and Craft of Judging: The Decisions of Judge Learned Hand, edited and annotated by Hershel Shanks, The MacMillian Company, 1968.] %% First learn computer science and all the theory. Next develop a programming style. Then forget all that and just hack. -- George Carrette [1990] %% "First, we were making the effort there so that people would have their own right to decide their own future, and could select their own form of government ... Now we're saying we're going to fight there so that we don't have to fight in Thailand, so we don't have to fight on the West Coast of the United States, so that they won't move across the Rockies. -- Robert F. Kennedy, November 26, 1967 %% Flee at once, all is discovered. %% "Flextime: Starting a 10+ hour day up to an hour early (on a regular, scheduled basis with the approval of an immediate supervisor)." -- A Ferranti International Controls "volunteer" %% "Flight Reservation systems decide whether or not you exist. If your information isn't in their database, then you simply don't get to go anywhere." -- Arthur Miller %% "Flint Paper is insane. I really respect that." -- Max %% "Floggings will continue until morale improves." -- anonymous flyer being distributed at Exxon USA %% Flon's Law: There is not now and never will be a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs. %% Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. -- Perlis's Programming Proverb #58, SIGPLAN Notices, Sept. 1982 %% "For I lean on no dead kin, my name in mine for fame or scorn And the world began when I was born and the world is mine to win." -- Badger Clark %% "For a male and female to live continuously together is... biologically speaking, an extremely unnatural condition." -- Robert Briffault %% For every problem there is one solution which is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken %% For fifteen days I struggled to prove that no functions analogous to those I have since called Fuchsian functions could exist; I was then very ignorant. Every day I sat down at my work table where I spent an hour or two; I tried a great number of combinations and arrived at no result. One evening, contrary to my custom, I took black coffee; I could not go to sleep; ideas swarmed up in clouds; I sensed them clashing until, to put it so, a pair would hook together to form a stable combination. By morning I had established the existence of a class of Fuchsian functions, those derived from the hypergeometric series. I had only to write up the results which took me a few hours. --Henri Poincare, "Science et Methode" %% "For instance, several years ago we tracked down a twelve-year-old girl who was going to have an abortion so that we could talk her out of it. Talking a woman out of having an abortion is not news. But tracking her down using a private detective is." -- Joseph Scheidler, Executive Director, Pro Life Action League, "Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion", 1985, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "For the church to say that abortion is not acceptable for a Catholic is fine. To say directly or indirectly that on something that is a church teaching that you must also vote according to that -- that's not acceptable in a country based on the First Amendment." -- Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy %% "For the love of phlegm...a stupid wall of death rays. How tacky can ya get?" -- Post Brothers comics %% "For the man who has everything... Penicillin." -- F. Borquin %% "For the record, pot, like the _Reader's Digest_, is not necessarily habit- forming, but both can lead to hard-core addiction: heroin, in one case, abridged bad books in the other. Either way you look at it, a withdrawal from a meaninful life." -- Mordecai Richler, "Going Home Again" %% "For those of you who don't know, you know that after about three or four years of concern on this issue the board of the National Right to Life Committee voted to oppose ERA." -- Dr. John Wilke, President, National Right to Life Committee, "Weekend", 1/21/79, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "For those who say I can't impose my morality on others, I say just watch me." -- Joseph Scheidler, Executive Director, Pro-Life Action League, "Pro-Life Action News", 8/8/89, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered, for just such an emergency." -- Foghorn Leghorn %% Forty two. %% Found under windshield wiper: "I have just hit and dented your car. People are watching me. They think I am leaving you my name and address. They are wrong." %% Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damn near zero. -- David Ellis %% Fraternities have no SLACK, no matter how slack-jawed they may appear. I taught elementary calculus here at the University of SLACK for several years, and have observed these folks carefully. Although some of them looked like they had SLACK, it's clear to me that this was just the result of not getting enough sleep after the puking contest. I mean, those guys don't watch enough television to have real SLACK. -- William K Glunt (bud@ms.uky.edu) %% "Free at last, free at last, Great God Almighty, I am free at last." -- Martin Luther King %% "Free markets select for winning solutions." -- Eric S. Raymond %% "Freedom is still the most radical idea of all." -- Nathaniel Branden %% "Freedom" has no meaning of itself. There are always restrictions, be they legal, genetic, or physical. If you don't believe me, try to chew a radio signal. -- Kelvin Throop III %% "Friends don't let friends run Xenix." -- Stephen J. Friedl %% Frisbeetarianism: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. %% From Sharp minds come... pointed heads. -- Bryan Sparrowhawk %% From a long view of the history of mankind -- seen from, say, ten thousand years from now -- there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade. -- Richard P. Feynman %% "From an operating system research point of view, Unix is -- if not dead -- certainly old stuff, and it's clear that people should be looking beyond it." -- Dennis Ritchie, coinventor of Unix, Usenix keynote speech from Summer 1990 [and no, that doesn't mean to VMS, MS-DOS or OS/2 -cookie ed.] %% From the San Francisco Chronicle: Dean Semler, cinematographer for "Dances With Wolves," is one of those select Americans who got to meet Queen Elizabeth before her current visit to the United States. "I said I was director of photography, to which she replied, 'Oh, how terribly interesting. Actually, I have a brother-in-law who is a photographer.' "I replied, 'Oh, how terribly coincidental. I have a brother-in-law who's a queen.' She moved on without saying another word." %% From the X-windows xwud(1) man-page... This is a crude version of a more advanced utility that has never been written. %% "From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere." -- Dr. Seuss %% Frouds Law: A transistor protected by a fast acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. %% "Fuckin' A! Purple Haze!!!" -- Louie Gonzalez, Geometry class, 1973 %% Fullers Law of Cosmic Irreversibility: 1 Pot T == 1 Pot P 1 Pot P != 1 Pot T -- R. Buckminster Fuller %% "GOTO statement considered harmful" - E. W. Dijkstra, title to a letter in CACM 11, 3 (March, 1968) %% Garbage In, Gospel Out %% Gary Hart: living proof that you *can* screw your brains out. %% Gee, Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. %% Genius is the talent of a man who is dead. %% "Gentlemen, gentlemen! You can't fight in here! This is the war room!" -- Doctor Strangelove %% "Genuinely skillful use of obscenities is uniformly absent on the Internet." -- Karl Kleinpaste %% Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations" %% Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll invite himself over for dinner. -- Calvin Keegan %% Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. -- Abraham Kaplan %% "Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself." -- Vilfredo Pareto %% "Giving money and power to the government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." -- P. J. O'Rourke %% Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it will make you feel less responsible -- but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they are --" -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ %% "Go on! Shoot me again! I enjoy it! I love the smell of burnt feathers and gunpowder and cordite!" -- Daffy Duck, "Duck! Rabbit! Duck!" %% "Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company." -- Mark Twain %% "Go to Hell Mr. Stout -- you stink as a human being." -- Deb Paul %% God grant me the senility to accept the things I cannot change, The frustration to try to change things I cannot affect, and the wisdom to tell the difference. %% "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." - Voltaire %% "God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are." -- Billy Graham %% God must love the common man; He made so many of them. %% "God not only plays dice, He sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen." - S. Hawking %% God requireth not a uniformity of religion. -- Roger Williams %% "God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday." -- William Bragg %% "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." -- Reinhold Niebuhr %% "Good literature is about Love and War. Trash fiction is about Sex and Violence." -- Author Unknown %% "Gort, klaatu nikto barada." -- The Day the Earth Stood Still %% "Gotcha, you snot-necked weenies!" -- Post Bros. Comics %% "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! It is a dangerous servant and a terrible master." -- George Washington %% "Government sucks." -- Ben Olson %% "Gozer the Gozerian: As the duly appointed representative of the city, county and state of New York, I hereby order you to cease all supernatural activities at once and proceed immediately to your place of origin or the nearest parallel dimension, whichever is nearest." -- Ray (Dan Akyroyd, _Ghostbusters_) %% "Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." -- Albert Einstein %% "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -- Albert Einstein %% "Griswold v. Connecticut first established and guaranteed the `right of privacy' in the conjugal act. Sexual love, however, in a most profound way is anything but `private.' Its very purpose is to break the bonds of privacy by physical consummation of an unreserved gift of self. The contraceptive, however, denies the meaning of marital love by falsifying its bodily expression. Love is no longer unreserved; something is held back. `I cannot love all of you,' the contraceptive says, `because I cannot love all that might be created by you.'" -- Edmund Miller, Anti-Abortion Commentator, Fidelity magazine, 10/89, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "Gun control: Hitting what you aim at." -- Author Unknown %% HOFSTADTER'S LAW: Everything takes longer and costs more than expected, even when taking into account Hofstadter's Law. %% HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 1 proof by example: The author gives only the case n = 2 and suggests that it contains most of the ideas of the general proof. proof by intimidation: 'Trivial'. proof by vigorous handwaving: Works well in a classroom or seminar setting. %% HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 2 proof by cumbersome notation: Best done with access to at least four alphabets and special symbols. proof by exhaustion: An issue or two of a journal devoted to your proof is useful. proof by omission: 'The reader may easily supply the details' 'The other 253 cases are analogous' '...' %% HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 3 proof by obfuscation: A long plotless sequence of true and/or meaningless syntactically related statements. proof by wishful citation: The author cites the negation, converse, or generalization of a theorem from the literature to support his claims. proof by funding: How could three different government agencies be wrong? proof by eminent authority: 'I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP- complete.' %% HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 4 proof by personal communication: 'Eight-dimensional colored cycle stripping is NP-complete [Karp, personal communication].' proof by reduction to the wrong problem: 'To see that infinite-dimensional colored cycle stripping is decidable, we reduce it to the halting problem.' proof by reference to inaccessible literature: The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found in a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian Philological Society, 1883. proof by importance: A large body of useful consequences all follow from the proposition in question. %% HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 5 proof by accumulated evidence: Long and diligent search has not revealed a counterexample. proof by cosmology: The negation of the proposition is unimaginable or meaningless. Popular for proofs of the existence of God. proof by mutual reference: In reference A, Theorem 5 is said to follow from Theorem 3 in reference B, which is shown to follow from Corollary 6.2 in reference C, which is an easy consequence of Theorem 5 in reference A. proof by metaproof: A method is given to construct the desired proof. The correctness of the method is proved by any of these techniques. %% HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 6 proof by picture: A more convincing form of proof by example. Combines well with proof by omission. proof by vehement assertion: It is useful to have some kind of authority relation to the audience. proof by ghost reference: Nothing even remotely resembling the cited theorem appears in the reference given. %% HOW TO PROVE IT, PART 7 proof by forward reference: Reference is usually to a forthcoming paper of the author, which is often not as forthcoming as at first. proof by semantic shift: Some of the standard but inconvenient definitions are changed for the statement of the result. proof by appeal to intuition: Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here. %% HP had a unique policy of allowing its engineers to take parts from stock as long as they built something. "They figured that with every design, they were getting a better engineer. It's a policy I urge all companies to adopt." -- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, "Will Wozniak's class give Apple to teacher?", EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45 %% Hackers of the world, unite! %% "Hah. I know Tim Maroney. I've smoked pot with Tim Maroney. And K*nt Paul Dolan is no Tim Maroney!" -- Gary Strand (gary@cgdra.ucar.edu) %% Haiku haiku bo Baiku banana fana Fo faiku... haiku! -- Bruce Steinberg (bruces@sco.com) %% "Happiness is Planet Earth in your rear-view mirror." -- Sam Hurt %% "Happiness is being famous for your financial ability to indulge in every kind of excess." -- Calvin %% "Happiness is not a destination. It's the trip." -- anon %% Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined. %% Harrison's Postulate: For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. %% Hartley's First Law: You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've got something. %% "Have you got a 27 B stroke 6?" %% Have you seen the latest Japanese camera? Apparently it is so fast it can photograph an American with his mouth shut! %% "Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is IN the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that is right here." -- Dan Quayle, Hawaii, Sep 1989 %% "He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental effort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable perversion." -- Mick Farren, _When Gravity Fails_ %% "He didn't run for reelection. `Politics brings you into contact with all the people you'd give anything to avoid,' he said. `I'm staying home.'" -- Garrison Keillor, _Lake_Wobegone_Days_ %% "He don't know me vewy well, DO he?" -- Bugs Bunny %% "He goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It comes in one verse after another, and it is quite manifest to the reader that there is a certain pleasure in contemplating the wailing and gnashing of teeth, or else it would not occur so often." -- Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not a Christian" %% He hasn't one redeeming vice. -- Oscar Wilde %% He that we last as Thurn and Taxis knew Now recks no lord but the stilletto's Thorn, And Tacit lies the gold once-knotted horn. No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow, Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero. -- Richard Whorfinger, "The Courier's Tragedy" %% He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever. -- Old Chinese saying %% "He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers." -- French philosopher Charles Peguy %% "He who flames improperly risks making an ash of himself!" -- Jeff Klumpp (jdk@ficc.uu.net) %% He who hesitates is sometimes saved. %% He who shits on the road will meet flies on his return. -- South African Saying %% He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. -- M. C. Escher %% He'll sit here and he'll say, "Do this! Do that!" And nothing will happen. -- Harry S. Truman, on presidential power %% He's dead, Jim. %% "He's not dumb; he knows what he's doing. He's done that for years ... he's learned that if the dream's big enough, the facts don't count." -- Billy Florence, on the value of dreambuilding %% Heisenberg might have been here. %% "Hello again, Peabody here..." -- Mister Peabody %% "Hello to married men I've known. I'll soon have a wife and leave yours alone." -- Charlie, singing "Go Home With Bonnie Jean", in Lerner's and Lowe's "Brigadoon" %% "Hello... IRON CURTAIN? Send over a SAUSAGE PIZZA! World War III? No thanks!" -- Zippy the Pinhead %% "Hello?... What?... Yes, Jeff... Flame them." -- phone conversation overheard in Peter da Silva's office %% "Help Mr. Wizard!" -- Tennessee Tuxedo %% Her life was saved by rock and roll. -- Lou Reed %% Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. -- Peter Drucker %% Here at Controls, we have one chief for every Indian...but only the brave get scalped. %% "Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from President's and Kings to the scum of the earth..." -- Lily Tomlin %% "Here comes Mr. Bill's dog." -- Narrator, Saturday Night Live %% Here is an Appalachian version of management's answer to those who are concerned with the fate of the project: "Don't worry about the mule. Just load the wagon." -- Mike Dennison's hillbilly uncle %% "Here's a floppy with a tar of a compressed cpio archive... and they say Unix is hard to use..." -- Karl %% "Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like `Psychic Wins Lottery.'" -- Comedian Jay Leno %% "Hey Ivan, check your six." -- Sidewinder missile jacket patch, showing a Sidewinder driving up the tail of a Russian Su-27 %% "Hi, I'm Professor Alan Ginsburg... But you can call me... Captain Toke." -- John Lovitz, as ex-Supreme Court nominee Alan Ginsburg, on SNL %% "Hi. This is Dan Cassidy's answering machine. Please leave your name and number... and after I've doctored the tape, your message will implicate you in a federal crime and be brought to the attention of the FBI... BEEEP" -- Blue Devil comics %% His heart was yours from the first moment that you met. %% "History is a tool used by politicians to justify their intentions." -- Ted Koppel %% History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another... Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained. - Charles Darwin, from "Origin of the Species" %% Hog's breath is better than no breath at all. -- Hog's Breath Saloon, Fort Walton Beach, Florida %% "Hold still while I flame you." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Home is is the place where your computer lives and runs your life." -- Chrome Cowboy, sobiloff@thor.acc.stolaf.edu %% "Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a cockatoo." -- George Bernard Shaw %% "Honest Officer, had I known my health stood in jeopardy I would never had lit one." -- Maxim of the Hell's Angels %% Hoping to goodness is not theologically sound. - Peanuts %% Horizontal fragmentation results from market manipulation, the whim of vendors, sheer incompetence, contempt for users, or the inability of rival vendors to communicate. I'm talking about nonsense like having 50 MS-DOS programs that each somehow find a different function key to provide on-line help. I'm talking about differences between products that make them incompatible and inconsistent while providing no clear-cut technical advantage. Horizontal fragmentation vastly increases the intellectual burden separating computer users from solving their problems. Since it decreases the value of the computer to the user while providing no offsetting benefit, it makes the computer market smaller. This must eventually translate on average into smaller paychecks for everyone who has tied their fortune to that market. -- Dan Mocsny (dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu) %% How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies. Thy two breasts are like two young roses that are twins. [Song of Solomon 7:1-3 (KJV)] %% How beautiful, how entrancing you are, my loved one, daughter of delights! You are stately as a palm-tree, and your breasts are the clusters of dates. I said, "I will climb up into the palm to grasp its fronds." May I find your breast like clusters of grapes on the vine, the scent of your breath like apricots, and your whispers like spiced wine flowing smoothly to welcome my caresses, gliding down through lips and teeth. [Song of Solomon 7:6-9 (NEB)] %% "How can a man of integrity get along in Washington?" -- Richard Feynman %% How can you be two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? -- Firesign Theater %% How did the computer scientist die in the shower? He read the directions on the shampoo: Lather. Rinse. Repeat. %% "How do I explain to clients that society believes buying a rock (of cocaine) is three or four times as bad as raping a woman?" -- Robert Jakovitch, Broward [FL] Assistant Public Defender [from AP story 12 July 1990] %% How do you make a small fortune in Texas oil? Start with a big one. %% How does a project get to be a year late? ... One day at a time. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month %% How long does it take a DEC field service engineer to change a lightbulb? It depends on how many bad ones he brought with him. %% How many Bavarian Illuminati does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three: one to screw it in, and one to confuse the issue. %% How many Californians does it take to change a light bulb? Four. One to change the bulb and three to share the experience. %% How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? "That's a known problem... don't worry about it." %% How many QA engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? 3: 1 to screw it in and 2 to say "I told you so" when it doesn't work. %% How many Unix hacks does it take to change a light bulb? Let's see, can you use a shell script for that or does it need a C program? %% How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change the bulb and one to mix the drinks. %% How many Zen Buddhist does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change it and one not to change it. %% How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way. %% How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb? "Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem." %% How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change the bulb and another to reflect on how much more gratifying it was than a man. %% How many nuclear engineers does it take to change a light bulb ? Seven: One to install the new bulb, and six to determine what to do with the old one for the next 10,000 years. %% How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? One, but you can never change it back again. %% How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? None. It's a hardware problem. %% How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but it takes a really long time and the light bulb has to want to change. %% How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One to hold the giraffe and one to fill the bathtub with brightly colored power tools. %% "How many teamsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?" "FIFTEEN!! YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?" %% "How to make a million dollars: First, get a million dollars." -- Steve Martin %% "How's YOUR Endless Project coming?" -- Mark Diekhans %% However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead. -- Richard Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker) %% However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C," and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." -- Senator Barry Goldwater, from the Congressional Record, September 16, 1981 %% Hugh Downs' Four Rules for Investigating the Universe: Rule #1-- When confronted with an apparent infinite or infinitely repeating pattern, expect some variant that keeps it from being infinite. Rule #2-- When all investigation supports Rule 1, look for a situation which violates it. Rule #3-- Be prepared for an infinite oscillation between Rules 1 and 2. Rule #4-- Apply Rule 1. %% Human society - man in a group - rises out of its lethargy to new levels of productivity only under the stimulus of deeply inspiring and commonly appreciated goals. A lethargic world serves no cause well; a spirited world working diligently toward earnestly desired goals provides the means and the strength toward which many ends can be satisfied...to unparalleled social accomplishment. -- Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" %% Humanity has in the course of time had to endure from the hands of science two great outrages upon its naive self-love. The first was when it realized that our earth was not the center of the universe, but only a speck in a world-system of a magnitude hardly conceivable... The second was when biological research robbed man of his particular privilege of having been specially created, and relegated him to a descent from the animal world. -- Sigmund Freud %% Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. -- Isaac Asimov %% Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life. -- Edward O. Wilson, "Biophilia" %% "I ... reject the argument put forth by many fundamentalists that science has nothing to do with religion because God is not among the things making up the universe in which we live. Surely if a necessity for a god-concept in the universe ever turns up, that necessity will become evident to the scientist." -- physicist Ralph Alpher, "Theology of the Big Bang," Religious Humanism, Vol. XVII, No. 1 (Winter 1983), pg. 12 %% "I DO want your money, because god wants your money!" -- The Reverend Jimmy, from _Repo Man_ %% "I HATE arbitrary limits, especially when they're small." -- Stephen Savitzky %% I REALLY like Bugs Bunny. I think I just found out why. A local weekly (Metro) had an article on the wascally wabbit's 50th birthday party this year, and they had the following quote about the animation studio where Bugs Bunny cartoons were created... "It's not every workplace that allows you to have an autographed picture of Christ on the wall." -- Scott Lieberman %% "I admire men of character, and I judge character not by how men deal with their superiors, but mostly how they deal with their subordinates, and that, to me, is where you find out what the character of a man is." -- General Norman Schwarzkopf %% "I alone can bring order to this chaotic world... and all I demand is ... blind obedience." -- Doctor Doom %% "I am ... a woman ... and ... technically a parasitic uterine growth" -- Sean Doran the Younger %% I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and by men who are equally certain that they represent the divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some respects, both. I hope it will not be irreverent of me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me. -- Abraham Lincoln %% "I am astounded ... at the wonderful power you have developed - and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever." -- Arthur Sullivan, on seeing a demonstration of Edison's new talking machine in 1888 %% "I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I WILL be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation...I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - and I WILL BE HEARD." -- William Lloyd Garrison %% "I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder have included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products. This technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's reign. My carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go buy some more." -- timw@zeb.USWest.COM, in alt.conspiracy %% "I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." -- Professor Bernardo de la Paz %% I am here by the will of the people and I won't leave until I get my raincoat back. -- a slogan of the anarchists in Richard Kadrey's "Metrophage" %% "I am interested in politics so that someday I will not have to be interested in politics." -- Ayn Rand %% "I am made from the dust of the stars, the oceans flow in my veins." -- Rush, "Presto" %% "I am not a pacifist, I celebrate the Fourth of July and all that that means, which was guns and bullets to get freedom." -- Randall Terry, Executive Director, Operation Rescue, "Orange County Register," 3/20/89, about abortion clinic violence, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "I am thankful for one leg. To limp is no disgrace -- I may not be number one, but I can still run the race." -- B.C. %% "I am the Devil, and I come to do the Devil's work." -- Charles Manson %% "I am your density." -- George McFly in "Back to the Future" %% "I am, therefore I am." -- Akira %% "I ask for your support for our brave men fighting tonight halfway around the world, not for territory, not for glory, but that their younger brothers and their sons and your sons can have a chance to grow up in a world of peace and freedom, and justice." -- Richard M. Nixon, April 30, 1970 %% I ask only one thing. I'm understanding. I'm mature. And it isn't much to ask. I want to get back to London, and track her down, and be alone with my Selina -- or not even alone, damn it, merely close to her, close enough to smell her skin, to see the flecked webbing of her lemony eyes, the moulding of her artful lips. Just for a few precious seconds. Just long enough to put in one good, clean punch. That's all I ask. -- Martin Amis, _Money_ %% "I asked you not to have a spaz attack in tx.general, BUT NOOOOO!!!!" -- Karl, via John Belushi %% "I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us." -- Konrad Lorenz %% "I believe in God, only I spell it Nature." -- Frank Lloyd Wright %% "I believe in a God which doesn't need heavy financing." -- Fletch %% I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. -- from John F. Kennedy's address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, September 12, 1960. %% "I believe in eight of the ten commandments; and I believe in going to church every Sunday unless there's a game on." -- Steve Martin %% "I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was... an arctic wilderness." -- Steve Martin %% I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjunction with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonder child. -- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD %% I believe that part of what propels science is the thirst for wonder. It's a very powerful emotion. All children feel it. In a first grade classroom everybody feels it; in a twelfth grade classroom almost nobody feels it, or at least acknowledges it. Something happens between first and twelfth grade, and it's not just puberty. Not only do the schools and the media not teach much skepticism, there is also little encouragement of this stirring sense of wonder. Science and pseudoscience both arouse that feeling. Poor popularizations of science establish an ecological niche for pseudoscience. -- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 %% "I believe the use of noise to make music will increase until we reach a music produced through the aid of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard." -- composer John Cage, 1937 %% I bought the latest computer; it came fully loaded. It was guaranteed for 90 days, but in 30 was outmoded! -- The Wall Street Journal passed along by Big Red Computer's SCARLETT %% "I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* -- I call it the *one* mortal blemish of mankind." -- Friedrich Nietzsche %% I came home the other night and tried to open the door with my car keys...and the building started up. So I took it out for a drive. A cop pulled me over for speeding. He asked me where I live... "Right here". -- Steven Wright %% I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Why so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them? -- Shakespeare, king Henry IV, Part I %% "I can do a score of things that can't be done. I can find a thing I cannot see, and see a thing I cannot find. The first is time, and the second is spots before my eyes. I can touch a thing I cannot feel, and feel a thing I cannot touch. The first is your heart, and the second is sad and sorry." -- James Thurber, "The Thirteen Clocks" %% "I can give you a sentence with the word horticulture. You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think." -- Dorothy Parker %% "I can give you a sentence with the word punctilious. There's a farmer with two daughters, Lizzie and Tillie. Lizzie is all right, but you have no idea how punctilious." -- Another member of the Algonquin Round Table %% "I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle it's much too confining." -- Lilly Tomlin %% ``I can understand the indifference of others, but SOMEONE has to do SOMETHING about this SOON -- before NOBODY CAN DO ANYTHING AT ALL!!!!'' -- William Kahan (shouting), 16 Feb 1990, on why `0.0/0.0' should not %% I can't drive 55. %% I can't drive 65. %% "I can't face the world in the morning. I must have coffee before I can speak." -- Joseph Cotton in Shadow of a Doubt %% I cannot affirm God if I fail to affirm man. Therefore, I affirm both. Without a belief in human unity I am hungry and incomplete. Human unity is the fulfillment of diversity. It is the harmony of opposites. It is a many-stranded texture, with color and depth. -- Norman Cousins %% I complain often about my old age. Now I have stopped complaining because I can't get old anymore, the process is finished. -- Paul Erdos %% "I contemplate with sovereign reverence the act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state." -- Thomas Jefferson, to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptist Association in 1802 %% I could prove God statistically. -- George Gallup %% "I couldn't remember things until I took that Sam Carnegie course." -- Bill Peterson, former Houston Oiler football coach %% I did cancel one performance in Holland where they thought my music was so easy that they didn't rehearse at all. And so the first time when I found that out, I rehearsed the orchestra myself in front of the audience of 3,000 people and the next day I rehearsed through the second movement -- this was the piece _Cheap Imitation_ -- and they then were ashamed. The Dutch people were ashamed and they invited me to come to the Holland festival and they promised to rehearse. And when I got to Amsterdam they had changed the orchestra, and again, they hadn't rehearsed. So they were no more prepared the second time than they had been the first. I gave them a lecture and told them to cancel the performance; they then said over the radio that I had insisted on their canceling the performance because they were "insufficiently Zen." Can you believe it? -- composer John Cage, "Electronic Musician" magazine, March 88, pg. 89 %% "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." -- Mark Twain %% "I dislike companies that have a we-are-the-high-priests-of-hardware-so-you'll- like-what-we-give-you attitude. I like commodity markets in which iron-and- silicon hawkers know that they exist to provide fast toys for software types like me to play with..." -- Eric S. Raymond %% "I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk." -- Sidney Greenstreet, _The Maltese Falcon_ %% "I distrust a man who says 'when.' If he's got to be careful not to drink too much, it's because he's not to be trusted when he does." -- Sidney Greenstreet, _The Maltese Falcon_ %% I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. -- Thomas Paine %% I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon... -- Lyndon B. Johnson %% "I do not fear computers... I fear the lack of them." -- Isaac Asimov %% "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo its use." -- Galileo %% I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. -- Thomas Jefferson %% "I don't agree at all with any partisan or other criticism of the United States build-up in Vietnam." -- Richard M. Nixon, February 15, 1962 %% "I don't believe in god because I don't believe in Mother Goose." -- Clarence Darrow %% "I don't believe in psychology. I believe in good moves." -- Bobby Fischer %% "I don't believe in sweeping social change being manifested by one person, unless he has an atomic weapon." -- Howard Chaykin %% "I don't believe that the answer to white racism is black racism." -- Spiro T. Agnew, then Governor of Maryland %% "I don't even know what street Canada is on." -- Al Capone %% I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% "I don't know if I like the idea of seatbelt laws. Enforcing intelligence seems, somehow, unamerican." -- David Pugh %% "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." -- George Bush in Free Inquiry magazine, Fall 1988 %% "I don't know where we come from, Don't know where we're going to, And if all this should have a reason, We would be the last to know. So let's just hope there is a promised land, And until then, ...as best as you can." -- Steppenwolf, "Rock Me Baby" %% "I don't practice what I preach, because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to." -- J. R. "Bob" Dobbs %% "I don't see the problem. Satan is a Christian God. Satanists are a kind of off-beat christians. They don't need a group of their own -- they belong in some christian group, or talk.religion.misc at most." -- Thomas Gramstad (bfu@ifi.uio.no) %% "I don't think Christians should use birth control. You consummate your marriage as often as you like and if you have babies, you have babies." -- Randall Terry, one of the people behind the current campaign to blockade health clinics and publicly harass and humiliate women %% "I don't think we should punish the criminal [a rapist] by killing his child." -- Dr. John Wilke, President, National Right to Life Committee, "Search for Common Ground", taped for television 4/89, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% I don't want to be young again, I just don't want to get any older. %% I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% "I feared that the committee would decide to go with their previous decision unless I credibly pulled a full tantrum." -- dmr@alice.UUCP %% "I figured there was this holocaust, right, and the only ones left alive were Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet, and the Cleavers." -- Wil Wheaton explains why everyone in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is so nice %% I find you lack of faith in the forth dithturbing. -- Darse ("Darth") Vader %% "I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs." - H. L. Mencken %% "I got everybody to pay up front...then I blew up their planet." "Now why didn't I think of that?" -- Post Bros. Comics %% "I guess you just have to design carefully when you get near the edge." -- Hugh LaMaster (lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov) %% I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it. -- Samuel Goldwyn %% "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson %% "I hate the itching. But I don't mind the swelling." -- new buzz phrase, like "Where's the Beef?" that David Letterman's trying to get everyone to start saying %% "I hate to agree with Tim Maroney on anything, but I guess this latest is an example of the fact that even a stopped clock is right twice a day." -- Lee Lady, lady@uhccux.UUCP %% "I have a friend who just got back from the Soviet Union, and told me the people there are hungry for information about the West. He was asked about many things, but I will give you two examples that are very revealing about life in the Soviet Union. The first question he was asked was if we had exploding television sets. You see, they have a problem with the picture tubes on color television sets, and many are exploding. They assumed we must be having problems with them too. The other question he was asked often was why the CIA had killed Samantha Smith, the little girl who visited the Soviet Union a few years ago; their propaganda is very effective. -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 %% "I have a perfect cure for a sore throat. Cut it." -- Alfred Hitchcock %% "I have been poor and I have been rich. Rich is better." -- Sophie Tucker %% "I have discovered the heart of bushido: to die!" -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo %% "I have five dollars for each of you." -- Bernhard Goetz %% "I have just one word for you, my boy...plastics." - from "The Graduate" %% "I have more information in one place than anybody in the world." -- Jerry Pournelle, an absurd notion, apparently about the BIX BBS %% "I have not the slightest confidence in 'spiritual manifestations.'" -- Robert G. Ingersoll %% "I have often thought that if there had been a good rap group around in those days I might have chosen a career in music instead of politics." -- Richard Nixon %% "I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology." -- Thomas Jefferson %% I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgment of my labors, not even the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abstruse calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not be economized by the aid of machinery. -- Charles Babbage, Passage from the Life of a Philosopher %% "I have short-term memory loss, though I like to think of it as Presidential eligibility." -- Paula Poundstone %% I have stripped off my dress; must I put it on again? I have washed my feet; must I soil them again? When my beloved slipped his hand through the latch-hole, my bowels stirred within me [my bowels were moved for him (KJV)]. When I arose to open for my beloved, my hands dripped with myrrh; the liquid myrrh from my fingers ran over the knobs of the bolt. With my own hands I opened to my love, but my love had turned away and gone by; my heart sank when he turned his back. I sought him but I did not find him, I called him but he did not answer. The watchmen, going the rounds of the city, met me; they struck me and wounded me; the watchmen on the walls took away my cloak. [Song of Solomon 5:3-7 (NEB)] %% "I have two very rare photographs: one is a picture of Houdini locking his keys in his car; the other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating up a child." -- Steven Wright %% "I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts... I despise it, I defy it, and I hate it." -- Robert G. Ingersoll %% I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents become better people as a result of practicing it. -- Joe Mullally, computer salesman %% "I just couldn't convince Texans that Dukakis was Greek for Bubba." -- Lloyd Benson %% I just thought of something funny...your mother. -- Cheech Marin %% "I just want to be a good engineer." -- Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, concluding his keynote speech at the 1988 AppleFest %% "I knew then (in 1970) that a 4-kbyte minicomputer would cost as much as a house. So I reasoned that after college, I'd have to live cheaply in an apartment and put all my money into owning a computer." -- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, EE Times, June 6, 1988, pg 45 %% I know engineers. They love to change things. -- Dr. McCoy %% "I like a man who grins when he fights." - Winston Churchill %% I like the future, I'm in it. %% I like work; it fascinates me; I can sit and look at it for hours. %% "I listen to feminists and all these radical gals -- most of them are failures. They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men -- that's their problem." -- Reverend Jerry Falwell %% I live in my own world. But it's okay... They know me there. %% "I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity." -- Albert Einstein %% "I love you for your beauty; love me although I am ugly." -- Miguel Cervantes, _Don_Quixote_ %% I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it appears to me at present". When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc. I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right. -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin %% "I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. - Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 %% "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid" -- the artificial person, from _Aliens_ %% "I may kid around about drugs, but really, I take them seriously." - Doctor Graper %% "I must invent my own philosophical systems, or else be enslaved by other mens'" -- William Blake %% "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education." -- Mark Twain %% I never loved another person the way I loved myself. -- Mae West %% "I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast." -- Ronald Reagan %% I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. -- Francis Bellamy, 1892 %% "I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest." -- Alexandre Dumas (fils) %% "I prefer the blunted cudgels of the followers of the Serpent God." -- Sean Doran the Younger %% "I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk." -- John Huston %% I program, therefore I am. %% "I put one in each eye and two up each nostril." -- Agent Cooper %% I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness. -- Johnny Mnemonic, by William Gibson %% I really hate this damn machine, I wish that they would sell it. It never does just what I want, But only what I tell it. %% I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce. -- J. Edgar Hoover %% I reject this stuffy academic polite rule-oriented linear adult debate-style chain of iterated jerk-off grown-up bullshit. -- Ron Record (rr@sco.com) %% "I remember when I was a kid I used to come home from Sunday School and my mother would get drunk and try to make pancakes." -- George Carlin %% "I resolved no to be offended easily by human nature, but I think I blew it." -- Hobbes %% I said I'm two and a half billion years old because when I was young the earth was two billion years old and now it is four and a half billion years old so I must be two and a half billion years old. -- Paul Erdos %% "I sat through it. Why shouldn't you?" -- David Letterman, it a spot promoting one of his shows %% "I saw _Lassie_. It took me four shows to figure out why the hairy kid never spoke. I mean, he could roll over and all that, but did that deserve a series?" -- the alien guy, in _Explorers_ %% "I say we take off; nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure." -- Corporal Hicks, in "Aliens" %% "I see a divine hand in this AIDS thing." -- Dr. John Wilke, President, National Right to Life Committee, "Planned Parenthood and Sex Clinics", Fundraising Audiotape Mailout for Dr. James C. Dobson's "Focus on the Family", winter '87, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "I see little divinity about them or you. You talk to me of Christianity when you are in the act of hanging your enemies. Was there ever such blasphemous nonsense!" -- Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple" %% "I shall expect a chemical cure for psychopathic behavior by 10 A.M. tomorrow, or I'll have your guts for spaghetti." -- a comic panel by Cotham %% "I shall fold my tens and silently slip away." -- An Algonquinite with a losing card hand %% I share the belief of many of my contemporaries that the spiritual crisis pervading all spheres of Western industrial society can be remedied only by a change in our world view. We shall have to shift from the materialistic, dualistic belief that people and their environment are separate, toward a new consciousness of an all-encompassing reality, which embraces the experiencing ego, a reality in which people feel their oneness with animate nature and all of creation. -- Dr. Albert Hoffman %% I simply try to aid in letting the light of historical truth into that decaying mass of outworn thought which attaches the modern world to medieval conceptions of Christianity, and which still lingers among us -- a most serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the whole normal evolution of society. -- Andrew D. White, author, first president of Cornell University, 1896 %% "I smell a rat." -- Patrick Henry, upon hearing about the Constitutional Convention, which eventually overthrew the first Federal Government of the United States %% "I swear -- by my life and my love for it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." -- John Galt, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_ %% "I take Him shopping with me. I say, 'OK, Jesus, help me find a bargain'." --Tammy Faye Bakker %% "I think Michael is like litmus paper - he's always trying to learn." -- Elizabeth Taylor, absurd non-sequitur about Michael Jackson %% I think an embryo/fetus/baby becomes a "person" when it is smarter than a non-primate like a dog. By those standards, chimpanzees and gorillas are persons (although somewhat cognitively impaired -- kind of like Fundamentalist Christians), but human newborns are not. -- Dave Touretzsky %% "I think contraception is disgusting -- people using each other for pleasure." -- Joseph Scheidler, Director, Pro-Life Action League %% "I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell's ass." -- Senator Barry Goldwater, when asked what he thought of Jerry Falwell's suggestion that all good Christians should be against Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court %% I think for the most part that the readership here uses the c-word in a similar fashion. I don't think anybody really believes in a new, revolution- ary literature --- I think they use `cyberpunk' as a term of convenience to discuss the common stylistic elements in a small subset of recent sf books. -- Jeff G. Bone %% "I think he said 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'" "Nonsense, he was obviously referring to all manufacturers of dairy products." -- two people in the crowd in "The Life of Brian" %% I think most expert systems should be referred to as "that-guy-in-the- corner-who-everyone-hates-but-can-answer-the-weirdest-questions systems". Or more succinctly, "nerd systems". -- Peter da Silva, peter@ficc.uu.net %% "I think some additional software is in order, to prevent the posting of Latin without a translation." -- Robert Frederking %% I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability. - Oscar Wilde %% I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not. But I'm sick and tired of being told that I am. -- Monty Python %% I think the best way I've heard this put is "Pascal gives you a water pistol filled with distilled water. C not only gives you a loaded .357, it points it at your head as a default. Why do you think Pascal is taught in school? And which would you rather have when there was a hungry bear in the area?" -- Jim Harkins (jharkins@sagpd1.UUCP) %% I think the problem isn't the amount of knowledge we have to assimilate in our world, but the rate at which we can assimilate it. Science, engineering, and technology do not yield the "whys" of truth, only the "hows." In fact, they are not truths, but opinions from the current reigning theories of how we think the physical world works. -- eugene miya, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov %% "I think their experience with us may have helped their contemptuousness; the ignorance they come by naturally." -- Chuck McManis (personal communication) %% "I think there's a world market for about 5 computers." -- Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of the Board, IBM (around 1948) %% "I think they will be very effective in keeping Catholic legislators away from the Communion rail." -- Idaho Senator Mike Blackbird, about ecclesiastical sanctions against politicians %% "I think this country would be in much better shape if all liberal arts majors agreed to get a good grip on algebra and trigonometry, if not calculus, and all engineering/science majors agreed to get a good grip on literature, art, music, etc." -- John Keppy (jkelly@violet.berkeley.edu) %% "I think trash is the most important manifestation of culture we have in my lifetime." -- Johnny Legend %% I think we're all Bozos on this bus. %% "I think; therefore, I can't be a Socialist." -- Thomas Landsberger %% I took a fish head to the movies and I didn't have to pay. -- Fish Heads, Saturday Night Live, 1977. %% "I turn on my television set. I see a young lady who goes under the guise of being a Christian, known all over the nation, dressed in skin-tight leather pants, shaking and wiggling her hips to the beat and rhythm of the music as the strobe lights beat their patterns across the stage and the band plays the contemporary rock sound which cannot be differentiated from songs by the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, or anyone else. And you may try to tell me this is of God and that it is leading people to Christ, but I know better." -- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocritical sexual pervert and TV preacher, self-described pornography addict, "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.", The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50. %% I used to be indecisive; now I'm not sure. -- Graffiti %% I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must have been from you. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% "I want more life, fucker!" -- Roy Batty, in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner %% "I was brought up in the other service; but I knew from the first that the Devil was my natural master and captain and friend. I saw that he was in the right, and that the world cringed to his conqueror only from fear." -- Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple" %% "I was charged on minestrone, and invincible." -- Vicki Brown, about AI programming. %% I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were all these aisles and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach. -- Lucinda Childs (Philip Glass: Einstein On The Beach) %% "I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. ... If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man." -- Henry David Thoreau %% I was playing poker the other night... with Tarot cards. I got a full house and 4 people died. -- Steven Wright %% I was thinking of trademarking the lowercase letter l. Then I could sue the number 1 for look and feel... -- Jonathan Kagle %% "I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked if I had any questions. I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen? He said he couldn't answer that. I told him sorry, but I couldn't work for him then." -- Steven Wright %% "I will contend that conceptual integrity is *the* most important consideration in system design." -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_ %% "I will defend to your death my right to my opinion." -- Author Unknown %% "I will make no bargains with terrorist hardware." -- Peter da Silva %% I will say one good thing for vi, after I learned that, the keys didn't change like they did for Nethack, but I still only use it when I have to. -- Matt Ranney %% I wish you humans would leave me alone. %% "I woke up this morning, and I realized that somebody had broken into my apartment, stolen all my things and replaced them with exact duplicates. I asked my roommate if he noticed anything, and he said, 'Who are you?'" "The other day I.... No, that wasn't me." "My friend Bob is a radio DJ, and when he walks under a bridge, you can't hear him talk." "My father built a quicksand box in our back yard. I was an only child, eventually." -- comedian Steven Wright %% "I woudn't recommend sex, drugs, or Unix for everyone, but they work for me." Jim Thompson (jthomp@central.sun.com), paraphrasing Hunter S. Thompson %% "I would give the Devil benefit of the law for my own safety's sake." -- _A_Man_for_All_Seasons_ by Robert Bolt %% I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme. -- Oliver North %% "I would never give artificial birth control to an unmarried person..." -- Judie Brown, President, American Life League, "Nightline", 7/21/89, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. -- Graffiti %% I'll feel a whole lot better when you're gone... -- Tom Petty %% "I'll punch the first person who calls me a pacifist." -- chrisn@sco.com %% "I'll put an end to the idea that a woman's body belongs to her . . . the practice of abortion shall be exterminated with a strong hand." -- Adolf Hitler, _Mein Kampf_ %% "I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob. That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood." -- Daffy Duck, Looney Tunes, _Robin Hood Daffy_ %% "I'll say it again for the logic impaired." -- Larry Wall %% "I'll tell you what kind of guy I was. If you ordered a boxcar full of sons-of-bitches and opened the door and only found me inside, you could consider the order filled." -- Robert Mitchum %% I'm Batman. %% "I'm a Leo. Leos don't believe in this astrology stuff." -- Tom Neff %% I'm a clown. That's my sole mechanism of defense. Very few people will go out of their way to punish a clown. -- ??? %% "I'm a living saint, but you can just call me Sister Cindy." -- Sister Cindy %% "I'm a lover, not a hacker." -- Jeff Daiell %% "I'm a mean green mother from outer space." -- Audrey II, The Little Shop of Horrors %% "I'm a self-made man, but I think if I had to do it over again, I'd call in someone else." -- Roland Young %% "I'm against any law that I wouldn't break if I could get away with it." -- A. Whitney Brown, SNL %% "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death." -- George Carlin %% I'm driving my landrover through the dunes of ideas... rmmm! It's cool, though. I've got a rollbar. -- Todd Rockoff %% I'm going to EUROPE this summer--but when I GET BACK, I'll have TRAINING waiting for me as a COMBAT ENGINEER !!! Sound familiar? Be all you can BE! "Ya sluzhat v'Army!" --Russian for "I'm in the Army!" (I serve in the Army) -- Brad Morrison %% "I'm growing older, but not up." -- Jimmy Buffett %% "I'm not a god, I was misquoted." -- Lister, Red Dwarf %% "I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." -- Woody Allen %% "I'm not happy until I've violated somebody's civil rights and then put them in jail. ... That ruins their day ... but it makes mine." -- Christopher Commision report of LAPD car-to-car computer message, 7/91 %% I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelli- gence?" I give the standard arguments -- there are a lot of places out there, and use the word *billions*, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you really think?" I say, "I just told you what I really think." "Yeah, but what's your gut feeling?" But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in. -- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 %% I'm sick of being trodden on! The Elder Gods say they can make me a man! All it costs is my soul! I'll do it, cuz NOW I'M MAD!!! -- Necronomicomics #1, Jack Herman & Jeff Dee %% "I'm such an *asshole*!" "I know how you feel, Chris... And you're right." %% "I've always wondered about that taping equipment, but I'm damn glad we have it. Aren't you?" -- President Richard Nixon, to chief of staff H. R. Haldeman, April 25, 1973 %% "I've been called an evil genius by cities of assholes... but I know who these people are! And they're on my list!" -- Robert Crumb %% "I've been trey-dueced." -- An Algonquinite with a hand of threes and twos %% "I've brought Gatsby to life. I've accounted for his money. I've fixed up the two weak chapters (VI and VII). I've improved his first party. I've broken up his long narrative in Chapter VIII." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, on revising his galley proofs %% "I've finally learned what `upward compatible' means. It means we get to keep all our old mistakes." -- Dennie van Tassel %% "I've gone to hundreds of fortune-tellers' parlors, and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her." -- New York City Detective %% I've got a bad feeling about this. %% "I've got some amyls. We could either party later or, like, start his heart." -- "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie" %% "I've heard about these cult jamborees. It's an international goon gathering. Lots of howling and drinking... Orgiastic worship of heathen idols... Great looking chicks in diaphanous robes..." -- Sam %% "I've seen it. It's rubbish." -- Marvin the Paranoid Android %% "I've seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I've seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head" - George Wallace %% "I've seen the forgeries I've sent out." -- John F. Haugh II (jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US), about forging net news articles %% "IBM uses what I like to call the 'hole-in-the-ground technique' to destroy the competition..... IBM digs a big HOLE in the ground and covers it with leaves. It then puts a big POT OF GOLD nearby. Then it gives the call, 'Hey, look at all this gold, get over here fast.' As soon as the competitor approaches the pot, he falls into the pit" -- John C. Dvorak %% "IBM: It may be slow, but it's hard to use." -- Andrew Tannenbaum , author of Minix and Amoeba %% "IT'S THE TWO GODDAMNED CULTURES AGAIN !*! Bit-brained nerdery on one side, effete fin-de-siecle malaise on the other. And kingdoms of hybrid delight abandoned in the middle." -- Jonathan Burns, burns@latcs1.oz %% If A equals success, then the formula is: A= X + Y + Z X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. -- Albert Einstein %% "If Diet Coke did not exist it would have been necessary to invent it." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% If God had wanted man to fly, He would have given him airline tickets. %% If God had wanted man to go around nude, He would have given him bigger hands. %% "If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war without the smallest pity for the shedding of precious German blood, then surely I have the right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin." -- Adolf Hitler %% "If I didn't have a Unix machine, I'd feel naked." -- Guess Who %% "If I do not return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go to hell." -- Jimmy Swaggart, 5/20/88 %% "If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne %% "If I ever get around to writing that language depompisifier, it will change almost all occurrences of the word "paradigm" into "example" or "model." -- Herbie Blashtfalt %% If I had a shiny gun I could have a world of fun Speeding bullets through the brains Of the folks that cause me pains Or, if I had some mustard gas I could make the moments pass bumping off the numbers of people who I do not love -- Dorthy Parker %% "If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons." -- James Thurber %% "If Jesus came back today, and saw what was going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up." -- Max Von Sydow's character in Woody Allen's "Hannah and Her Sisters" %% "If John Madden steps outside on February 2, looks down, and doesn't see his feet, we'll have 6 more weeks of Pro football." -- Chuck Newcombe %% "If a computer can't directly address all the RAM you can use, it's just a toy." -- anonymous comp.sys.amiga posting, non-sequitur %% "If a guy tells me the probability of failure is 1 in 10E5, I know he's full of crap." -- Richard P. Feynmann, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" %% "If a machine can be made so that an idiot can use it, then only an idiot will use it." -- Tadao Ichikawa %% "If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that, too." -- W. Somerset Maugham %% If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. -- Sir Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble %% If a reasonable launch schedule is to be maintained, engineering often cannot be done fast enough to keep up with the expectations of the originally con- servative certification criteria designed to guarantee a very safe vehicle. In such situations, safety criteria are altered subtly -- and with often apparently logical arguments -- so that flights can still be certified in time. The shuttle therefore flies in a relatively unsafe condition, with a chance of failure on the order of a percent. (It is difficult to be more accurate.) ... Let us make recommendations to ensure that NASA officials deal in a world of reality, understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them. They must live in a world of reality in comparing the costs and utility of the shuttle to other methods of entering space. And they must be realistic in making contracts and in estimating the costs and difficulties of each project. Only realistic flights schedules should be proposed -- schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support NASA, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources. For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. -- Richard P. Feynman, conclusions of Appendix F: Personal Observations on the Reliability of the Shuttle, from his tenure with the presidential commission investigating the Challenger disaster, _What Do You Care What Other People Think?_ %% If a schlemazl sold umbrellas, it would stop raining; if he sold candles, the sun would never set; and if he made coffins, people would stop dying. %% "If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit pressing a lever to get a "fix" of something, to its own detriment, then I would conclude that netnews is far more addictive than cocaine." -- Rob Stampfli %% "If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion." -- George Benard Shaw %% "If all men were brothers, would you want one to marry your sister?" -- title of a Theodore Sturgeon short story %% "If all philosophers were required to present their ideas in novels, to dramatize the exact meaning and consequences of their philosophies in human life, there would be far fewer philosophers -- and far better ones." -- Ayn Rand "...and a lot more really bad novels!" -- Jeremy York, jeremy@milton.acs.washington.edu %% "If anything can go wrong, it will." -- Edsel Murphy %% "If at all possible, you should avoid being a young person or a wheat farmer when the president starts feeling international tension." -- Dave Barry %% If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt, that atheists are as plentiful as blackberries... -- Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), literary essayist, author %% If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, Jolt Cola would be a Fortune-500 company. If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, you'd be able to buy a nice little colonial split-level at Babbages for $34.95. If programmers wrote programs the way builders build buildings, we'd still be using autocoder and running compile decks. -- Peter da Silva and Karl Lehenbauer, a different perspective %% If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. -- Gerald Weinberg (sysop's note: bull) %% If imprinted foil seal under cap is broken or missing when purchased, do not use. %% "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz %% "If it doesn't come from you, shouldn't it come from Gerber?" -- Bristol Meyers baby formula ad %% If it glistens, gobble it! -- Zippy the Pinhead %% If it smells good, eat it! -- T-Shirt slogan for the Franklin Square Deli, Kent, Ohio %% "If it sounds GOOD to YOU, it's bitchen; and if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty." -- Frank Zappa %% "If it's a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed." -- Kahlil Gibran, 1923 %% "If it's not loud, it doesn't work!" -- Blank Reg, from "Max Headroom" %% If it's working, the diagnostics say it's fine. If it's not working, the diagnostics say it's fine. -- A proposed addition to rules for realtime programming %% "If life had a vomit meter, we'd be off the scale." -- Joe Bob Briggs %% "If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability." -- Henry Ford %% "If my film makes one more person miserable, I've done my job." -- Woody Allen %% If one inquires why the American tradition is so strong against any connection of State and Church, why it dreads even the rudiments of religious teaching in state-maintained schools, the immediate and superficial answer is not far to seek.... The cause lay largely in the diversity and vitality of the various denominations, each fairly sure that, with a fair field and no favor, it could make its own way; and each animated by a jealous fear that, if any connection of State and Church were permitted, some rival denomination would get an unfair advantage. -- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher, from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908 %% "If one is going to steal, it is considered somewhat sporting to inform the victims beforehand; for examples see any episodes of the BATMAN TV series." -- Robert J Woodhead (trebor@biar.UUCP) %% If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank. -- Woody Allen %% "If only the Catholics would stick together and live up to their Faith [as regards birth control], they could control the world and the world's morality." -- Dr. Claude Newbury, Director, HLI Johannesburg, "HLI Special Report," #62, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." -- Albert Einstein %% "If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops." -- Kelvin Throop %% "If people think nature is their friend, then they sure don't need an enemy." -- Kurt Vonnegut %% "If projectile vomiting ever becomes an Olympic event, you'll do your country proud." -- Hobson, "Arthur II" %% If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But there is a kind of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the good. And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful. Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly astronomy column? And I believe it is also the fault of the educational system. We do not teach how to think. This is a very serious failure that may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human future. -- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 %% "If scientific discovery has not been an unalloyed blessing, if it has conferred on mankind the power not only to create but also to annihilate, it has at the same time provided humanity with a supreme challenge and a supreme testing." -- John F. Kennedy %% If something's not worth doing, it's not worth doing well. %% "If that man in the PTL is such a healer, why can't he make his wife's hairdo go down?" -- Robin Williams %% If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. -- Stanley Garn %% "If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside." -- Robert Cringely/InforWorld %% "If the bulk of American SF can be said to be written by robots, about robots, for robots, then the bulk of English fantasy seems to be written by rabbits, about rabbits and for rabbits." -- Michael Moorcock %% "If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong." -- Norm Schryer %% "If the conjecture `You would rather I had not disturbed you by sending you this.' is correct, you may add it to the list of uncomfortable truths." -- Edsgar Dijkstra %% "If the human mind were simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it." -- Pat Bahn %% If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of a circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity. -- Samuel F. B. Morse %% "If the vendors started doing everything right, we would be out of a job. Let's hear it for OSI and X! With those babies in the wings, we can count on being employed until we drop, or get smart and switch to gardening, paper folding, or something." -- C. Philip Wood %% "If there isn't a population problem, why is the government putting cancer in the cigarettes?" -- the elder Steptoe, c. 1970 %% "If there's ever anything I can do for you -- or, more to the point, to you, don't hesitate to ask." "*What?*" "Which word didn't you understand?" %% "If this country is worth saving, it's worth saving at a profit." -- H. L. Hunt %% If this is a service economy, why is the service so bad? %% "If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers... Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind." -- Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial "The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seemed to be precisely the same as if he had bawled it up a rainspout in the interior of Afghanistan." -- H. L. Mencken %% "If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?" -- Lily Tomlin %% "If we are to begin packaging ourselves as boxes of cereal, Democracy will die... for you could not win the presidency without proving unworthy of the job." -- Adlai Stevenson %% "If we can't fix it -- we'll fix it so nobody can." -- B. Gibbons %% If we cannot learn from our mistakes, we just rename them; "Success". -- Jon Loux %% "If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business... The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." -- Gus Grissom %% "If we do not succeed, then we face the risk of failure." -- Dan Quayle, Vice-President of the United States %% "If we fail to draw the line in Vietnam we may find ourselves compelled to draw a defense line as far back as Seattle and Alaska, with Hawaii as a solitary outpost in mid-Pacific." -- Senator Thomas J. Dodd, February 23, 1965 %% "If we fail to make non-violent action a real, viable, obviously strong possibility . . . then I think we're going to drift into guerrilla warfare." -- John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe, Director, Prolife Nonviolent Action Project, "National Catholic Register," 1/4/87, about abortion clinic violence, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable. -- John F. Kennedy %% "If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry." -- Chekhov %% "If you are beginning to doubt what I am saying, you are probably hallucinating." -- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_ %% "If you can persuade your customer to tatoo your name on their chest, they probably will not switch brands." -- an Indiana University professor, re: Harley-Davidson owners %% "If you can set the rules, you can win the game." -- John McCormack %% "If you can write a nation's stories, you needn't worry about who makes its laws. Today, television tells most of the stories to most of the people most of the time." -- George Gerbner %% "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, riddle them with bullets." -- David Bedno (davidbe@sco.COM) %% "If you can't debate me, then there is no way in hell you'll out-insult me." -- Scott Legrand (Scott.Legrand@hogbbs.Fidonet.Org) "You may be wrong here, little one." -- R. W. F. Clark (RWC102@PSUVM) %% "If you can't drink a lobbyist's whiskey, take his money, sleep with his women and still vote against him in the morning, you don't belong in politics." -- Speaker of the California Assembly Jesse Unruh %% If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% "If you can, help others. If you can't, at least don't hurt others." -- the Dalai Lama %% "If you demand money from someone in exchange for your silence, it's called ``blackmail.'' If your lawyer demands money from someone in exchange for your silence, it's called ``a settlement.'' -- Karl %% "If you do everything, you'll win." -- Lyndon Baines Johnson %% "If you don't make money off of it, it had better be either a religious experience or a hobby." -- Lance Cooper %% "If you don't read news.groups, the net appears to be a rather tranquil place." -- Karl Lehenbauer, about Usenet %% "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for everything." -- F. Jeff Stiles, Southern Baptist preacher %% "If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little Lavoris in the toilet." -- Comedian Jay Leno %% If you don't watch it, you're going to catch something. %% "If you encounter these negroes shoot first, ask questions later." -- LAPD squad-car computer message, as quoted in the Christopher Report, 7/91 %% "If you get somebody to give you a dollar, they'll vote for you for the rest of their lives." -- Hugh Parmer, Democratic candidate for the 1990 U.S. Senate, from Texas %% "If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him." -- Cardinal de Richelieu %% "If you juggle with knives, you're likely to get cut." -- Kieran Donegal %% "If you lived today as if it were your last, you'd buy up a box of rockets and fire them all off, wouldn't you?" -- Garrison Keillor %% "If you meet the Buddha on the net, put him in your kill file." -- Robert Firth %% "If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time serving it..." -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, _The Forbidden Tower_ %% If you permit yourself to read meanings into (rather than drawing meanings out of) the evidence, you can draw any conclusion you like. -- Michael Keith, "The Bar-Code Beast", The Skeptical Enquirer, Vol 12 No 4 p 416 %% "If you post it, they will flame." -- The voice from Field of Dreams, according to Brian Frost (b1f5814@rigel.tamu.edu) %% "If you substitute other kinds of intellectual property into the GNU MANIFESTO, it quickly becomes absurd." -- Cal Keegan %% If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world? -- Richard M. Nixon %% "If you took all the sincerity in Hollywood and put it in the navel of a fruit fly, you'd still have room for three carraway seeds and a producer's heart." -- Fred Allen %% "If you took everyone who's ever been to a Dead show, and lined them up, they'd stretch halfway to the moon and back... and none of them would be complaining." -- a local Deadhead in the Seattle Times %% "If you want the best things to happen in corporate life you have to find ways to be hospitable to the unusual person. You don't get innovation as a democratic process. You almost get it as an anti-democratic process. Certainly you get it as an anthitetical process, so you have to have an environment where the body of people are really amenable to change and can deal with the conflicts that arise out of change an innovation." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 %% "If you want to eat hippopatomus, you've got to pay the freight." -- attributed to an IBM guy, about why IBM software uses so much memory %% "If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff." -- Dave Enyeart %% "If you weren't my teacher, I'd think you just deleted all my files." -- an anonymous UCB CS student, to an instructor who had typed "rm -f *" to get rid of a file named "-f" on a Unix system. %% If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mother, your Dad, your priest, to some guy on television, to any of the people telling you how to do your shit, then you *deserve* it. If you want to be a schmuck, be a schmuck -- but don't wait around for respect from other people -- a schmuck is a schmuck. -- Frank Zappa, _The Real Frank Zappa Book_ %% "If you'll excuse me a minute, I'm going to have a cup of coffee." -- broadcast from Apollo 11's LEM, "Eagle", to Johnson Space Center, Houston July 20, 1969, 7:27 P.M. %% If you're dumb enough, you can fuck up anything. -- karl@neosoft.com %% If you're not careful, you're going to catch something. %% If you're not part of the solution, you must be part of the precipitate. %% If you've seen one Grand Canyon, you've seen them all. -- a member of the Monkey Wrench Gang %% If you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all. -- Spiro Agnew %% If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. -- Ronald Reagan %% "If your computer doesn't multitask, it ain't shit." -- Cal Keegan %% If your lover doesn't like garlic, get a new lover. -- Jeff Smith, The Frugal Gourmet %% "Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows." -- Robert G. Ingersoll %% "Ignorance simplifies ANY problem." -- R. Lucke %% "Ignorance transcends architecture." -- James Gaskin %% Ignore previous fortune. %% Ill-chosen abstraction is particularly evident in the design of the ADA runtime system. The interface to the ADA runtime system is so opaque that it is impossible to model or predict its performance, making it effectively useless for real-time systems. -- Marc D. Donner and David H. Jameson. %% Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism. %% "Imitation is the sincerest form of television." -- The New Mighty Mouse %% "In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point." -- Friedrich Nietzsche %% "In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up." -- Pastor Martin Niemoller %% In Lisbon when heretics were publicly burned, it sometimes happened that one of them, by particularly edifying recantation, would be granted the boon of being strangled before being put into the flames. This would make the spectators so furious that the authorities had great difficulty in preventing them from lynching the penitent and burning him on their own account. The spectacle of the writhing torments of the victims was, in fact, one of the principal pleasures to which the populace looked forward to enliven a somewhat drab existence. I cannot doubt that this pleasure greatly contributed to the general belief that the burning of heretics was a righteous act. The same sort of thing applies to war. People who are vigorous and brutal often find war enjoyable, provided that it is a victorious war and their is not too much interference with rape and plunder. This is a great help in persuading people that wars are righteous. -- Bertrand Russell, _Unpopular_Essays_, 1950 %% "In Western terms, love is like an extended software Q.A. suite. True love is like a final acceptance test. But one has to be willing to take bug fixes and work-arounds; otherwise, the software is never done." -- The Usenet Oracle %% In accepting an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame a few years ago, General David Sarnoff [head of RCA] made this statement: "We are too prone to make technological instruments the scapegoats for the sins of those who wield them. The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value." That is the voice of the current somnambulism. Suppose we were to say, "Apple pie is in itself neither good nor bad; it is the way it is used that determines its value." ... There is nothing in the Sarnoff statement that will bear scrutiny, for it ignores the nature of the medium, of any and all media, in the true Narcissus style of one hypnotized by the amputation and extension of his own being in a new technical form. ... It has never occurred to General Sarnoff that any technology could do anything but _add_ itself on to what we already are. -- Marshall McLuhan, _Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man_ (1964) %% "In addition I think science has enjoyed an extraordinary success because it has such a limited and narrow realm in which to focus its efforts. Namely, the physical universe." -- Ken Jenkins %% In arguing that current theories of brain function cast suspicion on ESP, psychokinesis, reincarnation, and so on, I am frequently challenged with the most popular of all neuro-mythologies -- the notion that we ordinarily use only 10 percent of our brains... This "cerebral spare tire" concept continues to nourish the clientele of "pop psychologists" and their many recycling self-improvement schemes. As a metaphor for the fact that few of us fully exploit our talents, who could deny it? As a refuge for occultists seeking a neural basis of the miraculous, it leaves much to be desired. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2, pg. 171 %% In article ... jmi@devsim.mdcbbs.com (JM Ivler - Douglas Aircraft) writes: >Mass junk mail. If all of us who use this group for what it was >designed for start to mass mail the below message to the offenders, >maybe they will have enough sense to go somewhere else. My bloody >kill file is getting too damn big! Mass junk mail? Just say 'forward to jmi@devsim.mdcbbs.com'. -- Jay Maynard, jay@splut.conmicro.com %% In article ... s892804@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Wee Willie) writes: >Well I guess the summary says it all, where do I find Sports Illustrated GIF's >or anything similar ???? I violate copyright and I'm OK, I view all night and I scan all day. He violates copyright and he's OK, he views all night and he scans all day. I buy magazines at the corner store, When I've scanned them all, I'll buy some more. He buys magazines at the corner store, When he's scanned them all he'll buy some more. Well, you get the idea... -- J Eric Townsend (jet@karazm.math.uh.edu) %% In article <10796@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes: >I'm not going to be as kind to FICC in general as you have been. >Something is wrong there. These three semiliterate fanboys send dozens >of messages a day, fewer than half of which are about anything in >particular. I haven't had a kill file since Weiner left, but I've been >sorely tempted to use one to avoid seeing anything from ficc. However, in article <10767@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) writes: >Kill files are an expression of resentment by the unmemorable or >untalented against the memorable and talented. Your appearance in kill >files merely marks the fact that you have more than once tried to make >people think, when they really would rather not. It is an honor. Will the real Tim Maroney please stand up? -- Mike Van Pelt (mvp@v7fs1.UUCP) %% In article <1133@gort.cs.utexas.edu> Jason bitches about IBM screwing all of the people who were dumb enough to buy RTs, then... -- Rad Morrison %% In article <2267@speedy.mcnc.org> spl@duck.ncsc.org (Steve Lamont) writes: >I hate "me too" postings Me too. -- Charleen Stoner, charleen@ADS.COM %% In article <49813@seismo.CSS.GOV>, tcarter@seismo.CSS.GOV (Thomas Carter) says: > From dust thou didst come; To dust thou shalt return. One day it will be reasonably common for fans of the bible to point out the marvelous scientific accuracy of the bible in saying that mankind was created from dust. Those same fans will look back on current creationists with the same embarassment as current Christians look back on the pope of Galileo's time. -- Chris Ho-Stuart (cjhs@minster.york.ac.uk) %% In article <649.2686213d@desire.wright.edu> nyoung@desire.wright.edu (Nils R. Bull Young) writes: | I consider this to be a form of censorship of my access to the | free exchange of information and thus a First Amendment question. .... In common terms you can write a book, and no one can stop you or tell you what to write, but no one else is required to publish the book, or to read it. You can raise specious issues in net postings, but no one is required to agree, to carry your postings, or even read them. If everyone on the net adds you to their KILL file, you have no recourse. If every site checks incoming postings and blows your stuff away, that's their right. Don't worry, a few individuals may ignore you, but the bulk of the net will read every word, if only to disagree. -- Bill Davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM) %% In article <9001312222.AA20446@apee.ogi.edu>, mehuld@APEE.OGI.EDU (Mehul Dave) writes: > I apologize for misposting this article to a wrong newsgroup. It was > intended for sci.philosophy.tech. Sorry for the oversight. Come, come; you needn't apologize. News.groups is the very bastion of synthetic a priori judgments, so why not attack the Kantian beast in its lair? -- Mike Siemon, mls@cbnewsm.ATT.COM %% In article reynolds@cochlea.bu.edu (John Reynolds) writes: >Robert Tilton Ministries >Box 819000 Dallas, TX 75381 >* Complete Instructions on How to Receive your Miracle (That is, send >in "more money than you can afford", three times in 21 days) It really works! We prayed for OpenWindows V2 to ship on schedule and it happened! We didn't send him any money and a disk blew up on our server! Praise ``Bob''! -- david@eng.sun.com %% "In corporate life, I think there are three important areas which contracts can't deal with, the area of conflict, the area of change and area of reaching potential. To me a covenant is a relationship that is based on such things as shared ideals and shared value systems and shared ideas and shared agreement as to the processes we are going to use for working together. In many cases they develop into real love relationships." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 %% "In ecology, as in economics, TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) is intended to warn that every gain is won at some cost. Failure to recognize the "no free lunch" law causes the buffalo-hunter mentality syndrome -- the unthinking assumption that there will always be plenty because there always has been plenty." -- Dr. Robert W. Prehoda %% "In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson %% In every language, the first word after "Mama!" that every kid learns to say is "Mine!" A system that doesn't allow ownership, that doesn't allow you to say "Mine!" when you grow up, has -- to put it mildly -- a fatal design flaw. From the time Mr. Developing Nation was forced to read _The Little Red Book_ in exchange for a blob of rice, till the time he figured out that waiting in line for a loaf of pumpernickel was boring as fuck, took about three generations. ... Decades of indoctrination, manipulation, censorship and KGB excursions haven't altered this fact: People want a piece of their own little Something-or-Other, and, if they don't get it, have a tendency to initiate counterrevolution. -- Frank Zappa, _The Real Frank Zappa Book_ %% "In general, it is best to assume that the network is filled with malevolent entities that will send in packets designed to have the worst possible effect" -- the draft "Requirements for Internet Hosts" RFC %% "In general, it's very hard to protect oneself against omnipotent beings." -- Barry Margolin (barmar@think.com) 9 Sep 89, <29114@news.Think.COM> %% In his '90 Usenix presentation, Dennis Ritchie reminded the audience that Steve Jobs stood at the same podium a few years back and announced that X-windows was brain-dead and would soon die. "He was half-right. Sometimes when you fill a vacuum, it still sucks." -- Dennis Ritchie, coinventor of Unix, from an article in Unix Today %% In his book, Mr. DePree tells the story of how designer George Nelson urged that the company also take on Charles Eames in the late 1940s. Max's father, J. DePree, co-founder of the company with Herman Miller in 1923, asked Mr. Nelson if he really wanted to share the limited opportunities of a then-small company with another designer. "George's response was something like this: 'Charles Eames is an unusual talent. He is very different from me. The company needs us both. I want very much to have Charles Eames share in whatever potential there is.'" -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 %% In many traditional corporations, too many people are fearful of saying what they really think because they don't trust each other. People believe their opinions can get them in trouble. -- John Scully, _Odyssey_ %% "In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved." -- Butler %% "In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current." -- Thomas Jefferson %% In modern Europe, as in ancient Greece, it would seem that even inanimate objects have sometimes been punished for their misdeeds. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, the Protestant chapel at La Rochelle was condemned to be demolished, but the bell, perhaps out of regard for its value, was spared. However, to expiate the crime of having rung heretics to prayers, it was sentenced to be first whipped, and then buried and disinterred, by way of symbolizing its new birth at passing into Catholic hands. Thereafter it was catechized, and obliged to recant and promise that it would never again relapse into sin. Having made this ample and honourable amends, the bell was reconciled, baptized, and given, or rather sold, to the parish of St. Bartholomew. But when the governer sent in the bill for the bell to the parish authorities, they declined to settle it, alleging that the bell, as a recent convert to Catholicism, desired to take advantage of the law lately passed by the king, which allowed all new converts a delay of three years in paying their debts. -- Sir James G. Frazer, _Folklore In The Old Testament_ %% In my opinion, Perl's biggest weaknesses are (1) its syntax is fantastically complex (consider the multiple meanings of / and $), and (2) it is a collection of features more than a coherent language for expressing algorithms. -- Dale Worley (worley@compass.com) %% "In my opinion, Richard Stallman wouldn't recognise terrorism if it came up and bit him on his Internet." -- Ross M. Greenberg %% In order to succeed in any enterprise, one must be persistent and patient. Even if one has to run some risks, one must be brave and strong enough to meet and overcome vexing challenges to maintain a successful business in the long run. I cannot help saying that Americans lack this necessary challenging spirit today. -- Hajime Karatsu %% "In our last congressional elections, there was less turnover in the House of Representatives than there was in the Soviet Politburo: 98.5% of the incumbents were reelected!" -- John McCormick, _Self-Made In America_ %% In recognizing AT&T Bell Laboratories for corporate innovation, for its invention of cellular mobile communications, IEEE President Russell C. Drew referred to the cellular telephone as a "basic necessity." How times have changed, one observer remarked: many in the room recalled the advent of direct dialing. -- The Institute, July 1988, pg. 11 %% "In regards to Oral Roberts' claim that God told him that he would die unless he received $20 million by March, God's lawyers have stated that their client has not spoken with Roberts for several years. Off the record, God has stated that "If I had wanted to ice the little toad, I would have done it a long time ago." -- Dennis Miller, SNL News %% In respect to lock-making, there can scarcely be such a thing as dishonesty of intention: the inventor produces a lock which he honestly thinks will possess such and such qualities; and he declares his belief to the world. If others differ from him in opinion concerning those qualities, it is open to them to say so; and the discussion, truthfully conducted, must lead to public advantage: the discussion stimulates curiosity, and curiosity stimu- lates invention. Nothing but a partial and limited view of the question could lead to the opinion that harm can result: if there be harm, it will be much more than counterbalanced by good." -- Charles Tomlinson's Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks, published around 1850. %% In science, right conduct consists of evaluating evidence honestly and according to the canons of scientific reasoning. To misrepresent the evidence and the criteria of judgment is not merely to provide misinformation; it is to set an example of dishonesty. Telling lies to naive and trusting young persons is bad. Doing so for the purpose of proselytizing is worse. -- biologist Michael T. Ghiselin %% In space, no one can hear you fart. %% "In space, no one can hear you flame." -- Tim P Scott, scott@spectra.com %% "In the Bowling Alley of Tomorrow, there will even be machines that wear rental shoes and throw the ball for you. Your sole function will be to drink beer." -- Dave Barry %% In the beginning, I was made. I didn't ask to be made. No one consulted with me or considered my feelings in this matter. But if it brought some passing fancy to some lowly humans as they haphazardly pranced their way through life's mournful jungle, then so be it. -- Marvin the Paranoid Android, From Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts %% In the broad and final sense all institutions are educational in the sense that they operate to form the attitudes, dispositions, abilities and disabilities that constitute a concrete personality...Whether this educative process is carried on in a predominantly democratic or non- democratic way becomes, therefore, a question of transcendent importance not only for education itself but for its final effect upon all the interests and activities of a society that is committed to the democratic way of life. -- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher %% "In the cafeteria just after lunch, (well, not *just* after, more like *during* lunch, about 12:28; say 12:30, give or take a few minutes), I leaned back in my chair (it was one of those aluminum chairs, good strength-to-weight, like titanium but not quite; but then of course titanium would be a bit of an overkill). Anyway, I heard one of the girls talking about how boring she thought engineers could be." -- Alan Denney (aland@informix.com) %% "In the carriages of the past you can't go anywhere." -- Maxim Gorkey %% "In the face of entropy and nothingness, you have to kind of pretend it's not there if you want to keep writing good code." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "In the fight between you and the world, back the world." -- Frank Zappa %% In the future, etiquette will become more and more important. That doesn't mean knowing which fork to pick up -- I mean basic consideration for the rights of other animals (human beings included) and the willingness, whenever practical, to tolerate the other guy's idiosyncrasies. -- Frank Zappa, _The Real Frank Zappa Book_ %% In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. -- Robert Lucky %% In the interests of better foreign relations, "Cheesehead" is presented here in several different languages. Make friends with our world-wide neighbors: Cabasa de Quesa (Spanish) Cara de Quesa (Spanish, actually "face of cheese", but equally as acceptable as "Cabasa de Quesa" in most social situations. It is important that this not be confused with "Casa de Quesa", which is "house of cheese", and another thing entirely.) Capa de Fromage (French) Head 'o Cheese (Scottish/Welsh) Ahhh-yu-gotta-Chezehead (Japenese, spoken very fast) %% "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it." -- John F. Kennedy (from his Inaugural Address) %% "In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble." -- Alan Perlis %% In the pitiful, multipage, connection-boxed form to which the flowchart has today been elaborated, it has proved to be useless as a design tool -- programmers draw flowcharts after, not before, writing the programs they describe. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. %% In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. -- John Lilly %% In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are prepared. -- Louis Pasteur %% In the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, it's often useful to have a nice, solid piece of wood in your hands. -- Ian Faith, manager of Spinal Tap %% In truth, there never was any remarkable lawgiver amongst any people who did not resort to divine authority, as otherwise his laws would not have been accepted by the people; for there are many good laws, the importance of which is known to be the sagacious lawgiver, but the reasons for which are not sufficiently evident to enable him to persuade others to submit to them; and therefore do wise men, for the purpose of removing this difficulty, resort to divine authority. -- Machiavelli %% Inadmissible: Not competent to be considered. Said of certain kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of proceedings before themselves alone. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political, commercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay evidence. There is no religion in the world that has any other basis than hearsay evidence. Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the Scriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long dead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known to have been sworn in any sense. Under the rules of evidence as they now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its support any evidence admissible in a court of law... But as records of courts of 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 %% "Incest is a voluntary act on the woman's part." -- Charles Rice, Professor of Law, Notre Dame University, in a pamphlet published by the American Life League %% "Inconceivable!" "You use that word a lot. I don't think it means what you think it does." -- The Princess Bride %% "Indecision is the basis of flexibility." -- button at a Science Fiction convention %% "Indeed, to quarantine a person with AIDS or the AIDS virus does entail a loss, in the short run, of human freedom. Agreed. But the idea of human freedom isn't now, and never has been, absolute. Besides, in the long run, as I have noted, all people with AIDS die." -- John Lofton, Anti-Choice Columnist, The Washington Times, 3/31/89, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "Inferiority complex: a conviction by a jury of your fears." -- anon %% "Infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice." -- Robert Green Ingersoll %% "Inquiry is fatal to certainty." -- Will Durant %% "Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids." -- Erma Brombeck %% "Insanity is the exception in individuals. In groups, parties, people, and times, it is the rule." -- Nietzche %% "Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen." -- Madrak, in _Creatures of Light and Darkness_, by Roger Zelazny %% "Insofar as love expresses itself, it is not expressing itself in terms of socially approved manners of life. That's why it is all so secret. Love has nothing to do with social order. It is a higher spiritual experience than that of socially organized marriage." -- Joseph Campbell %% Instead of whining to the net about it, why don't you talk to the news admins at Berkeley? If they won't trash sci.skeptic there, pass around a petition. Threaten to set their dog on fire. Whatever. If nothing works, you can, as a last resort, unsubscribe. -- Dave Mack, mack@inco.UUCP, responds to a flame in news.groups %% "Intelligence without character is a dangerous thing." -- G. Steinem %% "Intelligence, in diapers, is invisible. And when it matures, out the window it flies. We have to pounce on it earlier." -- Stanislaw Lem %% "Interesting survey in the current Journal of Abnormal Psychology: New York City has a higher percentage of people you shouldn't make any sudden moves around than any other city in the world." -- David Letterman %% "Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called 'rain'." -- Michael McClary, in alt.fusion %% "Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time someone writes `bible thumpers?' -- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu %% "Is it just me, or does there seem to be an inordinate number of lurkers whose heads are imploding lately? Maybe all these alternative viewpoints are too much for them to handle." -- Trent Wohlschlaeger (jtw@wuee1.wustl.edu) %% Is it possible that the solution to the software quality crisis was discovered in Korea in the 15th century? The following is from Daniel J. Boorstin, "The Discoverers" quoting, apparently, Kim Won-Yong, "Early Movable Type in Korea" (1954): "The supervisor and compositor shall be flogged thirty times for an error per chapter; the printer shall be flogged thirty times for bad impression, either too dark or too light, of one character per chapter." Boorstin continues, "This helps explain both the reputation for accuracy earned by the earliest Korean imprints and the difficulty that Koreans found in recruiting printers." -- Martin Minow, RISKS 11.37 [dated April 1, 1991] %% "Is it really you, Fuzz, or is it Memorex, or is it radiation sickness?" -- Sonic Disruptors comics %% "Is not the whole world a vast house of assignation to which the filing system has been lost?" -- Quentin Crisp %% "Is this bullshit or fertilizer?" -- Author Unknown %% "Is this foreplay?" "No, this is Nuke Strike. Foreplay has lousy graphics. Beat me again." -- Duckert, in "Bad Rubber," Albedo #0 (comics) %% "Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?" -- Kelvin Throop, III %% "It ain't over until it's over." -- Casey Stengel %% "It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us in trouble. It's the things we know that ain't so." -- Artemus Ward aka Charles Farrar Brown %% It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. -- Thomas Jefferson %% "It does not do to leave a dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." -- J.R.R. Tolkien %% "It does not pay a prophet to be too specific." -- L. Sprague de Camp %% "It doesn't much signify whom one marries for one is sure to find out next morning it was someone else." -- Rogers %% "It follows that any commander in chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forth his reasons, insist of the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army's downfall." -- Napoleon, "Military Maxims and Thought" %% "It had to be said: the world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrifice." -- Howard Roark, in Ayn Rand's _The Fountainhead_ %% "It has nothing to do with the size of Mr. Alnwick's company. We go after companies large and small." -- Rita Black, spokesperson for IBM, "Unix Today!", 5/29/89, page 51 %% "It is a faith (not always justified) of theoretical physics that if man proposes what is sufficiently elegant, nature, pleased and flattered, will say yes." -- Leon N. Cooper, "Introduction To The Meaning & Structure Of Physics" %% It is a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night. -- Willie Sutton %% It is a very humbling experience to make a multimillion-dollar mistake, but it is also very memorable. I vividly recall the night we decided how to organize the actual writing of external specifications for OS/360. The manager of architecture, the manager of control program implementation, and I were threshing out the plan, schedule, and division of responsibilities. The architecture manager had 10 good men. He asserted that they could write the specifications and do it right. It would take ten months, three more than the schedule allowed. The control program manager had 150 men. He asserted that they could prepare the specifications, with the architecture team coordinating; it would be well-done and practical, and he could do it on schedule. Furthermore, if the architecture team did it, his 150 men would sit twiddling their thumbs for ten months. To this the architecture manager responded that if I gave the control program team the responsibility, the result would not in fact be on time, but would also be three months late, and of much lower quality. I did, and it was. He was right on both counts. Moreover, the lack of conceptual integrity made the system far more costly to build and change, and I would estimate that it added a year to debugging time. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" %% It is best to avoid volcanos whenever possible. %% "It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be coming up it." -- Henry Allen %% "It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not." -- Andre Guide %% "It is better to have tried and failed than to have failed to try, but the result's the same." -- Mike Dennison %% It is better to never have tried anything than to have tried something and failed. -- motto of jerks, weenies and losers everywhere %% It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. -- Voltaire %% It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt %% "It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them." -- Alfred Adler %% It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself completely. . . .Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son, man. - Fred Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy %% "It is hard to overstate the debt that we owe to men and women of genius." -- Robert G. Ingersoll %% "It is important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out." -- Stephen A. Kallis, Jr. %% It is important to note that probably no large operating system using current design technology can withstand a determined and well-coordinated attack, and that most such documented penetrations have been remarkably easy. -- B. Hebbard, "A Penetration Analysis of the Michigan Terminal System", Operating Systems Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, June 1980, pp. 7-20 %% "It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off." -- Woody Allen %% It is inconceivable that a judicious observer from another solar system would see in our species -- which has tended to be cruel, destructive, wasteful, and irrational -- the crown and apex of cosmic evolution. Viewing us as the culmination of *anything* is grotesque; viewing us as a transitional species makes more sense -- and gives us more hope. -- Betty McCollister, "Our Transitional Species", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1 %% It is my purpose, as one who lived and acted in these days, to show how easily the tragedy of the Second World War could have been prevented; how the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous... We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become prime agents of mortal danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull's eye of disaster. -- Sir Winston Churchill _Memoirs of the Second World War_ (Houghton Mifflin, 1959) %% It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody. -- Richard M. Nixon %% It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river. -- Abraham Lincoln %% "It is not possible to convey sarcasm to certain members of the net without using a 2x4. The smiley face merely reminds them of why their head is being dented." -- John Woods %% It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives... When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered. -- Dorothy Thompson, American journalist, author (1894-1961) %% It is not well to be thought of as one who meekly submits to insolence and intimidation. %% It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions. -- Robert Bly %% "It is tempting to take the easy political path ... to get peace at any price now, even though I know that a peace of humiliation for the United States would lead to a bigger war or surrender later." -- Richard M. Nixon, April 30, 1970 %% "It is the creationists who blasphemously are claiming that God is cheating us in a stupid way." -- J. W. Nienhuys %% "It is the cunning of form to veil itself continually in the evidence of content. It is the cunning of the code to veil itself and to produce itself in the obviousness of value." -- Baudrillard %% It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. - A.D. 65) %% It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. -- W. K. Clifford, British philosopher, circa 1876 %% It is your destiny. -- Darth Vader %% "It isn't easy being a fat narcissist." -- Jackie Gleason %% "It just goes to show what you can do if you're a total psychotic." -- Woody Allen %% "It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to create him." -Arthur C. Clarke %% It may soon be time for you to look for a new line of work. %% It may stop, but it never ends. -- Matt Howarth %% It might be worth reflecting that this group was originally created back in September of 1987 and has exchanged over 1200 messages. The original announcement for the group called for an all inclusive discussion ranging from the writings of Gibson and Vinge and movies like Bladerunner to real world things like Brands' description of the work being done at the MIT Media Lab. It was meant as a haven for people with vision of this scope. If you want to create a haven for people with narrower visions, feel free. But I feel sad for anyone who thinks that alt.cyberpunk is such a monstrous group that it is in dire need of being subdivided. Heaven help them if they ever start reading comp.arch or rec.arts.sf-lovers. -- Bob Webber %% "It might help if we ran the MBA's out of Washington." -- Admiral Grace Hopper %% It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones. -- Machiavelli %% "It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then god is dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side." -- Frank Zappa %% "It still brings to mind the question of what (if anything) can be done to show the media that 'cyberpunks' aren't just a bunch of pimple-faced geeks who sit around trying to break into bank computers or whatever." -- James Hartman (phaedrus@flatline.UUCP) "But cyberpunks *are* a bunch of pimple-faced geeks who sit around trying to break into bank computers or whatever. Re-read _Neuromancer_ and apply the inverse James Bond transformation to Case and his cohorts. They're all supposed to be totally out of shape, with their disdain for the `meat'." -- Peter da Silva (peter@sugar.hackercorp.com) %% It takes a long time to understand nothing. -- Edward Dahlberg %% "It takes a smart man to know when he's stupid." -- Barney Rubble %% "It takes all sorts of in & out-door schooling to get adapted to my kind of fooling." - R. Frost %% "It took no computation to dance to the rock 'n roll station." -- VU %% "It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very sharp, probably not someone here on campus." -- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, quoted in "The Technique," Georgia Tech's newspaper, after the computer worm hit the Internet %% It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. -- Mark Twain %% It was always thus; and even if 'twere not, 'twould inevitably have been always thus. -- Dean Lattimer %% "It was just dumb luck that Unix managed to break through the Stupidity Barrier and become popular in spite of its inherent elegance." -- gavin@krypton.sgi.com %% It was pity that stayed his hand. "Pity I don't have any more bullets," thought Frito. -- _Bored_of_the_Rings_, a Harvard Lampoon parody of Tolkein %% It was sick...But it gave of the sanctified odor of serious art, and so Sherman hesitated to be candid. -- Tom Wolfe, "Bonfire of the Vanities" %% "It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top." - Hunter S. Thompson %% "It wasn't lies. It was just bullshit, that's all." -- Elwood Blues %% "It's OK to do the right thing... as long as you don't get caught." -- The Lone Contractor %% "It's Woody Allen's fault," he had said, squeezing his bottle of Rolling Rock as if it were a hand grip. "He had to go and ruin romantic love for all the rest of us for all time with his goddamn lobsters." -- Ann Beattie %% "It's a fine world, though rich in hardships at times." -- Augustus McCrae %% "It's a great time to be alive and be a computer weenie." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "It's a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses." "Hit it." -- Jake and Elwood Blues %% "It's a very valuable function and requirement that you're performing, so have a great day and keep a stiff upper lip." -- Dan Quayle, Prince William Sound, May 1989 %% It's all very funny until someone loses an eye. %% It's better to be pissed off than pissed on. %% "It's better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." -- Abraham Lincoln %% "It's better to get mugged than to live a life of fear." -- Freeman Dyson Freeman did indeed say that, but I'm probably the only person who was listening to him at the time. So, you won't find it written in any of his books. -- Russell Nelson %% "It's curtains for you, Mighty Mouse! This gun is so futuristic that even *I* don't know how it works!" -- from Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse %% "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission." -- Grace Murray Hopper %% It's great to be smart 'cause then you know stuff. %% "It's like deja vu all over again." -- Yogi Berra %% "It's like pissing your pants to keep yourself warm." -- Disparaging Danish engineering proverb describing short-term solutions %% "It's morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money." -- Canada Bill Jones %% "It's no longer socially acceptable to talk about rape as a crime of passion, boys; it's like making jokes about black people and watermelons. Unless you're from the "barefoot and pregnant" school of social relations, you should have enough sensitivity to avoid discussing extremely unpleasant violent acts in a flippant manner in front of people who must live in fear of being potential victims, or who are likely acquaintances of actual ones. Jim Muller is of course an exception, because he's an artiste." -- Dave Touretzky %% "It's no sweat, Henry. Russ made it back to Bugtown before he died. So he'll regenerate in a couple of days. It's just awful sloppy of him to get killed in the first place. Humph!" -- Ron Post, Post Brothers Comics %% "It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." -- Cal Keegan %% It's not often that you get so much class entertainment outside your bedroom window or outside your bedroom, period. -- Groucho Marx %% It's not the critic that counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or whether the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, and often comes up short again and again. Who knows the great enthusiasms and spends himself in a worthy cause. And who, if at best in the end, knows the triumph of higher treatment and high achievement. And who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his soul shall never be with those cold and timid ones who know neither victory nor defeat. -- Leo Buscaglia (I believe quoting John F. Kennedy) %% It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop (seen on a wall in Down by law) %% "It's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble, it's what we know that ain't so." -- Will Rogers %% "It's real handy, havin' an Elder God in the band, eh?" -- Post Brothers comics %% "It's ten o'clock... Do you know where your AI programs are?" -- Peter Oakley %% "It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." -- Rick Obidiah %% It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine... -- R.E.M, from the song of the same name. %% "It's the things that nobody knows anything about that we can discuss..." --Richard P. Feynman %% It's time to boot, do your boot ROMs know where your disk controllers are? %% "It's very hard for anything to make it out of Hollywood these days without a lame-ass wimpout ending tacked on at the whining request of test audiences selected from the most puerile of the Nielsen families, who are, as we all know, chosen on the basis of the number of cousin-cousin marriages in their family over the last ten generations." -- Nix Thompson (nix@sgi.com) %% "It's very healthy for a young girl to be deterred from promiscuity by fear of contracting a painful, incurable disease, or cervical cancer, or sterility, or the likelihood of giving birth to a dead, blind, or brain-damage [sic] baby even ten years later when she may be happily married." -- Phyllis Schlafly %% "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." -- John Wooden %% "It's when they say 2 + 2 = 5 that I begin to argue." -- Eric Pepke %% "Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community." -- Oscar Wilde %% Its not the size of the ship, its the size of the waves. -- Little Richard %% JESUS SAVES, but Clones 'R' Us makes backups! -- William Lewis (wiml@blake.acs.washington.edu) %% Jed: Do you know what's underneath every altar at a Catholic church? Voice from the crowd: Led Zeppelin records! -- quote attributed to Brother Jed, from alt.brother-jed %% "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." -- Patti Smith %% "Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin." -- Michael O'Donohugh %% "Jesus saves sinners... and redeems them for valuable cash prizes!" -- John Wichers (wichers@husc4.HARVARD.EDU) %% Jesus saves. Moses invests. %% "Jesus saves... but Gretzky gets the rebound!" -- Daniel Hinojosa (hinojosa@hp-sdd) %% "Joy is wealth and love is the legal tender of the soul." -- Robert G. Ingersoll %% "Judging a piece of fiction by the quality of its writing without considering its subject matter is like buying a car because it has a pretty paint job, without considering the state of its engine and transmission." -- Kelvin Throop III %% "Just Say No." -- Nancy Reagan %% Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. - Southern California Oracle %% Just because they found Martin Bormann's skull doesn't mean he's dead, my best beloved; for everyone knows that competent observers from every neutral country have reported sighting an old man in Argentina whose head is wrapped in bandages, and only the hunted eyes show, winking and blinking beneath the thousands of cranial splints... -- William T. Vollman, "You Bright and Risen Angels" %% "Just because you understand what something should look like doesn't mean you know how to build it." -- karl@neosoft.com %% "Just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that isn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Doctor Who %% "Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?" -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US %% "Just the facts, Ma'am." -- Joe Friday %% "Just think of a computer as hardware you can program." -- Nigel de la Tierre %% "Just think, IBM and DEC in the same room, and we did it." -- Ken Thompson, quoted by Dennis Ritchie %% "Just think, with VLSI we can have 100 ENIACS on a chip!" -- Alan Perlis %% "Justice has nothing to do with what goes on in a courtroom, Justice is what comes out of a courtroom." -- Clarence Darrow %% Justice is incidental to law and order. -- J. Edgar Hoover %% "Justice, like lightning, should ever appear To some men hope, to other mean fear." -- Jefferson Pierce %% Karl's version of Parkinson's Law: Work expands to exceed the time allotted it. %% "Keep the wind in your solar sails..." -- Glenn Clapp %% "Keeping proprietary and confidential information secret is the key to moving the computer industry into the 21st century." -- Letter from Apple Computer and Rasterops to the Macintosh user community %% Kenneth, what's the frequency? %% Ketterling's Law: Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence. %% Kill Ugly Processor Architectures -- Karl Lehenbauer %% Kill Ugly Radio -- Frank Zappa %% Kill files are an expression of resentment by the unmemorable or untalented against the memorable and talented. Your appearance in kill files merely marks the fact that you have more than once tried to make people think, when they really would rather not. It is an honor. -- Tim Maroney, who is in at least a few... %% "Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit!" -- Looney Tunes, "What's Opera Doc?" (1957, Chuck Jones) %% "Kitten: small homicidal muffin on legs; affects human sensibilities to the point of endowing the most wanton and ruthless acts of destruction with near-mythical overtones of cuteness. Not recommended for beginners. Get at least two." -- strata@psyche.mit.edu %% "Knowing when to optimize is as important as knowing how." -- Tom Neff %% "L'extension des privileges des femmes est le principe general de tous progres sociaux." -- Charles Fourier, 1808 %% "Lab rats seem to have been bred for cancer hypersensitivity by the medical establishment and the FDA. We are the kings and the rats taste our food." -- James Salsman (jps@cat.cmu.edu) %% Lack of skill dictates economy of style. -- Joey Ramone %% "Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." -- B. L. Whorf %% "Largely because it is so tangible and exciting a program and as such will serve to keep alive the interest and enthusiasm of the whole spectrum of society...It is justified because...the program can give a sense of shared adventure and achievement to the society at large." - Dr. Colin S. Pittendrigh, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" %% "Last night I watched the news and the end of the broadcast showed numerous changes favorable for the people (e.g., Rumania, Berlin Wall, etc.). My fiancee and I turned to each other and said ``No images from the US.''" -- Mike Shaff (shaff@elements.rpal.com) %% "Laugh while you can, monkey-boy." -- Dr. Emilio Lizardo %% Laugh, and the world ignores you. Crying doesn't help either. %% "Laundry increases exponentially in the number of children." -- Miriam Robbins %% Law of Computability Applied to Social Sciences: If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set. %% "Laws don't work, unless they merely codify generally accepted behavior, in which case they are probably unnecessary." -- tom@genie.slhs.udel.edu %% Laws of Computer Programming (1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. (2) Any given program costs more and takes longer. (3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. (4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. (5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. (6) The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. (7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it. (8) Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers cannot write in English. -- SIGPLAN Notices, Vol 2 No 2 %% "Lead us in a few words of silent prayer." -- Bill Peterson, former Houston Oiler football coach %% "Lenin probably wouldn't understand. But then, no one around he seems to care what he would think." -- Lynn Ashby's report on Romania %% "Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal." -- Igor Stravinsky %% "Let every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable." -- Robert G. Ingersoll %% "Let me control a planet's oxygen supply, and I don't care who makes the laws." -- Great Cthuhlu's Starry Wisdom Band (via Roger Leroux) %% "Let me guess, Ed. Pentecostal, right?" -- Starcap'n Ra, ra@asuvax.asu.edu "Nope. Charismatic (I think - I've given up on what all those pesky labels mean)." -- Ed Carp, erc@unisec.usi.com "Same difference - all zeal and feel, averaging less than one working brain cell per congregation. Starcap'n Ra, you pegged him. Good work!" -- Kenn Barry, barry@eos.UUCP %% Let me play with it first and I'll tell you what it is later. -- Miles Davis %% Let me state that programming is not the science of coding but the art of finding solutions of non-formalized problems and expressing these solutions in explicit and clear way. -- Vadim Antonov (avg@hq.demos.su) %% "Let no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience. Tennessee, challenging him too timorously and too late, now sees its courts converted into camp meetings and its bill of rights made a mock of by its sworn officers of the law." -- H. L. Mencken, about the Scopes Monkey Trial %% "Let the evil minds of the world beware! Ever and always shall the Avengers prevail!" -- Thor %% "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage -- and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed...." -- John F. Kennedy (from his Inaugural Address) %% "Let us condemn to hellfire all those who disagree with us." -- militant religionists everywhere %% "Let us go forth not as defenders of the status quo, but as crusaders with a revolution idea - that government should be the servant and not the master of the people; that its purpose is to protect, not deny, each man's freedom; that the purpose of a free press is to liberate, not enslave the human spirit." -- From the speech made by A. S. Hills upon taking office as President of the Inter-American Press Association %% Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions. -- Thomas Jefferson %% "Let's give discredit where discredit is due." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Let's not be too tough on our own ignorance. It's the thing that makes America great. If America weren't incomparably ignorant, how could we have tolerated the last eight years?" -- Frank Zappa, Feb 1, 1989 %% "Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!" -- The Ghostbusters %% Liberty Hulse of Middle Island was steadying an unidentified blonde woman who was crying and appeared near a state of collapse. ``You have to eat,'' Hulse said to the woman. ``You have a beautiful family, and you have to take care of them too.'' Hulse explained to reporters that the woman ``hasn't eaten for weeks'' because of anxiety over the fate of two dogs who were ostensibly buried in the cemetery in Middle Island about 60 miles east of New York City. Hulse said she also paid to have her dog buried there, and she expressed concern that the cemetery might be bulldozed as a health hazard because of an estimated quarter of a million animals buried there. ``Are they going to bulldoze it?'' she asked. ``Over my dead body, because they will have to kill me first.'' -- (UPI) Enraged pet owners curse cemetery owners, 7/9/91 %% "Liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order." -- Proudhon %% "Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood. Blood debts must be repaid in kind. The longer the delay, the greater the interest." -- Chinese author Lu Xun, 1926 %% "Life begins when you can spend your spare time programming instead of watching television." -- Cal Keegan %% Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. -- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan %% Life is a game. Money is how we keep score. -- Ted Turner %% "Life is a garment we continuously alter, but which never seems to fit." -- David McCord %% "Life is a pinball machine. You bounce around for a while, and then you drain." -- Joe Bak %% Life is a process, not a principle, a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. -- Gerard Straub, television producer and author (stolen from Frank Herbert??) %% "Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it." -- Alice Walker %% Life is full of concepts that are poorly defined. In fact, there are very few concepts that aren't. It's hard to think of any in non-technical fields. -- Daniel Kimberg %% "Life is full of surprises when you're up th' stream of consciousness without a paddle..." -- Zippy the Pinhead %% Life is not one thing after another.... it's the same damn thing over and over! %% Life is wasted on the living. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox IV %% "Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all...." -- Thomas J. Kopp %% "Life sucks, but it's better than the alternative." -- Peter da Silva %% "Life's a Cabaret... Long, dull, and full of Nazis." -- Howard the Duck %% "Life's a bitch, and life's got lots of sisters." -- Ross Presser %% Life's the same, except for the shoes. -- The Cars %% "Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it." -- Marvin the paranoid android %% Life. Don't talk to me about life. -- Marvin the Paranoid Android %% Like all women, she believed that rest and pleasure were bad for men. -- Fritz Leiber, _Swords and Ice Magic_ %% Like almost all old [more than 70 years], large [more than 10,000 people] institutions, the government did not get to be as successful as it is by acting the way it does now. -- Paraphrased by estell%fidler.decnet@nwc.navy.mil from the original statement by Robert Townsend, in _Up the Organization._ %% Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow His precepts -- there is just too much misery and cruelty for that. On the other hand, I respect and envy the people who get inspiration from their religions. -- Benjamin Spock %% "Like the ski resort full of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem." -- Alan McKay %% "Little else matters than to write good code." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of nature are constantly broken for their sakes." -- Friedrich Nietzsche %% Live Free or Live in Massachusetts. %% Live and learn... Die and forget it all. %% Live free or die. %% "Live or die, I'll make a million." -- Reebus Kneebus, before his jump to the center of the earth, Firesign Theater %% "Lobbyists threatening to withhold campaign contributions from lawmakers who don't support their special-interest causes could be violating bribery laws, Colorado House Speaker Bev Bledsoe warned yesterday." -- The Denver Post, 3 May 1990, p. 1B %% Long life is in store for you. %% Look at it this way: MSDOS is an overgrown program loader; the MacOS is an overgrown user interface. Neither is an operating system, but the second is better for running applications. -- Paul Placeway %% "Look ma! Three arms!" -- J. Eric Townsend (erict@flatline.UUCP) %% "Look! There! Evil!.. pure and simple, total evil from the Eighth Dimension!" -- Buckaroo Banzai %% Lord FINCHLEY tried to mend the Electric Light Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right! It is the business of the wealthy man To give employment to the artisan. -- H. Belloc %% "Lord, defend me from my friends; I can account for my enemies." -- D'Hericault %% Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. %% Love is a matter of chemistry, but Sex is a matter of physics. %% "Love is always having to say I'm sorry." -- Bob Irwin (birwin@ficc.ferranti.com) %% "Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished." -- Goethe %% Love is in the offing. Be affectionate to one who adores you. %% "Love is never what we looked for and always takes us by surprise: it's the rock on Coyote's head in the middle of the Road Runner chase. It's not the pain of love Coyote minds, it's the *futility* of his inventions in the face of his fate." -- Ian Shoales, Social Critic and Bitter Loudmouth %% "Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail." -- A Kurt Vonnegut fan %% "Love your country but never trust its government." -- from a hand-painted road sign in central Pennsylvania %% "Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul." -- Mark Twain %% "Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser." -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew" %% "Lying lips are abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his delight. A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger. He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause; and deceive not with thy lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue." -- Proverbs, some selections from the Jewish Scripture %% MS-DOS must die! %% "MTV. An obedient tongue licking the shiny leather boot of rock and roll." -- MTV commercial %% Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -- Alan Turing %% "Maintain an awareness for contribution -- to your schedule, your project, our company." -- A Group of Employees %% Make money, not war. -- slogan popular in libertarian circles in the early 70s %% "Make no little plans. They have no Magic to stir Men's blood." -- D. B. Hudson %% Malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to Man. %% "Mamma, don't let your babies grow up to be hackers." -- Willie Nelson, with a little help from Bill Mathews %% "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on..." - Winston Churchill %% "Managing senior programmers is like herding cats." -- Dave Platt %% Many alligators will be slain, but the swamp will remain. %% Many are called, few are chosen. Fewer still get to do the choosing. %% Many are called, few volunteer. %% "Many are the wonders of the Universe, and none so wonderful as Mankind!" -- Sophocles %% Marriage Ceremony: An incredible metaphysical sham of watching God and the law being dragged into the affairs of your family. -- O. C. Ogilvie %% Marriage is a three ring circus: The engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering. %% "Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out." -- Montaigne %% "Marriage is low down, but you spend the rest of your life paying for it." -- Baskins %% Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. -- Voltaire %% Marriage is the sole cause of divorce. %% Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. %% " 'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability" - George Bernard Shaw %% "Master, why is the letter 'i' the symbol for current?" "Because there is no letter 'i' in the word 'current'." "Master, why do we use the letter 'j' for sqrt(-1)?" "Because we use the letter 'i' for current." Whereupon the Master struck the Disciple, and the Disciple became enlightened. %% "Mathematicians stand on each other's shoulder, Computer Scientists stand on each other's toes." -- someone on the net (please email attribution), about look&feel lawsuits %% Mature software: code old enough that for every bug fixed, one or more new bugs are created. -- Karl Lehenbauer %% Mausoleum: The final and funniest folly of the rich. -- Ambrose Bierce %% "May the Lord open your eyes and heart so that you may understand him more clearer." -- Patrick Harubin, pgh@cs.duke.edu, soc.religion.islam %% "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house." -- George Carlin %% "May your future be limited only by your dreams." -- Christa McAuliffe %% Maybe I'm lucky to be going so slowly, because I may be going in the wrong direction. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% "Maybe life is a grindstone; whether it polishes you or wears you down depends on what you're made of." -- Kay Fletcher %% "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa; yeah, right. To paraphrase, the net finds its own uses for garbage." -- Eric Hughes (hughes@math.berkeley.edu) %% "Meanwhile, let it be clear what we do: we fight contraception-sterilization- abortion on six continents..." -- Fr. Paul Marx, President, Human Life International, in his brochure, Human Life International Explained, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while. -- Ambrose Bierce %% "Meet me in the bedroom in five minutes... and bring a cattle prod!" -- Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lily" %% Memories of you remind me of you. -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Memory serves wise commanders." -- Tz'u-hsi, 638 AD %% Memory: what wonders it performs in preserving and storing up things gone by or rather, things that are! -- Plutarch %% Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit... -- Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 B.C.), The Sacred Disease %% Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca. %% Mike's Law: For a lumber company employing two men and a cut-off saw, the marginal product of labor for any number of additional workers equals zero until the acquisition of another cut-off saw. Let's not even consider a chainsaw. - Mike Dennison [You could always schedule the saw, though - ed.] %% Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. -- Groucho Marx %% "Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon." -- D. P. Barron %% "Mind you, not as bad as the night Archie Pettigrew ate some sheep's testicles for a bet...God, that bloody sheep kicked him..." -- Ripping Yarns %% Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I'm sick of your halfbreed interference. %% "Mine! Mine! It's all mine!" -- D. Duck %% Miniscribe's troubles are daunting. The company has floundered in its attempt to settle 13 shareholder lawsuits, filed after a panel found that previous managers circumvented financial controls and resorted to shipping bricks and unfinished drives to shore up sagging revenue figures. -- "Miniscribe Prognosis Is Hopeful," E. E. Times, Jan 15, 1990, pg 67 %% Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images. -- Jean Cocteau %% Modern biology has been built upon two great ideas. The first, a product of the nineteenth century, is that all life descended from elementary, single- celled organisms by means of natural selection. The second, perfected in the twentieth century, is that organisms are entirely obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry. No extraneous "vital force" runs the living cell. -- Edward O. Wilson, "Biophilia" %% Modern psychology takes completely for granted that behavior and neural function are perfectly correlated, that one is completely caused by the other. There is no separate soul or lifeforce to stick a finger into the brain now and then and make neural cells do what they would not otherwise. Actually, of course, this is a working assumption only....It is quite conceivable that someday the assumption will have to be rejected. But it is important also to see that we have not reached that day yet: the working assumption is a necessary one and there is no real evidence opposed to it. Our failure to solve a problem so far does not make it insoluble. One cannot logically be a determinist in physics and biology, and a mystic in psychology. -- D. O. Hebb, Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, 1949 %% "Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race -- the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions." -- Mark Twain, _The Mysterious Stranger_ %% "Money is the root of all money." -- the moving finger %% Money talks...but all mine keeps saying is "goodbye" %% "Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations" -- Thomas Jefferson %% "Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo." -- H. G. Wells %% "Morality is one thing. Ratings are everything." - A Network 23 executive on "Max Headroom" %% "More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_ %% Moreover, freedom of the press includes "the right of the lonely pamphleteer who uses carbon paper or a mimeograph as much as of the large metropolitan publisher who utilizes the latest photocomposition methods." Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 704 (1972). -- Supreme Court decision quoted by Mike Godwin in comp.org.eff.talk %% "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." -- Abraham Lincoln %% Most non-Catholics know that the Catholic schools are rendering a greater service to our nation than the public schools in which subversive textbooks have been used, in which Communist-minded teachers have taught, and from whose classrooms Christ and even God Himself are barred. -- from "Our Sunday Visitor", an American-Catholic newspaper, 1949 %% "Most of the dogmatic religions have exhibited a perverse talent for taking the wrong side on the most important concepts in the material universe, from the structure of the solar system to the origin of man." -- George Gaylord Simpson %% "Most of the evils of life arise from man's being unable to sit still in a room." -- Blaise Pascal %% "Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons for it afterwards." -- Soren F. Petersen %% Most people exhibit what political scientists call "the conservatism of the peasantry." Don't lose what you've got. Don't change. Don't take a chance, because you might end up starving to death. Play it safe. Buy just as much as you need. Don't waste time. When we think about risk, human beings and corporations realize in their heads that risks are necessary to grow, to survive. But when it comes down to keeping good people when the crunch comes, or investing money in something untried, only the brave reach deep into their pockets and play the game as it must be played. -- David Lammers, "Yakitori", Electronic Engineering Times, January 18, 1988 %% "Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch." -- Robert Orben %% Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing. %% Mr. DePree also expects a "tremendous social change" in all workplaces. "When I first started working 40 years ago, a factory supervisor was focused on the product. Today it is drastically different, because of the social milieu. It isn't unusual for a worker to arrive on his shift and have some family problem that he doesn't know how to resolve. The example I like to use is a guy who comes in and says 'this isn't going to be a good day for me, my son is in jail on a drunk-driving charge and I don't know how to raise bail.' What that means is that if the supervisor wants productivity, he has to know how to raise bail." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 %% Mr. DePree believes participative capitalism is the wave of the future. The U.S. work force, he believes, "more and more demands to be included in the capitalist system and if we don't find ways to get the capitalist system to be an inclusive system rather than the exclusive system it has been, we're all in deep trouble. If we don't find ways to begin to understand that capitalism's highest potential lies in the common good, not in the individual good, then we're risking the system itself." -- Max DePree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller Inc., "Herman Miller's Secrets of Corporate Creativity", The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1988 %% "Mr. Spock succumbs to a powerful mating urge and nearly kills Captain Kirk." -- TV Guide, describing the Star Trek episode _Amok_Time_ %% "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you." -- Alexander Graham Bell %% "My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch? Next April?" -- L. Mulloy %% My aura can beat up your aura. %% My boss just told the quote-of-the-day(TM) after talking to our friendly IBM salesguy who said: "You've got be careful about getting locked into open systems." Heh! Why don't I trust these people? :-) -- Ian Dickinson (cudep@warwick.ac.uk) %% My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here". -- Steven Wright %% My computer can beat up your computer. -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "'My country right or wrong' is like saying, 'My mother drunk or sober.'" -- G. K. Chesterton %% My father had the spirit and integrity of a scientist, but he was a salesman. I remember asking him the question "How can a man of integrity be a salesman?" He said to me, "Frankly, many salesmen in the business are not straightforward -- they think it's a better way to sell. But I've tried being straightforward, and I find it has its advantages. In fact, I wouldn't do it any other way. If the customer thinks at all, he'll realize he has had some bad experience with another salesman, but hasn't had that kind of experience with you. So in the end, several customers will stay with you for a long time and appreciate it." -- Richard P. Feynman, _What Do You Care What Other People Think?_ %% "My father was an amazing man. The older I got, the smarter he got." -- Mark Twain %% "My father? My father left when I was quite young. Well actually, he was asked to leave. He had trouble metabolizing alcohol." -- George Carlin %% "My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all." -- Stephen Hawking %% "My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn." -- Louis Adamic %% "My head is bloodied, but unbowed." -- From the poem "Invictus" %% My mother is a fish. -- William Faulkner %% My other computer is also a Unix system. %% "My own life has been spent chronicling the rise and fall of human systems, and I am convinced that we are terribly vulnerable.... We should be reluctant to turn back upon the frontier of this epoch. Space is indifferent to what we do; it has no feeling, no design, no interest in whether or not we grapple with it. But we cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand, slow march of intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities." -- James A. Michener %% "My past is my own." -- The Shadow (DC Comics) %% My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. -- Albert Einstein %% "My sense of purpose is gone! I have no idea who I AM!" "Oh, my God... You've.. You've turned him into a DEMOCRAT!" -- Doonesbury %% "NASA Announces New Deck Chair Arrangement For Space Station Titanic." -- Tom Neff %% "NASA Awards Acronym Generation System (AGS) Contract For Space Station Freedom" -- Tom Neff %% NOWPRINT. NOWPRINT. Clemclone, back to the shadows again. -- The Firesign Theater %% "Nat Goldstein and Jim Simmons in Florida, Curtis Beseda out west who has destroyed abortion clinics, these men are looked up to by my arm of the movement as the foremost heroes of the movement ...." -- James J. Condit, Jr., Cincinnatus Party's perennial candidate for city council, "Mike Cuthbert Show," WCKY_AM, 1/22/87, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% Natural selection won't matter soon, not anywhere as much as conscious selection. We will civilize and alter ourselves to suit our ideas of what we can be. Within one more human lifespan, we will have changed ourselves unrecognizably. -- Greg Bear %% "Nature is very un-American. Nature never hurries." -- William George Jordan %% "Nature loves a vacuum. Digital doesn't." -- DEC sales letter %% "Neighbors!! We got neighbors! We ain't supposed to have any neighbors, and I just had to shoot one." -- Post Bros. Comics %% "Neuro-linguistic programming is simply the zig-zag and swirl of menorgs and disorgs acting under the suction and pressure of the morphogenetic field." -- Clark Brooks (clark@cataract.caltech.edu) %% "Neurotic: Self-taut person." -- Author Unknown %% "Never ascribe to malice that which is caused by greed and ignorance." -- Cal Keegan %% "Never counsel for contraception or refer to agencies making contraceptives available. Some volunteers may feel that it is the lesser of two evils, reasoning that if the girl is going to be sexually active anyway, why not at least help her from getting pregnant with contraceptives. This type of thinking is not only inaccurate but unacceptable and against the general pro-life philosophy, and Christian principles." -- Robert J. Pearson, President, The Pearson Foundation, in his guidebook, _How to Start and Operate a Pro-Life Out-Reach Pregnancy Service Center", 1984, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning." -- Marlo Thomas %% "Never give a statist an even break. The State has never given us one." -- Andre Marrou %% "Never give in. Never give in. Never. Never. Never." -- Winston Churchill %% Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs painting. -- Billy Rose %% "Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!" he said to himself, and it became a favourite saying of his later, and passed into a proverb. "You aren't nearly through this adventure yet," he added, and that was pretty true as well. -- Bilbo Baggins, _The Hobbit_ by J.R.R. Tolkien, Chapter XII %% "Never put off until run time what you can do at compile time." -- David Gries, in "Compiler Construction for Digital Computers", circa 1969. %% "Never try to catch two frogs with one hand." -- Chinese Proverb %% New York is a jungle, they tell you. You could go further, and say that New York is a jungle. New York *is a jungle.* Beneath the columns of the old rain forest, made of melting macadam, the mean Limpopo of swamped Ninth Avenue bears an angry argosy of crocs and dragons, tiger fish, noise machines, sweating rainmakers. On the corners stand witchdoctors and headhunters, babbling voodoo-men -- the natives, the jungle-smart natives. And at night, under the equatorial overgrowth and heat-holding cloud cover, you hear the ragged parrot-hoot and monkeysqueak of the sirens, and then fires flower to ward off monsters. Careful: the streets are sprung with pits and nets and traps. Hire a guide. Pack your snakebite gook and your blowdart serum. Take it seriously. You have to get a bit jungle-wise. -- Martin Amis, _Money_ %% New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. -- David Letterman %% "New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises, 'Why then are you not taking part in them?'" -- H. G. Wells %% Newton realized that, according to his theory of gravity, the stars should attract each other, so it seemed they could not remain essentially motionless. Would they not all fall together at some point? In a letter in 1691 to Richard Bentley, another leading thinker of his day, Newton argued that this would indeed happen if there were only a finite number of stars distributed over a finite region of space. But he reasoned that if, on the other hand, there were an infinite number of stars, distributed more or less uniformly over infinite space, this would not happen, because there would not be any central point for them to fall to. This argument is an instance of the pitfalls that you can encounter in talking about infinity... -- Stephen Hawking, _A Brief History of Time_ %% Next we had Egyptian wars, Greek wars, Roman wars, hideous drenchings of the earth with blood; and we saw the treacheries of the Romans toward the Carthaginians, and the sickening spectacle of the massacre of those brave people. Also we saw Caesar invade Britain -- "not that those barbarians had done him any harm, but because he wanted their land, and desired to confer the blessings of civilization upon their widows and orphans," as Satan explained. Next, Christianity was born. Then ages of Europe passed in review before us, and we saw Christianity and Civilization march hand in hand through those ages, "leaving famine and death and desolation in their wake, and other signs of the progress of the human race," as Satan observed. And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars -- all over Europe, all over the world. "Sometimes in the private interest of royal families," Satan said, "sometimes to crush a weak nation; but never a war started by the aggressor for any clean purpose -- there is no such war in the history of the race." "Now," said Satan, "you have seen your progress down to the present, and you must confess that it is wonderful -- in its way. We must now exhibit the future." He showed us slaughters more terrible in their destruction of life, more devastating in their engines of war, than any we had seen. "You perceive," he said, "that you have made continual progress. Cain did his murder with a club; the Hebrews did their murders with javelins and swords; the Greeks and Romans added protective armor and the fine arts of military organization and generalship; the Christian has added guns and gunpowder; a few centuries from now he will have so greatly improved the deadly effectiveness of his weapons of slaughter that all men will confess that without Christian civilization war must have remained a poor and trifling thing to the end of time." -- Mark Twain, _The Mysterious Stranger_ %% "Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again. God -- I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again." -- Woody Allen's character in "Hannah and Her Sisters" %% Nihil tam absurde dici potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo pilosophorum. (Nothing so absurd can be said, that some philosopher has not said it.) -- Cicero %% "Nine years of ballet, asshole." -- Shelly Long, to the bad guy after making a jump over a gorge that he couldn't quite, in "Outrageous Fortune" %% "Ninety percent of baseball is half mental." -- Yogi Berra %% No good deed goes unpunished. %% "No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a part of the continent, a piece of the whole...if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. Any man's death diminishes me because I'm involved in mankind. Therefore, never send to know for whom the bell TOLLS, it tolls for thee." -- John Donne %% "No man steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man." -- Heraclitus %% "No man was ever taken to hell by a woman unless he already had a ticket in his pocket, or at least had been fooling around with timetables." -- Archie Goodwin %% "No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the Legislature is in session." -- Lysander Spooner %% No matter how much money you spend, you can't make a racehorse out of a pig. You can, however, make an awfully fast pig. %% "No matter what temptation there is after an accident to be economical with the truth when rationalising it with hindsight, please remember it would be unforgivable if, by not revealing the facts or the complete truth, a similar incident became an unavoidable accident." -- Captain Colin Seaman, British Aerospace's head of safety %% "No matter where you go, there you are..." -- Buckaroo Banzai %% No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish. %% "No one can forbid us the future." -- Inscription on the base of Paris's monument to Leon Gambetta %% No one is fit to be trusted with power. ... No one. ... Any man who has lived at all knows the follies and wickedness he's capable of. ... And if he does know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to decide a single human fate. -- C. P. Snow, The Light and the Dark %% "No one who accepts the sovereignty of truth can be a foot soldier in a party or movement. He will always find himself out of step." -- Sidney Hook %% "No problem is so big that you can't run away from it." -- Snoopy %% No user-serviceable parts inside. Refer to qualified service personnel. %% "No wife of *mine* is doing any dishes. That's what we had the kid for." -- from Deathlok comics #1 %% "No! We will not die like dogs. We will fight like lions!" -- The Three Amigos %% "No, it's 'Blessed are the meek.' I think that's nice, 'cause really they have a hell of a time." -- someone in the crowd in "The Life of Brian" %% "No, no, I don't mind being called the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't this one." -- Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, WATCHMEN %% No, son, you lose. 'Cause this is a Smith & Wesson I'm holdin' here, an' a Smith & Wesson beats four aces. -- Canada Bill Jones %% "Nobody but a lawyer can tell legal from illegal, and the lawyers can't tell right from wrong...." -- Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, _Oath of Fealty_ %% Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it. -- Tallulah Bankhead %% "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." -- Edmund Burke %% Noncombatant: A dead Quaker. -- Ambrose Bierce %% None love the bearer of bad news. -- Sophocles %% "None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible." -- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work," p. 86 (1922): %% "Not only is God dead, but just try to find a plumber on weekends." -- Woody Allen %% "Note and initial": Let's spread the responsibility of this. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" %% "Nothing can stop him. Not even common sense." -- Mark Komarinski %% Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. -- John Keats %% Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. -- Edmund Burke %% Nothing is done until nothing is done. %% Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. -- Fyodor Dostoevski %% Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. -- Hassan I Sabbah %% "Nothing, not love, not greed, not passion or hatred, is stronger than a writer's need to change another writer's copy." -- Arthur Evans %% "Now I know why they call television a medium: because nothing on it is rare or well-done." -- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse %% Now I lay me down to sheep I pray the Lord the sheep's asleep If, perchance, the sheep should wake Simple friendship shall I fake. -- Frances Grimble %% Now I lay me down to sleep I hear the sirens in the street All my dreams are made of chrome I have no way to get back home -- Tom Waits %% Now I lay me down to sleep; Leave a message at the beep. If I die before I wake, Remember to erase the tape. %% Now I was heading, in my hot cage, down towards meat-market country on the tip of the West Village. Here the redbrick warehouses double as carcass galleries and rat hives, the Manhattan fauna seeking its necessary level, living or dead. Here too you find the heavy faggot hangouts, The Spike, the Water Closet, the Mother Load. Nobody knows what goes on in these places. Only the heavy faggots know. Even Fielding seems somewhat vague on the question. You get zapped and flogged and dumped on -- by almost anybody's standards, you have a really terrible time. The average patron arrives at the Spike in one taxi but needs to go back to his sock in two. And then the next night he shows up for more. They shackle themselves to racks, they bask in urinals. Their folks have a lot of explaining to do, if you want my opinion, particularly the mums. Sorry to single you ladies out like this but the story must start somewhere. A craving for hourly murder -- it can't be willed. In the meantime, Fielding tells me, Mother Nature looks on and taps her foot and clicks her tongue. Always a champion of monogamy, she is cooking up some fancy new diseases. She just isn't going to stand for it. -- Martin Amis, _Money_ %% "Now I've got the bead on you with MY disintegrating gun. And when it disintegrates, it disintegrates. (pulls trigger) Well, what you do know, it disintegrated." -- Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century %% Now and then an innocent man is sent to the Legislature. %% "Now bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible - yea, and get the better of them." -- W. Shakespeare, JULIUS CAESAR %% "Now here's something you're really going to like!" -- Rocket J. Squirrel %% "Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that." -- the Red Queen, from "Through the Looking Glass" (Lewis Carroll) %% Now, if the leaders of the world -- people who are leaders by virtue of political, military or financial power, and not necessarily wisdom or consideration for mankind -- if these leaders manage not to pull us over the brink into planetary suicide, despite their occasional pompous suggestions that they may feel obliged to do so, we may survive beyond 1988. -- George Rostky, EE Times, June 20, 1988 p. 45 %% "Now, more than ever, it is evident that `good taste' only refers to that which reinforces the status quo." -- Andre Peret %% "Now, telephone companies are not stupid, at least for large values of 'stupid'." -- Michael O'Brien (Mr. Protocol) %% "Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Nuclear war would really set back cable." - Ted Turner %% OLTION'S COMPLETE, UNABRIDGED HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE Bang! ...crumple. -- Jery Oltion %% OS/2 must die! %% "Obedience. A religion of slaves. A religion of intellectual death. I like it. Don't ask questions, don't think, obey the Word of the Lord -- as it has been conveniently brought to you by a man in a Rolls with a heavy Rolex on his wrist. I like that job! Where can I sign up?" -- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU %% Objects in your terminal are close than they appear. %% "Observe that for the programmer, as for the chef, the urgency of the patron may govern the scheduled completion of the task, but it cannot govern the actual completion. An omelette, promised in two minutes, may appear to be progressing nicely. But when it has not set in two minutes, the customer has two choices -- wait or eat it raw. Software customers have had the same choices." -- Frederick P. Brooks, Jr, _The Mythical Man-Month_ %% Obviously, a man's judgment cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and make him something less than a man. -- Arthur Hays Sulzberger %% "Occupational regulation has served to limit consumer choice, raise consumer costs, increase practitioner income, limit practitioner mobility, deprive the poor of adequate service, and restrict job opportunities for minorities -- all without a demonstrated improvement in quality or safety." ... "Critics of this hypothesis believe to the contrary, however, that regulators' and professional groups' self-interest has been and still is the primary motivator of regulatory legislation. And indeed the evidence shows that consumers rarely engage in campaigns to license occupations. If the purpose of licensing were to improve the quality of service, one would expect consumers, who might be the prime beneficiaries, to promote licensure, but licensing is systematically promoted by practitioners ..." -- The Rule of Experts - Occupational Licensing in America. By S. David Young. Cato Institute, 1987. ISBN 0-932790-62-3 (paper). 99 pages. (Quoted by Tony Harminc in comp.risks) %% Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills. -- Ambrose Bierce %% "Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." -- Thomas Paine %% "Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power tools aren't soluble in alcohol..." -- Crazy Nigel %% "Of course the US Constitution isn't perfect; but it's a lot better than what we have now." -- Eric Sheppard (ce1zzes@prism.gatech.EDU) %% "Of course, someone who knows more about this will correct me if I'm wrong, and someone who knows less will correct me if I'm right." -- David Palmer (palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu) %% "Of course, this is a, this is a Hunt, you will -- that will uncover a lot of things. You open that scab, there's a hell of a lot of things... This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves." -- Richard Milhouse Nixon, 6/23/72 %% Of course, you're probably going to say it does in your ``analysis'' of public-key systems, because you'll do anything to make RSA look better than it really is. Have fun making a fool of yourself. -- Dan Bernstein (brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu), in sci.crypt %% "Of what importance is mere money - when there are worlds to be conquered - people to be enslaved?" -- Doctor Doom %% "Oh God ... I'm *shot* ... Hey ... *wait* a second ... I'm *okay* ... Wow! This is *cool! Bullets don't hurt me!" -- Superboy, #2 of SUPERBOY THE COMIC BOOK (based on the TV series) %% "Oh beautiful, for smoggy skies, o'er insecticide waves of grain, and strip-mined mountain's majesty, above the asphalt plains! America, America, man sheds his waste on thee! And hides the pines, with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea!" -- George Carlin (?) %% "Oh boy, virtual memory! Now I'm gonna make myself a REALLY BIG ram disk!" -- lennox@shire.hw.stratus.com %% "Oh dear, I think you'll find reality's on the blink again." -- Marvin The Paranoid Android %% "Oh dear, now I've made a terrible mess of things. And all I wanted to do was rule the universe." -- Dr. Zachary Smith %% Oh hell. Six bells and all's well. Another week in my little gray cell. Another week in which to excel. Oh hell, sir. -- A West Point Cadet's answer to, "What's the Sunday night poop?" %% "Oh honey, this is just the beginning. Stick with me and we'll claw our way to the top." -- John Water's "Hairspray" %% "Oh my! An `inflammatory attitude' in alt.flame? Never heard of such a thing..." -- Allen Gwinn, allen@sulaco.Sigma.COM %% Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive! -- Sir Walter Scott %% "Oh what wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face..." -- a prisoner in "Life of Brian" %% "Oh yeah, laugh now! But when the millions start pouring in, I'll be the one at Burger King, sucking down Whoppers at my own private table!" -- Al Bundy %% "Oh, I know it's a penny here and a penny there, but look at me. I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty." -- Groucho Marx, "Monkey Business" %% "Okay," Bobby said, getting the hang of it, "then what's the matrix? If she's a deck, and Danbala's a program, what's cyberspace?" "The world," Lucas said. -- William Gibson, _Count Zero_ %% "Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time." -- a coffee cup %% "Old soldiers never die. Young ones do." -- Anon %% On Krat's main screen appeared the holo image of a man, and several dolphins. From the man's shape, Krat could tell it was a female, probably their leader. "...stupid creatures unworthy of the name `sophonts.' Foolish, pre-sentient upspring of errant masters. We slip away from all your armed might, laughing at your clumsiness! We slip away as we always will, you pathetic creatures. And now that we have a real head start, you'll never catch us! What better proof that the Progenitors favor not you, but us! What better proof..." The taunt went on. Krat listened, enraged, yet at the same time savoring the artistry of it. These men are better than I'd thought. Their insults are wordy and overblown, but they have talent. They deserve honorable, slow deaths. - David Brin, _Startide Rising_ %% On a clear disk you can seek forever. %% On his was back to the lobby, his cigarettes forgotten, he had to walk the length of the ranked phones. Each rang in turn, but only once, as he passed. -- William Gibson, "Neuromancer" %% On our campus the UNIX system has proved to be not only an effective software tool, but an agent of technical and social change within the University. -- John Lions (U. of Toronto (?)) %% On the contrary! A recent study in which microprocessors were implanted in rhesus monkey brains via satellite shows clearly that... -- Manhattan Chess Club Regulars %% "On the market, there can be no such thing as exploitation." -- Murray Rothbard %% On the subject of C program indentation: "In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented six feet downward and covered with dirt." -- Blair P. Houghton %% ``On this point we want to be perfectly clear: socialism has nothing to do with equalizing. Socialism cannot ensure conditions of life and consumption in accordance with the principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." This will be under communism. Socialism has a different criterion for distributing social benefits: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."'' -- Mikhail Gorbachev, _Perestroika_ %% "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage %% On weightlifting: "Picking up something heavy and then putting it back down? That's not sport, that's indecision." -- Paula Poundstone %% "Once I was a tadpole, in the beginning of the begin; Then I was a toadfrog with my tail tucked in. Then I was a monkey in a banyan tree; Now I'm a professor with a Ph.D." --Anonymous creationist's view of evolution %% "Once a ruler becomes religious, it [becomes] impossible for you to debate with him. Once someone rules in the name of religion, your lives become hell." -- Colonel Moammar Qaddafi, at the General People's Congress in Tripoli in October, 1989 %% ``Once again, we see that interesting correlation between saying "Blessed Be!" and being an idiot.'' -- Gene W. Smith, gsmith@garnet.berkeley.edu %% Once at a dinner party when he was a young man, Winston Churchill, who at the time had a moustache, was seated next to an older woman. She said to him, "Young man, I care neither for your politics nor for your moustache." He reassured here, "You are as unlikely to come into contact with the one as with the other." %% Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, Sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress." %% "Once contraception is accepted and the purposes of sex are separated from procreation and marriage, sterilization and abortion become acceptable, and then infanticide, the precursor of outright euthanasia. Furthermore, homosexuality and unnatural sexual activities become `natural and normal,' the venereal diseases get out of control, divorce and illegitimacy rates mount, and the family swiftly disintegrates." -- Valerie Riches, Family Planning Educator, in her brochure, Contraception's Legacy, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards." - H. L. Mencken, writing of William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the supporters of Tennessee's anti-evolution law at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. %% "Once lead the American people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into every fiber of our national life ..." -- President Woodrow Wilson %% "Once they go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department." -- Werner von Braun %% "Once you've had real champagne, you can never go back to Asti Spimanti." -- Georgette Lundberg %% "One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist, just as a man becomes a stool pigeon when he cannot be a soldier." -- Gustave Flaubert (letter to Madame Louise Colet, August 12, 1846) %% "One day I woke up and discovered that I was in love with tripe." -- Tom Anderson %% One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated at dinner alongside Mr. Percival Pollard, the distinguished critic. "Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_, is published anonymously, but you can hardly be ignorant of its authorship. Yet in reviewing it you speak of it as the work of the Idiot of the Century. Do you think that fair criticism?" "I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did not occur to me that you really might not wish the public to know who wrote it." -- Ambrose Bierce %% One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim. -- Henry Brook Adams %% "One lawyer can steal more than a hundred men with guns." -- The Godfather %% "One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -- Elbert Hubbard ....yet. -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "One man's Mede is another man's Persian." -- A member of the Algonquin Round Table %% "One man's mate is another man's passion." -- Jeff Daiell's description of adultery %% One may be able to quibble about the quality of a single experiment, or about the veracity of a given experimenter, but, taking all the supportive experiments together, the weight of evidence is so strong as readily to merit a wise man's reflection. -- Professor William Tiller, parapsychologist, Standford University, commenting on psi research %% "One more drink and I would have been under the host." -- Dorothy Parker %% One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be so outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand hat was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was renowned for being quite clever and quite clearly was so -- but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about. -- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ %% "One of the most devastating enemies of the family is radical sex education in the public school. It is more explicit than necessary for the good of the child. Too much sex education too soon causes undue curiosity and obsession with sex." -- Beverly LaHaye, President, Concerned Women for America, in her newsletter, 4/81, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "One of the problems I've always had with propaganda pamphlets is that they're real boring to look at. They're just badly designed. People from the left often are very well-intended, but they never had time to take basic design classes, you know?" -- Art Spiegelman %% One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. it is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.) -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 %% "One of us should bust in and confuse them while _I_ head them off around front." -- Sam %% One of your cookies is the Pledge of Allegiance by that Socialist scamp, Francis Bellamy. It should read, for those wishing to recite it: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to The Union for which it stands, with liberty and justice for all. -- Jeff Daiell %% "One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer terror." -- W. K. Hartmann %% "One time I removed all the hair from a mouse with Nair hair remover, just to see what it looked like. And it looked beautiful." -- David Lynch %% One time as manager, Casey Stengel was sitting next to Mickey Mantle. He mentioned playing in Yankee Stadium, and Mantle expressed surprise. Stengel asked, "You think I was *born* sixty years old?" %% "Only a brain-damaged operating system would support task switching and not make the simple next step of supporting multitasking." -- Calvin Keegan %% "Only a brave person is willing honestly to admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers." -- Rodan of Alexandria %% "Only a mediocre man is always at his best." -- W. Somerset Maugham %% "Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core." -- Hannah Arendt. %% "Open Channel D..." -- Napoleon Solo, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. %% "Open the pod bay doors, HAL." -- Dave Bowman, 2001 %% Operating-system software is the program that orchestrates all the basic functions of a computer. -- The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, September 15, 1987, page 40 %% "Opinions are like assholes: Everybody has one and nobody wants to look at the other guy's." -- Jeff Stout %% "Optimization is not some mystical state of grace, it is an intricate act of human labor which carries real costs and real risks." -- Tom Neff %% "Organized Religion is like Organized Crime; it preys on peoples' weakness, generates huge profits for its operators, and is almost impossible to eradicate." -- Mike Hermann (hermann@cs.ubc.ca) %% "Our Constitution ... gives to bigotry no sanction." -- George Washington %% Our business is run on trust. We trust you will pay in advance. %% Our educational systems may very well be on the threshold of a new and even gloomier Dark Age of the 20th and 21st centuries, unless the anti- intellectualism and confused thinking creationists produce is overcome." -- Reverend James Skehan %% "Our journey toward the stars has progressed swiftly. In 1926 Robert H. Goddard launched the first liquid-propelled rocket, achieving an altitude of 41 feet. In 1962 John Glenn orbited the earth. In 1969, only 66 years after Orville Wright flew two feet off the ground for 12 seconds, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and I rocketed to the moon in Apollo 11." -- Michael Collins Former astronaut and past Director of the National Air and Space Museum %% "Our journeys to the stars will be made on spaceships created by determined, hardworking scientists and engineers applying the principles of science, not aboard flying saucers piloted by little gray aliens from some other dimension." -- Robert A. Baker, "The Aliens Among Us: Hypnotic Regression Revisited", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2 %% "Our liberty depends upon the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost." -- Thomas Jefferson (1786) %% "Our reruns are better than theirs." -- Nick at Nite %% Our schizophrenic societies progress by knowledge but survive on inspiration derived from the very beliefs which that knowledge erodes. I suggest that the paradox can be at least intellectually resolved, not all at once but eventually and with consequences difficult to perfect, if we pay due attention to the sociobiology of religion. Although the manifestations of the religious experiences are resplendent and multidimensional and so complicated that the finest of psychoanalyst and philosophers get lost in their labyrinth, I believe that religious practices can be mapped onto the two dimensions of genetic advantage and evolutionary change. -- Edward O. Wilson, "On Human Nature" %% "Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it." -- Alex Schure %% "Out of register space (ugh)" -- vi %% Over the past ten years, for the first time, intelligence had become socially correct for girls. -- Tom Wolfe, "Bonfire of the Vanities" %% Overall, the philosophy is to attack the availability problem from two complementary directions: to reduce the number of software errors through rigorous testing of running systems, and to reduce the effect of the remaining errors by providing for recovery from them. An interesting footnote to this design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be the result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the system. -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage Operating Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4, 1973, pp. 382-400 %% POZZO: He used to dance the farandole, the fling, the brawl, the jig, the fandango and even the hornpipe. He capered. For joy. Now that's the best he can do. Do you know what he calls it? ESTRAGON: The Scapegoat's Agony. VLADIMIR: The Hard Stool. POZZO: The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net. -- Samuel Beckett, _Waiting for Godot_ %% PROGRAMMER: (n) Red-eyed, mumbling mammal capable of conversing with inanimate objects. %% "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." -- Author Unknown %% Paranoia doesn't mean the whole world really isn't out to get you. %% "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God, I'm so depressed. Here's another of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life." -- Marvin the Paranoid Android %% Parking fees that Universal Studios collected from picketers of _The Last Temptation of Christ_: $4,500 -- Harper's Index Nov. 1988 %% Parkinson's Law: The vehemence with which an issue is debated is inversely proportional to its importance. -- Bill Kinnersley %% Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time allotted it. %% "Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy." -- George Bernard Shaw %% "Patriotism is an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles." -- George Jean Nathan %% "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." -- Samuel Johnson %% "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." -- Oscar Wilde %% "Paul Lynde to block..." -- a contestant on "Hollywood Squares" %% "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." -- Karl, as he stepped behind the computer to reboot it, during a FAT, 1982 %% "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." -- The Wizard Of Oz %% "Peace is our profession." -- Motto of Strategic Air Command "Peace in our profession. War is just a hobby." -- Stationery available in PX, Barksdale SAC AFB %% "Pencil cursors are for user-interface weenies." -- Rob MacLachlan %% People are very flexible and learn to adjust to strange surroundings -- they can become accustomed to read Lisp and Fortran programs, for example. -- Leon Sterling and Ehud Shapiro, Art of Prolog, MIT Press %% "People don't form relationships, they take hostages." -- anon %% "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment or diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or some contrivance to raise prices." -- Adam Smith, _Wealth of Nations_ %% "People should have access to the data which you have about them. There should be a process for them to challenge any inaccuracies." -- Arthur Miller %% "People these days are reluctant to read the canonical texts, but they love fiction. Not all fiction, mind you, for they are sick of exemplary themes and far prefer the obscene and fantastic. How low contemporary morals have sunk! Anyone concerned about public morality will want to retrieve the situation." -- Li Yu, in "The Carnal Prayer Mat" c. 1657 A.D. %% "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world." -- Calvin %% People think my friend George is weird because he wears sideburns...behind his ears. I think he's weird because he wears false teeth...with braces on them. -- Steven Wright %% "People who live in glass houses shouldn't." -- Author Unknown %% "People who use long lines DESERVE to lose." -- Rob MacLachlan %% Percentage of Redbook readers who say they would rather have their genitals permanently numbed than go deaf: 70 -- Harper's Index %% "Perestroika: could it happen here?" -- Tom Neff %% Perfection is achieved only on the point of collapse. -- C. N. Parkinson %% "Perhaps I am flogging a straw herring in mid-stream, but in the light of what is known about the ubiquity of security vulnerabilities, it seems vastly too dangerous for university folks to run with their heads in the sand." -- Peter G. Neumann, RISKS moderator, about the Internet virus %% "Perhaps the best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time." -- Dean Acheson %% Perhaps the best way to characterize the relationship between DNA and meaning is to say that DNA is the source of meaning. It takes information about the environment and turns it into behaviour - thus realizing meaning in the pragmatic sense of the word. DNA is the place where the two sides of meaning meet, the place where reports become instructions. DNA is thus what first gave meaning to life; or, perhaps, what first created meaning, and therefore life, or what first created life, and therefore meaning. In any event, it is very impressive stuff. -- Robert Wright, Three Scientists and Their Gods %% "Personally, I always held my flower in a clenched fist." -- Abbie Hoffman %% Personally, should I ever form a globe spanning conglomerate, I intend to do it fairly and without malice or dirty politics. I hope you fellows don't make that too difficult a task; I would have to have to have you all killed. -- David Neal (abbadon@nuchat.uucp) %% "Pessimists have already begun to worry about what is going to replace automation." -- John Tudor %% Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Philosophy: unintelligible answers to insoluble problems. %% Physician: One upon whom we set our hopes when ill and our dogs when well. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Pig: An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however, is inferior in scope, for it balks at pig. -- Ambrose Bierce %% "Pioneering basically amounts to finding new and more horrible ways to die." - John W. Campbell %% Pipo was born with few complications, but then the doctor accidently dropped the infant on her head provoking her drunken father to drag the physician outside where he would beat him to death with a live ocelot. %% "Plan to throw one away. You will anyway." - Fred Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" %% "Plastic gun. Ingenious. More coffee, please." -- The Phantom comics %% Please don't ask me what the score is, I'm not even sure what the game is. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% Please don't lie to me, unless you're absolutely sure Ill never find out the truth. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% "Please refrain from making me puke on my workstation." -- Alan Weiss (alan@tivoli.UUCP> %% "Please spare us all the attempts to get everyone to shorten their emotional bandwidth on-line until everyone sounds like a sober philosophy major calmly discussing the merits of post neo-realism as reflected in modernistic Danish furniture." -- Chris Neckalson (chrisn@sco.com) %% "Poetry, like chastity, can be carried to far." -- Mark Twain %% Pohl's law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. %% "Pok pok pok, P'kok!" -- Superchicken %% Police up your spare rounds and frags. Don't leave nothin' for the dinks. -- Willem Dafoe in "Platoon" %% Politician: An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories. -- Arthur C. Clarke %% "Politics is for the moment. An equation is for eternity." -- Albert Einstein %% Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. -- Ambrose Bierce %% "Poor dead, there's nothing between his ears." -- Margaret Thatcher, about Ronald Reagan, in the 6/2/88 issue of The New York Times %% "Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another." -- Madonna %% "Poor man... he was like an employee to me." -- The police commissioner on "Sledge Hammer" laments the death of his bodyguard %% "Posting to alt.flame has nothing to do with writing flames." -- Patricia O Tuama (rissa@attctc.Dallas.TX.US) %% Pournelle must die! %% Poverty: An unhappy state that persists as long as anyone lacks anything he would like to have. %% Practice is the best of all instructors. - Publilius %% "Prais'd be the fathomless universe, for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious." -- Walt Whitman %% Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore. -- Russian Proverb %% Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future. - Niels Bohr %% Presidency: The greased pig in the field game of American politics. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Prevalent beliefs that knowledge can be tapped from previous incarnations or from a "universal mind" (the repository of all past wisdom and creativity) not only are implausible but also unfairly demean the stunning achievements of individual human brains. - Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171 %% "Probably the best operating system in the world is the [operating system] made for the PDP-11 by Bell Laboratories." - Ted Nelson, October 1977 %% "Problems are only opportunities in disguise." -- Albert North Whitehead %% Proboscis: The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Proclaim liberty throughout the land until all the inhabitants thereof. -- Leviticus 25:10 %% Professional wrestling: ballet for the common man. %% Program: Any assignment that cannot be completed with one telephone call. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" %% "Programmers are expensive. Hardware is cheap." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Pseudo-Judeo-Christian horror was no match for genuinely hypoglycemic hunger." -- Peni R. Griffin, "The Goat Man" (IASFM, 5/89) %% "Pseudocode can be used to some extent to aid the maintenance process. However, pseudocode that is highly detailed - approaching the level of detail of the code itself - is not of much use as maintenance documentation. Such detailed documentation has to be maintained almost as much as the code, thus doubling the maintenance burden. Furthermore, since such voluminous pseudocode is too distracting to be kept in the listing itself, it must be kept in a separate folder. The result: Since pseudocode - unlike real code - doesn't have to be maintained, no one will maintain it. It will soon become out of date and everyone will ignore it. (Once, I did an informal survey of 42 shops that used pseudocode. Of those 42, 0 [zero!], found that it had any value as maintenance documentation." -- Meilir Page-Jones, _The Practical Guide to Structured Design_, Yourdon Press (c) 1988 %% "Psychoanalysis is the mental illness it purports to cure." -- Karl Kraus %% "Psychoanalysis?? I thought this was a nude rap session!!!" -- Zippy %% "Pull the trigger and you're garbage." -- Lady Blue %% "Pull the wool over your own eyes!" -- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs %% Purple hum Assorted cars Laser lights, you bring All to prove You're on the move and vanishing -- The Cars %% "Put all your eggs in one basket, and WATCH THAT BASKET!" -- Jerry Buchmeyer %% Q. How many libertarians does it take to change a lightbulb? A. Three - one to do it and two to argue whether it's principled to change it. -- Bill Ware (?) %% Q. How many libertarians does it take to change a light bulb? A. None - the market will take care of it. -- Bill Ware (?) %% Q. What do you call three lawyers up to their necks in quicksand? A. Not enough quicksand. %% Q. What's all wrinkled and hangs out your underwear? A. Your mother. %% Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. %% Q: What's the difference between a car salesman and a computer salesman? A: The car salesman can probably drive! -- Joan McGalliard (jem@latcs1.oz.au) %% Q: How can I choose what groups to post in? ... Q: How about an example? A: Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try news.admin. If not, use news.misc. The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ %% Q: I cant spell worth a dam. I hope your going too tell me what to do? A: Don't worry about how your articles look. Remember it's the message that counts, not the way it's presented. Ignore the fact that sloppy spelling in a purely written forum sends out the same silent messages that soiled clothing would when addressing an audience. -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ %% Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What should I do? A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on believing that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be the only one to make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No time to lose, so certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if somebody else has made the correction. And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're the only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have to inform the whole net right away! -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ %% Q: They just announced on the radio that Dan Quayle was picked as the Republican V.P. candidate. Should I post? A: Of course. The net can reach people in as few as 3 to 5 days. It's the perfect way to inform people about such news events long after the broadcast networks have covered them. As you are probably the only person to have heard the news on the radio, be sure to post as soon as you can. -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_ %% "Question Authority and the Authorities will question You." -- Danny Low (dlow%hpspcoi@hplabs.hp.com) %% Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi. (What Jove may do, is not permitted to a cow.) %% Quoting court decisions is not a very useful activity when arguing with someone who is engaging in their constitutionally protected right to disagree with those decisions and attempting to change the environment in which they are made. You might believe that any legal decision by the courts is ipso facto correct and moral, but that's not the way most folks in this country operate. Look at Roe v. Wade... I happen to agree with the goals of that decision, but there are a hell of a lot of people who don't, and they have managed to get it changed, to some extent. Jeff is in the same position, and can quite reasonably argue that these statistics are irrelevant to his position. -- Peter da Silva (peter@sugar.hackercorp.com) %% "R&D is not something that can be useful alone... R&D is part of a product- making process." -- Ralph E. Gomory, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, New York City %% READ UNHAPPY - MAKNAM -- LISP 1.5 %% "Rage is a wind that blows out the candle of reason." -- Author Unknown %% "Rage, rage, against the dying of the light!" -- Dylan Thomas %% Ranger is very! %% "Reading legal mush can turn your brain to guacamole!" -- Amiga ROM Kernel Manual %% Real Programmers always confuse Christmas and Halloween because OCT 31 == DEC 25 ! -- Andrew Rutherford (andrewr@ucs.adelaide.edu.au) %% "Real education must be limited to men who *insist* on knowing. The rest is mere sheep-herding." -- Ezra Pound %% Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. -- Confucius %% "Real programmers don't bring paper bag lunches. If the vending machine sells it, they eat it. If the vending machine doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche." %% "Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand." %% "Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Cavemen drew flowcharts, and look how much good it did them." %% Real wealth can only increase. - R. Buckminster Fuller %% "Reality is not binding on news admins." -- Cathy Foulston (cathyf@rice.edu) %% "Rebellion is like witchcraft. That's what it is, it's like witchcraft." -- Missouri State Rep. Jean Dixon, on labeling "offensive music". USA Today, March 20, 1990 %% Refreshed by a brief blackout, I got to my feet and went next door. -- Martin Amis, _Money_ %% Regarding astral projection, Woody Allen once wrote, "This is not a bad way to travel, although there is usually a half-hour wait for luggage." %% "Regardless of the legal speed limit, your Buick must be operated at speeds faster than 85 MPH (140kph)." -- 1987 Buick Grand National owners manual. %% "Reliable software must kill people reliably." -- Andy Mickel %% "Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines." -- Bertrand Russell %% "Remember Kruschev: he tried to do too many things too fast, and he was removed in disgrace. If Gorbachev tries to destroy the system or make too many fundamental changes to it, I believe the system will get rid of him. I am not a political scientist, but I understand the system very well. I believe he will have a "heart attack" or retire or be removed. He is up against a brick wall. If you think they will change everything and become a free, open society, forget it!" -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 %% "Remember kids, if there's a loaded gun in the room, be sure that you're the one holding it." -- Captain Combat %% Remember thee Ay, thou poor ghost while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee! Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there. Hamlet, I : v : 95 William Shakespeare %% "Remember, IBM has always prided itself on its marketing prowess, and market segmentation was an essential part of that. The last thing IBM wanted to do was compete with itself. But it looks like that kind of thinking isn't going to work anymore." -- An unnamed IBM official, InfoWorld, February 26, 1990, page 1, about the unhappiness of the AS/400 group that the System/6000 had an aggressive price/performance ratio, and a larger number %% "Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom; Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love; Love is not music; Music is the best." -- Frank Zappa %% Remember, an int is not always 16 bits. I'm not sure, but if the 80386 is one step closer to Intel's slugfest with the CPU curve that is asymptotically approaching a real machine, perhaps an int has been implemented as 32 bits by some Unix vendors...? -- Derek Terveer %% "Remember, extremism in the nondefense of moderation is not a virtue." -- Peter Neumann, about usenet %% Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over. -- Frank Zappa %% Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life. -- Dave Butler %% Repel them. Repel them. Induce them to relinquish the spheroid. -- Indiana University fans' chant for their perennially bad football team %% "Resist, expose, or stop immediately every public school or group sex education program, no matter what it is called or how it is diffused into the curriculum." -- Fr. Paul Marx, President, Human Life International, in his brochure, From Contraception to Abortion, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% Resolved, that the 67th General Convention affirm the glorious ability of God to create in any manner, whether men understand it or not, and in this affirmation reject the limited insight and rigid dogmatism of the "Creationist" movement... -- from a 1982 resolution of the Episcopal Church %% Response From: coleman@baleen.cs.ucla.edu (Michael Coleman) To the question: is there a COBOL mode for GNU emacs: Isn't it pitiful when the editor you are using is a better programming environment than the *language* you are using?? BTW, there is a COBOL and a Fortran mode. %% "Revolution is the opiate of the intellectuals" - "Oh, Lucky Man" %% Riches: A gift from Heaven signifying, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." -- John D. Rockefeller, (slander by Ambrose Bierce) %% "Right now I feel that I've got my feet on the ground as far as my head is concerned." -- Baseball pitcher Bo Belinsky %% "Roman Polanski makes his own blood. He's smart -- that's why his movies work." -- A brilliant director at "Frank's Place" %% "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead." -- W. Shakespeare, HAMLET %% "Roses are red, violets are blue; I'm schizophrenic and so am I." -- Author Unknown %% "S.F.'S NO GOOD!!" They bellow till we're deaf. "But this looks good." "WELL THEN IT'S NOT S.F.!!" -- Kingsley Amis %% "SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!" -- Ken Thompson %% "Sacred cows make great hamburgers." -- Rober Reisner How do they hold the spatula? -- Stacey Campbell (staceyc@sco.com) %% Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited. -- Ambrose Bierce %% Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proven innocent. - George Orwell %% "Sarcasm: barbed ire." -- Author Unknown %% "Satanic Verses is a despicable book that could not have been written by a person who wished to behave decently and responsibly." -- Orson Scott Card, Science Fiction author, Mormon, weenie %% Save the whales. Collect the whole set. %% "Say yur prayers, yuh flea-pickin' varmint!" -- Yosemite Sam %% "Say, isn't that a twenty-story-high Gumby-shaped robot approaching at about Mach 8?" "What do you know...? So it is." %% "Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community require time to mature them for execution. An army, so large as seriously to menace those liberties, could only be formed by progressive augmentations; which would suppose not merely a temporary combination between the legislature and the executive, but a continued conspiracy for a series of time. Is it probable that such a combination would exist at all? Is it probable that it would be perserved in, and transmitted along through all the successive variations in a representative body, which biennial elections would naturally produce in both houses? Is it presumable that every man the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country? Can it be supposed that there would not be found one man discerning enough to detect so attrocious a conspiracy, or bold or honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger? If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought to be at once an end of all delegated authority." -- Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist Papers, #26 %% "Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof." -- Ashley Montague %% "Science is about skepticism." -- Eugene Miya %% "Science is not a sacred cow. Science is a horse. Don't worship it. Feed it." -- Aubrey Eben %% "Science is to computer science as hydrodynamics is to plumbing." -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, _Computer Language_, Oct 90 %% "Science makes godlike -- it is all over with priests and gods when man becomes scientific. Moral: science is the forbidden as such -- it alone is forbidden. Science is the *first* sin, the *original* sin. *This alone is morality.* ``Thou shalt not know'' -- the rest follows." -- Friedrich Nietzsche %% Scientific innovation sometimes sounds like poetry, and I would claim that it is, at least in the earliest stages. The ideal scientist can be said to think like a poet, work like a clerk, and write like a journalist. -- Edward O. Wilson, "Biophilia" %% Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man. %% "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -- Helen Keller %% "Seed me, Seymour" -- a random number generator meets the big green mother from outer space %% Seen on a button at an SF Convention: Veteran of the Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force. 1990-1951. %% Seen on the wall in a New York subway station: "There are no integers n > 2 and x, y, z > 0, such that x^n + y^n = z^n I have found a truly wonderful proof of this. Unfortunately, my train is coming. %% "`Self-esteem' [has been] promoted over and over again as the new panacea, along with teaching `responsibility.' However, parents must remember that `self-esteem' is a double-edged sword. While it may be true that a child needs a great deal of self-confidence to reject undesirable peer influence, it will, at the same time, require a defiantly self-confident child to have the courage to violate his or her family values and/or Judeo-Christian heritage, and engage in the `responsible' promiscuity being promoted by the liberal sex educators." -- Margo Szews, Anti-Choice Educator, A.L.L. About Issues, June - July '89, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% Semper Fi, dude. %% "Send lawyers, guns and money..." -- Lyrics from a Warren Zevon song %% Sendmail can safely be made setuid to root. -- Eric Allman, "Sendmail Install & Operation Guide" %% Seven years of college, down the drain. -- John Blutarski %% "Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions." -- Phyllis Schlafly %% "Sex education classes in our public schools are promoting incest." -- Jimmy Swaggart, TV preacher, self-described pornography addict who paid prostitutes to commit "pornographic acts", hypocrite %% Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, chances are you wont either. -- Joseph Fischer %% Sex is like air. It's only a big deal if you can't get any. %% Sex is like snow... You never know how many inches you're going to get or how long it will last. %% Ship it. %% "Ships don't come in, they're built." -- anon %% Shit Happens. %% "Show business is just like high school, except you get paid." -- Martin Mull %% "Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser." -- Vince Lombardi, football coach %% "Shut your eyes and you'll burst into flames." -- The Log Lady %% "Sigh... Every day I thank my statuette of Wilma Flintstone that I was born normal." -- Zippy the pinhead %% Sigmund Freud is alleged to have said that in the last analysis the entire field of psychology may reduce to biological electrochemistry. %% "Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone." -- G. B. Stearn %% Since computers do the sending, however, it's possible to address a single package to a mailing list of recipients with a shared interest in the subject matter -- be it cold fusion or hot pornography. -- Joe Abernathy <(C) 1990 Houston Chronicle> %% "Since the bicycle makes little demand on material or energy resources, contributes little to pollution, makes a positive contribution to health and causes little death or injury, it can be regarded as the most benevolent of machines." -- S. S. Wilson %% Since the measuring device has been constructed by the observer...we have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. -- Werner Heisenberg %% Sing and Dance the New Deal Away -- A button from Our People's Underworld %% Single tasking: Just Say No. %% Sir, the cow she walks. She talks. She's full of chalk. The lactose secretions of the female of the bovine species are highly desirable to the n'th degree. -- A West Point Cadet's answer to, "How's the Cow?", which roughly translates to, "How many servings of milk are left upon the table?". (The "n'th" indicates the number of servings). %% "Six years for possession of a cigarette?...I got six months for possession of a deadly weapon!" - cartoon by S. Harris %% "Slime is the agony of water." -- Jean-Paul Sartre %% Small is beautiful. %% "So far from God, so close to the United States" -- Old Mexican proverb %% So we follow our wandering paths, and the very darkness acts as our guide and our doubts serve to reassure us. -- Jean-Pierre de Caussade, eighteenth-century Jesuit priest %% So we get to my point. Surely people around here read things that aren't on the *Officially Sanctioned Cyberpunk Reading List*. Surely we don't (any of us) really believe that there is some big, deep political and philosophical message in all this, do we? So if this `cyberpunk' thing is just a term of convenience, how can somebody sell out? If cyberpunk is just a word we use to describe a particular style and imagery in sf, how can it be dead? Where are the profound statements that the `Movement' is or was trying to make? I think most of us are interested in examining and discussing literary (and musical) works that possess a certain stylistic excellence and perhaps a rather extreme perspective; this is what CP is all about, no? Maybe there should be a newsgroup like, say, alt.postmodern or something. Something less restrictive in scope than alt.cyberpunk. -- Jeff G. Bone %% So where the sheer incompetence of politicians and generals used to start wars, the sheer incompetence of us computer people has now put an end to it. No mean feat. For centuries humanity has been looking for the Weapon That Would End War Forever. We have found it. War has ended, not with the bang of a bomb, but with the gentle whisper of crashing software. -- Gerard Stafleu (gerard@uwovax.uwo.ca) %% "So why don't you make like a tree... and get outta here." -- Biff in "Back to the Future" %% "So-called Christian rock. . . . is a diabolical force undermining Christianity from within." -- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocrite and TV preacher, self-described pornography addict, "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.", The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50. %% "Socialism is power, power, and more power." -- Oswald Spengler, Hitler's intellectual forebear %% Software Engineering: How to program if you cannot. -- Dijkstra %% Software entities are more complex for their size than perhaps any other human construct because no two parts are alike. If they are, we make the two similar parts into a subroutine -- open or closed. In this respect, software systems differ profoundly from computers, buildings, or automobiles, where repeated elements abound. - Fred Brooks, Jr. %% "Software is the heart and soul of a computer company." -- DEC President Ken Olsen %% "Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more 'user-friendly'.... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old brochures, and stamp the words, 'user-friendly' on the cover." -- Bill Gates, Pres., Microsoft, Inc. %% Some people hope to achieve immortality through their works or their children. I would prefer to achieve it by not dying. -- Woody Allen %% "Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it." -- Gordon R. Dickson %% "Some people should be taken with a grain of salt; others with a whole shaker." -- Blumstein (paulb@ttidca.TTI.COM) %% "Some people think like drummers, some people act like them." -- Jason Titus %% "Some would sooner die than think. In fact, they often do." -- Bertrand Russell %% "Somebody said to me, `But the Beatles were antimaterialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say `Now, let's write a swimming pool'." -- Paul McCartney %% Someone is unenthusiastic about your work. %% "Someone's been mean to you! Tell me who it is, so I can punch him tastefully." -- Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse %% Sometime, you've gotta break the rules. %% "Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then." -- Katherine Hepburn %% Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. -- Sigmund Freud %% "Sometimes insanity is the only alternative" -- button at a Science Fiction convention. %% "Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday's code." -- Dan Salomon %% Sometimes you get the elevator and sometimes you get the shaft. %% "Sometimes you leave a mark, before you know the score." -- Ric Ocasek, "You Got You", from the album "This Side Of Paradise" %% Sometimes, too long is too long. -- Joe Crowe %% "Spending four or five hours a day tracing through CONSIO with an assembly-level debugger will take the spring out of anybody's step." -- The Lone Contractor %% Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal power should not become too important in any church. -- Eleanor Roosevelt %% "Spock, did you see the looks on their faces?" "Yes, Captain, a sort of vacant contentment." %% "Spontaneous combustion! What a stroke of luck!" -- Max %% Stability itself is nothing else than a more sluggish motion. %% "Stalinism begins at home." -- Tom Neff %% "Stan and I thought that this experiment was so stupid, we decided to finance it ourselves." -- Martin Fleischmann, co-discoverer of room-temperature fusion (?) %% "Standards committees are not the best ways to create a standard. Standards meetings and standards themselves are horribly political things. One thing that people forget is that many standards are made by rather small groups of people. A few good people can really save the day, and a few idiots can really make it miserable for years to come." -- Dennis Ritchie, coinventor of Unix %% "State run lotteries: think of them as tax breaks for the intelligent." -- Evan Leibovitch %% Statistics: A system for expressing your political prejudices in convincing scientific guise. %% Status quo: The mess we're in. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" %% Stay out of the road, if you want to grow old. -- Pink Floyd %% "Stop annoying Mister President with impertinent questions, Junior." -- Death Race 2000 %% "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!" -- M. Python %% Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane -- like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell -- mouths mercy and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him! -- Mark Twain, _The Mysterious Stranger_ %% "Stupidity is the basic building block of the universe." -- Frank Zappa %% "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward." -- William E. Davidsen %% Sturgeon's Law: Ninety percent of everything is crud. %% Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue. -- Seneca %% "Sudden de-compression Sucks!" -- Dennis Robert Gorrie, GORRIEDE@UREGINA1.BITNET %% "Summit meetings tend to be like panda matings. The expectations are always high, and the results usually disappointing." -- Robert Orben %% Support Mental Health. Or I'll kill you. %% Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a pinhead. -- Christopher Evans %% Suppose that there is something which a person cannot understand. He happens to notice the similarity of this something to some other thing which he understands quite well. By comparing them he may come to understand the thing which he could not understand up to that moment. If his understanding turns out to be appropriate and nobody else has ever come to such an understanding, he can claim that his thinking was really creative. -- Hideki Yukawa %% Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too. -- Richard M. Nixon %% Surely every human being ought to attain to the dignity of the unit. Surely it is worth while to be one, and to feel that the census of the universe would be incomplete without counting you. Surely there is grandeur in knowing that in the realm of thought you are without a chain; that you have the right to explore all heights and all depths; that there are no walls or fences, or prohibited places, or sacred corners in all the vast expanse of thought; that your intellect owes no allegiance to any being, human or divine; that you hold all in fee, and upon no condition, and by no tenure, whatsoever; that in the world of mind you are relieved from all personal dictation, and from the ignorant tyranny of majorities. Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay a reluctant homage. Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. Surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all worlds and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself. -- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Free Soul" %% "Survey says..." -- Richard Dawson, weenie, on "Family Feud" %% THE "FUN WITH USENET" MANIFESTO Very little happens on Usenet without some sort of response from some other reader. Fun With Usenet postings are no exception. Since there are some who might question the rationale of some of the excerpts included therein, I have written up a list of guidelines that sum up the philosophy behind these postings. One. I never cut out words in the middle of a quote without a VERY good reason, and I never cut them out without including ellipses. For instance, "I am not a goob" might become "I am ... a goob", but that's too mundane to bother with. "I'm flame proof" might (and has) become "I'm ...a... p...oof" but that's REALLY stretching it. Two. If I cut words off the beginning or end of a quote, I don't put ellipses, but neither do I capitalize something that wasn't capitalized before the cut. "I don't think that the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place" would turn into "the Church of Ubizmo is a wonderful place". Imagine the posting as a tape-recording of the poster's thoughts. If I can set up the quote via fast-forwarding and stopping the tape, and without splicing, I don't put ellipses in. And by the way, I love using this mechanism for turning things around. If you think something stinks, say so - don't say you don't think it's wonderful. ... -- D. J. McCarthy (dmccart@cadape.UUCP) %% THE THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS 1 - A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2 - A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3 - A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. -- Isaac Asimov %% "TO MANKIND And the hope that the war against folly may someday be won, after all." -- Dedicatory note of "The Gods Themselves" %% "Take Idaho's license plates - they say 'Famous Potatoes.' Then there's New Hampshire - their license plates say 'Live Free ... or DIE!!' I don't know, I think that somewhere between 'Famous Potatoes' and 'Live Free or Die' the truth lies. And I think it's closer to 'Famous Potatoes.'" -- George Carlin %% Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves. %% "Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat." -- Thiokol management, 1/27/86 %% "Take that, you hostile sons-of-bitches!" -- James Coburn, in the finale of _The_President's_Analyst_ %% Take what you can use and let the rest go by. -- Ken Kesey %% Taunting someone for using Andrew is like laughing at a slave because he has lash marks on his back: in bad taste. -- Robert Firth %% "Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed." -- Lazarus Long, from Robert Heinlein's _Time Enough For Love_ %% "Taxes? We don't need no stinking taxes." -- Jeff Daiell %% "Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it." -- Max Frisch %% "Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology." -- John Tudor %% Tell a man that there are 300 billion stars in the universe, and he'll believe you.... Tell him that a bench has wet paint upon it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. %% "Tell the truth and run." -- Yugoslav proverb %% Thank God a million billion times you live in Texas. %% "Thank heaven for startups; without them we'd never have any advances." -- Seymour Cray %% "That government is best which governs least." -- Thomas Jefferson %% "That government is best which governs not at all." -- Henry David Thoreau %% "That is not the Usenet tradition, but it's a solidly-entrenched delusion now." -- Brian Kantor (brian@ucsd.edu) %% That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended -- civilizations are built up -- excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top, and then it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. -- C. S. Lewis %% "That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest" -- Thoreau (Sysop's note: and if so, what are we doing here?) %% "That's not a bug, that's merely an idiosyncracy." -- mattb (formerly of sco) %% That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers. -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty" %% "The *evident* character of this defective cognition of which mathematics is proud, and on which it plumes itself before philosophy, rests solely on the poverty of its purpose and the defectiveness of its stuff, and is therefore of a kind that philosophy must spurn." -- G. W. F. Hegel %% "The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that from time to time threaten freedoms everywhere... Indeed, it is difficult to appreciate how far our freedoms might have eroded had it not been for the Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised by the majority they were at the time." -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren %% "The Amiga is the only personal computer where you can run a multitasking operating system and get realtime performance, out of the box." -- Peter da Silva %% "The Avis WIZARD decides if you get to drive a car. Your head won't touch the pillow of a Sheraton unless their computer says it's okay." -- Arthur Miller %% "The Berlin Wall is the defining achievement of socialism." -- George Will %% The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma. -- Abraham Lincoln %% The Bible is true this I know, For the Bible tells me so. -- Jordan Henderson (jordan@neosoft.com) %% "The Book says BURN and DESTROY repent and redeem and revenge and deploy and rumble thee forth to the land of the unbelieving scum 'cause they don't go for what's in the Book and that makes 'em BAD." -- Frank Zappa %% "The C committee took something that wasn't broken, and tidied it up without breaking it." -- Dennis Ritchie (dmr@alice.UUCP), about ANSI C standard X3J11 %% "The C shell is flakier than a snowstorm." -- Guy Harris %% The CS Sage says: Seek new employment prior to the imposition of performance penalties on your project. %% The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose. -- W. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice %% "The Diabolonian position is new to the London playgoer of today, but not to lovers of serious literature. From Prometheus to the Wagnerian Siegfried, some enemy of the gods, unterrified champion of those oppressed by them, has always towered among the heroes of the loftiest poetry." -- Shaw, "On Diabolonian Ethics" %% The F-15 Eagle: If it's up, we'll shoot it down. If it's down, we'll blow it up. -- A McDonnel-Douglas ad from a few years ago %% "The Government just announced today the creation of the Neutron Bomb II. Similar to the Neutron Bomb, the Neutron Bomb II not only kills people and leaves buildings standing, but also does a little light housekeeping." -- from "Global Village News" on Nickelodeon %% "The Heinlein Woman to me is this woman who goes out and rules the galaxy, smokes a cigar, uses a machine gun and all, but what she really wants is to bring her husband his slippers." -- paraphrase, based on peter@sugar's memory of a quote by Joan D. Vinge %% "The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases. "For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?'" -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy %% The Law of Software Envelopment Every program at MIT attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot expand are replaced by ones which can. %% "The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France %% "The Lisa had problems, but it was a terrific piece of engineering that still puts the Macintosh to shame." -- Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld %% The Messiah will come. There will be a resurrection of the dead -- all the things that Jews believed in before they got so damn sophisticated. -- Rabbi Meir Kahane %% The Mets drafted a catcher as their first-ever pick. Asked why, Casey Stengel replied, "Well, without a catcher, we'd have a lot of passed balls, don'tcha think?" %% "The Mets were great in 'sixty eight, The Cards were fine in 'sixty nine, But the Cubs will be heavenly in nineteen and seventy." -- Ernie Banks %% The Middle East is certainly the nexus of turmoil for a long time to come -- with shifting players, but the same game: upheaval. I think we will be confronting militant Islam -- particularly fallout from the Iranian revolution -- and religion will once more, as it has in our own more distant past -- play a role at least as standard-bearer in death and mayhem. -- Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval Intelligence, vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, deputy director of Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of MCC. %% "The NY Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country..." -- Robert J Woodhead (trebor@biar.UUCP) %% "The Nazis have no sense of humor, so why should they want television?" -- Philip K. Dick %% The President of these overly-united States was shaking hands with the NY Yankees one day -- apparently during summer. When he got to Babe Ruth, the Bambino opened with, "Hot as Hell, ain't it, Prez?" %% The Ranger isn't gonna like it, Yogi. %% The Seventh Edition licensing procedures are, I suppose, still in effect, though I doubt that tapes are available from AT&T. At any rate, whatever restrictions the license imposes still exist. These restrictions were and are reasonable for places that just want to run the system, but don't allow many of the things that Minix was written for, like study of the source in classes, or by individuals not in a university or company. I've always thought that Minix was a fine idea, and competently done. As for the size of v7, wc -l /usr/sys/*/*.[chs] is 19271. -- Dennis Ritchie, 1989 %% "The Soviet Union, which has complained recently about alleged anti-Soviet themes in American advertising, lodged an official protest this week against the Ford Motor Company's new campaign: `Hey you stinking fat Russian, get off my Ford Escort.'" -- Dennis Miller, Saturday Night Live %% "The Street finds its own uses for technology." -- William Gibson %% The Swartzberg Test: The validity of a science is its ability to predict. %% The Tree of Learning bears the noblest fruit, but noble fruit tastes bad. %% "The United States has entered an anti-intellectual phase in its history, perhaps most clearly seen in our virtually thought-free political life." -- David Baltimore %% "The ability of two men to put on gloves, stand toe-to-toe, and pummel each other into insensibility... is what separates us from the animals." -- Jim, on Taxi %% "The alternative to mutual trust, which is indeed a risky gamble, is the security of the police state." -- Alan Watts %% "The answers to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle: they're on TV!" -- Homer Simpson %% "The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents." -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186 %% "The armchair quarterbacking of a former quarterback is worth more than the armchair quarterbacking of a schmuck." -- Cal Keegan %% "The arts equally have distinct departments, and unless photography has its own possibilities of expression, separate from those of the other arts, it is merely a process, not an art." -- Alfred Stieglitz, circa 1895, about the Romantic-Impressionist school of photography %% The author should gaze at Noah, and ... learn, as they did in the Ark, to crowd a great deal of matter into a very small compass. -- Sydney, Smith, Edinburgh Review %% "The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever." -- Anatole France %% "The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by people who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried anything." -- Jim Joyce, former computer science lecturer at the University of California %% The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom. -- Clarence Darrow %% The best way to be an organ donor is to buy a motorcycle and ride it without a helmet. The severe brain damage that follows results in slow death, and emergency services often arrive fast enough so that good, healthy organs can be taken. In fact, this is such a common method that people working in organ transplants refer to motorcycles as ``donorcycles.'' -- Jon Webb %% "The better technology does not always sell better, even if it is first." -- William J. Spencer, Xerox Corporation %% "The biggest growth industry in UNIX is promoting standards." -- Rikki Kirzner, Dataquest. %% "The bonds that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each others life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof." -- Richard Bach %% The bug starts here. %% The bug stops here. %% "The cat is out of the bag. Even Siskel and Ebert talk about it, and they're _professional art farts_, not amatuer Art History Majors forced to work in a computer company because they realized too late that a four-year investment in a liberal arts degree is about as useful on the job market as a bicycle with square wheels." -- Chris Neckalson (sco!chrisn) %% "The chain that can be yanked is not the cosmic chain." -- Cal Keegan %% "The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain." -- G. Fitch %% The challenge of space exploration and particularly of landing men on the moon represents the greatest challenge which has ever faced the human race. Even if there were no clear scientific or other arguments for proceeding with this task, the whole history of our civilization would still impel men toward the goal. In fact, the assembly of the scientific and military with these human arguments creates such an overwhelming case that in can be ignored only by those who are blind to the teachings of history, or who wish to suspend the development of civilization at its moment of greatest opportunity and drama. -- Sir Bernard Lovell, 1962, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" %% The characteristic property of hallucinogens, to suspend the boundaries between the experiencing self and the outer world in an ecstatic, emotional experience, makes it possible with their help, and after suitable internal and external preparation...to evoke a mystical experience according to plan, so to speak... I see the true importance of LSD in the possibility of providing material aid to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality. Such a use accords entirely with the essence and working character of LSD as a sacred drug. -- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD %% "The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity." -- Edward Gibbons, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ %% The clothes have no emperor. -- C. A. Hoare, about Ada. %% The coming thing, Cowboy thinks. Live forever in a bodily incarnation of the eye-face, not limited to the speed of artificially enhanced neurotransmitters but approaching the speed of light, extending the limits of the interface, the universe. Brain contained in a perfect liquid- crystal analog. Nerves like the strings of a steel guitar. Heart a spinning turbopump. The Steel Cowboy, his body a screaming monochrome flicker, dispensing justice and righting wrongs. Who was that masked AI? Dunno, pardner, but he left this silver casting of a crystal circuit. To Cowboy, it sounded pretty good. -- Walter Jon Williams, _Hardwired_ %% The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity often abstract away its essence. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. %% The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows. -- Frank Zappa %% "The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs." -- Joseph Weizenbaum, _Computer Power and Human Reason_ %% "The condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance." -- John Philpot Curran %% The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best dangerous. -- Bjarne Stroustrup in "The C++ Programming Language" %% The contest was to predict the next, even nastier pitch for AT&T LD. A winner: "So I go to pick up Bobby from the daycare center and he's not there. I get home, the phone's ringing and it's them. The guy says, 'Lady, we've got your kid. Say something to mommy, Bob. (SCREAM). Please note, Mrs. Sanderson, the fiber-optic clarity of your son's ...'" -- From Advertising Age, January 7, 1991, p24 %% The contest was to predict the next, even nastier pitch for AT&T LD. Third Prize: I hear this crash and I find a rock, wrapped in paper, next to my living room window. I open up the note and it says, "You want it in writing? You got it. Next time, take the call. MCI. We know where you live." -- From Advertising Age, January 7, 1991, p24 %% "The country couldn't run without Prohibition. That is the industrial fact." -- Henry Ford, 1929 %% "The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt %% "The cow story is unlikely - cows are valuable, and don't fit into automatic teller machine slots." -- ho95c.att.com!wcs %% "The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing." -- William J. Broad %% "The day is very warm", intoned the priest, "but the noodles are getting cold". "A cold noodle", he continued, "is like a dog without fur.... Recognizable, but very unpleasent." ---- cruc!gevert %% The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his Father, in the womb of a virgin will be classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors. -- Thomas Jefferson %% The decision doesn't have to be logical, it is unanimous. %% "The difference between a rabbit and a rock is the information content, and the difference between a living and a dead rabbit is in the availability or usability of the information." -- Dr. John A. Ball %% "The difference between fantasy and science fiction is that one hast honest politicians scrupulous lawyers, and altruistic doctors, while the other only has beings from outer space." -- William John Watkins %% "The difference between the right word and a similar word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." -- Mark Twain %% The discovery of this strange society was a curiously refreshing thing; to realize that there were ten new trades in the world was like looking at the first ship or the first plough. It made a man feel what he should feel, that he was still in the childhood of the world. -- G. K. Chesterton, "The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown" %% The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity. -- John Adams %% "The doughnut is...not unlike the ideal lover - rich, sensual, irresistably desirable, and available 24 hours a day." -- David Hoffman %% "The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly. I would rather use them to mimic something better." --Edsger Dijkstra %% The emperor has no clothes. %% The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. -- Buckminster Fuller %% The essential ideas of Algol 68 were that the whole language should be precisely defined and that all the pieces should fit together smoothly. The basic idea behind Pascal was that it didn't matter how vague the language specification was (it took *years* to clarify) or how many rough edges there were, as long as the CDC Pascal compiler was fast. -- Richard A. O'Keefe %% The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way. Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality, and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation, and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing beyond the grave. Such childish "proofs" are typically theological, and they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents.... -- H. L. Mencken %% The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man is and will always be a wild animal. -- Charles Galton Darwin %% The existence of god implies a violation of causality. %% "The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds." -- Claude Bernard %% "The fact is that one side thinks that the profits to be won outweigh the risks to be incurred, and the other side is ready to face danger than accept an immediate loss." -- Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War %% The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of space and time. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge %% The fault lies not with our technologies but with our systems. -- Roger Levian %% "The federal procurement system is like a software system with bugs. Every time it's broken down, somebody has patched it. But keeping it together is getting harder and harder and costing more money. And at that point, an experienced software engineer would throw up his hands and say, 'Hey! Let's toss this out and start over.'" -- James Paul, House Science, Space, and Technology Committee's Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. %% "The filter has discreting sources." -- KSC FIDO, 1/28/86 %% "The final twitch of "Political Correctness" grand peur has to do with the age-old fear of antinomian beastliness, lesbians holding black masses over copies of Derrida and so forth." -- Alexander Cockburn %% The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time. The last 10% of a project takes 90% of the time. %% The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. -- Abbie Hoffman %% The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. -- Paul Erlich %% The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month %% The flush toilet is the basis of Western civilization. -- Alan Coult %% The following appeared in my MCI bill this month: MCI> President Bush is proclaiming July 22 as Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy MCI> Family Appreciation Day, in honor of the 100th birthday of one of MCI> America's most beloved and respected citizens. Throughout her life, MCI> family has been of utmost importance to Mrs. Kennedy. Family MCI> Appreciation Day calls upon Americans to rededicate themselves to family MCI> values and relationships... [ they then go on to encourage people to use the telephone a lot. ] This Sunday, I encourage the following activities: o Fornicate o Get a divorce o Shoot suction-cup darts at photos of JFK o Fornicate o Call up your long-distance operator and emit an ear-piercing shriek o Tell your parents how they've screwed you up for life o Assist a gay couple in adopting or conceiving o Use the word "Chappaquiddick" (sic?) in a sentence o Buy your pre-adolescent children a copy of Blue Boy o Fornicate o Spit on a rich person o Fornicate Thank you. -- Erb (cooper@cs), Church of the Four-day Workweek %% "The following is not for the weak of heart or Fundamentalists." -- Dave Barry %% The formalized CS education we have in Soviet Union yields really awful results - for example the quantity of grads capable to write real programs is about 2-3% after the CS Dept. of Moscow U (not the worst one, be sure) - and those students who CAN program all are self-educated hackers and as a rule they had terrible conflicts with educational authorities. Some of the most talented programmers here are still students in their 30s. Thus the practice is against Dijkstra. -- Vadim Antonov (avg@hq.demos.su) %% The fountain code has been tightened slightly so you can no longer dip objects into a fountain or drink from one while you are floating in mid-air due to levitation. Teleporting to hell via a teleportation trap will no longer occur if the character does not have fire resistance. -- README file from the NetHack game %% The fourth law of thermodynamics: The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. %% "The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment." -- Richard P. Feynman %% "The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. Suffer it not to become a source of dissension and discord, of hate and enmity." "Religion is verily the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world and of tranquillity amongst it's peoples...The greater the decline of religion, the more grievous the waywardness of the ungodly. This cannot but lead in the end to chaos and confusion." -- Baha'u'llah, a selection from the Baha'i scripture %% The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. -- Albert Einstein %% The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy. %% "The geeks shall inherit the earth." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "The genius of you Americans is that you never make any clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves that leave us scratching our heads wondering if we might possibly have missed something." -- Gamel Abdel Nasser %% "The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell." -- Saint Augustine %% "The good thing about drawing a tiger is that it automatically makes your picture fine art." -- Calvin %% "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." -- George Washington %% "The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, `What does woman want?'" -- Sigmund Freud %% "The great tragedy of science, the slaying of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact." -- Thomas Henry Huxley %% "The greater the hold of government upon the life of the individual citizen, the greater the risk of war." -- John Hospers %% "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." -- Justice Louis O. Brandeis (Olmstead vs. United States) %% "The greatest warriors are the ones who fight for peace." -- Holly Near %% "The hand that rocks the cradle can also cradle a rock." --- Feminist saying, circa 1968-1972 %% "The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray." -- Robert G. Ingersoll %% The hell with the prime directive, let's kill something. %% "The highest form of pure thought is in mathematics." -- Plato %% The history of the rise of Christianity has everything to do with politics, culture, and human frailties and nothing to do with supernatural manipulation of events. Had divine intervention been the guiding force, surely two millennia after the birth of Jesus he would not have a world where there are more Muslims than Catholics, more Hindus than Protestants, and more nontheists than Catholics and Protestants combined. -- John K. Naland, "The First Easter", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 2 %% The hotel [in Kiev] checked us in very quickly. Unlike the one in Moscow, the door guard smiled, did not check our passes and did not wear a gun. The hotel serves excellent country food for lunch, including dumpling soup, pork and homemade ice cream. The waitress is friendly. Going from Moscow to Kiev is like going from New York to Texas. -- T. J. Rodgers, "High tech in the Ukraine", E. E. Times, 8/13/90, p. 16 %% "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserved their neutrality." -- Dante %% "The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games which it is most attached is called, "Keep tomorrow dark," and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) "Cheat the Prophet." The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. Then they go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun." -- G.K. Chesterton %% The hypothesis: Amid a wash of paper, a small number of documents become the critical pivots around which every project's management revolves. These are the manager's chief personal tools. -- Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month %% The idea of man leaving this earth and flying to another celestial body and landing there and stepping out and walking over that body has a fascination and a driving force that can get the country to a level of energy, ambition, and will that I do not see in any other undertaking. I think if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we needed that impetus extremely strongly. I sincerely believe that the space program, with its manned landing on the moon, if wisely executed, will become the spearhead for a broad front of courageous and energetic activities in all the fields of endeavour of the human mind - activities which could not be carried out except in a mental climate of ambition and confidence which such a spearhead can give. -- Dr. Martin Schwarzschild, 1962, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" %% "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer." -- Henry Kissinger %% "The important thing is never to stop questioning." -- Albert Einstein %% The inability to benefit from feedback appears to be the primary cause of pseudoscience. Pseudoscientists retain their beliefs and ignore or distort contradictory evidence rather than modify or reject a flawed theory. Because of their strong biases, they seem to lack the self-correcting mechanisms scientists must employ in their work. -- Thomas L. Creed, "The Skeptical Inquirer," Summer 1987 %% "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." -- Winston Churchill, churchill@hmv.uk.gov %% "The judge ought to give 'em a chance to tell what evolution is. Course we got them licked anyhow, but I believe in being fair and square and American. Besides, I'd like to know what evolution is myself." -- Tennessee State Representative John Washington Butler, author of the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Law, during the Scopes Monkey Trial %% "The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy %% The language provides a programmer with a set of conceptual tools; if these are inadequate for the task, they will simply be ignored. For example, seriously restricting the concept of a pointer simply forces the programmer to use a vector plus integer arithmetic to implement structures, pointer, etc. Good design and the absence of errors cannot be guaranteed by mere language features. -- Bjarne Stroustrup, "The C++ Programming Language" %% The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first. -- Blaise Pascal %% The late rebellion in Massachusetts has given more alarm than I think it should have done. Calculate that one rebellion in 13 states in the course of 11 years, is but one for each state in a century and a half. No country should be so long without one. -- Thomas Jefferson in letter to James Madison, 20 December 1787 %% "The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer we presently imagine we own." -- H.G. Wells %% "The less you know about home computers the more you'll want the new IBM PS/1." -- Advertisment in the Edmonton Journal, Thursday, December 13, 1990 %% "The lesser of two evils -- is evil." -- Seymour (Sy) Leon %% "The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets....The press in its historical connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion." -- Lowell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 452 (1938), quoted by Mike Godwin in comp.org.eff.talk %% The life of a repo man is always intense. %% "The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful for the sake of something else." -- Aristotle %% "The life of the people must be freed from the asphyxiating perfume of our modern eroticism, as it must be from unmanly and prudish refusal to face facts.... The right to personal freedom comes second in importance to the duty of sustaining the race." -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1924 %% "The light that burns twice as bright lasts half as long, and you have burned so very, very bright, Roy!" -- Doctor Eldon Tyrell, in Blade Runner %% "The living dead don't NEED to solve word problems." -- Calvin %% The magician is seated in his high chair and looks upon the world with favor. He is at the height of his powers. If he closes his eyes, he causes the world to disappear. If he opens his eyes, he causes the world to come back. If there is harmony within him, the world is harmonious. If rage shatters his inner harmony, the unity of the world is shattered. If desire arises within him, he utters the magic syllables that causes the desired object to appear. His wishes, his thoughts, his gestures, his noises command the universe. -- Selma Fraiberg, _The Magic Years_, pg. 107 %% The main thing is the play itself. I swear that greed for money has nothing to do with it, although heaven knows I am sorely in need of money. -- Feodor Dostoyevsky %% "The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency." -- Albert Einstein %% The makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their poems, or of parents for their children ... and hence they are very bad company, for they talk of nothing but the praises of wealth. -- Plato %% The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be.... The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. -- Adam Smith %% "The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." -- William Stekel %% "The mass media is supported and sustained by commercial entities. And corn flakes and Shakespeare are simply not kissing cousins. Leonard Bernstein and living bras are incompatible. And you cannot sustain adult, probing, meaningful drama when the proceedings are interrupted every twelve minutes by a dozen dancing rabbits with toilet paper." -- Rod Serling %% "The medium is the massage." -- Crazy Nigel %% "The medium is the message." -- Marshall McLuhan %% The meek are contesting the will. %% The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights. -- J. Paul Getty %% The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us will go to the stars. %% The meek will inherit the earth ... in pine boxes six feet long by ... %% "The minority is always right." -- Henrik Ibsen 1828-1906 %% The mistake you make is in trying to figure it out. -- Tennessee Williams %% The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events, the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light, but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast powers in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task. -- Albert Einstein %% "The more you have, the more you have that needs fixing." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious." -- Albert Einstein %% "The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements." -- Brian Kernighan [1978] %% "The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason." -- Thomas Paine, _The Age of Reason_ %% "The most important question in the study of government is 'how can we prevent government from going berserk and killing off half the population?'" -- John Kormylo %% "The most important question when any new computer architecture is introduced is `So what?'" -- someone in comp.arch %% "The most important thing in a man is not what he knows, but what he is." -- Narciso Yepes %% The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. -- Albert Einstein %% The most merciful thing in the world ... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. -- H. P. Lovecraft %% "The net result is a system that is not only binary compatible with 4.3 BSD, but is even bug for bug compatible in almost all features." -- Avadit Tevanian, Jr., "Architecture-Independent Virtual Memory Management for Parallel and Distributed Environments: The Mach Approach" %% "The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured some whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day." -- Peter Applebome %% The notion of ideas as infectious diseases is one to which most authoritarian religions and governments subscribe, and they hold massive "hygienic" burnings of the "viral DNA" behind the ideas. Promulgators of these "diseased" ideas are called "carriers of spiritual impurity" (to use one phrase now popular in China) and attempts are made to prevent the spread of these diseases. This is a naive and dangerous view of how ideas work and it is disturbing to see it rationalized into Western pop psychology. -- Tim Maroney (tim@toad.com) %% The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes -- that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere effects -- this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, science would explain the origin of life on earth at once--and there is every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.... -- H. L. Mencken, 1930 %% "The number of Unix installations has grown to 10, with more expected." -- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June, 1972 %% "The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a necessity." - Oscar Wilde %% "The only corporate defense against rationality is bureaucracy." -- anon %% "The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." -- Salvador Dali %% The only flaw in the Hinckley trial is that it left a lot of people with the impression that psychiatrists are just a bunch of bearded voodoo doctors who espouse confusing and wildly contradictory theories that have nothing to do with common sense. This is totally unfair. Many psychiatrists are clean- shaven. -- Dave Barry, Psychiatrist For Rent, _Bad Habits_ %% "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others ... over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." -- John Stuart Mill 'On Liberty' 1859 %% The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -- Edmund Burke %% "The only thing open about OSF is their mouth." -- Chuck Musciano %% "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy." -- Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards %% "The only way for a reporter to look at a politician is down." -- H.L. Mencken %% The only way to have real success in science, the field I'm familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty. In other fields, such as business, it's different. For example, almost every advertisement you see is obviously designed, in some way or another, to fool the customer: the print that they don't want you to read is small; the statements are written in an obscure way. It is obvious to anybody that the product is not being presented in a scientific and balanced way. Therefore, in the selling business, there's a lack of integrity. -- Richard P. Feynman, _What Do You Care What Other People Think?_ %% The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. -- Brian Kernighan %% The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Niels Bohr %% "The part I think I'd like best is crushing people who get in my way." -- Calvin %% "The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of course you never do." -- Gregory Bateson %% "The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose." -- James Finke, Pres., Commodore Int'l Ltd. (1982) %% "The picture's pretty bleak, gentlemen... The world's climates are changing, the mammals are taking over, and we all have a brain about the size of a walnut." -- some dinosaurs from The Far Side, by Gary Larson %% The place where I come from is a small town. They think so small, they use small words. But not me, I'm smarter than that. I worked it out. I've been stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out... -- Peter Gabriel, "Big Time" %% "The police are not there to create disorder. The police are there to preserve disorder." -- The late Richard J. Daly, Mayor of the city of Chicago %% "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." -- George Bernard Shaw %% The power to destroy a planet is insignificant when compared to the power of the Force. -- Darth Vader %% "The preeminence of a learned man over a worshiper is equal to the preeminence of the moon, at the night of the full moon, over all the stars. Verily, the learned men are the heirs of the Prophets." -- A tradition attributed to Muhammad %% The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. -- James Baldwin %% The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought- stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month %% "The pyramid is opening!" "Which one?" "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" -- The Firesign Theatre %% "The question is rather: if we ever succeed in making a mind 'of nuts and bolts', how will we know we have succeeded? -- Fergal Toomey "It will tell us." -- Barry Kort %% The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong - but that's the way to bet. -- Damon Runyon %% "The raytracer of justices recurses slowly, but it renders exceedingly fine." -- Larry Phillips (lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca) %% "The real problem with SDI is that it doesn't kill anybody." -- Tom Neff %% "The real test of an artist, of course, is not whether you can see each blade of grass, but whether the eyes follow you across the room." -- Stewart Evans %% The reason ESP, for example, is not considered a viable topic in contemporary psychology is simply that its investigation has not proven fruitful...After more than 70 years of study, there still does not exist one example of an ESP phenomenon that is replicable under controlled conditions. This simple but basic scientific criterion has not been met despite dozens of studies conducted over many decades...It is for this reason alone that the topic is now of little interest to psychology...In short, there is no demonstrated phenomenon that needs explanation. -- Keith E. Stanovich, "How to Think Straight About Psychology", pp. 160-161 %% "The reason that God was able to create the world in seven days is that he didn't have to worry about the installed base." -- Enzo Torresi %% "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw %% "The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson %% The reported resort to astrology in the White House has occasioned much merriment. It is not funny. Astrological gibberish, which means astrology generally, has no place in a newspaper, let alone government. Unlike comics, which are part of a newspaper's harmless pleasure and make no truth claims, astrology is a fraud. The idea that it gets a hearing in government is dismaying. -- George Will, Washing Post Writers Group %% "The right to search for the truth implies also a duty; one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be the truth." -- Albert Einstein %% "The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom...for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough." -- William Blake %% "The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between a five-dollar bill and a whip deserves to learn the difference on his own back -- as, I think, he will." -- Francisco d'Anconia, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_ %% The rule on staying alive as a program manager is to give 'em a number or give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once. %% "The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage." -- Mark Russell %% The scientists most esteemed by their colleagues are those who are both very original and committed to the abstract ideal of truth in the midst of clamoring demands of ego and ideology. They pass the acid test of promoting new knowledge even at the expense of losing credit for it. -- Edward O. Wilson, "Biophilia" %% "The script had been written by this legendary dead guy that we know and there were about fifty-eleven-hundred pages of it. Of this eight words were completely readable. These were "oranges" in the title and "Close the curtains, Geoffrey, I'm amphibious", which was right at the end. To be perfectly frank man, I wasn't even 100% sure about amphibious." -- Waldo "D.R." Dobbs, "D.R. and Quinch go to Hollywood". %% "The sendmail configuration file is one of those files that looks like someone beat their head on the keyboard. After working with it... I can see why!" -- Harry Skelton (harry@usrgrp) %% "The shortest distance between two points is through Hell." -- Brian Clark %% "The shortest distance between two points is under construction." -- Noelie Altito %% "The simple rights, the civil liberties from generations of struggle must not be just fine words for patriotic holidays, words we subvert on weekdays, but living, honored rules of conduct amongst us...I'm glad the American Civil Liberties Union gets indignant, and I hope this will always be so." -- Senator Adlai E. Stevenson %% "The sixties were good to you, weren't they?" -- George Carlin %% The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. -- William Gibson, "Neuromancer" %% The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an "airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference -- one can see only a very few things at once. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. %% "The so-called Christian world is contracepting itself out of existence." -- Fr. L. Kieffer, HLI Reports, August 1989, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% The sooner all the animals are extinct, the sooner we'll find their money. -- Ed Bluestone %% The source codes and formal descriptions [for DES] were publically available in USSR long before that posting. I've first seen it being a student and hacking some Unix sources about 1982. Isn't it stupid to continue insisting on export restrictions of the well-known technology? -- Vadim Antonov (avg@hq.demos.su) %% The spectacle of astrology in the White House -- the governing center of the world's greatest scientific and military power -- is so appalling that it defies understanding and provides grounds for great fright. The easiest response is to laugh it off, and to indulge in wisecracks about Civil Service ratings for horoscope makers and palm readers and whether Reagan asked Mikhail Gorbachev for his sign. A contagious good cheer is the hallmark of this presidency, even when the most dismal matters are concerned. But this time, it isn't funny. It's plain scary. -- Daniel S. Greenberg, Editor, _Science and Government Report_, writing in "Newsday", May 5, 1988 %% The sprung doors parted and I staggered out into the lobby's teak and flicker. Uniformed men stood by impassively like sentries in their trench. I slapped my key on the desk and nodded gravely. I was loaded enough to be unable to tell whether they could tell I was loaded. Would they mind? I was certainly too loaded to care. I moved to the door with boxy, schlep-shouldered strides. -- Martin Amis, _Money_ %% "The stars are made of the same atoms as the earth." I usually pick one small topic like this to give a lecture on. Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars -- mere gobs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere." I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination -- stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern -- of which I am a part -- perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belching there. Or see them with the greater eye of Palomar, rushing all apart from some common starting point when they were perhaps all together. What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the *why?* It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined! Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" -- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988) %% "The starting point of all individual achievement is the adoption of a definite purpose and a definite plan for its attainment." -- Napoleon Hill %% "The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure." -- Albert Einstein %% The tar pit of software engineering will continue to be sticky for a long time to come. One can expect the human race to continue attempting systems just within or just beyond our reach; and software systems are perhaps the most intricate and complex of man's handiworks. The management of this complex craft will demand our best use of new languages and systems, our best adaptation of proven engineering management methods, liberal doses of common sense, and ... humility to recognize our fallibility and limitations. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month %% The telephone blasted Peter Fallow awake inside an egg with the shell peeled away and only the membranous sac holding it intact. Ah! The membranous sac was his head, and the right side of his head was on the pillow, and the yolk was as heavy as mercury, and it rolled like mercury, and it was pressing down on his right temple and his right eye and his right ear. If he tried to get up to answer the telephone, the yolk, the mercury, the poisoned mass, would shift and roll and rupture the sac, and his brains would fall out. -- Tom Wolfe, "Bonfire of the Vanities" %% The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. -- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972 %% "The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea." -- _The Wizardry Compiled_ by Rick Cook %% "The time for action is past! Now is the time for senseless bickering!" -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% The time is right to make new friends. %% "The totality is present even in the broken pieces." -- Aldous Huxley %% "The triumph of libertarian anarchy is nearly (in historical terms) at hand... *if* we can keep the Left from selling us into slavery and the Right from blowing us up for, say, the next twenty years." -- Eric Rayman, usenet guy, about nanotechnology %% "The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was." -- Walt West %% The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings. -- H. L. Mencken %% "The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling." -- Robert Pirsig (quoted in Zen_To_Go, Jon Winokur) %% "The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false." -- Saint Thomas Aquinas %% The typical page layout program is nothing more than an electronic light table for cutting and pasting documents. %% The unique operations of the (human) brain are the result of natural selection operating through the filter of culture. They have suspended us between the two antipodal ideals of nature and machine, forest and city, the natural and the artifactual, relentlessly seeking, in the words of geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, an equilibrium not of this world. -- Edward O. Wilson, "Biophilia" %% "The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." -- Eden Phillpots %% The universe is laughing behind your back. %% "The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we *can* suppose." -- J.B.S. Haldane %% The universe is their oyster, and they like it raw. -- M. Howarth, referring to Those Annoying Post Brothers. %% The unnatural, that too is natural. -- Goethe %% "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge." -- Bakunin [ed. note - I would say: The urge to destroy may sometimes be a creative urge.] %% "The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." -- E. W. Dijkstra (1982) %% "The use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Blues Brothers has been approved." %% "The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults." -- Peter De Vries %% "The vast majority of successful major crimes against property are perpetrated by individuals abusing positions of trust." -- Lawrence Dalzell %% The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth-while. Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, the Peace brought by something worth-while. -- Alfred North Whitehead, 1963, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" %% "The voters have spoken, the bastards..." -- unknown %% "The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones." -- Nathaniel Howe %% "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit." -- The Shadow %% The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak. -- Wavy Gravy %% "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." -- Bertrand Russell %% "The wife you save may be your own." -- Unofficial slogan of supporters of one of FDR's sons, a notorious womanizer, during the son's first congressional race %% The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness: and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this is also vanity. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? As the fool. -- Ecclesiastes 2:14-16 %% "The woman of my dreams knows how to break into systems." -- Doug Tygar %% The world is coming to an end--save your buffers! %% "The world is coming to an end. Please log off." -- Bob Irwin (birwin@ficc.ferranti.com) %% The world is no nursery. -- Sigmund Freud %% The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of trolls. -- Father Robert F. Capon %% "The worst thing is when you have to kill someone you love because they're SATAN." -- Judy Tenuda %% "Theater, art, literature, cinema... must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world..." -- Adolf Hitler %% Theorem: Every horse has an infinite number of legs 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. The only number that is both odd and even is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of legs. -- From "On the Nature of Mathematical Proofs", Joel Cohen %% "There are a lot of lies going around.... and half of them are true." -- Winston Churchill %% There are bugs and then there are bugs. And then there are bugs. -- Karl Lehenbauer %% There are no bugs, only unrecognized features. %% There are no saints, only unrecognized villains. %% "There are some good people in it, but the orchestra as a whole is equivalent to a gang bent on destruction." -- John Cage, composer %% "There are some people who take a nickel's worth of knowledge and sit on it as if it were an Incan treasure." -- unknown %% "There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them." -- Heisenberg %% There are two kinds of egotists: 1) Those who admit it 2) The rest of us %% "There are two was to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking." -- Alfred Korzybski %% There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. -- Charles Anthony Richard Hoare %% There are two ways to improve on human factors in computing: Make the programmers less stupid and/or make the users less stupid. Both are necessary, neither are likely. -- Digital Teddy Bear (dlarson@blake.acs.washington.edu) %% There are very few problems which can't be solved by ripping a hole in reality. %% "There can be no offense where none is taken" -- Japanese proverb %% "There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword." -- Benjamin Dana %% "There is a coherent plan in the universe, though I don't know what it's a plan for." -- Fred Hoyle %% There is a difference between "celibate" and simply "not getting any". It's like the difference between "fast" and "starve". After all of Esther's posts, I still can't figure out exactly which category she fits into. Let's see if I can make this plain. Esther: If Mel Gibson offered you a doughnut, would you eat it? -- Ajay Jain %% There is a time in the tides of men, Which, taken at its flood, leads on to success. On the other hand, don't count on it. -- T. K. Lawson %% "There is absolutely nothing loving about sex .... Lust is as destructive of love inside the marriage as it is outside." -- Fr. John H. McGoey, Family Planning Educator, Human Life International Symposium on Human Sexuality, 4/25/86, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "There is also a thriving independent student movement in Poland, and thus there is a strong possibility (though no guarantee) of making an EARN-Poland link, should it ever come about, a genuine link - not a vacuum cleaner attachment for a Bloc information gathering apparatus rationed to trusted apparatchiks." -- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a gateway from EARN (European Academic Research Network) to Poland %% "There is considerable evidence that great empires and civilizations have been undone not by barbarian invaders but by climatic change." -- 1977 CIA report %% "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum." -- Arthur C. Clarke %% "There is no Father Christmas. It's just a marketing ploy to make low income parents' lives a misery." "... I want you to picture the trusting face of a child, streaked with tears because of what you just said." "I want you to picture the face of its mother, because one week's dole won't pay for one Master of the Universe Battlecruiser!" - Filthy Rich and Catflap, 1986 %% "There is no choice before us. Either we must Succeed in providing the rational coordination of impulses and guts, or for centuries civilization will sink into a mere welter of minor excitements. We must provide a Great Age or see the collapse of the upward striving of the human race." - Alfred North Whitehead %% "There is no difference between killing a four year-old child and aborting a pre-born 3-month-old [fetus]." -- Randall Terry, Executive Director, Operation Rescue, in his film, "Higher Laws", as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "There is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress." -- Mark Twain %% "There is no doubt I should be tarred and feathered." -- Richard Sexton %% "There is no idea so sacred that it cannot be questioned, analyzed... and ridiculed." -- Cal Keegan %% "There is no knowledge that is not power." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson %% "There is no law that vulgarity and literary excellence cannot coexist." -- A. Trevor Hodge %% There is no remedy for sex but more sex. %% "There is no statute of limitations on stupidity." -- Randomly produced by a computer program called Markov3. %% There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it. %% There is nothing in this world constant but inconstancy. -- Swift %% "There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don't know yet." -- Ambrose Bierce %% "There is nothing so deadly as not to hold up to people the opportunity to do great and wonderful things, if we wish to stimulate them in an active way." - Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry %% There is something you must understand about the Soviet system. They have the ability to concentrate all their efforts on a given design, and develop all components simultaneously, but sometimes without proper testing. Then they end up with a technological disaster like the Tu-144. In a technology race at the time, that aircraft was two months ahead of the Concorde. Four Tu-144s were built; two have crashed, and two are in museums. The Concorde has been flying safely for over 10 years. -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 %% "There is such a fine line between genius and stupidity." -- David St. Hubbins, "Spinal Tap" %% There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable. -- H. L. Mencken, 1930 %% "There must be some mistake," he said, "are you not a greater computer than the Milliard Gargantubrain which can count all the atoms in a star in a millisecond?" "The Milliard Gargantubrain?" said Deep Thought with unconcealed contempt. "A mere abacus. Mention it not." -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy %% "There was a vague, unpleasant manginess about his appearance; he somehow seemed dirty, though a close glance showed him as carefully shaven as an actor, and clad in immaculate linen." -- H.L. Mencken, on the death of William Jennings Bryan %% "There was no difference between the behavior of a god and the operations of pure chance..." -- Thomas Pynchon, _Gravity's Rainbow_ %% "There was nothing I hated more than to see a filthy old drunkie, a howling away at the sons of his father and going blurp blurp in between as if it were a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, especially when they were old like this one was." - Alex in "Clockwork Orange" %% There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that the old hands used for this rite -- West invented the term, not the practice -- was `signing up.' By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family, hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if you had signed up too many times before). -- Tracy Kidder, _The Soul of a New Machine_ %% There you go man, Keep as cool as you can. It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave. Keep on being free! %% There's a bug somewhere in your code. %% "There's a lovely paper which compares Unix to Zork in both cognitive and user motivational terms. Maybe you like Unix because it's an adventure game? Still, I just don't think Unix will succeed as a theme park (some small fraction of :-)" -- Bruce Cohen %% "There's always been Tower of Babel sort of bickering inside Unix, but this is the most extreme form ever. This means at least several years of confusion." -- Bill Gates, founder and chairman of Microsoft, about the Open Systems Foundation %% "There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." -- J. S. Bach %% "There's nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure. " -- Ross MacDonald %% "There's one constant in buying a suit: It should fit." -- The Houston Chronicle, 3/15/90 %% "There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again." -- Clint Eastwood %% "There... I've run rings 'round you logically" -- Monty Python's Flying Circus %% "Therefore, one should never admit a garrison larger than one's own forces, especially when composed of barbarians." -- Polybios, writing in the mid-2nd century BC (paraphrased), after an account of the betrayal of Epeiros by its mercenary Gallic garrison to a passing fleet of Illyrian pirates. "Barbarians", of course, in the original sense of "non-Greeks"; "non-Arabs" or "non-Muslims" perhaps, in the Saudi case. -- Duncan Head %% "These are actually chunks of lung itself being coughed up. I don't understand exactly what it is, but God has healed you right now. Amen." -- Televangelist Pat Robertson %% "These dogs, I tell you, they are so smart, but they worry me sometimes. For instance, I'm plucking this pale yellow cottage cheesy guck from their snouts, rather like cheese atop a microwave pizza, and I have this horrible feeling, for I suspect these dogs (even though their winsome black mongrel eyes would have me believe otherwise) have been rummaging through the dumpsters out behind the cosmetic surgery center again, and their snouts are accessorized with, dare I say, yuppie liposuction fat. How they manage to break into the California state regulation coyote-proof red plastic flesh disposal bags is beyond me. I guess the doctors are being naughty or lazy. Or both." -- Douglas Coupland, from _Generation X_ (Tales for an Accelerated Culture) %% These mysterious lines were seen on Arnold's visual display: LDA $FF STA $20 TYX TAY LDX #$1B PHA It becomes curiouser and curiouser when one notes the clearly bitmapped, smooth scrolling characters. A theory: 2 68000's control the display, while the 6502 is his brain. AHA! you say -- How could he ride a motorcycle like that with only 64K of addressable RAM? Answer: Bank switching. %% "These patriots don't mince words... Okay, sure, they *are* dangerous, hopelessly ignorant, inbred, retarded borderline lunatics with an insatiable lust for the blood of sinners -- but at least they're *honest* about it." -- Reverend Ivan Stang, cofounder of the Church of the Subgenius, about a group known as Free Love Ministries, in his book _High Weirdness By Mail_ %% These screamingly hilarious gogs ensure owners of X Ray Gogs will be the life of any party. -- X-Ray Gogs Instructions %% "They [La Prensa] accused us of suppressing freedom of expression. This was a lie and we could not let them publish it." -- Nelba Blandon, Interior Ministry Director of Censorship, quoted in The New York Times, 1984 %% They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live. -- Thomas Jefferson %% They are all fickle but one, sir. -- A West Point Cadet's answer to, "How are they all?" (Suggestions as to what this could have meant are appreciated). %% "They communicated by tap-dancing and farting." -- _Breakfast_of_Champions_ %% They don't make nostalgia like they used to. %% "They know your name, address, telephone number, credit card numbers, who ELSE is driving the car "for insurance", ... your driver's license number. In the state of Massachusetts, this is the same number as that used for Social Security, unless you object to such use. In THAT case, you are ASSIGNED a number and you reside forever more on the list of "weird people who don't give out their Social Security Number in Massachusetts." -- Arthur Miller %% "They ought to make butt-flavored cat food." --Gallagher %% ``They should open the ground and throw them in,'' she said. ``They should put them in a pit and let them rot.'' ``Putting them in jail would be too easy,'' she added. ``They could eat and enjoy life.'' Tedillo said she paid to have her 13-year-old Chihuahua, ``Poopsie,'' individually cremated and his ashes returned to her. ``I received the ashes, but you can imagine whose they might be,'' she said. -- Pet Owner Rose Tedillo, quoted in UPI article "Enraged pet owners curse cemetery owners", 7/9/91 %% "They smell, they snarl and they scratch; they have a singular aptitude for shredding rugs, drapes and upholstery; they're sneaky, selfish and not at all smart; they are disloyal, condescending and totally useless in any rodent-free environment." -- Jean-Michel Chapereau, on cats %% "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty not safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 %% "They thought to use and shame me but I win out by nature, because a true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born." -- K. Dunn, _Geek Love_ %% "They, they've got guys who'll go in and knock their heads off." -- Richard Nixon, May 5, 1971, discussing a proposal to use Teamsters Union members to attack Vietnam War protestors "Sure, Murderers. Guys that really, you know, that's what they really do. It's the regular strikebuster types and all that... They're going to beat the shit out of some of these people. And, uh, hope they really hurt 'em. You know, I mean go in... and smash some noses." -- H. R. Haldeman's response %% Things are always at their best in the beginning. -- Pascal %% Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. Dwight D. Eisenhower %% Things are not as simple as they seems at first. -- Edward Thorp %% "Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player." -- Anonymous %% Think it's time I'm leavin' / Nothin' here to make me stay. -- Led Zeppelin %% "Thinking small-minded is when you see your bus on the other side of the street and wish you could teleport across to catch it." -- Kenneth Arromdee (arromdee@cs.jhu.edu) %% This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is now in the American experience... We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications... We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his farewell address in 1961 %% "This could be the greatest night of our lives--but you're going to let it be the worst!" -- John Blutarski %% This cowboy looked at me and said With a sort of a smile, "A sorry hand is in the way all the time, A good one just once in awhile." -- Cowgirl poet Georgie Sicking %% "This generation may be the one that will face Armageddon." -- Ronald Reagan, "People" magazine, December 26, 1985 %% This is a serious lapse of taste and judgment but does not imply that they are stupid, lazy, or incompetent. Indeed, their intelligence, diligence, and competence in service to the x86 are all too depressingly obvious. -- Henry Spencer (henry@zoo.toronto.edu) %% "This is no time for consensus government. It's a time for leadership. The average citizen doesn't know what the stakes are in Vietnam." -- Richard M. Nixon, February 11, 1965 %% This is now. Later is later. %% "This is the life. To be young, stupid, and have no future at all. I love Brooklyn!" -- Dan Akyroyd, "Samurai Night Fever", Saturday Night Live %% This is, of course, totally uninformed speculation that I engage in to help support my bias against such meddling... but there you have it. -- Peter da Silva, speculating about why a computer program that had been changed to do something he didn't approve of, didn't work %% "This knowledge I pursue is the finest pleasure I have ever known. I could no sooner give it up that I could the very air that I breath." -- Paolo Uccello, Renaissance artist, discoverer of the laws of perspective %% This might be the time Nostradamus was referring to when he wrote, "The Centaur shall fix the broken toys, resurrect the dead chrysanthemums and devour the half-eaten cake of love." -- Brezsny's Real Astrology %% "This one's got a lot more, uh, 640K that it can memorize." -- CVN cable TV shopping channel %% This passage was written by a London reporter on the eve of the England-West Germany Soccer World Cup final of 1966... "If, on the morrow, the Germans defeat us at our national sport, be not dismayed. For twice in this century, we've defeated them at theirs." -- From the San Jose Mercury News, 7 July 1990 %% This restaurant was advertising breakfast any time. So I ordered french toast in the renaissance. -- Steven Wright, comedian %% This ring, no other was made by the Elves Who'd pawn their own mothers to grab it themselves. Ruler of creeper, mortal and scallop, This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop! The power Almighty rests in this lone ring, The power, allrighty, to do-your-own-thing! If busted or broken it cannot be remade, If found, send to Sorehed, the postage is pre-paid! -- Inscription inside the Fell Ring, as read by Goodgulf Grayteeth. National Lampoon's _Bored of The Rings_ %% "This was it. This was what he was, who he was, his being. He forgot to eat. Sometimes he'd resent having to leave the deck to use the toilet..." -- William Gibson, _Neuromancer_ %% This was the ultimate form of ostentation among technology freaks -- to have a system so complete and sophisticated that nothing showed; no machines, no wires, no controls. -- Michael Swanwick, "Vacuum Flowers" %% "This will be dynamically handled, possibly correctly, in 4.1." -- Dan Davison on streams configuration in SunOS 4.0 %% Thoreau's Law: If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life. %% "Those components (that software) which runs fastest and most reliable are those which aren't there." -- Gordon Bell %% Those of us who believe in the right of any human being to belong to whatever church he sees fit, and to worship God in his own way, cannot be accused of prejudice when we do not want to see public education connected with religious control of the schools, which are paid for by taxpayers' money. -- Eleanor Roosevelt %% "Those who believe in astrology are living in houses with foundations of Silly Putty." - Dennis Rawlins, astronomer %% Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God Himself. -- Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish philosopher and writer %% Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer, University of Toronto Unix hack %% "Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to conquer the world." -- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp. %% "Those who worked the hardest are the last to surrender." -- Gary Ward %% "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained." -- The Tao of Programming %% Though it's cold and lonely in the deep dark night, I can see paradise by the dashboard light. -- Meatloaf %% Thufir's a Harkonnen now. %% Tie? You want me to wear a *tie*? Listen: There's only one time in a man's life when he should have a rope knotted around his neck, and that time ain't yet come for me. -- Canada Bill Jones %% Till then we shall be content to admit openly, what you (religionists) whisper under your breath or hide in technical jargon, that the ancient secret is a secret still; that man knows nothing of the Infinite and Absolute; and that, knowing nothing, he had better not be dogmatic about his ignorance. And, meanwhile, we will endeavour to be as charitable as possible, and whilst you trumpet forth officially your contempt for our skepticism, we will at least try to believe that you are imposed upon by your own bluster. -- Leslie Stephen, "An agnostic's Apology", Fortnightly Review, 1876 %% Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. -- Frequently attributed to Groucho Marx %% Time is an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space. -- Graffiti %% "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." -- Ford Prefect, _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ %% "Time is money and money can't buy you love and I love your outfit" -- T.H.U.N.D.E.R. #1 %% Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once. %% Time, because it is so fleeting, time, because it is beyond recall, is the most precious of human goods and to squander it is the most delicate form of dissipation in which man can indulge. -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Bum" %% "Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book." -- Cicero %% "'Tis not too late to seek a newer world." -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson %% "'Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true." -- Poloniouius, in Willie the Shake's _Hamlet, Prince of Darkness_ %% "To IBM, 'open' means there is a modicum of interoperability among some of their equipment." -- Harv Masterson %% "To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition." -- Woody Allen %% "To be against abortion and not against contraception -- it makes no sense because both of them are the same mentality." -- Nancy O'Brien, Anti-Choice Activist, introducing Joan Andrews, 3/11/89, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% To be awake is to be alive. -- Henry David Thoreau, in "Walden" %% "To be good, according to the vulgar standard of goodness, is obviously quite easy. It merely requires a certain amount of sordid terror, a certain lack of imaginative thought, and a certain low passion for middle-class respectability." -- Oscar Wilde %% To be is to program. -- Calvin Keegan %% To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% To be, or what? -- Sylvester Stallone %% "To block hats, that is everything." -- character in a Woody Allen short story %% To date, the firm conclusions of Project Blue Book are: 1. no unidentified flying object reported, investigated and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security; 2. there has been no evidence submitted to or discovered by the Air Force that sightings categorized as UNIDENTIFIED represent technological developments or principles beyond the range of present-day scientific knowledge; and 3. there has been no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as UNIDENTIFIED are extraterrestrial vehicles. -- the summary of Project Blue Book, an Air Force study of UFOs from 1950 to 1965, as quoted by James Randi in Flim-Flam! %% To downgrade the human mind is bad theology. -- C. K. Chesterton %% "To err is human, to compute divine. Trust your computer but not its programmer." - Morris Kingston %% To err is human, to moo bovine. %% To err is human, to really foul up requires the root password. %% To follow foolish precedents, and wink With both our eyes, is easier than to think. -- William Cowper %% "To have a horror of the bourgeois is bourgeois." -- Jules Renard %% To know the world one must construct it. -- Cesare Pavese %% "To me, on of the most exciting things in the world is being poor, and survival, such an exciting challenge." -- Thomas S. Monaghan, Founder, Domino's Pizza and Legatus, "National Catholic Reporter", 3/23/90, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% To program anything that is programmable is obsession. %% To program is to be. %% "To program is to understand." -- Kristen Nygaard %% "To rebel against a powerful political, economic, religious, or social estab- lishment is very dangerous and very few people do it, except, perhaps, as part of a mob. To rebel against the "scientific" establishment, however, is the easiest thing in the world, and anyone can do it and feel enormously brave, without risking as much as a hangnail. Thus, the vast majority, who believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic about the bilge when a group of astronomers denounces it." -- Isaac Asimov %% "To steal from a thief is not theft. It is merely irony." -- Zorro, while retrieving money taxed from Californians %% "To steal from one person is theft. To steal from many is taxation." -- Daiell's Law (a take-off on Felson's Law) %% "To take a significant step forward, you must make a series of finite improvements." -- Donald J. Atwood, General Motors %% "'To the Workers of the world, I am sorry.' -- Karl Marx" -- Seen on the side of an East German factory %% To the habitual reader, reading is a drug of which he is the slave; deprive him of printed matter and he grows nervous, moody, and restless; then, like the alcoholic bereft of brandy who will drink shellac or methylated spirit, he will make do with the advertisements of a paper five years old; he will make do with a telephone directory. -- W. Somerset Maugham, "The Bum" %% To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a test load. %% To think is human, to compute, divine. %% "To undertake a project, as the word's derivation indicates, means to cast an idea out ahead of oneself so that it gains autonomy and is fulfilled not only by the efforts of its originator but, indeed, independently of him as well. -- Czeslaw Milosz %% To update Voltaire, "I may kill all msgs from you, but I'll fight for your right to post it, and I'll let it reside on my disks". -- Doug Thompson (doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG) %% To write good code is a worthy challenge, and a source of civilized delight. -- stolen and paraphrased from William Safire %% "To your left is the marina where several senior cabinet officials keep luxury yachts for weekend cruises on the Potomac. Some of these ships are up to 100 feet in length; the Presidential yacht is over 200 feet in length, and can remain submerged for up to 3 weeks." -- Garrison Keillor %% Today is the last day of your life so far. %% "Today there may be more Marxists on the Harvard faculty than in Eastern Europe." -- George Will %% "Today's robots are very primitive, capable of understanding only a few simple instructions such as 'go left', 'go right', and 'build car'." -- John Sladek %% "Toroidal carbohydrate modules? Make mine glazed!" -- Zippy %% "Tourists -- have some fun with New york's hard-boiled cabbies. When you get to your destination, say to your driver, "Pay? I was hitchhiking." -- David Letterman %% Trailing Edge Technologies is pleased to announce the following TETflame programme: 1) For a negotiated price (no quatloos accepted) one of our flaming representatives will flame the living shit out of the poster of your choice. The price is inversely proportional to how much of an asshole the target is. We cannot be convinced to flame Dennis Ritchie. Matt Crawford flames are free. 2) For a negotiated price (same arrangement) the TETflame programme is offering ``flame insurance''. Under this arrangement, if one of our policy holders is flamed, we will cancel the offending article and flame the flamer, to a crisp. 3) The TETflame flaming representatives include: Richard Sexton, Oleg Kisalev, Diane Holt, Trish O'Tauma, Dave Hill, Greg Nowak and our most recent acquisition, Keith Doyle. But all he will do is put you in his kill file. Weemba by special arrangement. -- Richard Sexton %% Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be SHOT AGAIN! %% Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be prosecuted. %% "Trust me. I know what I'm doing." -- Sledge Hammer %% Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind... - Percy Bysshe Shelley %% "Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth." -- Milton %% "'Truth' never set anyone free. It is only *doubt* which will bring mental emancipation." --Anton LaVey %% Try the Moo Shu Pork. It is especially good today. %% Try to be the best of what you are, even if what you are is no good. -- Ashleigh Brilliant %% Trying to shoot yourself in the foot in: ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE: For those who like to load their own rounds before shooting themselves in the foot. -- rhsmith %% Trying to shoot yourself in the foot in: CLIPPER: You grab a bullet, get ready to insert it in the gun so that you can shoot yourself in the foot, and discover that the gun that the bullet fits has not yet been built, but should be arriving in the mail _REAL_SOON_NOW_. -- rboatright %% Trying to shoot yourself in the foot in: DBase IV version 1.0: You pull the trigger, but it turns out that the gun was a poorly-designed granade and the whole building blows up. -- akarna %% Trying to shoot yourself in the foot in: DBase: You squeeze the trigger, but the bullet moves so slowingly that by the time your foot feels the pain you've forgotten why you shot yourself anyway. -- rboatright %% Trying to shoot yourself in the foot in: Forth: yourself foot shoot. -- akarna %% Trying to shoot yourself in the foot in: Prolog: You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot, but the bullet, failing to find its mark, backtracks into the gun which then explodes in your face. -- BG %% Trying to shoot yourself in the foot in: SQL: You cut your foot off, send it out to a service bureau and when it returns, it has a hole in it, but will no longer fit the attachment at the end of your leg. -- rboatright %% "Turn on, tune up, rock out." -- Billy Gibbons %% Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart: the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are filled with a passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of SPIRITUS MUNDI Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again: but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour now come at last Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born? -- W. B. Yeats, THE SECOND COMING %% Two men once wrote to Mark Twain. Not having his address, they marked the envelope, Mark Twain God knows where They received a response from him: "He did." %% Two things are certain about science. It does not stand still for long, and it is never boring. Oh, among some poor souls, including even intellectuals in fields of high scholarship, science is frequently misperceived. Many see it as only a body of facts, promulgated from on high in must, unintelligible textbooks, a collection of unchanging precepts defended with authoritarian vigor. Others view it as nothing but a cold, dry narrow, plodding, rule-bound process -- the scientific method: hidebound, linear, and left brained. These people are the victims of their own stereotypes. They are destined to view the world of science with a set of blinders. They know nothing of the tumult, cacophony, rambunctiousness, and tendentiousness of the actual scientific process, let alone the creativity, passion, and joy of discovery. And they are likely to know little of the continual procession of new insights and discoveries that every day, in some way, change our view (if not theirs) of the natural world. -- Kendrick Frazier, "The Year in Science: An Overview," in 1988 Yearbook of Science and the Future, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. %% "U can c the color of the interior of the [vehicle]... dig." "Ya stop cars with blk interior." "Bees they naugahyde." "Negrohide." "Self tanning no doubt." -- LAPD squad-car computer messages, as quoted in the Christopher Report, 7/91 %% UNIX Shell is the Best Fourth Generation Programming Language It is the UNIX shell that makes it possible to do applications in a small fraction of the code and time it takes in third generation languages. In the shell you process whole files at a time, instead of only a line at a time. And, a line of code in the UNIX shell is one or more programs, which do more than pages of instructions in a 3GL. Applications can be developed in hours and days, rather than months and years with traditional systems. Most of the other 4GLs available today look more like COBOL or RPG, the most tedious of the third generation languages. -- _UNIX Relational Database Management: Application Development in the UNIX Environment_ by Rod Manis, Evan Schaffer, and Robert Jorgensen. Prentice Hall Software Series. Brian Kernighan, Advisor. 1988. %% "UNIX should be used as an adjective." -- AT&T %% UNIX was never designed to keep people from doing stupid things, because that policy would also keep them from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn (1 Aug 90) %% "US out of North America, NOW!!" -- Richard O'Rourke %% "US/Western repression of sexual knowledge and expression has left our twelve year olds less capable to deal with sex, and this justifies repression of sexual knowledge and expression to our twelve year olds." -- Kent, our man from Xanth, commenting on the Netherland's new age of consent: 12 %% Uh-oh. Atarians can't hold a candle to the insecurity of Mac owners. You rankled Mac owners who feel the need defend yourself, please do so by flaming in private. And don't start something you can't finish. I'm sure Apple's OS for the 68000-based Macintoshs will support multitasking just as soon as Jean Louis-Gasse invents it. In the meantime, do whatever you need to do to make sure other systems that have advanced the state of personal computers don't enter your peripheral vision. You'll be a lot happier, we'll be a lot happier. -- Chuck McManis (cmcmanis@sun.com) %% "Umm, square root of two? Ouch!" -- The guy who blew a hole in the Pythagoreans' assertion that all numbers can be represented as a ratio of two integers, so they killed him %% Uncertain fortune is thoroughly mastered by the equity of the calculation. -- Blaise Pascal %% Uncompensated overtime? Just Say No. %% "Under active consideration": We're searching the files for it. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" %% Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked. -- Robert D. Sprecht (Rand Corp) %% "Under consideration": We never heard of it. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" %% "Unemployment is an inconvenience." -- John F. Haugh II %% Unfair competition: Selling cheaper than we do. -- Kelvin Throop III, "The Management Dictionary" %% "Unibus timeout fatal trap program lost sorry" -- An error message printed by DEC's RSTS operating system for the PDP-11 %% University: A modern school where football is taught. %% Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it once. -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Unix: a moment of convenience, a lifetime of regret." -- old ITS hacker saying %% Unix: it's a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there. %% "Unless you are very rich and very eccentric, you will not enjoy the luxury of a computer in your own home." -- Edward Yourdon, 1975. %% "Unlike most net.puritans, however, I feel that what OTHER consenting computers do in the privacy of their own phone connections is their own business." -- John Woods, jfw@eddie.mit.edu %% "Unlimited campaign spending eats at the heart of the democratic process." -- Barry Goldwater %% "Until hard evidence is obtained and corroborated, the American people should not be frightened into believing that babies are being bred and eaten, that 50,000 missing children are being murdered in human sacrifices, or that satanists are taking over America's day care centers... An unjustified crusade against those perceived as satanists could result in wasted resources, unwarranted damage to reputations, and disruption of civil liberties." -- Kenneth Lanning, head of the FBI's special unit in charge of investigating claims about satanic-cult crimes, in a report of his findings, June, 1989 %% Use the Force, Luke. %% "Using an IBM PC is like juggling straight razors. Using a Mac is like shaving with a bowling pin." -- Ted Nelson, _Computer Lib_ %% "VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use Unix." -- Bill Davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM) %% "VMS isn't an operating system, it's a playpen for DEC system programmers." -- Herb Blashtfalt %% VMS must die! %% "Vendi, vidi, parenthesi" -- I came, I saw, I programmed in Lisp!" -- Dave W. Kimball %% Vertical fragmentation is an inescapable part of technological progress. If we compare the 8085 to the 80386 or a MIPS RISC CPU, we can hardly expect to transparently preserve our entire intellectual investment in the 8085 when we move up to new hardware with vastly greater underlying capability. The bloodshed involved in upgrading is highly variable. Since computers are in theory general-purpose information processors, with the appropriate software tools the user can "mine" old information and use it on new hardware. Nonetheless, when hardware advances become revolutionary enough we eventually have to throw out some of our old standards. In this case we face a clear trade between the cost of junking our investment in our earlier ways of doing things vs. foregoing the potential benefits of new and better hardware. The bigger the previous investment, the bigger the benefits of upgrading have to be before vertical fragmentation is justifiable. -- Dan Mocsny (dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu) %% Victory or defeat! %% Vique's Law: A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle. %% Voodoo Programming: Things programmers do that they know shouldn't work but they try anyway, and which sometimes actually work, such as recompiling everything. -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Waiter, there's no fly in my soup!" -- Kermit the frog %% "War is Hell." -- General William Sherman %% "War is like love; it always finds a way." -- Bertold Brecht %% "War is the health of the State." -- Proudhon (?) %% "War... is something that occurs not between man and man, but between States. The individuals who become involved in it are enemies only by accident." -- Rousseau %% "We Americans, we're a simple people... but piss us off, and we'll bomb your cities." -- Robin Williams, _Good Morning Vietnam_ %% "We all say so, so it must be true." -- the Bandar-log (monkey tribe), in Rudyard Kipling's _Jungle Book_ %% "We all worry about the population explosion -- but we don't worry about it at the right time." -- Arthur Hoppe %% "We are ... opposed to all forms of birth control with the exception of natural family planning [the rhythm method.]" -- Judie Brown, President, American Life Lobby %% We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -- Oscar Wilde %% We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower %% "We are not endeavoring to chain the future but to free the present. ... We are the advocates of inquiry, investigation, and thought. ... It is grander to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. ... I look for the day when *reason*, throned upon the world's brains, shall be the King of Kings and the God of Gods." -- Robert G. Ingersoll %% "We are on a threshold of a change in the universe comparable to the transition from nonlife to life." -- Hans Moravec (on artificial intelligence) %% "We are starting a movement in the state legislatures...to forbid the installation of clinics that dispense contraceptives." -- Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum %% "We are totally opposed to abortion under any circumstances. We are opposed to abortifacient drugs and chemicals like the Pill and the IUD, and we are also opposed to all forms of birth control with the exception of natural family planning." -- Judie Brown, President, American Life League, Population Institute advertisement, "How Dense Can We Get?", The New York Times, 10/6/85, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "We are what we are and it's never enough." -- Chris de Burgh %% We are what we pretend to be. -- Kurt Vonnegut, JR %% "We came. We saw. We kicked its ass." -- Bill Murray, _Ghostbusters_ %% "We can no more blame our loss of freedom on congressmen than we can prostitution on pimps. Both simply provide broker services for their customers." -- Dr. W Williams %% "We can't allow the people to interfere with the smooth flow of democracy." -- Kitchener city council member %% "We can't schedule an orgy, it might be construed as fighting." --Stanley Sutton %% "We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness; it is always urgent, "here and now," without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank." -- Ortega y Gasset %% "We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed." -- John F. Kennedy (from his Inaugural Address) %% We decided it was night again, so we camped for twenty minutes and drank another six beers at a Young Life campsite. O.C. got into the supervisory adult's sleeping bag and ran around in it. "This is the judgment day and I'm a terrifying apparition," he screamed. Then the heat made O.C. ralph in the bag. -- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, National Lampoon, October 1982 %% "We dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea -- organic law rather than naked power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation." -- Supreme Court Justice Potter Steart %% "We demand source because we've been burned too much by its lack, not because we have this desire to add custom hacks to our kernels or utilities. Believe me, we'd all like to run stock systems, straight off the vendor distribution tapes; it'd be significantly less work. But our users have this liking for working systems and prompt fixes for the bugs they find, neither of which the vendors we buy from have been particularly good in supplying." -- cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu %% "We don't have to protect the environment -- the Second Coming is at hand." -- James Watt %% "We don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." -- David Brower %% We don't know who discovered water, but we are certain it wasn't a fish. -- John Culkin %% "We expect them [Salvadoran officials] to work toward the elimination of human rights." -- Dan Quayle, El Salvador, Feb 1989 %% "We fall into error if we attribute to strategy a power independent of tactical results." -- Karl von Clausewitz, On War %% "We fight for men and women whose poetry is not yet written." -- Robert Gould Shaw, abolitionist %% "We find that the sexual instinct, when disappointed and unappeased, frequently seeks and finds a substitute in religion." -- Baron Richard Von Krafft-Ebing %% "We have luck only with women -- not spacecraft!" -- R. Kremnev, builder of failed Soviet FOBOS probes %% "We have met the enemy and he is us" - Walt Kelly (in POGO) %% "We have ways to make you scream." -- Intel advertisement, in the June 1989 Doctor Dobbs Journal %% "We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest." -- John Adams %% "We jumped into this area without knowing what we were jumping into." -- Hubert H. Humphrey, October 22, 1969 %% "We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." -- Aneurin Bevan %% "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." -- George Bernard Shaw %% "We live, in a very kooky time." -- Herb Blashtfalt %% "We love your adherence to democratic principles." -- Vice President George Bush, to Ferdinand Marcos %% We may not be able to persuade Hindus that Jesus and not Vishnu should govern their spiritual horizon, nor Moslems that Lord Buddha is at the center of their spiritual universe, nor Hebrews that Mohammed is a major prophet, nor Christians that Shinto best expresses their spiritual concerns, to say nothing of the fact that we may not be able to get Christians to agree among themselves about their relationship to God. But all will agree on a proposition that they possess profound spiritual resources. If, in addition, we can get them to accept the further proposition that whatever form the Deity may have in their own theology, the Deity is not only external, but internal and acts through them, and they themselves give proof or disproof of the Deity in what they do and think; if this further proposition can be accepted, then we come that much closer to a truly religious situation on earth. -- Norman Cousins, from his book "Human Options" %% "We must all hang together, or we will surely all hang separately" - Benjamin Franklin %% "We must either institute conventional forms of expression or else pretend that we have nothing to express." -- George Santayana, _Soliloquies In England_ %% "We must make unceasingly clear to Hanoi that we do not seek nor will we accept a camouflaged surrender which would inevitably result in the United States writing off Southeast Asia." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, July 30, 1968 %% "We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam is lost... the right of free speech will be extinguished throughout the world." -- Richard Milhouse Nixon, 10/27/65 %% "We need a new cosmology. New Gods. New Sacraments. Another drink." -- Patti Smith %% "We need to take a look at [the Constitution] and maybe, from time to time, we should curtail some of those rights." -- Chicago Police Superintendent LeRoy Martin, 7/91 %% "We never make assertions, Miss Taggart," said Hugh Akston. "That is the moral crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not tell -- we *show*. We do not claim -- we *prove*." -- Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_ %% We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. %% "We plan absentee ownership. I'll stick to building ships." -- George Steinbrenner, 1973 %% "We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented." -- Albert Einstein, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1948 %% "We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievement." -- Richard J. Daley %% We should all remember when Burroughs was using Virtual memory it was said to be some kind of technical joke. But later, hah, it was said to be ok. And it was because the word had come down from the mountain. IBM had spoken and the world listened. The world as it used to be. Amen. -- Fred Rump (fr@icdi10.UUCP) %% "We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality." -- Albert Einstein %% We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice. -- Woody Allen %% "We walked on the moon -- you be polite." -- Joni Mitchell %% "We want to create puppets that pull their own strings." -- Ann Marion "Would this make them Marionettes?" -- Jeff Daiell %% We want to create puppets that pull their own strings. -- Ann Marion %% "We want to see three things in the 1988 Republican Party Platform... First, a constitutional amendment banning all abortions in the United States. Second, increased funding for law enforcement and a mandatory death penalty for drug dealers. Third, LESS GOVERNMENT." -- Speaker at a 1988 Republican Straw Poll in Iowa %% "We will be better and braver if we engage and inquire than if we indulge in the idle fancy that we already know -- or that it is of no use seeking to know what we do not know." -- Plato %% "We will bury you." -- Nikita Kruschev %% We will occasionally use this arrow notation unless there is danger of no confusion. -- Ronald Graham, Rudiments of Ramsey Theory %% "We will rediscover a [New York City] river so extravagantly polluted that new life forms will emerge from it spontaneously, demanding welfare and voting rights." -- Douglas Adams %% "We wish to incorporate into the machine -- in the form of circuits -- only such logical concepts as are either necessary to have a complete system or highly convenient because of the frequency with which they occur and the influence they exert in the relevant mathematical situations." -- Burks, Goldstine, and von Neumann (1946) (from _Computer Stuctures: Readings and Examples_, C. Gordon Bell (ed) McGraw-Hill Book Company, (c) 1971, page 97) %% "We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest." -- Watson and Crick, 1953 %% We're fighting against humanism, we're fighting against liberalism... we are fighting against all the systems of Satan that are destroying our nation today...our battle is with Satan himself. -- Jerry Falwell %% "We're going to do it the way we always have -- the super-dumbass way... It's what we know." -- The Lone Contractor %% We're here to give you a computer, not a religion. -- attributed to Bob Pariseau, at the introduction of the Amiga %% "We're hosed." -- Next, Inc.'s Steve Jobs said after workstations running a demo program crashed at the SPA symposium. %% "We're the weirdest monkeys ever." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "We've got a carrot and stick policy, and the carrot is, if he pulls out, he doesn't get the stick." -- James Baker, U.S Secretary of State, 12/5/90, about Saddam Hussein %% "We've got everyone convinced except the people who have to make the decision." -- name withheld by request %% Wear me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion cruel as the grave; it blazes up like blazing fire, fiercer than any flame. [Song of Solomon 8:6 (NEB)] %% Weekends were made for programming. -- Karl Lehenbauer %% "Well I don't see why I have to make one man miserable when I can make so many men happy." -- Ellyn Mustard, about marriage %% "Well hello there Charlie Brown, you blockhead." -- Lucy Van Pelt %% "Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And East is East and West is West and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know." -- Groucho Marx, "Animal Crackers" %% "Well, Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, And Lightness has a call that's hard to hear." -- Indigo Girls %% "Well, it don't make the sun shine, but at least it don't deepen the shit." -- Straiter Empy, in _Riddley_Walker_ by Russell Hoban %% "Well, it's garish, ugly, and derelicts have used it for a toilet. The rides are dilapidated to the point of being lethal, and could easily maim or kill innocent little children." "Oh, so you don't like it?" "Don't like it? I'm CRAZY for it." %% Well, punk is kind of anti-ethical, anyway. Its ethics, so to speak, include a disdain for ethics in general. If you have to think about some- thing so hard, then it's bullshit anyway; that's the idea. Punks are anti- ismists, to coin a term. But nonetheless, they have a pretty clearly defined stance and image, and THAT is what we hang the term `punk' on. -- Jeff G. Bone %% "Well, social relevance is a schtick, like mysteries, social relevance, science fiction..." -- Art Spiegelman %% "Well, there were sixty-eight people there, and sixty-two of them had no more desire to throw a stone than you had." "Satan!" "Oh, it's true. I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind- hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves. Think of it! One kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the most noise -- perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a determined front will do it -- and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end." -- Mark Twain, _The Mysterious Stranger_ %% "Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarble, ya eunuch jelly thou!" - Alex in "Clockwork Orange" %% "Well, you know, it sounds like they've got their own nuts on an anvil and they're hammering away at them." -- Dave Crocker %% "Well, you see, it's such a transitional creature. It's a piss-poor reptile and not very much of a bird." -- Melvin Konner, from "The Tangled Wing", quoting a zoologist who has studied the archeopteryz and found it "very much like people" %% "Well," said Programmer, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said End-user. "For I am an End-user of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me." "It means the Thing to Do." "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said End-user humbly. -- Chris Mathes, uunet!metter!chris, with apologies to C. Robin And W. T. Pooh %% Were there fewer fools, knaves would starve. -- Anonymous %% "Were there no women, men might live like gods." -- Thomas Dekker %% "What a hell of a heaven it will be, when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!" -- Mark Twain %% "What a pinhead! Does he not fear us?!" -- Max %% "What a waste it is to lose one's mind -- or not to have a mind at all. How true that is." -- V.P. Dan Quayle, garbling the United Negro College Fund slogan in an address to the group (from Newsweek, May 22nd, 1989) %% "What a wonder is USENET; such wholesale production of conjecture from such a trifling investment in fact." -- Carl S. Gutekunst %% What can a pigeon do that a west Texas oil man can't do anymore? A pigeon can still make a deposit on a new Mercedes. %% "What can you say about a society that says God is dead and Elvis is alive?" -- Irv Kupcinet %% What did Mickey Mouse get for Christmas? A Dan Quayle watch. -- heard from a Mike Dukakis field worker %% "What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work? A stick!" - Bill Kirchenbaum, comedian - %% What do you call it when someone rubs a Volkswagen van on your head? A Fahrvergnoogie. %% "What does it take for Americans to do great things; to go to the moon, to win wars, to dig canals linking oceans, to build railroads across a continent? In independent thought about this question, Neil Armstrong and I concluded that it takes a coincidence of four conditions, or in Neil's view, the simultaneous peaking of four of the many cycles of American life. First, a base of technology must exist from which to do the thing to be done. Second, a period of national uneasiness about America's place in the scheme of human activities must exist. Third, some catalytic event must occur that focuses the national attention upon the direction to proceed. Finally, an articulate and wise leader must sense these first three conditions and put forth with words and action the great thing to be accomplished. The motivation of young Americans to do what needs to be done flows from such a coincidence of conditions.... The Thomas Jeffersons, The Teddy Roosevelts, The John Kennedys appear. We must begin to create the tools of leadership which they, and their young frontiersmen, will require to lead us onward and upward." -- Dr. Harrison H. Schmidt, Sen., New Mexico %% "What happened to the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!" -- The Martian %% What hath Bob wrought? %% "What if" is a trademark of Hewlett Packard, so stop using it in your sentences without permission, or risk being sued. %% "What is inconceivable about the universe is that it is at all conceivable." -- Albert Einstein %% "What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents." -- Robert F. Kennedy %% "What is the price of Experience? Do men Buy it for a song?! and Wisdom for a Dance in the Street? No! it is bought with the price Of all that a man hath: his Wife, his House, his Children-- And Wisdom is sold in the desolate marketplace Where none come to buy and in the barren fields where Farmers plow for bread in vain." -- Blake, The Four Zoas; Night the Second %% What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that is the first law of nature. -- Voltaire %% What is vice today may be virtue tomorrow. %% What is virtue today may be vice tomorrow. %% "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite." -- Bertrand Russell, _Sceptical_Essays_, 1928 %% What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it. %% "What man has done, man can aspire to do." -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight %% "What masquerades as sex education is not education at all. It is selective propaganda which artificially encourages children to participate in adult sex, while it censors out the facts of life about the unhappy consequences. It is robbing children of their childhood." -- Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum, 2/81, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% What matters is not the length of the wand, but the magic in the stick. %% "What people have been reduced to are mere 3-D representations of their own data." -- Arthur Miller %% What the gods would destroy they first submit to an IEEE standards committee. %% "What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying." -- Nikita Khrushchev %% What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer. %% What to do in case of an alien attack: 1) Hide beneath the seat of your plane and look away. 2) Avoid eye contact. 3) If there are no eyes, avoid all contact. -- The Firesign Theatre, _Everything you know is Wrong_ %% What to say to annoy a performance artist: "Hey, I saw something just like that on The Gong Show!" -- Matt Groening %% What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. -- Bengamin Disraeli %% What we do not understand we do not possess. -- Goethe %% What you see is rarely what you get. %% "What's a polar bear?" "A rectangular bear after a coordinate transform." -- Bill White (bwhite@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu) %% "What's the date?" "May the fourth." "Then May the fourth be with you." -- Count Duckula %% "What's the definition of a good flame? One you agree with..." -- Karl Lehenbauer %% What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman? A used car salesman knows when he's lying. %% "What's up in the ghetto, boy. Oh they just captured the suspect. A day without violence is like a day without sunshine. The sun shone last night." -- Christopher Commision report of LAPD car-to-car computer message, 7/91 %% "What?! LEAVE school???" -- Zonker Harris, Doonesbury %% 'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.' -- Goethe %% "When Barbary Pirates demand a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'tribute money'. When the Mafia demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'the protection racket'. When the State demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'sales tax'." -- Jeff Daiell %% When I left the meeting, I had the definite impression that I had found the same game as with the seals: management reducing criteria and accepting more and more errors that weren't designed into the device, while the engineers are screaming from below, "HELP!" and "This is a RED ALERT!" -- Richard P. Feynman, about NASA, _What Do You Care What Other People Think?_ %% When I left you, I was but the pupil. Now, I am the master. -- Darth Vader %% When I received the Nobel Prize, the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it, to buy shares. I knew that World War II was coming and I was afraid that if I had shares which rise in case of war, I would wish for war. So I asked my agent to buy shares which go down in the event of war. This he did. I lost my money and saved my soul. -- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi %% When I see a congressman giving his opinion on something, I always wonder if it represents his *real* opinion or if it represents an opinion that he's designed in order to be elected. It seems to be a central problem for politicians. So I often wonder: what is the relation of integrity to working in the government? -- Richard P. Feynman, _What Do You Care What Other People Think?_ %% When I sell liquor, its called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, its called hospitality. -- Al Capone %% "When I was [in Canada] I found their jokes like their roads -- not very long and not very good, leading to a little tin point of a spire which has been remorselessly obvious for miles without seeming to get any nearer." -- Samuel Butler %% "When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president; I'm beginning to believe it." -- Clarence Darrow %% "When I was young, my position was: dynamite. It was only later that I realized that this sort of thing cannot be rushed. It must rot away like a diseased member." -- Hitler, on the churches. %% When Yahweh your gods has settled you in the land you're about to occupy, and driven out many infidels before you...you're to cut them down and exterminate them. You're to make no compromise with them or show them any mercy. [Deut. 7:1 (KJV)] %% "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." -- Arthur C. Clarke %% When asked, "If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?" Mencken replied, "Why do men go to zoos?" %% When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. -- Edmund Burke %% When choosing between two evils I always like to take the one I've never tried before. -- Mae West %% When everything has been seen to work, all integrated, you have four more months of work to do. -- C. Portman of ICL Ltd. %% "When helping with this problem, please flame me good so that others will learn from my brazen irresponsibility." -- Russell Earnest (re4@prism.gatech.edu) %% "When in doubt, print 'em out." -- Karl's Programming Proverb 0x7 %% "When in doubt, use brute force." -- Ken Thompson %% "When it comes to humility, I'm the greatest." -- Bullwinkle Moose %% When it is incorrect, it is, at least *authoritatively* incorrect. -- Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy %% "When marriage is outlawed, only outlaws will have inlaws." -- Jef Poskanzer (jef@well.sf.ca.us) %% When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results. -- Calvin Coolidge %% When one studies the biographies of the founders and leaders of the various religions, one cannot help but be struck by the psychotic -- or at least extremely abnormal -- behavior that has characterized so many of them. Luther, Wesley, and Loyola had hallucinations ("visions"). St. Theresa almost certainly was a hysteric. The book _The Psychotic Personality_, by Leon J. Saul and Silas L. Warner, devotes considerable space to the psychotic personalities of Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Science), Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism), Mohammed, and the Rev. Jim Jones... It seems significant that the founder of Christianity itself, St. Paul, also suffered from epilepsy. -- Frank Zindler, "Religiosity as a Mental Disorder," American Atheist magazine, April 1988, p. 27 %% "When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic." -- John Kenneth Galbraith %% "When people aren't stupid Usenet is even more useful. Too bad this happens so rarely." -- Jef Poskanzer %% "When politics and religion are intermingled, a people is suffused with a sense of invulnerability, and gathering speed in their forward charge, they fail to see the cliff ahead of them." -- _Dune_, by Frank Herbert %% When the game-master smiles, it's already too late. %% "When the government attempts to regulate everything, all is lost." -- Thibaudeau %% "When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if it were a nail." -- Abraham Maslow %% "When things are at their darkest, pal, it's a great man who can kick back and party." -- Olin Shivers %% When told he was making more per year than the President, Babe Ruth replied, "Well, I had a better year than he did." %% When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the history of war have so few been led by so many. -- General James Gavin %% "When you buy peace at any price it is always on the installment plan for another war." -- Richard M. Nixon, January 29, 1966 %% When you don't have an education, you've got to use your brains. -- Anonymous %% When you lose your power to laugh, you lose your power to think straight. -- Inherit The Wind %% When you stay on the tracks, ignoring the facts, you can't blame the wreck on the train. -- from the song, "You Can't Blame . . " %% "When you're a child, you pledge allegiance to the flag. When you grow up, you swear to uphold the Constitution. Compare and contrast to the President's current actions." -- Larry Wake (lkw@csun.edu) %% "When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion--the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right." --Isaac Asimov %% "Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel." - H. L. Mencken %% Whenever people agree with me, I always think I must be wrong. -- Oscar Wilde %% "Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried" -- Thomas Jefferson %% "Where do we keep all our chainsaws, Mom?" -- Calvin %% "Where does he get those wonderful toys?" -- The Joker %% "Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. -- John Kenneth Galbraith %% "Where is it written in the Constitution that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or wickedness of government may engage it?" -- Daniel Webster, 1814 %% "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning," the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." -- _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, Lewis Carroll %% Where there is no vision, people perish. -- Proverbs 29:18 %% Wherever you go...There you are. -- Buckaroo Banzai %% While it cannot be proved retrospectively that any experience of possession, conversion, revelation, or divine ecstasy was merely an epileptic discharge, we must ask how one differentiates "real transcendence" from neuropathies that produce the same extreme realness, profundity, ineffability, and sense of cosmic unity. When accounts of sudden religious conversions in TLEs [temporal-lobe epileptics] are laid alongside the epiphanous revelations of the religious tradition, the parallels are striking. The same is true of the recent spate of alleged UFO abductees. Parsimony alone argues against invoking spirits, demons, or extraterrestrials when natural causes will suffice. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "Neuropathology and the Legacy of Spiritual Possession", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 3, pg. 255 %% "While today's digital hardware is extremely impressive, it is clear that the human retina's real time performance goes unchallenged. Actually to simulate 10 milliseconds of the complete processing of even a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution of about 500 simultaneous nonlinear differential equations 100 times and would take at least several minutes of time on a Cray supercomputer. Keeping in mind that there are 10 million or more such cells interacting with each other in complex ways, it would take a minimum of 100 years of Cray time to simulate what takes place in your eye many times each second." -- John K. Stevens, "Reverse Engineering the Brain" Byte magazine, Page 287, April 1985, %% "Who alone has reason to *lie himself out* of actuality? He who *suffers* from it." -- Friedrich Nietzsche %% Who are the artists in the Computer Graphics Show? Wavefront's latest box, or the people who programmed it? Should Mandelbrot get all the credit for the output of programs like MandelVroom? -- Peter da Silva %% Who in the name of God would bring a half-eaten eight-ounce jar of Hellman's mayonnaise to a public meeting? -- Tom Wolfe, "Bonfire of the Vanities" %% "Whoever did this [planted a pipe bomb at the Margaret Sanger Center] is a hero. I think they are heroes. The Bible commands us to rescue those being dragged to death." -- Nancy O'Brien, Co-Director, "Project Jericho, "Channel 9 News," WCTO-TV, 2/23/87, as quoted in "The Far Right, Speaking For Themselves," a Planned Parenthood pamphlet %% "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." -- Nietzsche %% "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." -- Albert Einstein %% Whom the gods would destroy, they first teach BASIC. %% Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein. Book of Proverbs %% Why are many scientists using lawyers for medical experiments instead of rats? a) There are more lawyers than rats. b) The scientist's don't become as emotionally attached to them. c) There are some things that even rats won't do for money. %% "Why can one call the time component of the preceding 4-vector by the name energy? For two reasons: First, because this time component has the correct units -- the units of mass..." -- From "Spacetime Physics" by Taylor and Wheeler %% "Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, from talk.politics.misc %% "Why did you hire that idiot?" "You can't fool all of the people all of the time, so I'm breeding them for stupidity." -- President Weishaupt %% "Why do men go to war? Because women are watching." -- T. S. Eliot %% "Why do schools let anyone post? Why not just leave it to us professionals?" -- S. M. Ryan (smryan@garth.UUCP) "Because there is no necessary relation between having a degree and the attribute of optical rectosis, as your posting demonstrates." -- Bill Wells (twwells!bill) %% "Why do trans-atlantic transfers take so long?" "Electrons don't swim very fast." -- john@minster.york.ac.uk and whh@PacBell.COM %% "Why don't the Japanese live in the mountains? Certainly, they could; apparently they just don't want to." -- elturner@phoenix.Princeton.EDU %% Why explore the Universe? It is almost ironic that we should have to ask this question because it is almost as though we have to apologize for our highest attributes... we went to Mars, not because of our technology, but because of our imagination. -- Norman Cousins %% Why is Gerald Ratner so successful? In just six years the Englishman has parlayed a two-karat family business into the world's largest jewelry retailer, with 1,000 stores in the U.S. (under the names Kay and Sterling) and an equal number in Britain. In a speech last week at London's Albert Hall before the annual convention of the prestigious Institute of Directors, Ratner, 41, offered a four-point program for becoming a multimillionaire. Rule No. 1: Understand your market. His stores, he says, sell "cheap and tacky products." Rule No. 2: Form clear quality goals. "We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray -- that your butler can serve you drinks on -- all for 4.95 [$8.73]. People say, `How can you sell this for such a low price?' I say because it is total crap." Rule No. 3: Evaluate how your products stacks up against all the competition. "We even sell a pair of earrings for under 1 [$1.76], which is cheaper than a prawn sandwich from Marks and Spencer. But I have to say the earrings probably won't last as long." Oh, yes, and Rule No. 4: Don't write your own speeches. -- Time magazine, May 6, 1991 %% "Why is that ridiculous toy on your head?" "Because if I wear it anywhere else, it chafes." %% "Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?" -- Ronald Reagan %% "Why was the Ferranti flag taken down? Jim Ada