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fortunes.txt
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!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH%(1) Alexander the Great was a great general.(2) Great generals are forewarned.(3) Forewarned is forearmed.(4) Four is an even number.(5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have.(6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.%(1) Everything depends.(2) Nothing is always.(3) Everything is sometimes.%1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it'sthe law!%10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.%100 buckets of bits on the bus100 buckets of bitsTake one down, short it to groundFF buckets of bits on the busFF buckets of bits on the busFF buckets of bitsTake one down, short it to groundFE buckets of bits on the busad infinitum...%$100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, atwhich time it will be worth absolutely nothing. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"%101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR (1) Scarecrow for centipedes (2) Dead cat brush (3) Hair barrettes (4) Cleats (5) Self-piercing earrings (6) Fungus trellis (7) False eyelashes (8) Prosthetic dog claws . . . (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors) (100) Killer velcro (101) Currency%186,282 miles per second:It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!%2180, U.S. History question: What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and whatoffice did he later hold?%$3,000,000%"355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incrediblesimulation!"%43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wrfortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped%77. HO HUM -- The Redundant------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme--- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop the---X--- (9) GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates to--- --- (8) nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex.Nine in the second place means: The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune.Six in the third place means: In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble!%7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National Redwood Forest.%7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus.%99 blocks of crud on the disk,99 blocks of crud!You patch a bug, and dump it again:100 blocks of crud on the disk!100 blocks of crud on the disk,100 blocks of crud!You patch a bug, and dump it again:101 blocks of crud on the disk! ...%A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble. -- Mahatma Ghandi%A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree.Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientificgame. The player should estimate the distance the ball would havetraveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there,preferably atop a nice firm tuft of grass. -- Donald A. Metz%A [golf] ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted andplaced in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried orrolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently resultsfrom friction between the face of the club and the cover of the balland the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of theball resulting from such uncontrollable physical phenomena. -- Donald A. Metz%A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and noresponsibility at the other.%A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. -- Carl Sandburg%A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman outof a divorce. -- Don Quinn%A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shiningand wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain%A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know itadds up to be real money. -- Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen%A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.%A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.%A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose.%... A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that youhave turned into a pile of dust.%A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we haveenlightened him with ours.%A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as wellas afterward.%A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from thepoor to protect them from each other.%A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.%A child can go only so far in life without potty training. It is notmere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were pottytrained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators. -- Dave Barry%A child of five could understand this! Fetch me a child of five.%A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon.Avoid him. He's a Commie.%A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, butwon't cross the street to vote in a national election. -- Bill Vaughan%A city is a large community where people are lonesome together. -- Herbert Prochnow%A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobodywants to read. -- Mark Twain, "The Disappearance of Literature"%A closed mouth gathers no foot.%A computer, to print out a fact,Will divide, multiply, and subtract. But this output can be No more than debris,If the input was short of exact. -- Gigo%A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.%A CONS is an object which cares. -- Bernie Greenberg.%A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time itis, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.%A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper. -- Dyer%A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of thedamned things is ample. -- Rebecca West%A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. -- Ben Franklin%A crusader's wife slipped from the garrisonAnd had an affair with a Saracen. She was not oversexed, Or jealous or vexed,She just wanted to make a comparison.%A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolenlantern. -- Edgar A. Shoaff%A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it?%A day without sunshine is like night.%A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a furcoat.%A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way thatyou will look forward to the trip.% A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he waseating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personalitytest", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it intothe toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too."% A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguingabout whose profession was the oldest. In the course of theirarguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereuponthe doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, becauseEve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simplyincredible surgical feat." The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at theGarden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out ofthat, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been anarchitect." The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said,"Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"%A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. -- Ogden Nash%A dozen, a gross, and a score,Plus three times the square root of four, Divided by seven, Plus five times eleven,Equals nine squared plus zero, no more.%A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of aXerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser.Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the networkwith the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, theUndergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quicklypressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, whilesimultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thickInterlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened.%A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change thesubject. -- Winston Churchill%A fool must now and then be right by chance.%A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science intosuperstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. -- G. B. Shaw%A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge blockof marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like anelephant.%A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. -- D. Gries%"A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitchdimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension." -- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature"%A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. -- Adlai Stevenson%A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States thanhe could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for menfavored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitterfacts of life in bandages of self-illusion. -- H. L. Mencken%A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commandingducks. -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981%A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sortof).%A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightenedinto place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward thehope of greening the landscape of idea. -- John Ciardi%A great many people think they are thinking when they are merelyrearranging their prejudices. -- William James%A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honestman a century.%A hypothetical paradox: What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise securityteam, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad ofImperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet? -- Tom Galloway%A is for AMY who fell down the stairs, B is for BASIL assaulted by bears.C is for CLARA who wasted away, D is for DESMOND thrown out of a sleigh.E is for ERNEST who choked on a peach, F is for FANNY sucked dry by a leech.G is for GEORGE smothered under a rug, H is for HECTOR done in by a thug.I is for IDA who drowned in a lake, J is for JAMES who took lye by mistake.K is for KATE who was struck with an axe, L is for LEO who swallowed some tacks.M is for MAUD who was swept out to sea, N is for NEVILLE who died of ennui.O is for OLIVE run through with an awl, P is for PRUE trampled flat in a brawl.Q is for QUENTIN who sank in a mire, R is for RHODA consumed by a fire.S is for SUSAN who perished of fits, T is for TITUS who flew into bits.U is for UNA who slipped down a drain, V is for VICTOR squashed under a train.W is for WINNIE embedded in ice, X is for XERXES devoured by mice.Y is for YORICK whose head was knocked in,Z is for ZILLAH who drank too much gin. -- Edward Gorey, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"%A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.%A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. -- Robert Frost%A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction.%A lady with one of her ears appliedTo an open keyhole heard, inside,Two female gossips in converse free --The subject engaging them was she."I think", said one, "and my husband thinksThat she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"As soon as no more of it she could hearThe lady, indignant, removed her ear."I will not stay," she said with a pout,"To hear my character lied about!" -- Gopete Sherany%A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming isnot worth knowing.%A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to programin than some that do. -- Dennis M. Ritchie%A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they workby being declared to work. -- Anatol Holt%A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and youwill find the programmers cannot write in English.%A limerick packs laughs anatomicalInto space that is quite economical. But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean,And the clean ones so seldom are comical.%A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost ofnothing. -- Alan Perlis%A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation. -- H. H. Munroe, "Saki"%A long memory is the most subversive idea in America.%A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at anyprice.%A Los Angeles judge ruled that "a citizen may snore with immunity inhis own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual andexceptional ability in that particular field."%A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths. -- Steve Wright%A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. Ibelieve everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col% A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. Thefirst thing he notices is that the arms are too long. "No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbowand hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine." "But the collar is up around my ears!" "It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, alittle more ... that's it." "But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation. "Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There yougo. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly." So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto thestreet. Reba and Florence see him go by. "Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!" "Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit." -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"%A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!""However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me asense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane%A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.% A master was explaining the nature of Tao to one of hisnovices. "The Tao is embodied in all software -- regardless of howinsignificant," said the master. "Is Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice. "It is," came the reply. "Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice. "It is even in a video game," said the master. "And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?" The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "Thelesson is over for today," he said. -- "The Tao of Programming"%A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems.%A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationedon the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous newgame. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, thepilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowlyalong it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn theirheads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turnaround and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the oppositedirection, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, thepaper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguincolony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguinsfall over gently onto their backs. -- Audubon Society Magazine[From the BBC, 2001-02-02: For five weeks, a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS)monitored 1,000 king penguins on the island of South Georgia as Lynxhelicopters passed overhead. "Not one king penguin fell over when the helicopters came over,"said team leader Dr. Richard Stone. "As the aircraft approached, the birds went quiet and stoppedcalling to each other, and adolescent birds that were not associatedwith nests began walking away from the noise. Pure animal instinct,really." The conclusion, said Dr. Stone, is that flights over 305 metres(1,000 feet) caused "only minor and transitory ecological effects" onking penguins.]% A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy atthe death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for thepianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quitenice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if ..." "If what?" asked the composer. "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?"%A neighbor came to Nasrudin, asking to borrow his donkey. "It is outon loan," the teacher replied. At that moment, the donkey brayedloudly inside the stable. "But I can hear it bray, over there." "Whomdo you believe," asked Nasrudin, "me or a donkey?"%A new dramatist of the absurdHas a voice that will shortly be heard. I learn from my spies He's about to deviseAn unprintable three-letter word.%A new koan: If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you.It is an ice cream koan.%A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary.Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a round tuit nowhas no excuse for further procrastination.%A New York City judge ruled that if two women behind you at the moviesinsist on discussing the probable outcome of the film, you have theright to turn around and blow a Bronx cheer at them.%A New York City ordinance prohibits the shooting of rabbits from therear of a Third Avenue street car -- if the car is in motion.% A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, whichremoves most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted todoing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendousamounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardwarelimitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in thelarger systems which require a more involved & less efficientpower-down sequence. An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for thebuilding, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth hasbugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beercool.%A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the poweroff and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly:"You can not fix a machine by just power-cycling it with nounderstanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine offand on. The machine worked.%A nuclear war can ruin your whole day.%A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space. -- Gloria Steinem%A penny saved is ridiculous.%A person is just about as big as the things that make him angry.%A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald%A pig is a jolly companion,Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,Though mountains may topple and tilt.When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover,You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,You'll never go wrong with a pig! -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"% A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be droppedto be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longerbe part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retainedwould be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take thesame konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with"i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iearwith Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thiridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindzov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wudhev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.%"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!" -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Sumatra"%A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?And the Master answered:It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence.It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs.It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to Cityupon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have cometo be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness.And that is Fate? said the priest.Fate ... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master.That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight wastoo. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"% A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he cameupon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope."That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellowman". As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well,he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing."%A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.%"A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basisof being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infiniteseries of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometricprecisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken frominconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematicalaccuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentalityfor the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelesslydefenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for theinformation in the first place." -- IEEE Grid news magazine%A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers thatyour wife will give you for free.%A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor betoo heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight whichwas intended for her preservation. -- Colton%A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as"you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply ifthe ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wantsto make a travesty of the game. -- Donald A. Metz%"A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blackedout 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon." -- Steel City News%"A radioactive cat has eighteen half-lives."%A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying,"Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tinybits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon thelambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans andbreakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest theHoly Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number ofthe counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shaltthou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou thenproceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, beingthe number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy HandGrenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight,shall snuff it." -- Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"%A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoicesthat the system works.%A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason andthe real reason.%A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screenobjects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computerscientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the addedconcentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural threedimensional objects ...%A Riverside, California, health ordinance states that two persons maynot kiss each other without first wiping their lips with carbolizedrosewater.%A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single mancontemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery%A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities willkeep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save thosethat are worth committing. -- Samuel Butler% A Severe Strain on the CredulityAs a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highestparts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocketis a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when oneconsiders the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that onebegins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and reallystarts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated normaintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left.Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancingof the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action tore-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuumagainst which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack theknowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -- New York Times Editorial, 1920%A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard. -- Prof. Steiner%... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like hewas waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. -- Mark Twain%A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. -- O'Henry%A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of manybad measures. -- Daniel Webster%A student who changes the course of history is probably taking anexam.%A student, in hopes of understanding the Lambda-nature, came toGreenblatt. As they spoke a Multics system hacker walked by. "Is ittrue," asked the student, "that PL-1 has many of the same data types asLisp?" Almost before the student had finished his question, Greenblattshouted, "FOO!", and hit the student with a stick.%A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do somethingundreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson%A tautology is a thing which is tautological.%A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention,and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse byblowing first.%A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscenetriangle.%A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.%A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interestin students. -- John Ciardi%"A University without students is like an ointment without a fly." -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin%A UNIX saleslady, Lenore,Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more. She found a good way To combine work and play:She sells C shells by the seashore.%A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that naturereplaces it with. -- Tennessee Williams%A very intelligent turtleFound programming UNIX a hurdle The system, you see, Ran as slow as did he,And that's not saying much for the turtle.%A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice withoutgetting nervous.%A witty saying proves nothing, but saying something pointless getspeople's attention.%A witty saying proves nothing. -- Voltaire%A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent toadmit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the factremains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for onereason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. Itis for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties ofusing indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with thesematters, to carry a large club near your person at all times. -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII%A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.%A.A.A.A.A.: An organization for drunks who drive%Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.%"About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves theends." -- Herbert Hoover%Absence makes the heart go wander.%Absent, adj.: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed;slandered.%Absentee, n.: A person with an income who has had the forethought to removehimself from the sphere of exaction. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Abstainer, n.: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself apleasure. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's ownopinion. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics,because the stakes are so low. -- Wallace Sayre%Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence ofbody is better. -- Foolish Dictionary%Accidents cause History.If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, thePeasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would nothave been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oilcould have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb andthe whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%According to Arkansas law, Section 4761, Pope's Digest: "No personshall be permitted under any pretext whatever, to come nearer thanfifty feet of any door or window of any polling room, from the openingof the polls until the completion of the count and the certification ofthe returns."%According to Kentucky state law, every person must take a bath at leastonce a year.%According to my best recollection, I don't remember. -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo%According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics aretotally worthless.%According to the obituary notices, a mean and unimportant person neverdies.%According to the Rand McNally Places-Rated Almanac, the best place tolive in America is the city of Pittsburgh. The city of New York camein twenty-fifth. Here in New York we really don't care too much.Because we know that we could beat up their city anytime. -- David Letterman%Accordion, n.: A bagpipe with pleats.%Accuracy, n.: The vice of being right.% ACHTUNG!!!Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easyschnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mitspitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Dasrubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen undvatch das blinkenlights!!!%Acid -- better living through chemistry.%Acid absorbs 47 times its own weight in excess Reality.%Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not wellenough to lend to. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%"Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing."%Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had everyone glued in their seats!"Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it!"%Actor: So what do you do for a living?Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving dishes for Chinese restaurants. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"%Actors will happen even in the best-regulated families.%ADA, n.: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness." -- "Datamation", January 15, 1984%Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Adolescence, n.: The stage between puberty and adultery.%"Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to looklike you ..." -- Gilda Radner%Adore, v.: To venerate expectantly. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Adult, n.: One old enough to know better.%Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapestway of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless. -- Sinclair Lewis%Advice to young men: Be ascetic, and if you can't be ascetic,then at least be aseptic.%After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whosenames have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, MaryLouise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conductedmany important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 LuigiGalvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached twodifferent kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical currentdeveloped and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longerattached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery ledto enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today,skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriouslyinjured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch ithop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the factthat it sinks like a stone. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"%After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out.It was replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of lifemore advanced than the lichen family. -- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"%After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.%"... After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-knownquotations." -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare%After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely notfor you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd havesimply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. -- P. J. O'Rourke%After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be foundon the bench.% After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled fromHeaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought,and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soonto be created." "This is true," He replied. "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for theright to make his laws?" "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed tomake his own." It was so granted. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%"After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted ofthe unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what thecost to others, to win advancement." -- Norman Thomas%After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK?%After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believeeverything. Just in case.%After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an accesscover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has beenremoved.%Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for achange.%Afternoon, n.: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted themorning.%Age before beauty; and pearls before swine. -- Dorothy Parker%Age, n.: That period of life in which we compound for the vices that westill cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterpriseto commit. -- Ambrose Bierce%Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.%Ah, but the choice of dreams to live,there's the rub.For all dreams are not equal,some exit to nightmaremost end with the dreamerBut at least one must be lived ... and died.%"Ah, you know the type. They like to blame it all on the Jews or theBlacks, 'cause if they couldn't, they'd have to wake up to the factthat life's one big, scary, glorious, complex and ultimatelyunfathomable crapshoot -- and the only reason THEY can't seem to keepup is they're a bunch of misfits and losers." -- A analysis of Neo-Nazis, from "The Badger" comic%Air is water with holes in it.%Alas, I am dying beyond my means. -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed%Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wiretelegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in NewYork and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, theyreceive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."%Alden's Laws: (1) Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause of pregnancy. (2) Always be backlit. (3) Sit down whenever possible.%Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall,Aleph-null bottles of beer, You take one down, and pass it around,Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall.%Alex Haley was adopted!%Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waitingfor a dial tone.%Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one ofthem keeps paying for it. -- Peggy Joyce%All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spentupon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which avisit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, isinforming, stimulating and ennobling. -- H. L. Mencken%All bridge hands are equally likely, but some are more equally likelythan others. -- Alan Truscott%All extremists should be taken out and shot.%All Finagle Laws may be bypassed by learning the simple art of doingwithout thinking.%"All flesh is grass" -- IsaiahSmoke a friend today.%All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.%All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my ownimportance.%All I can think of is a platter of organic PRUNE CRISPS being trampledby an army of swarthy, Italian LOUNGE SINGERS ...%All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. -- Ashleigh Brilliant%All men are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Therefore, all men areSocrates. -- Woody Allen%"All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps ussane."%"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been morespecific." -- Jane Wagner%All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies. -- The Book of Bokonon / Kurt Vonnegut Jr.%All other things being equal, a bald man cannot be elected President ofthe United States. -- Vic Gold%All power corrupts, but we need electricity.%All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.%All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part ofevery organism to live beyond its income. -- Samuel Butler, "Notebooks"%All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -- E. Rutherford%"All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their righthands." -- Saint Patrick%All syllogisms have three parts; therefore this is not a syllogism.%All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can,too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if yousubscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, youcan deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S.Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 taxdecision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? Whatif it rains?" -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"%"... all the modern inconveniences ..." -- Mark Twain%All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the mostridiculous ones. -- La Rochefoucauld%All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent bythe government in less than a second. -- Jim Fiebig%All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. -- Sean O'Casey%All theoretical chemistry is really physics;and all theoretical chemists know it. -- Richard P. Feynman%All things are possible, except skiing thru a revolving door.%All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's forfun. Money's just the way we keep score. -- Henry Tyroon%All true wisdom is found on T-shirts.%All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers ... Each one owesinfinitely more to the human race than to the particular country inwhich he was born. -- Francois Fenelon%Alliance, n.: In international politics, the union of two thieves who havetheir hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannotseparately plunder a third. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Alone, adj.: In bad company. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweightProtestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. -- Dave Barry%Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.%Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios,mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not haveany of these things, which is just as well because there was no placeto plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer,Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received aserious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by thesame force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severelythat he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "Apenny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a jobrunning the post office. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"%Although written many years ago, Lady Chatterley's Lover has just beenreissued by the Grove Press, and this pictorial account of theday-to-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerableinterest to outdoor minded readers, as it contains many passages onpheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin,and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper.Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneousmaterial in order to discover and savour those sidelights on themanagement of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer's opinionthe book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's "PracticalGamekeeping." -- Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959)%Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paidback.%Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.%"Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusingthat way."%Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves.% AMAZING BUT TRUE ...If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to endacross the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful.% AMAZING BUT TRUE ...There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out itwould completely cover the Sahara Desert.%Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. -- Charlie McCarthy%America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarismto decadence without touching civilization. -- John O'Hara%America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him,until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" andchanged its name to "America". -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospectiveemployees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping foremployees who are educated enough that they can tell the differencebetween the men's room and the women's room without having littlepictures on the doors. -- Dave Barry, "Urine Trouble, Mister"%"Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it."%An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but becausepeople refuse to see it. -- James Michener, "Space"%An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President butis always polite to traffic cops.%An anthropologist at Tulane has just come back from a field trip toNew Guinea with reports of a tribe so primitive that they have Tide butnot new Tide with lemon-fresh Borax. -- David Letterman%An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away.% An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. Heknows he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and withgreat restraint. As he designs the first work, frill after frill andembellishment after embellishment occur to him. These get stored awayto be used "next time". Sooner or later the first system is finished,and the architect, with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery ofthat class of systems, is ready to build a second system. This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs.When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences willconfirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems,and their differences will identify those parts of his experience thatare particular and not generalizable. The general tendency is to over-design the second system, usingall the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the firstone. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile". -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"%An artist should be fit for the best society and keep out of it.%An attorney was defending his client against a charge of first-degreemurder. "Your Honor, my client is accused of stuffing his lover'smutilated body into a suitcase and heading for the Mexican border.Just north of Tijuana a cop spotted her hand sticking out of thesuitcase. Now, I would like to stress that my client is *not* amurderer. A sloppy packer, maybe..."%An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than youreally care to know.%An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.%An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.%An English judge, growing weary of the barrister's long-windedsummation, leaned over the bench and remarked, "I've heard yourarguments, Sir Geoffrey, and I'm none the wiser!" Sir Geoffreyresponded, "That may be, Milord, but at least you're better informed!"%An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. -- A. P. Herbert%An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch. Hewears a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and isadvertised only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune andRich Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written inincomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denoteexcellence:"The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence anddiscriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly ableto discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of craftingthings by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watchparts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly atimeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Whodoesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful.Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in highschool. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near assuccessful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, andthey'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha." -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"%An exotic journey in downtown Newark is in your future.%"... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite oftenpicturesque liar." -- Mark Twain%An idea is an eye given by God for the seeing of God. Some of theseeyes we cannot bear to look out of, we blind them as quickly aspossible. -- Russell Hoban, "Pilgermann"%An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.% An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativityin the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that ifyou're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems likean hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, anhour seems like a minute." The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for amoment and says, "And from this he makes a living?" -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"%"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of purge."%Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than nogovernment at all.%And as we stand on the edge of darknessLet our chant fill the voidThat others may know In the land of the night The ship of the sun Is drawn by The grateful dead. -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead," ca. 4000 BC.%... and furthermore ... I don't like your trousers.%And I heard Jeff exclaim,As they strolled out of sight,"Merry Christmas to all --You take credit cards, right?" -- "Outsiders" comic%... And malt does more than Milton canTo justify God's ways to man -- A. E. Housman%And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode.%"... And remember: if you don't like the news, go out and make some ofyour own." -- "Scoop" Nisker, KFOG radio reporter Preposterous Words%And so, men, we can see that human skin is an even more complex andfascinating organ than we thought it was, and if we want to keep itlooking good, we have to care for it as though it were our own. Oneapproach is to undergo a painful surgical procedure wherein your skinis turned inside-out, so the young cells are on the outside, but thenof course you have the unpleasant side effect that your insidesgradually fill up with dead old cells and you explode. So thisprocedure is pretty much limited to top Hollywood stars for whomyouthful beauty is a career necessity, such as Elizabeth Taylor andOrson Welles. -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"%"...and the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely acourtesy detail."%And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is ahorizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four verticalcolumnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory,ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in theworld. -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men"% "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?"asked the father of his little son. "Diet."%And yet, seasons must be taken with a grain of salt, for they too havea sense of humor, as does history. Corn stalks comedy, comedy stalkstragedy, and this too is historic. And yet, still, when corn meetstragedy face to face, we have politics. -- Dalglish, Larsen and Sutherland, "Root Crops and Ground Cover"%Angels we have heard on HighTell us to go out and Buy. -- Tom Lehrer%Ankh if you love Isis.%Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary alreadysufficiently slippery. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"% Another Glitch in the Call ------- ------ -- --- ---- (Sung to the tune of the classic Pink Floyd song.)We don't need no indirectionWe don't need no flow controlNo data typing or declarationsDid you leave the lists alone? Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone!Chorus: All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call.%Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.% Answers to Last Fortune's Questions:(1) None. (Moses didn't have an ark).(2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle.(3) I don't know.(4) Who cares?(5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5.(6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of Papyrus Books).%Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it; get a larger hammer.%Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop.Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes.%Antonym, n.: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.%Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. -- Charles McCabe%Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as arepresentation of contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as arepresentation of anything -- except a show to be ignored by anyonecapable of sitting upright in a chair and chewing gum simultaneously. -- Richard Schickel%Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -- Aesop%Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself thatthis country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get awhole week.%Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able tosell it.%Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche-- a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance,my grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one offthe fence." I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it wasundoubtedly true. -- Solomon Short%Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there. -- Sydney J. Harris%Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a largerobject.%Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient toexactly the point of most pressure. -- Milt Barber%Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. -- Rich Kulawiec%Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a riggeddemo.%Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke%Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlookedsomething.%Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.%Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry.%Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car isprobably parked.%Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire.%Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he issupposed to be doing at the moment. -- Robert Benchley%Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. -- Publius Syrus%Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one withnone.%Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best heis a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and notmake messes in the house. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"%Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. -- Samuel Goldwyn%Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. -- W. C. Fields%Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on noaccount be allowed to do the job. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"%Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has nevertried taking candy from a baby. -- Robin Hood%Anything free is worth what you pay for it.%Anything is good if it's made of chocolate.%Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means theprice went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW"means the price went way up.%Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate.%Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.%"Apathy is not the problem, it's the solution"%Aphorism, n.: A concise, clever statement.Afterism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late. -- James Alexander Thom%APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language ofthe future for the problems of the past: it creates a new generation ofcoding bums.%APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but Ican't read any of them. -- Roy Keir%Aquadextrous, adj.: Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and offwith your toes. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18) You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid.%Arbitrary systems, pl.n.: Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothinggeneral can be said."%ARCHDUKE FERDINAND FOUND ALIVE -- FIRST WORLD WAR A MISTAKE%Are you a turtle?%"Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"%ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19) You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are not very nice.%Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off yourshoes. -- Mickey Mouse%Armadillo: To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle%Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws.%Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time tomeasure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can youimagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982%Art is anything you can get away with. -- Marshall McLuhan.%Art is either plagiarism or revolution. -- Paul Gauguin%Arthur's Laws of Love: (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you remind them of someone else. (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of yourself in person.%Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum.%As a professional humorist, I often get letters from readers who areinterested in the basic nature of humor. "What kind of a sickperverted disgusting person are you," these letters typically ask,"that you make jokes about setting fire to a goat?" -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"%As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factualcertainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so Ibecame a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you canmeet girls. -- Matt Cartmill%As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are notcertain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein%As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. -- Weisert%As I was going up Punch Card Hill, Feeling worse and worser,There I met a C.R.T. And it drop't me a cursor.C.R.T., C.R.T., Phosphors light on you!If I had fifty hours a day I'd spend them all at you. -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes%As I was passing Project MAC,I met a Quux with seven hacks.Every hack had seven bugs;Every bug had seven manifestations;Every manifestation had seven symptoms.Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks,How many losses at Project MAC?%As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the greatindustries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, freespeech and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say tomyself, "That man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear areal American talk like that. -- Frank Hague (1896-1956)%As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?%As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have itsfascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to bepopular. -- Oscar Wilde%As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code.%"As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500programs; a process that traditionally requires some debugging." -- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover to a new computer system.%As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that itwasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging hadto be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realizedthat a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent infinding mistakes in my own programs. -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949%As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it'sso hard to figure out how to get the bark on. -- Woody Allen%As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that thereis always a future in Computer Maintenance. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"%As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such thing as a freevariable."%As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simplememory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct timeto order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A,E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion"%As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they wouldinterfere with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for theWright Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figureout how to get their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned onWilbur. "Orville," he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexualorgans!" You should have seen their original design.] As a result,birds are very, very difficult to arouse sexually. You almost neversee an aroused bird. So when they want to reproduce, birds fly up andstand on telephone lines, where they monitor telephone conversationswith their feet. When they find a conversation in which people aretalking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they are bothhighly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant. -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every Teen Should Know"%As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears. Unable to pullyour hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you.The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid alongwith your complexion. You become dazed, and in your stupor you fallfrom the limbs of the tree. Snap! Your head falls off and rolls allover the ground. The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh ofa vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head. Worse yet, thespider is suing you for damages.%As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself."%ASHes to ASHes, DOS to DOS.%Ask five economists and you'll get five different explanations (six ifone went to Harvard). -- Edgar R. Fiedler%Ask not for whom the <CONTROL-G> tolls.%Ask Not for whom the Bell Tolls, and You will Pay only theStation-to-Station rate.%Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in thebathtub, it tolls for thee.%Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell"for an answer.%"Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-oldwoman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, `The way I look at it,she's the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds.'" -- David Letterman%Ass, n.: The masculine of "lass".%Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve.Run with decent folk and your own decent instincts will bestrengthened. Keep the company of bums and you will become a bum.Hang around with rich people and you will end by picking up the checkand dying broke. -- Stanley Walker%"At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from LosAngeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his headunder the exhaust of a bus until he revived."%At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it isnot. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is whereit is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest. -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow%At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerialchallenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- The Washington Post Magazine, 9 June, 1985%At least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. -- J. B. White%At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits histhumb with a hammer. -- Marshall Lumsden%At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you willfind at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it onthe computer.%Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone poleor street lamp.%Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. -- Winston Churchill%Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whateverdepths they were once able to plumb. -- Stanley Kaufman%Automobile, n.: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians.%Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"%Avoid reality at all costs.%Avoid revolution or expect to get shot. Mother and I will grieve, butwe will gladly buy a dinner for the National Guardsman who shot you. -- Dr. Paul Williamson, father of a Kent State student%Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse forgetting drunk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Bagbiter: 1. n.; Equipment or program that fails, usuallyintermittently. 2. adj.: Failing hardware or software. "Thisbagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar." Usage: verges onobscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting thebag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS,CHOMPER, CHOMPING.%Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average Americannewspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on aukulele.%Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sidesby governors.%Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.%Banectomy, n.: The removal of bruises on a banana. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Bank error in your favor. Collect $200.%Barach's Rule: An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician.%Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward from thefloor -- especially in the dark.%Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather weare having. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into twotypes, and those who don't.%Baruch's Observation: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.%Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game -- it, and hightaxes. -- Will Rogers%Basic is a high level languish.APL is a high level anguish.%"BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of `Scientific Creationism'."%BASIC, n.: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases inthat those who have it will not admit it in polite company.%Bathquake, n.: The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the waterfaucet is turned on to a certain point. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to yourdoor.%BE ALERT!!!! (The world needs more lerts ...)%Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcelyget your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to yourface. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"%Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.%Be careful of reading health books. You might die of a misprint. -- Mark Twain%Be different: conform.%Be free and open and breezy! Enjoy! Things won't get any better soget used to it.%Be security conscious -- National Defense is at stake.%Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors andmiss -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"%Bees are very busy soulsThey have no time for birth controlsAnd that is why in times like theseThere are so many Sons of Bees.% Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, andtook great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of hisfollowers. One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture andthere he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing. "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in hiscommanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is yourPurpose in Life, anyway?" Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (TheChinese ideogram for NO-THING.) Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened. Primarily because nobody understood Chinese. -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters"%Before Xerox, five carbons were the maximum extension of anybody's ego.%Begathon, n.: A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money soyou won't have to watch commercials.%Behold the warranty ... the bold print giveth and the fine print takethaway.%Beifeld's Principle: The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better looking and richer male friend.%"Being disintegrated makes me ve-ry an-gry!" <huff, huff>%Bell Labs Unix -- Reach out and grep someone.%Bennett's Laws of Horticulture: (1) Houses are for people to live in. (2) Gardens are for plants to live in. (3) There is no such thing as a houseplant.%"Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence" -- Time Bandits%Besides the device, the box should contain:* Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING"* A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tramcable.IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to yourspouse and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a carthat can get all the way through the drive-through at Burger Kingwithout a major transmission overhaul? Because nobody cares, that'swhy."WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret. -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"%Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon.%better !pout !crybetter watchoutlpr whysanta claus < north pole > towncat /etc/passwd > listncheck listncheck listcat list | grep naughty > nogiftlistcat list | grep nice > giftlistsanta claus < north pole > townwho | grep sleepingwho | grep awakewho | egrep 'bad|good'for (goodness sake) { be good}%Better dead than mellow.%Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of HudsonBay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate.Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years andgreat effort pushing boulders into a single word.It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow.Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latinequivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for thedestruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrassboth Parliament and Party.It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on otherplanets, this may be the first message received from us. -- The Realist, November, 1964.%Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, nottried it. -- Donald Knuth%Beware of computerized fortune-tellers!%Beware of low-flying butterflies.%Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein%Beware of self-styled experts: an ex is a has-been, and a spurt is adrip under pressure.%"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, andfinds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full ofmurderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come bytheir ignorance the hard way." -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"%Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible butnothing of interest is easy.%Binary, adj.: Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes.%Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the samething as division.%Bipolar, adj.: Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo,New York%Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic.%Bizoos, n.: The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up abasketball. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ...%Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. -- Herbert Hoover%Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles,for they Shall be Known as Wheels.%BLISS is ignorance.%Blood flows down one leg and up the other.%Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier.%Blore's Razor: Given a choice between two theories, take the one which isfunnier.%Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze inplain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend hasit that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he wasarrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people keptthrowing up on them.%Boling's postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it.%Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress.%Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.%BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH!%Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look.%Bore, n.: A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary. -- Walter Winchell%Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Boren's Laws: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble.%Boss, n.: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss, in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an ornamental stud."%Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System. You couldn't prythat out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creationstraightened out for a crowbar. -- O. W. Holmes%Boston, n.: Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for finishing second in the Irish jig competition.%Boy, life takes a long time to live -- Steven Wright%Boy, n.: A noise with dirt on it.%Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at leastwhen they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years. -- James Thurber%Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. -- Kin Hubbard%Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on theunique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only(gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides. I tendto think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.' -- Mike Padlipsky, Foreword to "Elements of Networking Style"%Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in.%Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?"%Brain fried -- Core dumped%Brain, n.: The apparatus with which we think that we think. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests,since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%Bride, n.: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but mayrevitalize the corner saloon.%British Israelites: The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons ofBritain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel deported bySargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721 B.C. ... They furtherbelieve that the future can be foretold by the measurements of theGreat Pyramid, which probably means it will be big and yellow and inthe hand of the Arabs. They also believe that if you sleep with yourhead under the pillow a fairy will come and take all your teeth. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%Broad-mindedness, n.: The result of flattening high-mindedness out.%Brontosaurus Principle: Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage themin relation to their environment and to their own physiology: whenthis occurs, they are an endangered species. -- Thomas K. Connellan%Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later%Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.%Bubble Memory, n.: A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence. See also "vacuum tube".%Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.%Bug, n.: An aspect of a computer program which exists because theprogrammer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/hewrote the program.Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed. -- Ray Simard%Bugs, pl. n.: Small living things that small living boys throw on smallliving girls.%BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal. He's the brains of the outfit."GENERAL: "What does that make YOU?"BULLWINKLE: "What else? An executive." -- Jay Ward%Bumper sticker:"All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest Britishmanufacture"%Bureaucrat, n.: A person who cuts red tape sideways. -- J. McCabe%Bureaucrat, n.: A politician who has tenure.%Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise.%Burn's Hog Weighing Method: (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse. (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank. (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced. (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks. -- Robert Burns% But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it caneasily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existedand were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession)upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed waswithout a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges' decisions basedon it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing courtwas ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft andsorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches,human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%"But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporationspaws."%"But I don't like Spam!!!!"% But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Humanintellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far aswe can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issuesthat now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understandingof their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standardexample of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads --makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussingwhether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house afinite or an infinite number. -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"%But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of thesystem, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed,analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers"%"But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coastto the nearest gas station."%But scientists, who ought to knowAssure us that it must be so.Oh, let us never, never doubtWhat nobody is sure about. -- Hilaire Belloc%But soft you, the fair Ophelia:Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,But get thee to a nunnery -- go! -- Mark "The Bard" Twain%But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, whowas a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formaleducation and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands ofAmerican homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record wasinvented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when heinvented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliantadaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sendselectricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets theelectricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliantpart) sends it right back to the customer again.This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batchof electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, sincevery few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely.In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the UnitedStates was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling itever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rateincreases. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"%But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a badplace to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge.Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is akludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs,poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have Iexplained yet about the bytes?%... But we've only fondled the surface of that subject. -- Virginia Masters%"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertablecomputers?"%Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyesOf hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn;Less dear than army ants in apple piesArt thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn,Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit;Like honeybees upon the perfum'd roseThey suck, and like the double-breasted suitAre out of date; therefore, Banana Nose,Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed;And stem the produce of thy waspish wits:Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed;Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits.Be off, I say; go bug somebody new,Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you.%By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the taskcompletely overwhelm you.%By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact,it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is toinvent. -- R. Emerson -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"]%By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves beganto suspect "Hungry" ... -- Gary Larson, "The Far Side"%By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's, Imean. -- Mark Twain%Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A topoint B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A veryfast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, areoften given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many peoplefrom point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point Bthat so many people from point A are so keen to get _____there. They oftenwish that people would just once and for all work out where the hellthey wanted to be. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"%C, n.: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -- Ray Simard%Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception. -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989%Cahn's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions.%California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange. -- Fred Allen%California, n.: From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" orSpanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or"fornication." Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot sex." -- Ed Moran%Call on God, but row away from the rocks. -- Indian proverb%Calling J-Man Kink. Calling J-Man Kink. Hash missile sighted, targetLos Angeles. Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept.%Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle. -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth%Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of PlymouthCorner, Vermont. -- Clarence Darrow%Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between twopoints. -- M. M. Johnston%Canada Bill Jone's Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.Supplement: A .44 magnum beats four aces.%Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp. It's 2 centsfor postage and 30 cents for storage. -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial Post%Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,A root or two, a torus and a node:The inverse of my verse, a null domain. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"%CANCER (June 21 - July 22) You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare recipients are Cancer people.%Canonical, adj.: The usual or standard state or manner of something. A truestory: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed someannoyance at the use of jargon. Over his loud objections, we made apoint of using jargon as much as possible in his presence, andeventually it began to sink in. Finally, in one conversation, he usedthe word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion without thinking. Steele: "Aha! We've finally got you talking jargon too!" Stallman: "What did he say?" Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way."%CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19) You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as they take root and become trees.%Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.%Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete thanexpected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer tocomplete than expected, mostly because the planners expect theirplanning to reduce the time it takes.%Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats andtrousers that don't match.%Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Cat, n.: Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer.%Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education. -- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson"%Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.%CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh..%Cecil, you're my final hopeOf finding out the true Straight DopeFor I have been reading of Schrodinger's catBut none of my cats are at all like that.This unusual animal (so it is said)Is simultaneously alive and dead!What I don't understand is just why heCan't be one or the other, unquestionably.My future now hangs in between eigenstates.In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't.If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the wayAnd rescue my psyche from quantum decay.But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,Then I will *___and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo. -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams%Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch.%Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is thecenter of the universe. The premise is wrong, but the navigationworks. An incorrect model can be a useful tool. -- Kelvin Throop III%Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so,how many?%Cerebus: I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel.Jaka: Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... somethingCerebus: If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy out of it?Jaka: Ugh!Cerebus: You don't like apricot brandy? -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret"%Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a longwalk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. Theythen point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdyhealth and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we findonly robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all theothers who have tried it. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy,But it's very funny--Did you ever try buying them without money? -- Ogden Nash% Chapter 1The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lotof people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.%Character Density, n.: The number of very weird people in the office.%Checkuary, n.: The thirteenth month of the year. Begins New Year's Day and ends when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on his checks.%Chef, n.: Any cook who swears in French.%Chemicals, n.: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.%Chemistry is applied theology. -- Augustus Stanley Owsley III%Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire.%Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #36: Never ever ask the tough looking gentleman wearing El Ruknheadgear where he got his "pyramid powered pizza warmer". -- Chicago Reader 3/27/81%Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #84: The CTA has complimentary pop-up timers available on requestfor overheated passengers. When your timer pops up, the driver willcheerfully baste you. -- Chicago Reader 5/28/82%Chicago, n.: Where the dead still vote ... early and often!%Chicken Little only has to be right once.%Chicken Little was right.%Chicken Soup, n.: An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"%Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite everyeffort to teach them good manners.%Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they'regoing to catch you in next. -- Franklin P. Jones%Children aren't happy without something to ignore,And that's what parents were created for. -- Ogden Nash%Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word forword what you shouldn't have said.%Chism's Law of Completion: The amount of time required to complete a government project is precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it.%Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will.%Chivalry, Schmivalry! Roger the thief has a method he uses for sneaky attacks:Folks who are reading are Characteristically Always Forgetting to Guard their own bac ...%Christ: A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time.%Churchill's Commentary on Man: Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.%Cigarette, n.: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between.%Cinemuck, n.: The combination of popcorn, soda, and melted chocolate which covers the floors of movie theaters. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead. -- Ambrose Bierce%Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is likeshoveling the walk before it stops snowing. -- Phyllis Diller%Cleanliness is next to impossible.%"Cleveland? Yes, I spent a week there one day."%Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.%Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence onsociety. -- Mark Twain%COBOL programs are an exercise in Artificial Inelegance.%Cocaine -- the thinking man's Dristan.%Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum --"I think that I think, therefore I think that I am." -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%"Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong." -- Blair Houghton%Coincidence, n.: You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on.%Coincidences are spiritual puns. -- G. K. Chesterton%Cold, adj.: When the local flashers are handing out written descriptions.%Cold, adj.: When the politicians walk around with their hands in their ownpockets.%Collaboration, n.: A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the other fellow can spell.%College football is a game which would be much more interesting if thefaculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting ifthe trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms,legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in theloss to humanity. -- H. L. Mencken%Colvard's Logical Premises: All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't.Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to.Grelb's Commentary Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you.%Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,And every vector dreams of matrices.Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:It whispers of a more ergodic zone. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"%Command, n.: Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer insuch a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control.% COMMENTOh, life is a glorious cycle of song,A medley of extemporanea;And love is thing that can never go wrong;And I am Marie of Roumania. -- Dorothy Parker%Commitment, n.: Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.%Committee Rules: (1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner. (2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise. (3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the others. (4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed. (5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular -- it's what everyone is waiting for.%Committee, n.: A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done. -- Fred Allen%Committees have become so important nowadays that subcommittees have tobe appointed to do the work.%Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving atdifferent speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. -- Clive James%Common sense is instinct, and enough of it is genius. -- Josh Billings%Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -- Albert Einstein%Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatnessof a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." -- David Guaspari%Computer programmers do it byte by byte.%Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systemstheory.%Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.%Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso%Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things inthe world that just don't add up.%Computers will not be perfected until they can compute how much morethan the estimate the job will cost.%Conceit causes more conversation than wit. -- LaRouchefoucauld%Concept, n.: Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than $25,000.%... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in thisbusiness, it probably would be gibberish. -- Thom McLeod%Condense soup, not books!%Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat isgood for dandruff. -- Peter de Vries%Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.%Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device thatwould give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except thatyou undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumermaneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THISOWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADYUNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNEDIT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILDWHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER ANDSET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS,RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS,RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THEFACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT? -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"%Connector Conspiracy, n: [probably came into prominence with the appearance of theKL-10, none of whose connectors match anything else] The tendency ofmanufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything)to come up with new products which don't fit together with the oldstuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensiveinterface devices.%Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. -- H. L. Mencken%Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking. -- H. L. Mencken, "A Mencken Chrestomathy"%Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.%Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when youwish you weren't.%"Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich." -- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones]%Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and thengive it back to them.%"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, andif it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"%"Contrary to popular belief, penguins are not the salvation of moderntechnology. Neither do they throw parties for the urban proletariat."%Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener.%Conway's Law: In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.%Coronation, n.: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Corrupt, adj.: In politics, holding an office of trust or profit.%Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big amuddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers canmake of capitalism. -- Walter Lippmann%Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His jobis to enforce the law and fight crime. -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan%Court, n.: A place where they dispense with justice. -- Arthur Train%Coward, n.: One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%[Crash programs] fail because they are based on the theory that, withnine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. -- Wernher von Braun%Crime does not pay ... as well as politics. -- A. E. Newman%Critic, n.: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Croll's Query: If tin whistles are made of tin, what are foghorns made of?%cursor address, n: "Hello, cursor!" -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"%Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. Iteliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to thebusiness of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation. -- Johnny Hart%Cynic, n.: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Cynic, n.: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye.%Dare to be naive. -- R. Buckminster Fuller%Darth Vader sleeps with a Teddywookie.%Dave Mack: "Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par."Allen Gwinn: "Yours is."%Dawn, n.: The time when men of reason go to bed. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Day of inquiry. You will be subpoenaed.%%DCL-E-MEMBAD, bad memory-VMS-F-PDGERS, pudding between the ears%Dealing with failure is easy: work hard to improve. Success is alsoeasy to handle: you've solved the wrong problem. Work hard toimprove.%Dear Lord: I just want *___one* one-armed manager so I never have to hear "Onthe other hand", again.%Dear Miss Manners: My home economics teacher says that one must never place one'selbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in betweencourses, is all right. Which is correct?Gentle Reader: For the purpose of answering examinations in your homeeconomics class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to thisprinciple of education may be of even greater importance to you nowthan learning correct current table manners, vital as Miss Mannersbelieves that is.%Dear Miss Manners: Please list some tactful ways of removing a man's saliva fromyour face.Gentle Reader: Please list some decent ways of acquiring a man's saliva onyour face ...%Dear Mister Language Person: I am curious about the expression, "Partof this complete breakfast". The way it comes up is, my 5-year-oldwill be watching TV cartoon shows in the morning, and they'll show acommercial for a children's compressed breakfast compound such as"Froot Loops" or "Lucky Charms", and they always show it sitting on atable next to some actual food such as eggs, and the announcer alwayssays: "Part of this complete breakfast". Don't that really mean,"Adjacent to this complete breakfast", or "On the same table as thiscomplete breakfast"? And couldn't they make essentially the same claimif, instead of Froot Loops, they put a can of shaving cream there, or adead bat?Answer: Yes. -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"%Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small businesssigns to alert the reader that an "S" is coming up at the end of aword, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FORANY ITEM'S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind whencreating hand-lettered small-business signs is that you should putquotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOTDOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S. -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"%Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy.%Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. -- R. Geis%Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings.%Death is nature's way of saying `Howdy'.%Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down.%Death is only a state of mind.Only it doesn't leave you much time to think about anything else.%Death to all fanatics!%Decision maker, n.: The person in your office who was unable to form a task force before the music stopped.%Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a reallyoverwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscenelanguage may not be used by contestants when addressing members of thejudging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel whenaddressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Assoc.% Deck Us All With Boston CharlieDeck us all with Boston Charlie,Walla Walla, Wash., an' Kalamazoo!Nora's freezin' on the trolley,Swaller dollar cauliflower, alleygaroo!Don't we know archaic barrel,Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou.Trolley Molly don't love Harold,Boola boola Pensacoola hullabaloo! -- Walt Kelly%"Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts ofmarvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got atheory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah,those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are trulyblessed. -- Randy Davis%default, n.: [Possibly from Black English "De fault wid dis system is you,mon."] The vain attempt to avoid errors by inactivity. "Nothing willcome of nothing: speak again." -- King Lear. -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"%#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255)#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \ - (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \ - (((x)>>3)&0x11111111)) -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word% DELETE A FORTUNE!Don't some of these fortunes just drive you nuts?! Wouldn't you liketo see some of them deleted from the system? You can! Just mail to"fortune" with the fortune you hate most, and we MIGHT make sure itgets expunged.%Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it isbuttered on. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%"Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow."%Demand the establishment of the governmentin its rightful home at Disneyland.%Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better thanwe deserve. -- George Bernard Shaw%Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonderaloud what the country could do under first-class management. -- Senator Soaper%Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by theincompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. -- G. B. Shaw%Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if youdon't think.%Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals byJackasses. -- H. L. Mencken%Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse. -- Jawaharlal Nehru%Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the peopleare right more than half of the time. -- E. B. White%Democracy, n.: A government of the masses. Authority derived through massmeeting or any other form of direct expression. Results in mobocracy.Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights.Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate,whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion,prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy. -- U.S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932), since withdrawn.%Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across theboard. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls.%Dentist, n.: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Despising machines to a man,The Luddites joined up with the Klan, And ride out by night In a sheeting of whiteTo lynch all the robots they can. -- C. M. and G. A. Maxson%Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it willbe the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all overthe table. -- The Anarchist Cookbook% DETERIORATAGo placidly amid the noise and waste,And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.Rotate your tires.Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys.Know what to kiss -- and when.Remember that two wrongs never make a right,But that three do.Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD".Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,And despite the changing fortunes of time,There is always a big future in computer maintenance. You are a fluke of the universe ... You have no right to be here. Whether you can hear it or not, the universe Is laughing behind your back. -- National Lampoon%DeVries's Dilemma: If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want hits the paper.%Did I say 2? I lied.%Did you know ...That no-one ever reads these things?%Did you know that clones never use mirrors? -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and linedthem up end to end, they'd still point in the wrong direction?%Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilotthat shot down the Korean jet? At one point he definitely states: "Natasha! First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and squirrel." -- ihuxw!tommyo%Die, v.: To stop sinning suddenly. -- Elbert Hubbard%"Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such aconventional thing to happen to him." -- John Barrymore's dying words%Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little.%Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term.Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight.%Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.%Disc space -- the final frontier!%Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they beyours too." -- Dave Haynie%Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the above views and those of myemployer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purelycoincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views isnon-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in theabsence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader.The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise forthe second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal,non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.)%Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art.%Distinctive, adj.: A different color or shape than our competitors.%Distress, n.: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%District of Columbia pedestrians who leap over passing autos to escapeinjury, and then strike the car as they come down, are liable for anydamage inflicted on the vehicle.%Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery?%Do molecular biologists wear designer genes?%Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them.%Do not drink coffee in early a.m. It will keep you awake until noon.%Do not meddle in the affairs of troff, for it is subtle and quick toanger.%"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and goodwith ketchup."%Do not read this fortune under penalty of law.Violators will be prosecuted.(Penal Code sec. 2.3.2 (II.a.))%Do not sleep in a eucalyptus tree tonight.%Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread eachday as it comes. -- Donald Kaul%Do something unusual today. Pay a bill.%Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum.%Do you have lysdexia?%Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just takethe time to take the dirt out of them?%"Do you think what we're doing is wrong?""Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!""I've never done anything illegal before.""I thought you said you were an accountant!"%Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; andwhen it is bad, it is better than nothing. -- Dick Brandon%Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it mustbe good because the programmers hate it so much.%Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?%Don't abandon hope: your Tom Mix decoder ring arrives tomorrow.%Don't be humble ... you're not that great. -- Golda Meir%Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.%Don't change the reason, just change the excuses! -- Joe Cointment%"Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly,sincerely, extremely dangerously.They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardio plate crossoffs.They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stick tites. Theyused intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They usedfinks. They used cops. They used search and seizure. They usedfallaron. They used betterment incentives. They used finger prints.They used the bertillion system. They used cunning. They used guile.They used treachery. They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help.They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology. Andwhat the hell, they caught him. -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man"%Don't cook tonight -- starve a rat today!%Don't feed the bats tonight.%Don't get even -- get odd!%Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terriblymisleading. Debug only code. -- Dave Storer%Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owesyou nothing. It was here first. -- Mark Twain%Don't go surfing in South Dakota for a while.%Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon.%Don't hit a man when he's down -- kick him; it's easier.%Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today.%Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam.%Don't let people drive you crazy when you know it's in walking distance.%Don't let your mind wander -- it's too little to be let out alone.%Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you.%Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoyit today you can do it again tomorrow.%Don't say "yes" until I finish talking. -- Darryl F. Zanuck%Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business.Cheat. -- Ambrose Bierce%Don't suspect your friends -- turn them in! -- "Brazil"%Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. -- Walt Kelly%Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out of it alive.%Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective.%"Don't tell me I'm burning the candle at both ends -- tell me where toget more wax!!"%Don't worry about avoiding temptation -- as you grow older, it startsavoiding you. -- The Old Farmer's Almanac%Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are anygood, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. -- Howard Aiken%Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's alreadytomorrow in Australia. -- Charles Schultz%Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're toobusy worrying over what you are thinking about them.%Don't you feel more like you do now than you did when you came in?%Don Ameche: I didn't know you had a cousin Penelope, Bill! Was she pretty?W. C.: Well, her face was so wrinkled it looked like seven miles of bad road. She had so many gold teeth, Don, she use to have to sleep with her head in a safe. She died in Bolivia.Don: Oh Bill, it must be hard to lose a relative.W. C.: It's almost impossible. -- W. C. Fields, from "The Further Adventures of Larson E. Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles"% Double Bucky (Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie")Double bucky, you're the one!You make my keyboard lots of fun Double bucky, an additional bit or two:(Vo-vo-de-o!)Control and Meta side by side,Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide! Double bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!Oh, I sure wish that I,Had a couple of bits more!Perhaps a set of pedals to make the number of bits four.Double bucky, left and rightOR'd together, outta sight! Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you! -- (C) 1978 by Guy L. Steele, Jr. (to Nicholas Wirth, who suggested that an extra bit be added to terminal codes on 36-bit machines for use by screen editors. [to the tune of "Rubber Ducky"])%Double-Blind Experiment, n.: An experiment in which the chief researcher believes he isfooling both the subject and the lab assistant. Often accompanied by astrong belief in the tooth fairy.%Down with categorical imperative!%Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.%Drew's Law of Highway Biology: The first bug to hit a clean windshield lands directly in front of your eyes.%Drive defensively. Buy a tank.%Drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least they're the scenic route!%Ducharme's Axiom: If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem.%Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment.%Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, andit holds the universe together. -- Carl Zwanzig%Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leadershas been discontinued.%Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fateand captain of your soul.%Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has beendiscontinued.% During a grouse hunt in North Carolina two intrepid sportsmenwere blasting away at a clump of trees near a stone wall. Suddenly ared-faced country squire popped his head over the wall and shouted,"Hey, you almost hit my wife." "Did I?" cried the hunter, aghast. "Terribly sorry. Have ashot at mine, over there."%"Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to havenothing whatever to do with it." -- W. Somerset Maugham (last words)%E Pluribus Unix%Eagleson's Law: Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or moremonths, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson isan optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)%Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends%/earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can.%Earth is a beta site.%Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun. -- Jeff Berner%Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on thecube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color ofthe plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, thismeans the puzzle is solved. -- Steve Rubenstein%Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.%Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work.%Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. -- John Kenneth Galbraith%Economics, n.: Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K.Galbraith ... -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economywould turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and ithasn't. -- Robert Orben%Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of apercentage point to prove they have a sense of humor. -- Edgar R. Fiedler%Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent. -- Fred Allen%Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine. -- Irsin Edman%Eeny, Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak! -- Bullwinkle Moose%Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. -- Adlai Stevenson%Eggnog is a traditional holiday drink invented by the English. Manypeople wonder where the word "eggnog" comes from. The first syllablecomes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know wherethe "nog" comes from.To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine, gin and, if they are inseason, eggs...%Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the painof being a damned fool. -- Bellamy Brooks%Egotist, n.: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Ehrman's Commentary: (1) Things will get worse before they get better. (2) Who said things would get better?%Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star%Eleanor Rigby Sits at the keyboard And waits for a line on the screenLives in a dreamWaits for a signal Finding some code That will make the machine do some more.What is it for?All the lonely users, where do they all come from?All the lonely users, why does it take so long?Hacker MacKensieWriting the code for a program that no one will runIt's nearly doneLook at him working, fixing the bugs in the night when there's nobody there.What does he care?All the lonely users, where do they all come from?All the lonely users, why does it take so long?Ah, look at all the lonely users.Ah, look at all the lonely users.%Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance.% Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles,called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless youhave been drinking. Electrons travel at the speed of light, which inmost American homes is 110 volts per hour. This is very fast. In thetime it has taken you to read this sentence so far, an electron couldhave traveled all the way from San Francisco to Hackensack, New Jersey,although God alone knows why it would want to. The five main kinds of electricity are alternating current,direct current, lightning, static, and European. Most American homeshave alternating current, which means that the electricity goes in onedirection for a while, then goes in the other direction. This preventsharmful electron buildup in the wires. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%Electrocution, n.: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements.%Elevators smell different to midgets.%Emerson's Law of Contrariness: Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it.%Encyclopedia Salesmen: Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police and tell them your house is being burgled. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless.Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary%Entropy isn't what it used to be.%Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things whichotherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin%Epperson's law: When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probablysomething his wife can beat him at.%Equal bytes for women.%Error in operator: add beer%Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben. -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"%Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. -- Woody Allen%Etymology, n.: Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy" ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow." -- Mike Kellen%Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going tospeak it to? -- Clarence Darrow%Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. -- Will Rogers%Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"%Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the UnitedStates we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only two cents aday.%Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell youjust how busy they are?%Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what,exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men."All the other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other withspears, and the wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about:Would you please take my wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, pleasetake her right now. No. How about: Would you like to take something?My wife is available. No. How about ..." -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"%Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it.%Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt.%Every four seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find thiswoman and stop her.%Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least oneidiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It'ssometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that allof the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or twohighly-motivated, caustic twits. -- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet%Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket firedsignifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are notfed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is notspending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, thegenius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a wayof life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it ishumanity hanging on a cross of iron. -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953%Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation):Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and infront they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly anodd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both evenand odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number oflegs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere,there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horseof another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the samecolor"], that does not exist.%Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible. -- Frank Moore Colby%Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.%Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. -- Don Vonada%"Every man has his price. Mine is $3.95."%Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. -- Miguel de Cervantes%Every morning, I get up and look through the "Forbes" list of therichest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work. -- Robert Orben%Every nonzero finite dimensional inner product space has an orthonormal basis.It makes sense, when you don't think about it.%Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least oneinstruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that everyprogram can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.%Every program has two purposes -- one for which it was written andanother for which it wasn't.%Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits.%Every solution breeds new problems.%Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is noguarantee of eventual success.%"Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it."%Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. -- Beckett%Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. -- Dykstra%Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.%Everyone is a genius. It's just that some people are too stupid torealize it.%Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately,no one we know belongs.%Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference beingthat a belch is more satisfying. -- Ingmar Bergman%Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.%Everything you know is wrong!%Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and lessobvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are nosolids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid.There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are nostraight lines. -- R. Buckminster Fuller% Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shoppingmall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as"Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling youhow to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence","Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at NightSo the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc. -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"%Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike the office water cooler.%Excellent day for putting Slinkies on an escalator.%Excellent day to have a rotten day.%Excellent time to become a missing person.%Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation fromacquiring the deadening effect of a habit. -- W. Somerset Maugham%Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility.%Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting somebody else to dothe work. -- John G. Pollard%Expect the worst. It's the least you can do.%Expense Accounts, n.: Corporate food stamps.%Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. -- Olivier%Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistakewhen you make it again. -- Franklin P. Jones%Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first andthe instruction afterward.%Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of oldones.%Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.%Experience varies directly with equipment ruined.%Expert, n.: Someone who comes from out of town and shows slides.%Extract from Official Sweepstakes Rules: NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZETo claim your prize without purchase, do the following: (a) Carefullycut out your computer-printed name and address from upper right handcorner of the Prize Claim Form. (b) Affix computer-printed name andaddress -- with glue or cellophane tape (no staples or paper clips) --to a 3x5 inch index card. (c) Also cut out the "No" paragraph (lowerleft hand corner of Prize Claim Form) and affix it to the 3x5 cardbelow your address label. (d) Then print on your 3x5 card, above yourcomputer-printed name and address the words "CARTER & VAN PEELSWEEPSTAKES" (Use all capital letters.) (e) Finally place 3x5 card(without bending) into a plain envelope [NOTE: do NOT use theOfficial Prize Claim and CVP Perfume Reply Envelope or you may bedisqualified], and mail to: CVP, Box 1320, Westbury, NY 11595. Printthis address correctly. Comply with above instructions carefully andcompletely or you may be disqualified from receiving your prize.%F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm!%f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd.%f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.%F: When into a room I plunge, I Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI. Then I linger, darkly brooding On the poison they're exuding. -- The Roguelet's ABC%Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.%Fairy Tale, n.: A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers.%Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnicwithout looking to see whether the seeds move.%Faith, n: That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be untrue.%Fakir, n: A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources seem to have shinnied up a rope and vanished.%Familiarity breeds attempt.%Families, when a child is bornWant it to be intelligent.I, through intelligence,Having wrecked my whole life,Only hope the baby will proveIgnorant and stupid.Then he will crown a tranquil lifeBy becoming a Cabinet Minister -- Su Tung-p'o%Famous last words:%Famous last words: (1) "Don't worry, I can handle it." (2) "You and what army?" (3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be a cop."%Famous last words: (1) Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix. (2) Let's take the shortcut; he can't see us from there. (3) What happens if you touch these two wires tog-- (4) We won't need reservations. (5) It's always sunny there this time of the year. (6) Don't worry, it's not loaded. (7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager. (8) Don't worry! Women love it!%Famous, adj.: Conspicuously miserable. -- Ambrose Bierce%Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of theWestern Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is anutterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended lifeforms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watchesare a pretty neat idea. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"%Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter itevery six months. -- Oscar Wilde%Fats Loves Madelyn.%Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ...%Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children,neither will you.% Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with eachother, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols aroundthe upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling horsd'oeuvres. Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimesto each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging yourChristmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the uprightpiano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres. Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently withinanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping downother peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments andplacing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens whenthe little hammers strike. Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all overtheir naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burningChristmas tree. The piano is missing. You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unlessyou rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog.%Fifth Law of Applied Terror: If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.Corollary: If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live.%Fifth Law of Procrastination: Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling thatthere is nothing important to do.%Fifty flippant frogsWalked by on flippered feetAnd with their slime they made the timeUnnaturally fleet.% FIGHTING WORDSSay my love is easy had, Say I'm bitten raw with pride,Say I am too often sad -- Still behold me at your side.Say I'm neither brave nor young, Say I woo and coddle care,Say the devil touched my tongue -- Still you have my heart to wear.But say my verses do not scan, And I get me another man! -- Dorothy Parker%Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited by statute in Barber, NorthCarolina.%Finagle's Creed: Science is true. Don't be misled by facts.%Finagle's First Law: If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.%Finagle's Fourth Law: Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makesit worse.%Finagle's Second Law: No matter what the anticipated result, there will always besomeone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe ithappened according to his own pet theory.%Finagle's Third Law: In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake.Corollaries: (1) Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. (2) The first person who stops by, whose advice you really don't want to hear, will see it immediately.%Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupunctureon a rock. -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981%Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can.%Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy.%Fine's Corollary: Functionality breeds Contempt.%Finish the sentence below in 25 words or less: "Love is what you feel just before you give someone a good ..."Mail your answer along with the top half of your supervisor to: P.O. Box 35 Baffled Greek, Michigan%First Corollary of Taber's Second Law: Machines that piss people off get murdered. -- Pat Taber%First Law of Bicycling: No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against thewind.%First Law of Procrastination: Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibilityfor its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposedthe deadline).%First Law of Socio-Genetics: Celibacy is not hereditary.%First Rule of History: History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other.%"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order" -- The Doctor, "Doctor Who"%First, a few words about tools.Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage ofthe laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriouslyinjure yourself. Today, people tend to take tools for granted. Ifyou're ever walking down the street and you notice some people who lookparticularly smug, the odds are that they are taking tools forgranted. If I were you, I'd walk right up and smack them in the face. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%Five is a sufficiently close approximation to infinity. -- Robert Firth%FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, whenthe little hand is on the ....%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.%Florence Flask was ... dressing for the opera when she turned to herhusband and screamed, "Erlenmeyer! My joules! Someone has stolen myjoules!""Now, now, my dear," replied her husband, "keep your balance and refluxa moment. Perhaps they're mislead.""No, I know they're stolen," cried Florence. "I remember putting themin my burette ... We must call a copper."Erlenmeyer did so, and the flatfoot who turned up, one Sherlock Ohms,said the outrage looked like the work of an arch-criminal by the nameof Lawrence Ium."We must be careful -- he's a free radical, ultraviolet, anddangerous. His girlfriend is a chlorine at the Palladium. Maybe I cancatch him there." With that, he jumped on his carbon cycle in anactivated state and sped off along the reaction pathway ... -- Daniel B. Murphy, "Precipitations"%flowchart, n. & v.: [From flow "to ripple down in rich profusion, as hair" + chart "a cryptic hidden-treasure map designed to mislead the uninitiated."] 1. n. The solution, if any, to a class of Mascheroni construction problems in which given algorithms require geometrical representation using only the 35 basic ideograms of the ANSI template. 2. n. Neronic doodling while the system burns. 3. n. A low-cost substitute for wallpaper. 4. n. The innumerate misleading the illiterate. "A thousand pictures is worth ten lines of code." -- The Programmer's Little Red Vade Mecum, Mao Tse T'umps. 5. v.intrans. To produce flowcharts with no particular object in mind. 6. v.trans. To obfuscate (a problem) with esoteric cartoons. -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"%Flugg's Law: When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum.%Flying saucers on occasion Show themselves to human eyes.Aliens fume, put off invasion While they brand these tales as lies.%Fog Lamps, n.: Excessively (often obnoxiously) bright lamps mounted on the fronts of automobiles; used on dry, clear nights to indicate that the driver's brain is in a fog.See also "Idiot Lights".%Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing. -- Walt Kelly, "Putluck Pogo"%For 20 dollars, I'll give you a good fortune next time ...%For a good time, call (510) 642-9483%For a man to truly understand rejection, he must first be ignored by acat.%"For an adequate time call 555-3321"%For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards bealways old-fashioned.%For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken%For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill. -- R. Clopton% "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequenceof events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind." "Whose?" "MINE! HA-HA!"%For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two.%For my son, Robert, this is proving to be the high-point of his entirelife to date. He has had his pajamas on for two, maybe three daysnow. He has the sense of joyful independence a 5-year-old child getswhen he suddenly realizes that he could be operating an acetylene torchin the coat closet and neither parent [because of the flu] would havethe strength to object. He has been foraging for his own food, whichmeans his diet consists entirely of "food" substances which areadvertised only on Saturday-morning cartoon shows; substances that arethe color of jukebox lights and that, for legal reasons, have theirnames spelled wrong, as in New Creemy Chok-'n'-Cheez Lumps o' Froot("part of this complete breakfast"). -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"%For perfect happiness, remember two things: (1) Be content with what you've got. (2) Be sure you've got plenty.%For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say"Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something. -- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to the U.S.%For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz.%For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs ofa thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away withcomputers altogether? -- Jehan Shuman%For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. -- Abraham Lincoln%For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow butphone calls taper off. -- Johnny Carson%For years a secret shame destroyed my peace --I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece.But now I think a thought that brings me hope:Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. -- Justin Richardson.%For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH!%Forgetfulness, n.: A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for theirdestitution of conscience.%Forms follow function, and often obliterate it.%FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS! #6RAZORBACK: Paul Harbride, 1984, 2 hours 25 min. One of the great Australian films of the early 1980's, and arguably the best movie ever made about a large, man-eating hog. Some violence. With Gregory Harrison.%fortune's Contribution of the Month to the Animal Rights Debate: I'll stay out of animals' way if they'll stay out of mine. "Hey you, get off my plate" -- Roger Midnight%Fortune's Fictitious Country Song Title of the Week: "How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away?"%Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month): Don't Write On Walls! (and underneath) You want I should type?%Fortune's Law of the Week (this week, from Kentucky): No female shall appear in a bathing suit at any airport in thisState unless she is escorted by two officers or unless she is armedwith a club. The provisions of this statute shall not apply to femalesweighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall itapply to female horses.%Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of YouthfulMorals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During animpassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster andclam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the followingexchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan.DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are having to artificially propagate oysters and clams.HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters?DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter is that female oysters through their living habits cast out large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large amounts of fertilization ...HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many teenagers who read The Congressional Record.%Fortune's Office Door Sign of the Week: Incorrigible punster -- Do not incorrige.%FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your goodliquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert andlight after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anythingdrinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck.%Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #18:Q: Are you married?A: No, I'm divorced.Q: And what did your husband do before you divorced him?A: A lot of things I didn't know about.%Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #19:Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?A: All my autopsies have been performed on dead people.%Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #29:THE JUDGE: Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any ...%Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #32:Q: Do you know how far pregnant you are right now?A: I will be three months November 8th.Q: Apparently then, the date of conception was August 8th?A: Yes.Q: What were you and your husband doing at that time?%Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #37:Q: Did he pick the dog up by the ears?A: No.Q: What was he doing with the dog's ears?A: Picking them up in the air.Q: Where was the dog at this time?A: Attached to the ears.%Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #3:Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.%Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #41:Q: Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?A: By death.Q: And by whose death was it terminated?%Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #52:Q: What is your name?A: Ernestine McDowell.Q: And what is your marital status?A: Fair.%Fortune's Real-Life Courtroom Quote #7:Q: What happened then?A: He told me, he says, "I have to kill you because you can identify me."Q: Did he kill you?A: No.%fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped.%Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samuraisword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles.Oh, and have a nice day! -- Bryce Nesbitt '84%Fourth Law of Applied Terror: The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria.Corollary: Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study for that instructor's course.%Fourth Law of Revision: It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you.%Fourth Law of Thermodynamics: If the probability of success is notalmost one, it is damn near zero. -- David Ellis%Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off apoliceman's tie.%Fresco's Discovery: If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored.%Friends, Romans, Hipsters,Let me clue you in;I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him.The square kicks some cats are on stay with them;The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caesar. The cool BrutusGave you the message: Caesar had big eyes;If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea,And, like, old Caesar really set them straight.Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- for Brutus is a real cool cat;So are they all, all cool cats, --Come I to make this gig at Caesar's laying down.%Frisbeetarianism, n.: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.%Frobnicate, v.: To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ.Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob afrob". See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAKsometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimlessmanipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarsesearch for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone isturning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting ithe is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at thescreen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it becauseturning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it.%Frobnitz, pl. Frobnitzem (frob'nitsm) n.: An unspecified physical object, a widget. Also refers toelectronic black boxes. This rare form is usually abbreviated toFROTZ, or more commonly to FROB. Also used are FROBNULE, FROBULE, andFROBNODULE. Starting perhaps in 1979, FROBBOZ (fruh-bahz'), pl.FROBBOTZIM, has also become very popular, largely due to its exposurevia the Adventure spin-off called Zork (Dungeon). These can also beapplied to non-physical objects, such as data structures.%[From an announcement of a congress of the International OntopsychologyAssociation, in Rome]:The Ontopsychological school, availing itself of new research criteriaand of a new telematic epistemology, maintains that social modes do notspring from dialectics of territory or of class, or of consumer goods,or of means of power, but rather from dynamic latencies capillarized inmillions of individuals in system functions which, once they havereached the event maturation, burst forth in catastrophic phenomenologyengaging a suitable stereotype protagonist or duty marionette (general,president, political party, etc.) to consummate the act of socialschizophrenia in mass genocide.%From the "Guiness Book of World Records", 1973:Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation andthe most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of theCourt of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book hiscandidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground), (other than groundnuts) Order, the expression nuts shall have reference to such nuts,other than ground nuts, as would but for this amending Order notqualify as nuts (unground)(other than ground nuts) by reason of theirbeing nuts (unground)."%From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I wasconvulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"%[From the operation manual for the CI-300 Dot Matrix Line Printer, madein Japan]:The excellent output machine of MODEL CI-300 as extraordinary DOTMATRIX LINE PRINTER, built in two MICRO-PROCESSORs as well as EAROM, isfeatured by permitting wonderful co-existence such as; "high qualityagainst low cost", "diversified functions with compact design","flexibility in accessibleness and durability of approx. 2000,000,00Dot/Head", "being sophisticated in mechanism but possibly agileoperating under noises being extremely suppressed" etc.And as a matter of course, the final goal is just simply to helpachieve "super shuttle diplomacy" between cool data, perhaps earned byHOST COMPUTER, and warm heart of human being.%From the Pro 350 Pocket Service Guide, p. 49, Step 5 of theinstructions on removing an I/O board from the card cage, comes a newexperience in sound: 5. Turn the handle to the right 90 degrees. The pin-spreading sound is normal for this type of connector.%From too much love of living,From hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgiving,Whatever gods may be,That no life lives forever,That dead men rise up never,That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea. -- Swinburne%Fuch's Warning: If you actually look like your passport photo, you aren't wellenough to travel.%Fudd's First Law of Opposition: Push something hard enough and it will fall over.%Furbling, v.: Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank even when you are the only person in line. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. -- H. H. Williams%Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening.%G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. Oneof these days a London producer will go into his office and say to hissecretary, `Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says`No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' Andthat's your chance, my boy."%Garbage In -- Gospel Out.%Garter, n.: An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of herstockings and desolating the country. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fallon our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!! -- Adventures of Asterix%Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep". Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing soundthan the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference: "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling."Obvious, isn't it? Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to startspeaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English aslong as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to allyour friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, andso on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committedindividuals and then grow ... Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: thosesigns written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny wheneverything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving onthe left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signsbackwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? Ithink not, my friend, I think not. -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"% "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at More Science High has anextracurricular activity except you." "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?" "Only to ten, Mudhead." -- Firesign Theater%"Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore."%GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for committing incest.%GEMINI (May 21 to Jun. 20) Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while you can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy praise and respect from those around you; everybody loves a sucker. A short trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's room.%Genderplex, n.: The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and tortoises). -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, whyyou should.%Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thushandicapped. -- Elbert Hubbard%Genius, n.: A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with "bright".%George Orwell 1984. Northwestern 0. -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82%George Orwell was an optimist.%George Washington was first in war, first in peace -- and the first tohave his birthday juggled to make a long weekend. -- Ashley Cooper%Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: (1) An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. (2) An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. (3) The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible.%Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty.% Get GUMMed --- ------The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet abovethe ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps. Members will grepeach other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filteredchroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseeknice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od. Threedays will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo. Twoseconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user-friendly features of Unix. Seminars include "Everything You Know isWrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis"cc C? Si! Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are YouKidding?" led by Jan Yeats. No Reader Service No. is necessary becauseall GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything wecould tell them. -- Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84%Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children!% -- Gifts for Children --This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children,because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend monthsand months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday-morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your childrenexactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. Ifyour child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face YouCan Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that itmight help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believeme, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a childwho is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"% -- Gifts for Men --Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professionalice hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But youshould never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all theclothes they will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. Forexample, your average man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, onlythree of them. He has learned, through humiliating trial and error,that if he wears any of the other 81 ties, his wife will probably laughat him ("You're not going to wear THAT tie with that suit, are you?").So he has narrowed it down to three safe ties, and has gone severalyears without being laughed at. If you give him a new tie, he willpretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you.If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. Morethan once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new setof tires. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"% Gimmie That Old Time ReligionWe will follow Zarathustra, We will worship like the Druids,Zarathustra like we use to, Dancing naked in the woods,I'm a Zarathustra booster, Drinking strange fermented fluids,And he's good enough for me! And it's good enough for me! (chorus) (chorus)In the church of Aphrodite,The priestess wears a see-through nightie,She's a mighty righteous sightie,And she's good enough for me! (chorus)CHORUS: Give me that old time religion, Give me that old time religion, Give me that old time religion, 'Cause it's good enough for me!%Ginsberg's Theorem: (1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit the game.Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem: Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem. To wit: (1) Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win. (2) Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even. (3) Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game.%Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a placeto stand, and I will drain the world.%"Give me enough medals, and I'll win any war." -- Napolean%Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities!%Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving toa new town.%Give your child mental blocks for Christmas.%Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lyingaround, I'd rather lie around. No contest. -- Eric Clapton%Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden:Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISPmachine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982%Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability: Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.%Gnagloot, n.: A person who leaves all his ski passes on his jacket just to impress people. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Go 'way! You're bothering me!%Go climb a gravity well!%Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there maybe in owning a piece thereof. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"%//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH%God did not create the world in seven days; he screwed around for sixdays and then pulled an all-nighter.%God doesn't play dice. -- Albert Einstein%God gives burdens; also shouldersJimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at theend of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; Ican't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; whywould he lie about a thing like that? -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"%God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ...The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I donot mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists onsmoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread andwater is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water inthe morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water atnight! -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher%God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh.%God is a polytheist.%God is Dead -- NietzscheNietzsche is Dead -- GodNietzsche is God -- The Dead%God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's!%God is real, unless declared integer.%God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, theelephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on tryingother things. -- Pablo Picasso%God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. -- Alfred Jarry%God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place.%God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man.%God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board. -- Mark Twain%God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. -- Kronecker%God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh.%God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean. -- Albert Einstein%God must love the Common Man; He made so many of them.%God rest ye CS students now,Let nothing you dismay.The VAX is down and won't be up,Until the first of May.The program that was due this morn,Won't be postponed, they say. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, Comfort and joy, Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.The bearings on the drum are gone,The disk is wobbling, too.We've found a bug in Lisp, and AlgolCan't tell false from true.And now we find that we can't getAt Berkeley's 4.2. (chorus)%Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going toschool make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes aperson a car.%Gold, n.: A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold hasn't done anything to them. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%Goldenstern's Rules: (1) Always hire a rich attorney. (2) Never buy from a rich salesman.%Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a badexample. -- La Rouchefoucauld%Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall.%Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase.%Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school.%Good day to let down old friends who need help.%Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed.%Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance.%Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day.%Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate'snew lover.%Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -- George Saunders' dying words%Gordon's first law: If a research project is not worth doing, it is not worth doingwell.%"Gosh that takes me back ... or forward. That's the trouble with timetravel, you never can tell." -- Dr. Who%Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble withtime travel, you never can tell." -- Doctor Who "Androids of Tara"%Got Mole problems?Call Avogadro 6.02 x 10^23%Goto, n.: A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmersto complain about unstructured programmers. -- Ray Simard%Government [is] an illusion the governed should not encourage. -- John Updike, "Couples"%Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they aredifferent lies.%Government spending? I don't know what it's all about. I don't knowany more about this thing than an economist does, and, God knows, hedoesn't know much. -- Will Rogers%Grabel's Law: 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2.%Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture.%Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture.%Grandpa Charnock's Law: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.%Gravity is a myth: the Earth sucks.%Great minds run in great circles.% GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY #21 -- July 30, 1917On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then-Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought themoff with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought Iwouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from hismistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs in atiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service menstood lookout.%Green light in A.M. for new projects.Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets.%Greener's Law: Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel.%Grelb's Reminder: Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above average drivers.%Grub first, then ethics. -- Bertolt Brecht%Gurmlish, n.: The red warning flag at the top of a club sandwich which prevents the person from biting into it and puncturing the roof of his mouth. -- Rich Hall & Friends, "Sniglets"%Gyroscope, n.: A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and alsofree to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to eachother and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the twomutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to theother when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatusoffers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to anytorque that would change the direction of the axis of spin. -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary%H. L. Mencken suffers from the hallucination that he is H. L.Mencken -- there is no cure for a disease of that magnitude. -- Maxwell Bodenheim%H. L. Mencken's Law: Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach.Martin's Extension: Those who cannot teach -- administrate.%H: If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you, Slice him up before he slays you. Nothing makes you look a slob Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB). -- The Roguelet's ABC%Hacker's Law: The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.%Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge.%Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror,and you would not have been informed.%Hail to the sun godHe sure is a fun godRa! Ra! Ra!%Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a bigenough majority in any town? -- Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn"%Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.)%Half-done: This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the difference between life and death. You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the man, "Let me have a nice half-done." Worth the trouble, wasn't it? -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"%Hall's Laws of Politics: (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending. (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something fixed. (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend military spending, and conservatives social spending in their own districts).%Hand, n.: A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm andcommonly thrust into somebody's pocket. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.%Hanson's Treatment of Time: There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days before Saturday.%Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. -- Ogden Nash%Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. -- Oscar Levant%Happiness, n.: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances?%Hardware, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.%Hark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender. You standconvicted of sickness, hunger, wretchedness, and want. -- Tobias Smollet%Hark, Hark, the dogs do barkThe Duke is fond of kittensHe likes to take their insides outAnd use them for his mittens From "The Thirteen Clocks"%Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,Advertising wondrous things. -- Tom Lehrer%Harris's Lament: All the good ones are taken.%Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.%Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, hemakes us all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Oceanfamous for its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horsesprobably stirs romantic notions in many of you, but this is because youhave never met any wild horses in person. In person, they are likeenormous hooved rats. They amble up to your camp site, and theirattitude is: "We're wild horses. We're going to eat your food, knockdown your tent and poop on your shoes. We're protected by federal law,just like Richard Nixon." -- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob"%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.%Hartley's Second Law: Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.%Harvard Law: Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.%"Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?""Yes, I don't have one.""Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..." -- E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372%Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" aretyped with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriterkeyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even useof both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases isnot only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears.% Has your family tried 'em? POWDERMILK BISCUITS Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious! They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. POWDERMILK BISCUITS Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark stains that indicate freshness.%Hatred, n.: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Have an adequate day.%Have people realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program isto defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, anon-cynical, or even an informative cookie?Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. Thisstill begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure oronly serves to blunt the warning signs. Long live the revolution! Have a nice day.%Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tellyou, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the timefor play?%Have you ever wondered what makes Californians so calm? Besides drugs,I mean. The answer is hot tubs. A hot tub is a redwood containerfilled with water that you sit in naked with members of the oppositesex, none of whom is necessarily your spouse. After a few hours intheir hot tubs, Californians don't give a damn about earthquakes ormass murderers. They don't give a damn about anything, which is whythey are able to produce "Laverne and Shirley" week after week. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%"Have you lived here all your life?""Oh, twice that long."%Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is acrack in your sidewalk?%Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities declinesharply the minute they start waving guns around? -- Dr. Who%Have you reconsidered a computer career?%He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mentaleffort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptableperversion. -- Mick Farren, "When Gravity Fails"%He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions -- Stephen Leacock%He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversationperfectly delightful. -- Sydney Smith%He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild andheavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hopeof ever behaving "normally." -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72"%He hadn't a single redeeming vice. -- Oscar Wilde%"He is now rising from affluence to poverty." -- Mark Twain%He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered.%He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. -- John Mason Brown, drama critic%He thought he saw an albatrossThat fluttered 'round the lamp.He looked again and saw it wasA penny postage stamp."You'd best be getting home," he said,"The nights are rather damp."%He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue. -- Jonathan Swift%"He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made himinsufferable."%He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes.%He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industryattacks democracy itself. -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS%He who Laughs, Lasts.%"He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ..."%He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd bethere ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter.%He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ...%Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.%Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dyingof nothing. -- Redd Foxx%Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dyingof nothing. -- Redd Foxx%Heaven, n.: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Heavy, adj.: Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.%"Heisenberg may have slept here"%Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -- Milton Friedman%Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists.Johnson's Corollary: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization.%"Hello," he lied. -- Don Carpenter quoting a Hollywood agent%Help a swallow land at Capistrano.%Help fight continental drift.%Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file!%Help stamp out and abolish redundancy.%Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70!%HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN! -- E. E. CUMMINGS%Her locks an ancient lady gaveHer loving husband's life to save;And men -- they honored so the dame --Upon some stars bestowed her name.But to our modern married fair,Who'd give their lords to save their hair,No stellar recognition's given.There are not stars enough in heaven.%"Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; fromPresidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..."%Here I sit, broken-hearted,All logged in, but work unstarted.First net.this and net.that,And a hot buttered bun for net.fat.The boss comes by, and I play the game,Then I turn back to net.flame.Is there a cure (I need your views),For someone trapped in net.news?I need your help, I say 'tween sobs,'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs.%Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electricallesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reachyour hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings.Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out inpain? This teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force,but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn animportant electrical lesson.It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffedyour feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very smallobjects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they willattract dirt. The electrons travel through your bloodstream andcollect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to yourfriend's filling, then travels down to his feet and back into thecarpet, thus completing the circuit.Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough withouttouching anything, you would build up so many electrons that yourfinger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless youhave carpeting. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"% Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of themonth. According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola peopleare experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China. The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either(depending on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the waxtadpole". Bite the wax tadpole. There is a sort of rough justice, is there not? The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it'shard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world tobite a wax tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad,but broad satiric vistas do not open up. -- John Carrol, San Francisco Chronicle%"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like`Psychic Wins Lottery'?" -- Jay Leno%Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs,then they'd be algorithms.%"Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!" -- W. C. Fields%Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the personreading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes,nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home.%"Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet.As you can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books ofequal height on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney.Do you have a car or a job? Do you ever walk around? If so, youprobably have the makings of an excellent legal case. Although ofcourse every case is different, I would definitely say that based on myexperience and training, there's no reason why you shouldn't come outof this thing with at least a cabin cruiser."Remember, at the Preston A. Mantis Consumers Retail Law Outlet, ourmotto is: `It is very difficult to disprove certain kinds of pain.'" -- Dave Barry, "Pain and Suffering"%Hier liegt ein Mann ganz ohnegleich;Im Leibe dick, an Suenden reich.Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flawsWeil es uns duenkt, er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head; We buried him today because As far as we can tell, he's dead. -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty-Sue Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher; "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele%Higgledy Piggledy,Hamlet of ElsinoreRuffled the critics byDropping this bomb:"Phooey on Freud and hisPsychoanalysis --Oedipus, Shmoedipus,I just loved Mom."%Hindsight is an exact science.%Hippogriff, n.: An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Hire the morally handicapped.%"His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he hadmoney, he went to Southern California."%His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice. -- Foghorn Leghorn%His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier.%History is curious stuff You'd think by now we had enoughYet the fact remains I fear They make more of it every year.%History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history.%History, n.: Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that welearn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn fromwhat happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the longview. -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"%Hlade's Law: If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they will find an easier way to do it.%Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.%Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.%Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it. -- Rex Reed% Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who'swilling to pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shopfor lumber, hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say"shop for", as opposed to "obtain". This is the major drawback of homecenters: they are always out of everything except artificial Christmastrees. The home center employees have no time to reorder merchandisebecause they are too busy applying little price stickers to everyobject -- every board, washer, nail and screw -- in the entire store ... Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove thebroken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he hasa replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen theinside of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much thesame way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look atan electronic calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment ofthese sometime around the middle of next week". -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%Home of Doberman Propulsion Laboratories:The ultimate in watchdog weaponry. -- Chris Shaw%Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.%Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people. -- F. M. Hubbard%Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..."%Honk if you love peace and quiet.%Honorable, adj.: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur." -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Horngren's Observation: Among economists, the real world is often a special case.%Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting onpeople. -- W. C. Fields%Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa.%"Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed." -- Neil Armstrong%How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?%How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers?%How come wrong numbers are never busy?%How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows.%How do you explain school to a higher intelligence? -- Elliot, "E.T."%How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail,And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws,And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws! -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"%How doth the VAX's C compilerImprove its object code.And even as we speak does itIncrease the system load.How patiently it seems to runAnd spit out error flags,While users, with frustration, allTear their clothes to rags.%How I love to watch the morn, With golden sun that shines,Up above to nicely warm These frosty toes of mine.The wind doth taste of bittersweet, Like Jasper wine and sugar,I bet it's blown through others' feet, Like those of ... Caspar Weinberger. -- P. Opus (Bloom County)%How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on.%How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?None: "We'll fix it in software."How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?None: "We'll document it in the manual."How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb?None: "The user can work it out."%How many hors d'oeuvres you are allowed to take off a tray beingcarried by a waiter at a nice party?Two, but there are ways around it, depending on the style of the horsd'oeuvre. If they're those little pastry things where you can't tellwhat's inside, you take one, bite off about two-thirds of it, thensay: "This is cheese! I hate cheese!" Then you put the rest of itback on the tray and bite another one and go, "Darn it! Anothercheese!" and so on. -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"% How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand,who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is ananocentury. -- Tom Duff, Bell Labs%How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton? -- Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey%How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.%HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces.%HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #15 Your pet rock snaps at you.%HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of you.%Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work.%However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditionalmanner ... sulking and nausea. -- Tom K. Ryan%HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill.,motion that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senateamendment making changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits.The Senate amendment was an amendment to the House amendment to theSenate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to thebill. The original Senate amendment was the conference agreement onthe bill. Agreed to. -- Albuquerque Journal% Hug O' WarI will not play at tug o' war.I'd rather play at hug o' war,Where everyone hugsInstead of tugs,Where everyone gigglesAnd rolls on the rug,Where everyone kisses,And everyone grins,And everyone cuddles,And everyone wins. -- Shel Silverstein%Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.%Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to anoperating table to prevent his interference, he placed a urethralcatheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [ofhis heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he tookthe confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded theNobel Prize.%Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs.%Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse. -- William Gilbert%Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to ..... to ........ uh ..............%I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of aprofessor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or anyother minority viewpoint -- no matter how distasteful to the majority. -- Richard M. NixonWhat are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism? -- Richard M. Nixon%"I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powderhave included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products.This technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom'sreign. My carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better gobuy some more." -- timw@zeb.USWest.COM%I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work.%I am not an Economist. I am an honest man! -- Paul McCracken%I am not now, and never have been, a girlfriend of Henry Kissinger. -- Gloria Steinem%I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party. -- Dennis Ritchie%I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it. -- English Professor%I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for thegreat ordeal of meeting me is another matter. -- Winston Churchill%I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someonehas printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. -- Professor Lowd, English, Ohio University%I am so optimistic about beef prices that I've just leased a pot roastwith an option to buy.%I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater.%I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person,of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tellyou that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordialatomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is somethinginconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering. -- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado", Gilbert & Sullivan%I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some ofthe sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work foryou are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway. -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy, University of Tennessee at Knoxville%I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win anargument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, andsteer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect,they don't even invite me. -- Dave Barry%I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. -- G. K. Chesterton%I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. -- Will Rogers%I bet the human brain is a kludge. -- Marvin Minsky%I brake for chezlogs!%I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up. -- Biff Barf%I can feel for her because, although I have never been an Alaskanprostitute dancing on the bar in a spangled dress, I still get verybored with washing and ironing and dishwashing and cooking day afterrelentless day. -- Betty MacDonald%I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself.%I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could betrue. -- Harry Truman%I can resist anything but temptation.%I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. -- Joe Walsh%I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling. -- Florence Henderson%I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who canunderstand it. -- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.%I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write anovel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars. -- Fred Allen%"I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." -- Lillian Hellman%I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rateof 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ... -- F. H. Wales (1936)%I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar.What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of goodgrammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading causeof slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, theUnited States would have lost World War II." -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar"% "I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frito Bugger in aquavering voice. "No," said GoodGulf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, ofcourse, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, whichI will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known inElven-lore: "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves, Who'd pawn their own mother 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, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing. If broken or busted, it cannot be remade. If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)." -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"%I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lightsinstead! Now when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else isstanding still ... -- Steven Wright%I could dance till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd ratherdance with the cows till you come home. -- Groucho Marx%I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhapsthe time I found out that M&Ms really *do* melt in your hand ... -- Peter Oakley%I didn't know it was impossible when I did it.%I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. Thecurtain was up.% I disapprove of the F-word, not because it's dirty, but becausewe use it as a substitute for thoughtful insults, and it frequentlyleads to violence. What we ought to do, when we anger each other, say,in traffic, is exchange phone numbers, so that later on, when we've hadtime to think of witty and learned insults or look them up in thelibrary, we could call each other up: You: Hello? Bob? Bob: Yes? You: This is Ed. Remember? The person whose parking space you took last Thursday? Outside of Sears? Bob: Oh yes! Sure! How are you, Ed? You: Fine, thanks. Listen, Bob, the reason I'm calling is: "Madam, you may be drunk, but I am ugly, and ..." No, wait. I mean: "you may be ugly, but I am Winston Churchill and ..." No, wait. (Sound of reference book thudding onto the floor.) S-word. Excuse me. Look, Bob, I'm going to have to get back to you. Bob: Fine. -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"%I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic anexact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible tominds entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinaryaccountants fail to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires amind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from thebottom up, and then again from the top down, the result is alwaysdifferent. -- Mrs. La Touche (19th cent.)%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 uswith sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use. -- Galileo Galilei%I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe%I don't believe in astrology. But then I'm an Aquarius, and Aquariansdon't believe in astrology. -- James R. F. Quirk%I don't believe there really IS a GAS SHORTAGE.. I think it's all justa BIG HOAX on the part of the plastic sign salesmen -- to sell morenumbers!!%I don't care for the Sugar Smacks commercial. I don't like the idea ofa frog jumping on my Breakfast. -- Lowell, Chicago Reader 10/15/82%I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating -- Boss Tweed%I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. -- Ashleigh Brilliant%I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds ofpeople waiting to abuse me. -- Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters"%I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to. -- Elvis Presley% "I don't know what you mean by `glory,'" Alice said Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't --till I tell you. I meant `there's a nice knock-down argument foryou!'" "But glory doesn't mean `a nice knock-down argument,'" Aliceobjected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornfultone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more norless." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words meanso many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all." -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"%I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'deat it, and I just hate it. -- Clarence Darrow%I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path. -- Ronald Mabbitt%I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in thestreets and frighten the horses. -- Victor Hugo%"I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!?"%I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the otherhand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out.%I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance thatthe Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress isthinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientistsbroadcast signals to alien beings. This would be a large mistake.Alien beings have nuclear blaster death cannons. You cannot cut offtheir federal programs as if they were merely poor people ... -- Davy Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE COMING!"%I doubt, therefore I might be.%I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's businesson earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the momenthe has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continualbecoming, with a goal in front and not behind. -- George Bernard Shaw%I drink to make other people interesting. -- George Jean Nathan%I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on,so I woke up from sheer boredom.%I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and theaccompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. Forthe transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages thatcan't be measured in monetary terms.Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to havethat unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came bysubway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot shouldsomeday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantlyunderstand his long delay.%I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words.%I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that veryreason it is called Supreme Enlightenment. -- Gotama Buddha%I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. -- Mae West%I get up each morning, gather my wits. Pick up the paper, read the obits.If I'm not there I know I'm not dead. So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.%I get up each morning, gather my wits.Pick up the paper, read the obits.If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent?My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin,And think of the places my get-up has been. -- Pete Seeger%I had to censor everything my sons watched ... even on the Mary TylerMoore show I heard the word "damn"! -- Mary Lou Bax%I had to hit him -- he was starting to make sense.%I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that meansit's going to be up all night. -- Steven Wright%I hate quotations. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson%I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. -- A. R. Longworth%I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle itany time!%I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show,which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark'. -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"%I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats.I tell them the truth and they never believe me. -- Camillo Di Cavour%I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it. -- Edgar Allan Poe%I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. Yousound like a frustrated old man who never made a success, aneight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. Ihave never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty ofbeefsteak and perhaps a supporter below. Westbrook Pegler, aguttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. You can take that as moreof an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry. -- President Harry S Truman%I have learnedTo spell hors d'oeuvresWhich still grates onSome people's n'oeuvres. -- Warren Knox%I have made mistakes but I have never made themistake of claiming that I have never made one. -- James Gordon Bennett%I have made this letter longer than usualbecause I lack the time to make it shorter. -- Blaise Pascal%I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"%I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best. -- Oscar Wilde%I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep itscattered around the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you've seen it. -- Steven Wright%I have to convince you, or at least snow you ... -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435%I have two very rare photographs: one is a picture of Houdini lockinghis keys in his car; the other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwellbeating up a child. -- Steven Wright%I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when lookedat in the right way, did not become still more complicated. -- Poul Anderson%I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere.%I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it.%I just forgot my whole philosophy of life!!!%I just need enough to tide me over until I need more. -- Bill Hoest%I know it all. I just can't remember it all at once.%I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, butWorld War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein%I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building. -- Charles Schulz%I like being single. I'm always there when I need me. -- Art Leo%I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more topromote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people wantpeace so much that one of these days governments had better get out ofthe way and let them have it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower%"I like work ... I can sit and watch it for hours."%I like your game but we have to change the rules.%I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is whatentertainment is all about ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils. -- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson%"I love to eat them Smurfies Smurfies what I love to eat Bite they ugly heads off, Nibble on they bluish feet."%I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, butdon't let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age ... at thespeed of light. -- Prof. Cosmo Fishhawk%I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent. -- Ashleigh Brilliant%I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as aweek sometimes to make it up. -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"%I must have slipped a disk -- my pack hurts!%I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could dowas to go away.%I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like.%I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation. -- G. B. Shaw%I only touch base with reality on an as-needed basis! -- Royal Floyd Mengot (Klaus)%I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is thekind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlledsubstances being in widespread use. Back then, there were norestrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so wemade one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been givenpowerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerativenerve disease. -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"%I predict that today will be remembered until tomorrow!%I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. -- William F. Buckley% "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral ofthat is -- `Be what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it putmore simply -- `Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what itmight appear to others that what you were or might have been was nototherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to beotherwise.'" -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"%I realize that the MX missile is none of our concern. I realize thatthe whole point of living in a democracy is that we pay professionalcongresspersons to concern themselves with things like the MX missileso we can be free to concern ourselves with getting hold of theplumber.But from time to time, I feel I must address major public issues suchas this, because in a free and open society, where the very future ofthe world hinges on decisions made by our elected leaders, you neverwin large cash journalism awards if you stick to the topics I usuallywrite about, such as nose-picking. -- Dave Barry, "At Last, the Ultimate Deterrent Against Political Fallout"%I really hate this damned machineI wish that they would sell it.It never does quite what I wantBut only what I tell it.%I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.%I see a good deal of talk from Washington about lowering taxes. I hopethey do get 'em lowered enough so people can afford to pay 'em. -- Will Rogers%I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.Bernoulli would have been content to dieHad he but known such _a-squared cos 2(phi)! -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"%I sent a letter to the fish,I told them, "This is what I wish."The little fishes of the sea,They sent an answer back to me.The little fishes' answer was"We cannot do it, sir, because ..."I sent a letter back to sayIt would be better to obey.But someone came to me and said"The little fishes are in bed."I said to him, and I said it plain"Then you must wake them up again."I said it very loud and clear,I went and shouted in his ear.But he was very stiff and proud,He said "You needn't shout so loud."And he was very proud and stiff,He said "I'll go and wake them if ..."I took a kettle from the shelf,I went to wake them up myself.But when I found the door was lockedI pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked,And when I found the door was shut,I tried to turn the handle, But ... "Is that all?" asked Alice. "That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye." -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"%I shot an arrow into the air, and it stuck. -- Graffito in Los Angeles%"... I should explain that I was wearing a black velvet cape that wassupposed to make me look like the dashing, romantic Zorro but whichactually made me look like a gigantic bat wearing glasses ..." -- Dave Barry, "The Wet Zorro Suit and Other Turning Points in l'Amour"%"I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a fullhouse and four people died." -- Steven Wright%I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me tosee him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. -- Shirley Temple%I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't dotoo much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide whichdirection your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. Aftermuch trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hottub to face is up. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it.%I think that all good, right thinking people in this country are sickand tired of being told that all good, right thinking people in thiscountry are fed up with being told that all good, right thinking peoplein this country are fed up with being sick and tired. I'm certainlynot, and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am. -- Monty Python%I think that I shall never seeA billboard lovely as a tree.Perhaps, unless the billboards fallI'll never see a tree at all. -- Ogden Nash%I think that I shall never seeA thing as lovely as a tree.But as you see the trees have goneThey went this morning with the dawn.A logging firm from out of townCame and chopped the trees all down.But I will trick those dirty skunksAnd write a brand new poem called "Trunks".%I think the sky is blue because it's a shift from black through purpleto blue, and it has to do with where the light is. You know, thefarther we get into darkness, and there's a shifting of color of lightinto the blueness, and I think as you go farther and farther away fromthe reflected light we have from the sun or the light that's bouncingoff this earth, uh, the darker it gets ... I think if you look at thecolor scale, you start at black, move it through purple, move it onout, it's the shifting of color. We mentioned before about the starssinging, and that's one of the effects of the shifting of colors. -- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club%I think we can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown... HEY! PAY ATTENTION WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU DAMMIT! I said I thinkwe can all agree that there is not enough common courtesy shown today.When we take the time to be courteous to each other, we find that weare happier and less likely to engage in nuclear war. This point wasdriven home by the recent summit talks, where Nancy Reagan and RaisaGorbachev, each of whose husband thinks the other's husband is vermin,were able to sit down at a high-level tea and engage in courteousconversation ... -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"%"I thought you were trying to get into shape.""I am. The shape I've selected is a triangle."%" ... I told my doctor I got all the exercise I needed being apallbearer for all my friends who run and do exercises!" -- Winston Churchill%I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace intwenty minutes. It's about Russia. -- Woody Allen%I used to be an agnostic, but now I'm not so sure.%I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance.%I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.%I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in mybody. Then I realized who was telling me this. -- Emo Phillips%I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywherenear the place. -- Steven Wright%I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness toanimals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence foranything connected with society except that which makes the roadssafer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper, and old men and womenwarmer in the winter, and happier in the summer. -- Brendan Behan%"I want to buy a husband who, every week when I sit down to watch `St.Elsewhere', won't scream, `FORGET IT, BLANCHE ... IT'S TIME FOR "HEEHAW"!!'" -- Berke Breathed, "Bloom County"%I was born because it was a habit in those days, people didn't knowanything else ... I was not a Child Prodigy, because a Child Prodigy isa child who knows as much when it is a child as it does when it growsup. -- Will Rogers%I was drunk last night, crawled home across the lawn. By accident Iput the car key in the door lock. The house started up. So I figuredwhat the hell, and drove it around the block a few times. I thought Ishould go park it in the middle of the freeway and yell at everyone toget off my driveway. -- Steven Wright%I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said Ididn't know. -- Mark Twain%I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spendingtheir lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want tobuy things they don't need to impress people they dislike. -- Emile Henry Gauvreay%I was playing poker the other night ... with Tarot cards. I got a fullhouse and four people died. -- Steven Wright%I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anythingspecific. -- Steven Wright%I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strainedit to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-massstars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold.I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to beabsent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I haddeveloped an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case.Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar'stemperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. Ichased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program tothe point where it would not run at all. -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black Holes and the Fate of Stars"%I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had anyquestions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at thespeed 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 workfor him then. -- Steven Wright%I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was inthe shape of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren'tincluded. -- Steven Wright%"I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from thestatues that are in all the other museums." -- Steven Wright%I went to the race track once and bet on a horse that was so good thatit took seven others to beat him!%I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.There's a knob called `brightness', but it doesn't seem to work. -- Gallagher%I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they'vealways worked for me. -- Hunter S. Thompson%I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.%"I'd love to go out with you, but I did my own thing and now I've gotto undo it."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to floss my cat."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I have to stay home and see if Isnore."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in`Y.'"%"I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with myblender."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm attending the opening of mygarage door."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm converting my calendar watch fromJulian to Gregorian."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm doing door-to-door collecting forstatic cling."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm having all my plants neutered."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm staying home to work on mycottage cheese sculpture."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I'm taking punk totem pole carving."%"I'd love to go out with you, but I've been scheduled for a karmatransplant."%"I'd love to go out with you, but it's my parakeet's bowling night."%"I'd love to go out with you, but my favorite commercial is on TV."%"I'd love to go out with you, but the last time I went out, I nevercame back."%"I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to saytuned."%"I'd love to go out with you, but there are important world issues thatneed worrying about."%I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.%I'll carry your books, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over,carry forward, Cary Grant, cash & carry, Carry Me Back To Old Virginia,I'll even Hara Kari if you show me how, but I will *not* carry a gun. -- Hawkeye, M*A*S*H%I'll defend to the death your right to say that, but I never said I'dlisten to it! -- Tom Galloway with apologies to Voltaire%I'll grant thee random access to my heart,Thou'lt tell me all the constants of thy love;And so we two shall all love's lemmas proveAnd in our bound partition never part. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"%I'll rob that rich person and give it to some poor deserving slob.That will *prove* I'm Robin Hood. -- Daffy Duck, "Robin Hood Daffy", [1958, Chuck Jones]%I'm a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have evolved from man.%I'm a Lisp variable -- bind me!%I'm all for computer dating, but I wouldn't want one to marry mysister.%I'm changing my name to ChryslerI'm going down to Washington, D.C.I'll tell some power broker What they did for IacoccaWill be perfectly acceptable to me!I'm changing my name to Chrysler,I'm heading for that great receiving line.When they hand a million grand out, I'll be standing with my hand out,Yessir, I'll get mine! -- Tom Paxton%I'm defending her honor, which is more than she ever did.%I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men todie in. -- George McGovern%I'm going to Boston to see my doctor. He's a very sick man. -- Fred Allen%I'm going to live forever, or die trying! -- Spider Robinson%... I'm IMAGINING a sensuous GIRAFFE, CAVORTING in the BACK ROOM of aKOSHER DELI!!%"I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here?" -- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate%i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to beliving apart. -- e. e. cummings%I'm N-ary the tree, I am,N-ary the tree, I am, I am.I'm getting traversed by the parser next door,She's traversed me seven times before.And ev'ry time it was an N-ary (N-ary!)Never wouldn't ever do a binary. (No sir!)I'm 'er eighth tree that was N-ary.N-ary the tree I am, I am,N-ary the tree I am. -- Stolen from Paul Revere and the Raiders%I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am.It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get.%I'm prepared for all emergencies buttotally unprepared for everyday life.%I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is-- I could be just as proud for half the money. -- Arthur Godfrey%I'm rated PG-34!!%I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it(your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage. -- English Professor, Providence College%I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,I am the very model of a modern Major-General. -- Gilbert & Sullivan, "Pirates of Penzance"%"I'm willing to sacrifice anything for this cause, even other people'slives"%I've built a better model than the one at Data GeneralFor data bases vegetable, animal, and mineralMy OS handles CPUs with multiplexed duality;My PL/1 compiler shows impressive functionality.My storage system's better than magnetic core polarity,You never have to bother checking out a bit for parity;There isn't any reason to install non-static floor matting;My disk drive has capacity for variable formatting.I feel compelled to mention what I know to be a gloating point:There's lots of room in memory for variables floating-point,Which shows for input vegetable, animal, and mineralI've built a better model than the one at Data General. -- Steve Levine, "A Computer Song" (To the tune of "Modern Major General", from "Pirates of Penzance", by Gilbert & Sullivan)%I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand.%I've found my niche. If you're wondering why I'm not there, there wasthis little hole in the bottom ... -- John Croll%I've given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.%I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. -- Groucho Marx%I've known him as a man, as an adolescent and as a child -- sometimeson the same day.%I've seen better heads on half a pint of beer.%I've seen, I SAY, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer -- Senator Claghorn%I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness;And from that full meridian of my gloryI haste now to my setting. I shall fall,Like a bright exhalation in the eveningAnd no man see me more. -- Shakespeare%IBM had a PL/I, Its syntax worse than JOSS;And everywhere this language went, It was a total loss.%Idaho state law makes it illegal for a man to give his sweetheart a boxof candy weighing less than fifty pounds.%Ideas don't stay in some minds very long because they don't likesolitary confinement.%Idiot Box, n.: The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Idiot, n.: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%If a 6600 used paper tape instead of core memory, it would use up tapeat about 30 miles/second. -- Grishman, Assembly Language Programming%If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro%If a camel flies, no one laughs if it doesn't get very far. -- Paul White%If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then a consensusforecast is a camel's behind. -- Edgar R. Fiedler%If a jury in a criminal trial stays out for more than twenty-fourhours, it is certain to vote acquittal, save in those instances whereit votes guilty. -- Joseph C. Goulden%If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wakehim up.%If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country.%If a putt passes over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to havedropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting tomaintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support itmust drop. The law of gravity supersedes the law of golf. -- Donald A. Metz%If a team is in a positive frame of mind, it will have a goodattitude. If it has a good attitude, it will make a commitment toplaying the game right. If it plays the game right, it will win --unless, of course, it doesn't have enough talent to win, and no managercan make goose-liver pate out of goose feathers, so why worry? -- Sparky Anderson%If all be true that I do think,There be Five Reasons why one should Drink;Good friends, good wine, or being dry,Or lest we should be by-and-by,Or any other reason why.%If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacularerror. -- John Kenneth Galbraith%If all the Chinese simultaneously jumped into the Pacific off a 10 footplatform erected 10 feet off their coast, it would cause a tidal wavethat would destroy everything in this country west of Nebraska.%If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. -- Paul Beatty%If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach aconclusion. -- William Baumol%If an S and an I and an O and a UWith an X at the end spell Su;And an E and a Y and an E spell I,Pray what is a speller to do?Then, if also an S and an I and a GAnd an HED spell side,There's nothing much left for a speller to doBut to go commit siouxeyesighed. -- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament"%If anything can go wrong, it will.%If at first you don't succeed, give up. No use being a damn fool.%If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.%If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only fourtellers?%If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?%If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?%If everybody minded their own business, the world would goaround a deal faster. -- The Duchess, "Through the Looking Glass"%If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane.%... If forced to travel on an airplane, try and get in the cabin withthe Captain, so you can keep an eye on him and nudge him if he fallsasleep or point out any mountains looming up ahead ... -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%If God didn't mean for us to juggle, tennis balls wouldn't come threeto a can.%If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire.%If God had intended Man to Walk, He would have given him Feet.%If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him RabbitEars.%If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their Heads.%If God had meant for us to be in the Army, we would have been born withgreen, baggy skin.%If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.%If God had not given us sticky tape,it would have been necessary to invent it.%If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you biggerhands.%If God is dead, who will save the Queen?%If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions?%If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows. -- Yiddish saying%If God wanted us to be brave, why did he give us legs? -- Marvin Kitman%"If I am elected, the concrete barriers around the WHITE HOUSE will bereplaced by tasteful foam replicas of ANN MARGARET!"%If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive! -- Samuel Goldwyn%If I don't drive around the park,I'm pretty sure to make my mark.If I'm in bed each night by ten,I may get back my looks again.If I abstain from fun and such,I'll probably amount to much;But I shall stay the way I am,Because I do not give a damn. -- Dorothy Parker%If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture.%If I had a plantation in Georgia and a home in Hell,I'd sell the plantation and go home. -- Eugene P. Gallagher%If I had any humility I would be perfect. -- Ted Turner%If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith. -- Albert Einstein%If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on theshoulders of giants. -- Isaac NewtonIn the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by sidewith the giants on whose shoulders we stand. -- Gerald HoltonIf I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standingon my shoulders. -- Hal AbelsonIn computer science, we stand on each other's feet. -- Brian K. Reid%If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction.On the other hand, if I hit you over the head with a brick, that isalso a psychological interaction.The difference is that one is friendly and the other is not sofriendly.The crucial point is if you can tell which is which. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"%If I traveled to the end of the rainbowAs Dame Fortune did intend,Murphy would be there to tell meThe pot's at the other end. -- Bert Whitney%If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?%If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune.%If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him.They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make funof it. -- Thomas Carlyle%"If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think theyforgot to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'lljust think the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail.And if *fifty* pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty*pieces of mail get lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken!And if 1Gb of mail gets lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa is down andthink it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right toreceive Net Mail ..." -- Leith (Casey) Leedom%If life is a stage, I want some better lighting.%If little else, the brain is an educational toy. -- Tom Robbins%If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green womenyou've got in the house. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying bythe page number.%If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it.%If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to thinklittle of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking andSabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. -- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859)%If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants. -- A. Einstein.%If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large depositin my name at a Swiss bank. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"%If only I could be respected without having to be respectable.%If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment withouthaving to accomplish anything.%If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad,he should see how bad it is with representation.%If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes ofarithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of thephysical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of pokerentirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. -- Vannevar Bush%If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studiedharder. -- Pope John Paul I%If that makes any sense to you, you have a big problem. -- C. Durance, Computer Science 234%If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization wouldpresumably flunk it. -- Stanley Garn%If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. -- Norm Schryer%If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need toget the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude.See in college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leavingthe natural method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insistingthat you shall learn what you have no taste or capacity for. Thecollege, which should be a place of delightful labor, is made odiousand unhealthy, and the young men are tempted to frivolous amusements torally their jaded spirits. I would have the studies elective.Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pureinterest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this byopening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has forhimself. The marking is a system for schools, not for the college; forboys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to put on a professor. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson%If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me! -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920)%If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chancesare 50-50 it will.%If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down.If the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down.If the bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendancewill exceed all expectations. -- Reverend Chichester%If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams.%If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one thatwill cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.%If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? -- Art Hoppe%If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure makesomething out of you. -- Muhammad Ali%If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it.%If this is timesharing, give me my share right now.%If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same?%If today is the first day of the rest of your life, what the hell wasyesterday?%If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them isdoing the thinking. -- Lyndon Baines Johnson%If two wrongs don't make a right, try three. -- Laurence J. Peter%If value corrupts then absolute value corrupts absolutely.%If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage.%If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnelin a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessaryqualifications, that field's employment market is glutted. -- Marguerite Emmons%If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it? -- Ann Edwards-Duff%If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars. -- J. Paul Getty%If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.%If you can read this, you're too close.%If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything.%If you can't be good, be careful.If you can't be careful, give me a call.%If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.%If you cannot convince them, confuse them. -- Harry S Truman%If you didn't get caught, did you really do it?%If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost.%If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours. -- Clarence Day%If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter. -- Freeman Dyson%"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a littleLavoris in the toilet." -- Jay Leno%If you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing worse will happen toeither of you for the rest of the day.%If you ever want to get anywhere in politics, my boy, you're going tohave to get a toehold in the public eye.%If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebodywill.%If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue,it will always do it. -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin%If you go on with this nuclear arms race,all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce. -- Winston Churchill%If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous.%If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.%If you have to hate, hate gently.%If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage toboot yourself in the posterior. -- A. J. Liebling, "The Press"%If you keep anything long enough, you can throw it away.%If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. -- Graham Summer%If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very fewpeople die past the age of a hundred. -- George Burns%If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you;but if you really make them think they'll hate you.%If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. -- Maslow%If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedurecan go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptlydevelop.%If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not biteyou. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. -- Mark Twain%If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine,you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll getice, but no cup.%If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. Butthis garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, issomehow ennobled and none dare criticize it.%If you sit down at a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You'rethe sucker.%If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair.%If you stick a stock of liquor in your locker,It is slick to stick a lock upon your stock. Or some joker who is slicker, Will trick you of your liquor,If you fail to lock your liquor with a lock.%If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard%If you think last Tuesday was a drag,wait till you see what happens tomorrow!%If you think nobody cares if you're alive,try missing a couple of car payments. -- Earl Wilson%If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it. -- Arthur Kasspe%If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largestshopping center in the world? -- Richard M. Nixon%If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do wouldbe to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and callyou to say they had a nice time. Now you'll be be expected to throwanother party next year.What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake upseveral days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they'vebeen indicted for anything. You want your guests to be so anxious toavoid a recurrence of your party that they immediately start planningparties of their own, a year in advance, just to prevent you fromhaving another one ...If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door, unlessyour party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gasthrough your living room window. As host, your job is to make surethat they don't arrest anybody. Or if they're dead set on arrestingsomeone, your job is to make sure it isn't you ... -- Dave Barry%If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid themend to end, they'd be a lot more comfortable. -- "Graffiti in the Big Ten"%If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything. -- A. L.%If you want divine justice, die. -- Nick Seldon%If you want to know what god thinks of money, just look at the peoplehe gave it to. -- Dorothy Parker%If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading theConstitution. It conveys precious little of the flavor of today'sstatecraft. Instead, read selected portions of the Washingtontelephone directory containing listings for all the organizations withtitles beginning with the word "National". -- George Will%If you want your spouse to listen and pay strict attention to everyword you say, talk in your sleep.%"If you wants to get elected president, you'se got to think up somememoraboble homily so's school kids can be pestered into memorizin' it,even if they don't know what it means." -- Walt Kelly, "The Pogo Party"%If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings -- including this one.%If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry fortomorrow morning, sleep late. -- Henny Youngman%If you're happy, you're successful.% If you're like most homeowners, you're afraid that many repairsaround your home are too difficult to tackle. So, when your furnaceexplodes, you call in a so-called professional to fix it. The"professional" arrives in a truck with lettering on the sides anddeposits a large quantity of tools and two assistants who spend thebetter part of the week in your basement whacking objects at randomwith heavy wrenches, after which the "professional" returns and givesyou a bill for slightly more money than it would cost you to run asuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate. And that's why you've decided to start doing things yourself.You figure, "If those guys can fix my furnace, then so can I. Howdifficult can it be?" Very difficult. In fact, most home projects are impossible,which is why you should do them yourself. There is no point in payingother people to screw things up when you can easily screw them upyourself for far less money. This article can help you. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.%If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory. -- Benjamin Disraeli%If you're right 90% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%?%If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round itoff with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe?%If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. -- Ronald Reagan%Ignisecond, n.: The overlapping moment of time when the hand is locking the car door even as the brain is saying, "my keys are in there!" -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Iles's Law: There is always an easier way to do it. When looking directlyat the easy way, especially for long periods, you will not see it.Neither will Iles.%Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like theland He's trying to ignore.%Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. -- Jules de Gaultier%"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them theusual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobodythinks of complaining." -- Jeff Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal%Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It hasa 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of diskstorage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely onvoice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300.What's the first question that the computer community asks?"Is it PC compatible?"%Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery. -- Jack Paar%Immortality -- a fate worse than death. -- Edgar A. Shoaff%Impartial, adj.: Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in themail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while theBoss is reading it.%Impossible, adj.: (1) I wouldn't like it and when it happens I won't approve; (2) I can't be bothered; (3) God can't be bothered. Meaning (3) may perhaps be valid but the others are 101% whaledreck. -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"%In 1750 Isaac Newton became discouraged when he fell up a flight ofstairs.%In 1869 the waffle iron was invented for people who had wrinkledwaffles.%In 1880 the French captured Detroit but gave it back ... they couldn'tget parts.%In 1914, the first crossword puzzle was printed in a newspaper. Thecreator received $4000 down ... and $3000 across.%In 1915 pancake make-up was invented but most people still preferredsyrup.%In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Onlywe can't control when the five year period will begin.% In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi,junior, what are you up to?" "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said therabbit. "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!" "Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into therabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfiedexpression on his face. Comes along a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?" "I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbitsdevour wolves." "Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?" "Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comesout with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw.Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybodyshould have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion sittingnext to some bloody and furry remnants of the wolf and the fox.The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important --it's your PhD advisor that really counts.%In a medium in which a News Piece takes a minute and an "In-Depth"Piece takes two minutes, the Simple will drive out the Complex. -- Frank Mankiewicz%In a museum in Havana, there are two skulls of Christopher Columbus,"one when he was a boy and one when he was a man." -- Mark Twain%In Africa some of the native tribes have a custom of beating the groundwith clubs and uttering spine chilling cries. Anthropologists callthis a form of primitive self-expression. In America we call it golf.%In America today ... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become sosophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow. Allthose who think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where thedevil gets her pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing upas a human sperm, please raise your hands. Thank you. -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"%In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just oneof the risks he takes. -- Adlai Stevenson%In an organization, each person rises to the level of his ownincompetency -- The Peter Principle%In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks)are to be treated as variables.%In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise ofnations -- it's cold, half-French, and difficult to stir. -- Stuart Keate%In Blythe, California, a city ordinance declares that a person must ownat least two cows before he can wear cowboy boots in public.%In Boston, it is illegal to hold frog-jumping contests in nightclubs.%In case of atomic attack, the federal ruling against prayer in schoolswill be temporarily canceled.%In case of injury notify your superior immediately. He'll kiss it andmake it better.%In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to ticklea female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in orderto get her attention.%In Corning, Iowa, it's a misdemeanor for a man to ask his wife to ridein any motor vehicle.%In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable. -- Winston Churchill, on General Montgomery%In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-doorneighbor.%In Devon, Connecticut, it is unlawful to walk backwards after sunset.%In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the lastresort of the scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened butinferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in ourprogramming languages.%In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backwards onthe sidewalks when a concert is on.%In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has comeinto use through the necessity of having some way to distinguishbetween weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather whichwill only make it mushy. -- Mark Twain%In Lexington, Kentucky, it's illegal to carry an ice cream cone in yourpocket.%In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for anypilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket whileeither flying or waiting to board a plane.%In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unlessthere is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a redflag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians.%In Ohio, if you ignore an orator on Decoration day to such an extent asto publicly play croquet or pitch horseshoes within one mile of thespeaker's stand, you can be fined $25.00.%In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create theuniverse. -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos%In our civilization, and under our republican form of government,intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption fromthe cares of office. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 poundsand attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane.%In Pocatello, Idaho, a law passed in 1912 provided that "The carryingof concealed weapons is forbidden, unless same are exhibited to publicview."%In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach spaceLet superscripts and subscripts go their ways.Our asymptotes no longer out of phase,We shall encounter, counting, face to face. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"%In Seattle, Washington, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon thatis over six feet in length.%In seeking the unattainable, simplicity only gets in the way. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982%"In short, _N is Richardian if, and only if, _N is not Richardian."%In specifications, Murphy's Law supersedes Ohm's.%In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from amoving automobile.%In the beginning was the word.But by the time the second word was added to it,there was trouble.For with it came syntax ... -- John Simon%In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he sathacking at the PDP-6. "What are you doing?", asked Minsky. "I amtraining a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe." "Why is thenet wired randomly?", asked Minsky. "I do not want it to have anypreconceptions of how to play." Minsky shut his eyes. "Why do youclose your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher. "So the room will beempty." At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.%In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words inthe proper order then why can't he?%In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sunis driven by the Grateful Dead. -- Egyptian Book of the Dead%In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis%In the olden days in England, you could be hung for stealing a sheep ora loaf of bread. However, if a sheep stole a loaf of bread and gave itto you, you would only be tried for receiving, a crime punishable byforty lashes with the cat or the dog, whichever was handy. If youstole a dog and were caught, you were punished with twelve rabbitpunches, although it was hard to find rabbits big enough or strongenough to punch you. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi hasshortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in theOld Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one millionthree hundred thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two yearsfrom now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long.... There is something fascinating about science. One gets suchwholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment offact. -- Mark Twain%In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world todrop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows atdiscotheques. -- Art Linkletter%In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used to frequently takemy advice. -- Winston Churchill%In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle withoutthe supervision of a licensed engineer.%In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spousealong at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months.%Incumbent, n.: Person of liveliest interest to the outcumbents. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%... indifference is a militant thing ... when it goes away it leavessmoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It isnot a children's pastime like mere highway robbery. -- Stephen Crane%Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?%Individualists unite!%Infancy, n.: The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, "Heaven lies about us." The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward. -- Ambrose Bierce%Information Center, n.: A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is to tell you why you cannot have the information you require.%Ingrate, n.: A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of indigestion.%Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.%Ink, n.: A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" [alternately attributed to H. L. Mencken]%Innovation is hard to schedule. -- Dan Fylstra%Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.%Insanity is the final defense. It's hard to get a refund when thesalesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon.%Interpreter, n.: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Intolerance is the last defense of the insecure.% INVENTORYFour be the things I am wiser to know:Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.Four be the things I'd been better without:Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.Three be the things I shall never attain:Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.Three be the things I shall have till I die:Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.%Iron Law of Distribution: Them that has, gets.%Irrationality is the square root of all evil. -- Douglas Hofstadter%Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it ismeant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as asoap bubble?%Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from thebeginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to getout, and such as are out wish to get in? -- Ralph Emerson%Is your job running? You'd better go catch it!%Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fictionlisten to weather forecasts and economists? -- Kelvin Throop III%Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortunetellers take economists seriously?%Issawi's Laws of Progress: The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse. The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.%It appears that after his death, Albert Einstein found himself workingas the doorkeeper at the Pearly Gates. One slow day, he found that hehad time to chat with the new entrants. To the first one he asked,"What's your IQ?" The new arrival replied, "190". They discussedEinstein's theory of relativity for hours. When the second new arrivalcame, Einstein once again inquired as to the newcomer's IQ. The answerthis time came "120". To which Einstein replied, "Tell me, how did theCubs do this year?" and they proceeded to talk for half an hour or so.To the final arrival, Einstein once again posed the question, "What'syour IQ?". Upon receiving the answer "70", Einstein smiled and asked,"Got a minute to tell me about VMS 4.0?"%It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clowncame out to inform the public. They thought it was just a jest andapplauded. He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder. So Ithink the world will come to an end amid general applause from all thewits, who believe that it is a joke.%It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it isthrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists havedrawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I havebeen searching for evidence which could support this. -- Bertrand Russell%It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.%It is against the grain of modern education to teach children toprogram. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline inorganizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to beself-critical? -- Alan Perlis%It is against the law for a monster to enter the corporate limits ofUrbana, Illinois.%It is always preferable to visit home with a friend. Your parents willnot be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselvesand because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act likemature human beings ... -- Playboy, January 1983%It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's apretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into thesin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. -- Voltaire%It is an important and popular fact that things are not always whatthey seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumedthat he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved somuch -- the wheel, New York wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphinshad ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. Butconversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far moreintelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impendingdestruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts toalert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications weremisinterpreted ... -- Douglas Adams "The Hitch-Hikers' Guide To The Galaxy"%It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to becoming up it. -- Henry Allen%It is better never to have been born. But who among us has such luck?One in a million, perhaps.%It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark.%It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have threebenefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom neverto use either. -- Mark Twain%It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is bothincisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted bytwelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- Rod Serling%It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it islightly greased. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"%It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own country itsproper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to make your communitya better place to live in; it is easier to be a "civic leader" than totreat your own family with loving understanding; for the smaller thefocus of attention, the harder the task. -- Sydney J. Harris%It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.%It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.%It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.%It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting becauseif you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot ofpeople. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"%It is illegal to drive more than two thousand sheep down HollywoodBoulevard at one time.%It is illegal to say "Oh, Boy" in Jonesboro, Georgia.%It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carrya tune. -- Woody Allen%It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are soingenious.%It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly notdesirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off. -- Woody Allen%It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Ouroffense consists in doubting it. -- Justice Robert H. Jackson%It is much easier to suggest solutionswhen you know nothing about the problem.%It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should beprivileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, tocorrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles. -- George Bernard Shaw%It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. -- Gore Vidal%It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it's onedamn thing over and over. -- Edna St. Vincent Millay%It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is? -- Elizabeth Carpenter%It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit.%It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined thatvirginity could be a virtue. -- Voltaire%It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on theirdignity.%It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not daredto be obscene, they could never have dared to be great. -- Havelock Ellis%It is practically impossible to teach good programming style tostudents that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potentialprogrammers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5%It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while thelowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar ashigh as the eagle?%It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve astatue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far moreglorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium throughwhich we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of theday, that is the highest of arts. -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live"%It is Texas law that when two trains meet each other at a railroadcrossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceeduntil the other has gone.%It is the business of little minds to shrink. -- Carl Sandburg%It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind%It is true that if your paperboy throws your paper into the bushes forfive straight days it can be explained by Newton's Law of Gravity. Butit takes Murphy's law to explain why it is happening to you.%It is very difficult to prophesy, especially when it pertains to thefuture.%It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out.%It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full, but it isn't toogood either if you speak when your head is empty.%It may be that your whole purpose in lifeis simply to serve as a warning to others.%It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves theflag.%It shall be unlawful for any suspicious person to be within themunicipality. -- Local ordinance, Euclid Ohio%It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing,but I couldn't give up because by that time I was too famous. -- Robert Benchley%It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead.%It was a virgin forest, a place where the Hand of Man had never setfoot.%It was one of those perfect summer days -- the sun was shining, abreeze was blowing, the birds were singing, and the lawn mower wasbroken ... -- James Dent%It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. PerhapsI should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. Idon't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) andthe signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetualcharm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses itsnovelty .... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, butyours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonableman a lifetime. -- Thomas Aldrich% It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched eastladen with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers. Thethousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle,nursing a whopper. Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, prayingfor their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's. Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleatingunder their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their meltingicepacks. -- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"%It wasn't that she had a rose in her teeth, exactly. It was more likethe rose and the teeth were in the same glass.%It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is onthe wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work.%It will be generally found that those who sneer habitually at humannature and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasantexamples. -- Charles Dickens%It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuingwarnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one ortwo things still safe to eat. -- Robert Fuoss%It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. -- Andrew Jackson%It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear. -- Cheers%It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.%"It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it." -- Steven Wright%"It's a summons.""What's a summons?""It means summon's in trouble." -- Rocky and Bullwinkle%It's always darkest just before it gets pitch black.%It's bad luck to be superstitious. -- Andrew W. Mathis%It's better to be wanted for murder than not to be wanted at all. -- Marty Winch%"It's easier said than done."... and if you don't believe it, try proving that it's easier done thansaid, and you'll see that "it's easier said that `it's easier done thansaid' than it is done", which really proves that "it's easier said thandone".%It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.%It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness forbeing right.%It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour! -- Macy's%It's illegal in Wilbur, Washington, to ride an ugly horse.%It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is.If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn'tour's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. -- Oxford University Press, "Edpress News"%It's just a jump to the left And then a step to the right.Put your hands on your hips And pull your knees in tight.It's the pelvic thrust That really gets you insa-a-a-a-ane LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN! -- Rocky Horror Picture Show%"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." -- Walt Disney%"It's Like This"Even the samuraihave teddy bears,and even the teddy bearsget drunk.%It's lucky you're going so slowly, becauseyou're going in the wrong direction.%"It's men like him that give the Y chromosome a bad name."%It's more than magnificent -- it's mediocre. -- Sam Goldwyn%It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows howto run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair. -- George Burns%It's not an optical illusion; it just looks like one. -- Phil White%It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either. -- Kevin White, mayor of Boston%It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too. -- Alexander Korda%It's not just a computer -- it's your ass. -- Cal Keegan%It's not reality or how you perceive things that's important -- it'swhat you're taking for it...%It's not so hard to lift yourself by your bootstraps once you're offthe ground. -- Daniel B. Luten%It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when ithappens. -- Woody Allen%It's not the valleys in life I dread so much as the dips. -- Garfield%It's odd, and a little unsettling, to reflect upon the fact thatEnglish is the only major language in which "I" is capitalized; in manyother languages "You" is capitalized and the "i" is lower case. -- Sydney J. Harris%It's raisins that make Post Raisin Bran so raisiny ...%It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.%It's so stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in theDevil when he is the only explanation of it.%It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Whichraises the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebodynot to. -- Franklin P. Jones%It's the thought, if any, that counts!% JACK AND THE BEANSTACK by Mark Isaak Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIALcharacter named Jack. Jack and his relations were poor. Often theirhash table was bare. One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matricesare sparse. You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for someBASICs." She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed itto him. So Jack set out. But as he was walking along a Hamilton path,he met the traveling salesman. "Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesmanin high-level language. "I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chipsand Apples," commented Jack. "I have a much better algorithm. You needn't join a queuethere; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now." Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house. But whenhe told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry shestarted thrashing. "Don't you even have any artificial intelligence? All thesekernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out thewindow ...%Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government: No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.%James Joyce -- an essentially private man who wished his totalindifference to public notice to be universally recognized. -- Tom Stoppard%Jenkinson's Law: It won't work.%Jesus Saves,Moses Invests,But only Buddha pays Dividends.%Job Placement, n.: Telling your boss what he can do with your job.%Joe's sister puts spaghetti in her shoes!%Johnson's First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at themost inconvenient possible time.%Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called"Bureaucracy". Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to doanything loses.%Join the march to save individuality!%Jone's Law: The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someoneto blame it on.%Jone's Motto: Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.%Jones's First Law: Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the importance of their original contribution.%Just about every computer on the market today runs Unix, except the Mac(and nobody cares about it). -- Bill Joy 6/21/85%Just as most issues are seldom black or white, so are most goodsolutions seldom black or white. Beware of the solution that requiresone side to be totally the loser and the other side to be totally thewinner. The reason there are two sides to begin with usually isbecause neither side has all the facts. Therefore, when the wisemediator effects a compromise, he is not acting from politicalmotivation. Rather, he is acting from a deep sense of respect for thewhole truth. -- Stephen R. Schwambach%Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything haschanged. -- Irene Peter%Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you.%Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean heknows what it is.%Just go with the flow control, roll with the crunches, and, when youget a prompt, type like hell.%Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn'timmune to bullets -- The Brigadier, "Dr. Who"%"Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have someof the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?" -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US%Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate totwelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty!%`Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, As he landed his crew with care;Supporting each man on the top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair.'Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew.Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.'%Just when you thought you were winning the rat race, along comes afaster rat!!!%Justice always prevails ... three times out of seven! -- Michael J. Wagner%Justice is incidental to law and order. -- J. Edgar Hoover%Justice, n.: A decision in your favor.%K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining; Cobol's wordy and confining; KOBOLDS topple when you strike them; Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them. -- The Roguelet's ABC%Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highways at night towear tail lights.%Katz' Law: Man and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted.%Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans.%Keep Cool, but Don't Freeze -- Hellman's Mayonnaise%Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis.%Keep grandma off the streets -- legalize bingo.%Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee: (1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this force is technically termed "car suck"). (2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!"%Keep your Eye on the Ball,Your Shoulder to the Wheel,Your Nose to the Grindstone,Your Feet on the Ground,Your Head on your Shoulders.Now ... try to get something DONE!%Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike mostautomobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of thenumerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if thedriver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of thedashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually knowwhat's wrong."%Kerr's Three Rules for a Successful College: Have plenty of football for the alumni, sex for the students,and parking for the faculty.%Kin, n.: An affliction of the blood.%Kinkler's First Law: Responsibility always exceeds authority.Kinkler's Second Law: All the easy problems have been solved.%"Kirk to Enterprise -- beam down yeoman Rand and a six-pack."%Kirkland, Illinois, law forbids bees to fly over the village or throughany of its streets.%Kiss me twice. I'm schizophrenic.%Kiss your keyboard goodbye!%Klein bottle for rent -- inquire within.%Klein bottle for sale ... inquire within.%Kleptomaniac, n.: A rich thief. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A.%Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. -- Henry N. Camp%Krogt, n. (chemical symbol: Kr): The metallic silver coating found on fast-food game cards. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Labor, n.: One of the processes by which A acquires property for B. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Lackland's Laws: (1) Never be first. (2) Never be last. (3) Never volunteer for anything.%Lactomangulation, n.: Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Ladybug, ladybug,Look to your stern!Your house is on fire,Your children will burn!So jump ye and sing, forThe very first timeThe four lines aboveHave been put into rhyme. -- Walt Kelly%Laetrile is the pits.%Langsam's Laws: (1) Everything depends. (2) Nothing is always. (3) Everything is sometimes.%Larkinson's Law: All laws are basically false.%Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived withwas made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always gettingpinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to thefarmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at theirsleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Doyou think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her?What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, insteadof every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned underthe tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any cropswhatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, whichLassie filed the applications for. -- Dave Barry%Last night, I came home and realized that everything in my apartmenthad been stolen and replaced with an exact duplicate. I told this tomy friend -- he said, `Do I know you?' -- Steven Wright%Last week a cop stopped me in my car. He asked me if I had a policerecord. I said, no, but I have the new DEVO album. Cops have no senseof humor.%Last yeer I kudn't spel Engineer. Now I are won.%Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.%Laughter is the closest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge%Law of Communications: The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.%Law of Probable Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.%Law of Selective Gravity: An object will fall so as to do the most damage.Jenning's Corollary: The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.%Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.%Laws of Serendipity: (1) In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something. (2) If you wish to make an improved product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior one.%Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.%Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads.%Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, andeverything else follows in the same way. -- Alan J. Perlis%Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.%Legalize free-enterprise murder: why should governments have all thefun?%Legislation proposed in the Illinois State Legislature, May, 1907: Speed upon county roads will be limited to ten miles an hourunless the motorist sees a bailiff who does not appear to have had adrink in 30 days, when the driver will be permitted to make what hecan.%Leibowitz's Rule: When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you hold the hammer with both hands.%LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieves.%LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore. Your ability to laugh at adversity will be a blessing because you've got a day coming you wouldn't believe. As a matter of fact, if you can laugh at what happens to you today, you've got a sick sense of humor.%Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday.%Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just anumber. You're two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dashand another number. -- James Estes%Let us live!!!Let us love!!!Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!!You first.%Let's just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In everyrelationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If youreally care about the person, you do what's necessary, or that's theend. For the first time, I found that I really could change, and thequalities I most admired in myself I gave up. I stopped being loud andbossy ... Oh, all right. I was still loud and bossy, but only behindhis back. -- Kate Hepburn, on Tracy and Hepburn%Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stickyour hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well asMental Anguish. You would sue:* The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls in there".* The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious cretin like yourself.* Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you a large cash settlement anyway. -- Dave Barry%Let's talk about how to fill out your 1984 tax return. Here's an oftenoverlooked accounting technique that can save you thousands ofdollars: For several days before you put it in the mail, carry yourtax return around under your armpit. No IRS agent is going to want tospend hours poring over a sweat-stained document. So even if you owemoney, you can put in for an enormous refund and the agent willprobably give it to you, just to avoid an audit. What does he care?It's not his money. -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"%LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (The Times of London)Dear Sir,I am firmly opposed to the spread of microchips either to the home orto the office. We have more than enough of them foisted upon us inpublic places. They are a disgusting Americanism, and can only resultin the farmers being forced to grow smaller potatoes, which in turnwill cause massive unemployment in the already severely depressedagricultural industry.Yours faithfully, Capt. Quinton D'Arcy, J. P. Sevenoaks%Lewis's Law of Travel: The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, ever.%Liar, n.: A lawyer with a roving commission. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. -- Harry Emerson Fosdick%LIBRA (Sep. 23 to Oct. 22) Your desire for justice and truth will be overshadowed by your desire for filthy lucre and a decent meal. Be gracious and polite. Someone is watching you, so stop staring like that.%LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22) You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of venereal disease.%Lie, n.: A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date.%Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.%Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.%Life is a yo-yo, and mankind ties knots in the string.%Life is like a bowl of soup with hairs floating on it. You have toeat it nevertheless. -- Flaubert%Life is like a buffet; it's not good but there's plenty of it.%Life is like a simile.%Life is like an analogy.%Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer,and then you find there is nothing in it. -- James Huneker%Life is too important to take seriously. -- Corky Siegel%Life may have no meaning -- or even worse,it may have a meaning of which I disapprove.%"Life to you is a bold and dashing responsibility" -- a Mary Chung's fortune cookie%Life would be much simpler and things would get done much faster if itweren't for other people -- Blore%Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.%Life: loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it. -- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"%Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that madesense from things she found in gift shops. -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.%Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands lookingfor girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem. -- Alan McKay%Limericks are art forms complex,Their topics run chiefly to sex. They usually have virgins, And masculine urgin's,And other erotic effects.%Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations.%Linus: I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today.Charlie Brown: No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better.%Living in LA is like not having a date on Saturday night. -- Candice Bergen%Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free triparound the Sun.%Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attemptedbefore.%Loan-department manager: "There isn't any fine print. At theseinterest rates, we don't need it."%Lobster: Everyone loves these delectable crustaceans, but many cooks aresqueamish about placing them into boiling water alive, which is theonly proper method of preparing them. Frankly, the easiest way toeliminate your guilt is to establish theirs by putting them on trialbefore they're cooked. The fact is, lobsters are among the mostferocious predators on the sea floor, and you're helping reduce crimein the reefs. Grasp the lobster behind the head, look it right in itsunmistakably guilty eyestalks and say, "Where were you on the night ofthe 21st?", then flourish a picture of a scallop or a sole and shout,"Perhaps this will refresh that crude neural apparatus you call amemory!" The lobster will squirm noticeably. It may even take a swipeat you with one of its claws. Incorrigible. Pop it into the pot.Justice has been served, and shortly you and your friends will be,too. -- Dave Barry, "Cooking: The Art of Using Appliances and Utensils into Excuses and Apologies"%Lockwood's Long Shot: The chances of getting eaten up by a lion on Main Street aren't one in a million, but once would be enough.%... Logically incoherent, semantically incomprehensible, andlegally ... impeccable!%Logicians have but ill definedAs rational the human kind.Logic, they say, belongs to man,But let them prove it if they can. -- Oliver Goldsmith%Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want usto pay income taxes, too? -- Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox%Loose bits sink chips.%Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying"BOOGA, BOOGA!"%Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy.%Loud burping while walking around the airport is prohibited inHalstead, Kansas.%Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.%Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices theworld has ever seen.%Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder. -- Sigmund Freud%Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly itflips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come. -- Matt Groening, "Love is Hell"%Love is a word that is constantly heard,Hate is a word that is not.Love, I am told, is more precious than gold.Love, I have read, is hot.But hate is the verb that to me is superb,And Love but a drug on the mart.Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,But Hating, my boy, is an Art. -- Ogden Nash%Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real withthe ideal never goes unpunished. -- Goethe%Love is sentimental measles.%Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -- H. L. Mencken%Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes.%Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood. -- Louise Beal%Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to.% Love's DrugMy love is like an iron wand That conks me on the head,My love is like the valium That I take before my bed,My love is like the pint of scotch That I drink when I be dry;And I shall love thee still, my dear, Until my wife is wise.%Lowery's Law: If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.%LSD melts in your mind, not in your hand.%Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug.%Lunatic Asylum, n.: The place where optimism most flourishes.%Lysistrata had a good idea.%"MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words intothe smallest amount of thoughts." -- Winston Churchill%Machine-Independent, adj.: Does not run on any existing machine.%Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate,and play games -- but not with pleasure. -- Leo Rosten%Mad, adj.: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil themfirst for seven hours, they always come out tender. -- W. C. Fields%MAFIA, n: [Acronym for Mechanized Applications in Forced InsuranceAccounting.] An extensive network with many on-line and offshoresubsystems running under OS, DOS, and IOS. MAFIA documentation israther scanty, and the MAFIA sales office exhibits that testyreluctance to bona fide inquiries which is the hallmark of so many DPoperations. From the little that has seeped out, it would appear thatMAFIA operates under a non-standard protocol, OMERTA, a tight-lippedvariant of SNA, in which extended handshakes also perform complexsecurity functions. The known timesharing aspects of MAFIA point to amore than usually autocratic operating system. Screen prompts carry animperative, nonrefusable weighting (most menus offer simple YES/YESoptions, defaulting to YES) that precludes indifference or delay.Uniquely, all editing under MAFIA is performed centrally, using apowerful rubout feature capable of erasing files, filors, filees, andentire nodal aggravations. -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"%Magnet, n.: Something acted upon by magnetismMagnetism, n.: Something acting upon a magnet.The two definitions immediately preceding are condensed from the worksof one thousand eminent scientists, who have illuminated the subjectwith a great white light, to the inexpressible advancement of humanknowledge. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Magnocartic, adj.: Any automobile that, when left unattended, attracts shopping carts. -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"%Magpie, n.: A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that itmight be taught to talk. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Maier's Law: If the facts don't conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. -- N. R. Maier, "American Psychologist", March 1960Corollaries: (1) The bigger the theory, the better. (2) The experiment may be considered a success if no more than 50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence with the theory.%Main's Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.%Maintainer's Motto: If we can't fix it, it ain't broke.%Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds.Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Majority, n.: That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law.%Make it myself? But I'm a physical organic chemist!%Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, userstend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. Ithas been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems isthe message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. -- System V.2 administrator's guide%Malek's Law: Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.%Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. -- Lily Tomlin%Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is calledupon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. -- Oscar Wilde%Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and theonly one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. -- Wernher von Braun%Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. -- Mark Twain%Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with thevictims he intends to eat until he eats them. -- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)%Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless itis an enemy. -- Albert Einstein%Man, n.: An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Mandrell: "You know what I think?"Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you don't think, right?" -- Dr. Who%Mankind's yearning to engage in sports is older than recorded history,dating back to the time millions of years ago, when the first primitiveman picked up a crude club and a round rock, tossed the rock into theair, and whomped the club into the sloping forehead of the firstprimitive umpire.What inner force drove this first athlete? Your guess is as good asmine. Better, probably, because you haven't had four beers. -- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"%Manual, n.: A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need is in the others. -- Ray Simard%Many years ago in a period commonly known as Next Friday Afternoon,there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because hewas so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and howcompletely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ... -- Walt Kelly%Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery: Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a simple yes or no answer.%Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. -- Voltaire%Maryel brought her bat into Exit once and started whacking people onthe dance floor. Now everyone's doing it. It's called grand slamdancing. -- Ransford, Chicago Reader 10/7/83%Maternity pay? Now every Tom, Dick and Harry will get pregnant. -- Malcolm Smith%Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek%Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them theytranslate into their own language, and forthwith it is somethingentirely different. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe%Mathematicians often resort to something called Hilbert space, which isdescribed as being n-dimensional. Like modern sex, any number canplay. -- Dr. Thor Wald, in "Beep/The Quincunx of Time", by James Blish%"Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence."%Matter cannot be created or destroyed,nor can it be returned without a receipt.%Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. -- Jules Feiffer%May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts.%May Euell Gibbons eat your only copy of the manual!%May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones.%May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of aThousand Caramels.%Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. -- R. S. Barton%Maybe you can't buy happiness, but these daysyou can certainly charge it.%McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95.%Meader's Law: Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to everyone you know, only more so.%Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.%Meeting, n.: An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or department not represented in the room must solve a problem.%Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creaturesfrom Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from AlphaCentauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no manhad split before. Thus was the Empire forged. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams%Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, andit has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skinvery closely, inch by inch, starting at her shapely ankles, then gentlytracing the slender curve of her calves, then moving up to her ... [EDITOR'S NOTE: To make room for news articles about important world events such as agriculture, we're going to delete the next few square feet of the woman's skin. Thank you.]... until finally the two of you are lying there, spent, smoking yourcigarettes, and suddenly it hits you: Human skin is actually made up ofbillions of tiny units of protoplasm, called "cells"! And what is evenmore interesting, the ones on the outside are all dying! This is afact. Your skin is like an aggressive modern corporation, where theolder veteran cells, who have finally worked their way to the top andobtained offices with nice views, are constantly being shoved out thewindow head first, without so much as a pension plan, by youngerhotshot cells moving up from below. -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"%Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife.%Mencken and Nathan's Ninth Law of The Average American: The quality of a champagne is judged by the amount of noise the cork makes when it is popped.%Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards.%Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American: Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can never hope to acquire it.%Menu, n.: A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of.%Meskimen's Law: There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over.%MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED -- The Pershing II missiles have been launched.%Message will arrive in the mail.Destroy, before the FBI sees it.%methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalanylglutamin-ylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolyl-phenylalanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglu-taminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanyl-glycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylala-nylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylgluta-minylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylgly-cylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionyl-leucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleu-cylprolylisoleucylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylva-lylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyro-sylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleu-cylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphe-nylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylala-nylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylas-partylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosyl-glycylarginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycyl-valylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleu-cylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagi-nylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylse-rylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanyl-glycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalylly-sylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpro-lylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalyl-glutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine, n.: The chemical name for tryptophan synthetase A protein, a 1,913-letter enzyme with 267 amino acids. -- Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words%Mickey Mouse wears a Spiro Agnew watch.%Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift.%"Microwave oven? Whaddya mean, it's a microwave oven? I've beenwatching Channel 4 on the thing for two weeks."%Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get youout of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles. -- Casablanca%Mike: "The Fourth Dimension is a shambles?"Bernie: "Nobody ever empties the ashtrays. People are SO inconsiderate." -- Gary Trudeau, "Doonesbury"%Miksch's Law: If a string has one end, then it has another end.%Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. -- Groucho Marx%Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. -- Groucho Marx%Millihelen, adj: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship.%Millions long for immortality who do not know whatto do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz%Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede thatpolitics is almost always the choice of the lesser evil. "Tweedledumand Tweedledee," they say, "I will not vote." Having abstained, theyare presented with a President who appoints the people who are going torummage around in their lives for the next four years. Consider allthe people who sat home in a stew in 1968 rather than vote for HubertHumphrey. They showed Humphrey. Those people who taught HubertHumphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the Nixon Supreme Court whenTricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among the gold and theblack. -- Russel Baker, "Ford without Flummery"%Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what thereis particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined,myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery inthe trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and myunhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. Youwill therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was asdead as a door-nail.%Minnie Mouse is a slow maze learner.%Minors in Kansas City, Missouri, are not allowed to purchase cappistols; they may buy shotguns freely, however.%Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate.%Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it. -- Russell Baker%Misfortune, n.: The kind of fortune that never misses. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Miss, n.: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure.%Mitchell's Law of Committees: Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it.%MOCK APPLE PIE (No Apples Needed) Pastry to two crust 9-inch pie 36 RITZ Crackers2 cups water 2 cups sugar2 teaspoons cream of tartar 2 tablespoons lemon juice Grated rind of one lemon Butter or margarine CinnamonRoll out bottom crust of pastry and fit into 9-inch pie plate. BreakRITZ Crackers coarsely into pastry-lined plate. Combine water, sugarand cream of tartar in saucepan, boil gently for 15 minutes. Add lemonjuice and rind. Cool. Pour this syrup over Crackers, dot generouslywith butter or margarine and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with topcrust. Trim and flute edges together. Cut slits in top crust to letsteam escape. Bake in a hot oven (425 F) 30 to 35 minutes, until crustis crisp and golden. Serve warm. Cut into 6 to 8 slices. -- Found lurking on a Ritz Crackers box%Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.%Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly. An aide once asked himhow he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just lastweek. The great man replied that it was because this week he knew better.%Molecule, n.: The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter... The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing.%Monday is an awful way to spend one seventh of your life.%Monday, n.: In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.%Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots.%Money is the root of all wealth.%Moon, n.: 1. A celestial object whose phase is very important to hackers. See PHASE OF THE MOON. 2. Dave Moon (MOON@MC).%Mophobia, n.: Fear of being verbally abused by a Mississippian.% MORE SPORTS RESULTS:The Beverly Hills Freudians tied the Chicago Rogerians 0-0 lastSaturday night. The match started with a long period of silence whilethe Freudians waited for the Rogerians to free associate and theRogerians waited for the Freudians to say something they couldparaphrase. The stalemate was broken when the Freudians' best playertook the offensive and interpreted the Rogerians' silence as reflectingtheir anal-retentive personalities. At this the Rogerians' star playersaid "I hear you saying you think we're full of ka-ka." This started afight and the match was called by officials.%More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. Onepath leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to totalextinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen, "Side Effects"%Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job.%Most fish live underwater, which is a terrible place to have sexbecause virtually anywhere you lie down there will be stinging crabsand large quantities of little fish staring at you with buggy littleeyes. So generally when two fish want to have sex, they swim aroundand around for hours, looking for someplace to go, until finally thefemale gets really tired and has a terrible headache, and she justdumps her eggs right on the sand and swims away. Then the male, drivenby some timeless, noble instinct for survival, eats the eggs. So thetruth is that fish don't reproduce at all, but there are so many ofthem that it doesn't make any difference. -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every Teen Should Know"%Most people can't understand how others can blow their noses differentlythan they do. -- Turgenev%Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass. -- Frank Zappa%Mother is far too clever to understand anything she does not like. -- Arnold Bennett%Mother is the invention of necessity.%Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before.%Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.%"Multiply in your head" (ordered the compassionate Dr. Adams)"365,365,365,365,365,365 by 365,365,365,365,365,365. He [ten-year-oldTruman Henry Safford] flew around the room like a top, pulled hispantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hands, rolled his eyesin their sockets, sometimes smiling and talking, and then seeming to bein an agony, until, in not more than one minute, said he,133,491,850,208,566,925,016,658,299,941,583,225!" An electroniccomputer might do the job a little faster but it wouldn't be as muchfun to watch. -- James R. Newman (The World of Mathematics)%Murphy's Discovery: Do you know Presidents talk to the country the way men talk towomen? They say, "Trust me, go all the way with me, and everythingwill be all right." And what happens? Nine months later, you're introuble!%Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn'twork.%Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory.%Murphy's Law, that brash proletarian restatement of Godel's Theorem ... -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"% Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touringChile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snappingpictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secretmilitary installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray andEsther and hustle them off to prison. They can't prove who they are because they've left theirpassports in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured dayand night to get them to name their contacts in the liberationmovement.. Finally they're hauled in front of a military court,charged with espionage, and sentenced to death. The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall wherethey'll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks themif they have any lasts requests. Esther wants to know if she can callher daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's notpossible, and turns to Murray. "This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And hespits in the sergeants face. "Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble." -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"%Mustgo, n.: Any item of food that has been sitting in the refrigerator so long it has become a science project. -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"%My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it. -- The Dragon to Grendel, in John Gardner's "Grendel"%My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and Ithrew my amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste.First we checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through theframe, using the belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked upthe amplifier and backed up to my bedroom door. Then we rushedforward, shouting "The WHO! The WHO!" and we launched my amplifierperfectly, as though we had been doing it all our lives, clean throughthe window and down onto the sidewalk, where a small but appreciativecrowd had gathered. I would like to be able to say that this was asymbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away from one statein my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper and Ireally just wanted to find out what it would sound like. It soundedOK. -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"%My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unlessthere are three other people. -- Orson Welles%My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousandtimes as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes andsending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain rightthrough my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody everlistens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to justlog out again.%"My life is a soap opera, but who has the rights?" -- MadameX%My love runs by like a day in June, And he makes no friends of sorrows.He'll tread his galloping rigadoon In the pathway or the morrows.He'll live his days where the sunbeams start Nor could storm or wind uproot him.My own dear love, he is all my heart -- And I wish somebody'd shoot him. -- Dorothy Parker%My love, he's mad, and my love, he's fleet, And a wild young wood-thing bore him!The ways are fair to his roaming feet, And the skies are sunlit for him.As sharply sweet to my heart he seems As the fragrance of acacia.My own dear love, he is all my dreams -- And I wish he were in Asia. -- Dorothy Parker%My mother loved children -- she wouldhave given anything if I had been one. -- Groucho Marx%My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.%My own dear love, he is strong and bold And he cares not what comes after.His words ring sweet as a chime of gold, And his eyes are lit with laughter.He is jubilant as a flag unfurled -- Oh, a girl, she'd not forget him.My own dear love, he is all my world -- And I wish I'd never met him. -- Dorothy Parker%%My pants just went on a wild rampage through a Long Island Bowling Alley!! -- Zippy the Pinhead%My pen is at the bottom of a page,Which, being finished, here the story ends;'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done,But stories somehow lengthen when begun. -- Byron%My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. -- Christopher Morley%"My weight is perfect for my height -- which varies"%Mythology, n.: The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"% n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa); n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc); n = ((n >> 4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n << 4) & 0xf0f0f0f0); n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00); n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000); -- C code which reverses the bits in a word.%Naeser's Law: You can make it foolproof, but you can't make itdamnfoolproof.%NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Guiseppe? Everything he says is wrong.GUISEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says will be right. -- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny"%Nasrudin called at a large house to collect for charity. The servantsaid "My master is out." Nasrudin replied, "Tell your master that nexttime he goes out, he should not leave his face at the window. Someonemight steal it."%Nasrudin returned to his village from the imperial capital, and thevillagers gathered around to hear what had passed. "At this time,"said Nasrudin, "I only want to say that the King spoke to me." All thevillagers but the stupidest ran off to spread the wonderful news. Theremaining villager asked, "What did the King say to you?" "What hesaid -- and quite distinctly, for everyone to hear -- was `Get out ofmy way!'" The simpleton was overjoyed; he had heard words actuallyspoken by the King, and seen the very man they were spoken to.%Nasrudin walked into a shop one day, and the owner came forward toserve him. Nasrudin said, "First things first. Did you see me walkinto your shop?" "Of course." "Have you ever seen me before?" "Never." "Then how do you know it was me?"%Nasrudin walked into a teahouse and declaimed, "The moon is more usefulthan the sun." "Why?", he was asked. "Because at night we need the light more."%Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liverpie. Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece ofmeat from his hand. As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it,"Foolish bird! You have the liver, but what can you do with it withoutthe recipe?"%Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law ofconservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of thefittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where heis most likely to be creamed? -- Solomon Short%Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night,God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light.It did not last; the devil howling "Ho!Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo.%Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, itcannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs. -- Fran Leibowitz%Nearly all men can stand adversity, butif you want to test a man's character, give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln%Necessity is a mother.%Neckties strangle clear thinking. -- Lin Yutang%Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.%Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him.%Never commit yourself! Let someone else commit you.%Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off.%Never drink Coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupledwith the chemicals in Coke produce hallucinations. People tend tochange into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usuallyfly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevatorshave windows.%Never eat more than you can lift. -- Miss Piggy%Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.%Never let your schooling interfere with your education.%Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"%Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found tomake it complex and wonderful.%Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977%Never put off till tomorrow what you can avoid all together.%Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be alaw against it by that time.%Never settle with words what you can accomplish with a flame thrower.%Never tell a lie unless it is absolutely convenient.%Never try to outstubborn a cat. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"%Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. -- Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, UTCS%"Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon."%Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it'ssupposed to do. -- R. A. Heinlein%New crypt. See /usr/news/crypt.%New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or inany way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe.%New members are urgently needed in the Society for Prevention ofCruelty to Yourself. Apply within.%New members urgently required for SUICIDE CLUB, Watford area. -- Monty Python's Big Red Book%New systems generate new problems.%New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, andhis wife most often reminds him to act it. -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary%New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors.%New York's got the ways and means;Just won't let you be. -- The Grateful Dead%Newlan's Truism: An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.%NEWS FLASH!! Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West German pole-vault champion.% *** NEWSFLASH ***Russian tanks steamrolling through New Jersey!!!! Details at eleven!%Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction.%Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law: A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.%Next Friday will not be your lucky day.As a matter of fact, you don't have a lucky day this year.%Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfyingas an income tax refund. -- F. J. Raymond%Nice boy, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. -- Foghorn Leghorn%Nihilism should commence with oneself.%Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his namecorrectly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into(Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, butAmericans call him by value.%Nine megs for the secretaries fair,Seven megs for the hackers scarce,Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,Three megs for system source;One disk to rule them all,One disk to bind them,One disk to hold the filesAnd in the darkness grind 'em.%Nine-track tapes and seven-track tapes And tapes without any tracks;Stretchy tapes and snarley tapes And tapes mixed up on the racks -- Take hold of the tape And pull off the strip, And then you'll be sure Your tape drive will skip. -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes%Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would.The other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much. -- Augustine%Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules: The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.%Nirvana? That's the place where the powers that be and their friendshang out. -- Zonker Harris%No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unlessabsolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation. -- Fran Lebowitz%No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as acamel -- anything as practical and as perfectly designed to performeffectively under such difficult conditions. -- Laurence J. Peter%No good deed goes unpunished. -- Clare Boothe Luce%No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop aftereating one peanut. -- Channing Pollock%No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.%No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades willseriously cramp his style.%No matter what other nations may say about the United States,immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.%No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -- Eleanor Roosevelt%No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid.%No part of this message may reproduce, store itself in a retrievalsystem, or transmit disease, in any form, without the permissiveness ofthe author. -- Chris Shaw%No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff --He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough.Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tameAnd swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame.CHORUS: Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory. Puff the fractal dragon was written in C, And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snailsAnd mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail.All the student hackers loved that fractal PuffBut DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!" (chorus)Puff used more resources than DCS could spare.The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care.A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end,But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again! (chorus)%No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it. -- C. Schulz%No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere.%No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-appliedoccurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as anindication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-definingoccurrence different from the one identified by the given indication asan indication-applied occurrence. -- ALGOL 68 Report%No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind ofpaper. -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was taken over by Rupert Murdoch%No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Considerthe furniture! -- Sherlock Holmes%"No, `Eureka' is Greek for `This bath is too hot.'" -- Dr. Who%Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it. -- Tallulah Bankhead%NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION.%Nobody said computers were going to be polite.%Nobody suffers the pain of birth or the anguish of loving a child inorder for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on thesubstance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the youngand rob the old. -- Lewis Lapham%Nobody wants constructive criticism.It's all we can do to put up with constructive praise.%Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations: Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results.%Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades.%Noncombatant, n.: A dead Quaker. -- Ambrose Bierce%Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.%Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.%Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived theSteelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spatsin their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of themoon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, adream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in everyrespect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and insideit, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms,then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why theychipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine ... -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"%Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none. -- Shakespeare%Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paperis from the wrong kind of tree. -- Professor W., EECS, George Washington University%Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutterof wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmundis astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman --unfortunately, divided lengthwise. She enchants Sigmund, who iscareful not to make any poultry jokes ... -- Woody Allen%Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson%Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up.%Nothing is faster than the speed of light ...To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before thelight comes on.%Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. -- Andrew Young%Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionairestolerate the disadvantages of their wealth. -- Nero Wolfe%Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.Conscience makes egotists of us all. -- Oscar Wilde%Nothing recedes like success. -- Walter Winchell%Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequitedlove. -- Charlie Brown%November, n.: The eleventh twelfth of a weariness. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature.%Now I lay me down to sleepI pray the double lock will keep;May no brick through the window break,And, no one rob me till I awake.%Now is the time for all good men to come to. -- Walt Kelly%Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the nexttime some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TVto plug her latest book. And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt foreating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourselfthe following questions:(1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a food?(2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me?(3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai? (Remember, living right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like longer.)That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick.%Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place calledYorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees thatwere good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ... -- "The Begatting of a President"%Now this is a totally brain damaged algorithm. Gag me with a smurfette. -- P. Buhr, Computer Science 354%... Now you're ready for the actual shopping. Your goal should be toget it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay inthe mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songson the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damagechildren emotionally. For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about asnowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learnto love him, then melts. And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is abouta young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as anoutcast by the other reindeer. Then along comes good, old Santa. Doeshe ignore the deformity? Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respectRudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath? No. Santa asksRudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than somekind of headlight with legs and a tail. So unless you want yourchildren exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shopquickly. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"% Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete hometool sets for under $4?" An excellent question. Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sellplastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and wherethey have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full ofRaisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixonadministration. In either the hardware or housewares department,you'll find an item imported from an obscure Oriental country anddescribed as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of a little handle withinterchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental notions of toolsthat Americans might use around the home. Buy it. This is the kind of tool set professionals use. Not only is itinexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in theso-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right offif you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it todirect sunlight. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile. -- Karl Lehenbauer%Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption ofnormal routines, for children and adults alike. -- Willard F. Libby, "You *Can* Survive Atomic Attack"%Nuclear war would really set back cable. -- Ted Turner%[Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable. -- Edwin Meese III%Nudists are people who wear one-button suits.%(null cookie; hope that's ok)%Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.%O give me a home,Where the buffalo roam,Where the deer and the antelope play,Where seldom is heardA discouraging word,'Cause what can an antelope say?%O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law: Murphy was an optimist.%Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, thereaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatestamount of hot air. -- Thomas L. Martin%Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. -- Plato%Of all the words of witch's doomThere's none so bad as which and whom.The man who kills both which and whomWill be enshrined in our Who's Whom. -- Fletcher Knebel%Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows powertools aren't soluble in alcohol ... -- Crazy Nigel%Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy.%Of what you see in books, believe 75%. Of newspapers, believe 50%.And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears ablazer.%Office Automation, n.: The use of computers to improve efficiency by removing anyone you would want to talk with over coffee.%Ogden's Law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.%Oh Dad! We're ALL Devo!%Oh don't the days seem lank and long When all goes right and none goes wrong,And isn't your life extremely flat With nothing whatever to grumble at!%Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay I muck with indices and structs all dayAnd when it works, I shout hoo-ray Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay%Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'dbe irresponsible, too. -- Lichty & Wagner%Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirthOf sun-split clouds and done a hundred thingsYou have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swungHigh in the sunlit silence.Hovering thereI've chased the shouting wind along and flungMy eager craft through footless halls of air.Up, up along delirious, burning blueI've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,Where never lark, or even eagle flew;And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trodThe high untrespassed sanctity of space,Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. -- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight"%Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes.%Oh, when I was in love with you, Then I was clean and brave,And miles around the wonder grew How well did I behave.And now the fancy passes by, And nothing will remain,And miles around they'll say that I Am quite myself again. -- A. E. Housman%Oh, wow! Look at the moon!%OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard. -- Dr. Joy%OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything.%Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. -- Trotsky%Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address.%Old soldiers never die. Young ones do.%Oliver's Law: Experience is something you don't get until just after you needit.%Omnibiblious, adj.: Indifferent to type of drink. "Oh, you can get me anything. I'm omnibiblious."%OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS?? Oh, YEH!! First you need four GALLONS ofJELL-O and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th' WRENCH in the JELL-Oas if it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ... or ... I ... um ...WHERE'S the WASHING MACHINES?%On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." -- Wolfgang Pauli%On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the onlynation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matterwhat it does. -- Will Rogers% On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed inreceipts of $65. The next day his take was $67. The third day'sincome was $62. But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than$283 on the desk before the cashier. "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier. "This is fantastic. Thatroute never brought in money like this! What happened?" "Well, after three days on that cockamamie route, I figuredbusiness would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street andworked there. I tell you, that street is a gold mine!"%On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men arecreated jerks. -- Avery%On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the propositionthat all men are created jerks. -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"%On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a POINT.%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 two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], `Pray,Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the rightanswers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind ofconfusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. -- Charles Babbage%On-line, adj.: The idea that a human being should always be accessible to acomputer.%Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we wereforced to live on nothing but food and water for days. -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee"%Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time thateach of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of hischoice.In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christianscalled it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka"and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. Peoplepassing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "HappyHanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!" -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"%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 upon whether I embrace yourprincipals or your mistress".%Once Law was sitting on the bench And Mercy knelt a-weeping."Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench! Nor come before me creeping.Upon your knees if you appear,'Tis plain you have no standing here."Then Justice came. His Honor cried: "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!""Amica curiae," she replied -- "Friend of the court, so please you.""Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door --I never saw your face before!" -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest humanbeings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side byside can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between themwhich makes it possible for each to see each other whole against thesky. -- Rainer Rilke% Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of agreat crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly tothe twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way oflife, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. Butone creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it isgoing. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, Ishall die of boredom." The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and thatcurrent you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across therocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go,and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the currentlifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried,"See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See theMessiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the currentsaid, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift usfree, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, thisadventure. But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging tothe rocks, making legends of a Saviour.%Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group ofus bright young students taking number theory discovered the names ofthe smaller prime numbers.2: The Odd Prime -- It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED.3: The True Prime -- Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you three times, it's true."31: The Arbitrary Prime -- Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime in case the prof asked for one, and so had an election. 91 received the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most. However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all.Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities arederived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd buttrue", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers.%... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to youwith ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them. Holidayshoppers have been whipped into a frenzy by months of holidayadvertisements, and they will buy anything small enough to stuff into ashopping bag. If your children object to being tied, threaten to takethem to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them up. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"%Once, adv.: Enough. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at leastsomebody's listening. -- Franklin P. Jones%"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%One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.%One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazinghow many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette. -- Professor Charles P. Issawi%One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tellthe truth. A gallows was erected in front of the city gates. A heraldannounced, "Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth toa question which will be put to him." Nasrudin was first in line. Thecaptain of the guard asked him, "Where are you going? Tell the truth-- the alternative is death by hanging." "I am going," said Nasrudin, "to be hanged on that gallows." "I don't believe you." "Very well, if I have told a lie, then hang me!" "But that would make it the truth!" "Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth."%One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quietwhen well oiled.%One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that theynever have to stop and answer the phone.%One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious. -- Chateaubriand (1768-1848)%One learns to itch where one can scratch. -- Ernest Bramah%One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas asone man would have produced alone. These two plus two more willproduce half again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin torepresent a creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter asmany ... -- Anthony Chevins%One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.%One monk said to the other, "The fish has flopped out of the net! Howwill it live?" The other said, "When you have gotten out of the net,I'll tell you."%One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.%One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Biblefrom one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is atleast 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good partsare, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, butwhen He's good, nobody can touch Him. -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983%One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing todo and always a clever thing to say. -- Will Durant%One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination oftheir C programs. -- Robert Firth% One of the questions that comes up all the time is: Howenthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines manyyears ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines.Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simplelanguage, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great forstudents, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great forinterchanging programs between different machines. And so, because ofits popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX onVAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users willrun out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system andwill end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily andquickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. WithVMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf ofdocumentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's thedifference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMSis that it's all there. -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984%One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender yourseat to another passenger. This may seem callous, but it is the bestway, really. If one passenger were to give a seat to someone whofainted in the aisle, say, the others on the bus would becomedisoriented and imagine they were in Topeka, Kansas.%The Seventh Commandments for Technicians Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thyfellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her inother ways.%The First Commandment for Technicians: Beware the lightening that lurketh in the undischarged capacitor, lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most untechnician-like manner.%One Page Principle: A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch paper cannot be understood. -- Mark Ardis%One planet is all you get.%One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you couldmanufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring thatthey be installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips. Let'ssay your congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-findingstudy on how the French government handles diseases transmitted bysherbet. Just when he got to the plane, his mandatory air bag,strapped around his waist, would inflate -- FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thusrendering him too large to fit through the plane door. It could alsobe rigged to inflate whenever the congressman proposed a law. ("Mr.Speaker, people ask me, why should October be designated as CuticleInspection Month? And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.") This would savemillions of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public would violentlysupport a law requiring airbags on congressmen. The problem is thatyour potential market is very small: there are only around 500 membersof Congress, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil, arealready too large to fit on normal aircraft. -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"%One reason why George WashingtonIs held in such veneration:He never blamed his problemsOn the former Administration. -- George O. Ludcke%One seldom sees a monument to a committee.%One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out ofis fresh paint.%One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is thatsometimes you must work under adverse conditions ... like a state ofsheer terror. -- W. K. Hartmann%One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of anew model.%One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him.%One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burnedat the stake while the votes were being counted. -- Thomas B. Reed%One-Shot Case Study, n.: The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which it is concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes green.%Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps.%Only God can make random selections.%Only presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right touse the editorial "we."%Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer.%Optimization hinders evolution.%Oregano, n.: The ancient Italian art of pizza folding.%Oregon, n.: Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturdaynight.%Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds.Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. -- Mike Adams%Osborn's Law: Variables won't; constants aren't.%Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your nails.%Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble isthey charge fifteen cents for them.%Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, In kernel as it is in user!%Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing. -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president Litton Industries%... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. BoyceConnell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm. Onething I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition. Ifsomebody gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts iton his legal stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do whata lesser person would do, such as get it changed or kill himself. -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!"%Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it. -- Alex Schure%Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. -- General Omar N. Bradley% OUTCONERRTwas FORTRAN as the doloop goes Did logzerneg the ifthen blockAll kludgy were the function flows And subroutines adhoc.Beware the runtime-bug my friend squrooneg, the false gotoBeware the infiniteloop And shun the inprectoo.%Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog,it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx%Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that nowI can remember things that *have* happened before ...%Overdrawn? But I still have checks left!%Overflow on /dev/null: please empty the bit bucket.%Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated.%Ozman's Laws: (1) If someone says he will do something "without fail," he won't. (2) The more people talk on the phone, the less money they make. (3) People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't. (4) Pizza always burns the roof of your mouth.%Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic. -- Ambrose Bierce%panic: can't find /%panic: kernel trap (ignored)%Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, muchbetter. -- Laurie Anderson%Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.%Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.%Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.%Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy tocriticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too. -- D. J. Hicks%Pardo's First Postulate: Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, orfattening.Arnold's Addendum: Everything else causes cancer in rats.%Pardon this fortune. Database under reconstruction.%Parker's Law: Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.%Parkinson's Fifth Law: If there is a way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.%Parkinson's Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.%Parsley is gharsley. -- Ogden Nash%Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.%Pascal is not a high-level language. -- Steven Feiner%Pascal is Pascal is Pascal is dog meat. -- M. Devine and P. Larson, Computer Science 340%Pascal Users: To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half speed.%Pascal, n.: A programming language named after a man who would turn over in his grave if he knew about it. -- Datamation, January 15, 1984%Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. -- Eric Hoffer%Patageometry, n.: The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant under brain transplants.%Paul Revere was a tattle-tale.%Paul's Law: In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save.%Paul's Law: You can't fall off the floor.%Peace, n.: In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Peanut Blossoms4 cups sugar 16 tbsp. milk4 cups brown sugar 4 tsp. vanilla4 cups shortening 14 cups flour8 eggs 4 tsp. soda4 cups peanut butter 4 tsp. saltShape dough into balls. Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookiesheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes. Immediately top each cookie with aHershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie. Makes ahell of a lot.%Pecor's Health-Food Principle: Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in it.%Pedaeration, n.: The perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under thesheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Penguin Trivia #46: Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were. -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82%People need good lies. There are too many bad ones. -- Bokonon, "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.%People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause ofthe future.%People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense. -- Ken Kesey%People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed.%People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much betterpress than people who are just funny and smart. -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post"%People who claim they don't let little things bother them have neverslept in a room with a single mosquito.%People who have what they want are very fond of tellingpeople who haven't what they want that they don't want it. -- Ogden Nash%People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them thatBenjamin Franklin said it first.%People will buy anything that's one to a customer.%People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what theydid yesterday.%Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt."Confound those who have said our remarks before us." -- Aelius Donatus%Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.%Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, butwhen there is no longer anything to take away. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery%Personifiers Unite! You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!%Peter's Law of Substitution: Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after themselves.%Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems sobecause it is next to exciting Camden, New Jersey.%Philogeny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogeny.%Philosophy will clip an angel's wings. -- John Keats%Pick another fortune cookie.%Picture the sun as the origin of two intersecting 6-dimensionalhyperplanes from which we can deduce a certain transformationalsequence which gives us the terminal velocity of a rubber duck ...%Pig, n.: 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, "The Devil's Dictionary"%PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed by the CIA or FBI. You have minor influence over your associates and people resent your flaunting of your power. You lack confidence and you are generally a coward. Pisces people do terrible things to small animals.%PISCES (Feb. 19 to Mar. 20) Take the high road, look for the good things, carry the American Express card and a weapon. The world is yours today, as nobody else wants it. Your mortgage will be foreclosed. You will probably get run over by a bus.% Pittsburgh Driver's Test(7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light but a steady left tail light. This means (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn to call the problem to the driver's attention. (b) the driver is signaling a right turn. (c) the driver is signaling a left turn. (d) the driver is from out of town.The correct answer is (d). Tail lights are used in some foreigncountries to signal turns.% Pittsburgh Driver's Test(8) Pedestrians are (a) irrelevant. (b) communists. (c) a nuisance. (d) difficult to clean off the front grille.The correct answer is (a). Pedestrians are not in cars, so they aretotally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely.%Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. -- Don Marquis%PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem setthan to the solution set. -- E. W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5%"Plaese porrf raed." -- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase%Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopiabecause they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosopherscouldn't compete successfully with poets. -- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer) "Venus on the Half Shell"%Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and killthem.%Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnictable. -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"%Please ignore previous fortune.%Please take note:%Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas"until you are told that those rooms are "punched out". Once punchedout, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas,and such. -- N. Meyrowitz%Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means?% Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities,requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arminto a clogged toilet. In fact, you can solve many home plumbingproblems, such as annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up theradio. But before we get into specific techniques, let's look at howplumbing works. A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system,except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires,it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucetsand toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing atall like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity cankill you. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%PLUNDERER'S THEME(to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius)Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation.Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations.Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.%Pohl's law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.%Police: Good evening, are you the host?Host: No.Police: We've been getting complaints about this party.Host: About the drugs?Police: No.Host: About the guns, then? Is somebody complaining about the guns?Police: No, the noise.Host: Oh, the noise. Well that makes sense because there are no guns or drugs here. (An enormous explosion is heard in the background.) Or fireworks. Who's complaining about the noise? The neighbors?Police: No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago. Most of the recent complaints have come from Pittsburgh. Do you think you could ask the host to quiet things down?Host: No Problem. (At this point, a Volkswagen bug with primitive religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the lawn, where it smashes into a tree. Eight guests tumble out onto the grass, moaning.) See? Things are starting to wind down.%Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tellall their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds.%Politician, n.: 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, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Politician, n.: From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tete" ("head" or "face," as in "tete-a-tete": head to head or face to face). Hence "polytetien", a person of two or more faces. -- Martin Pitt%Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge evenwhere there is no river. -- Nikita Khrushchev%Politics is like coaching a football team. You have to be smart enoughto understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.%Polymer physicists are into chains.%Portable, adj.: Survives system reboot.%Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.%Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. -- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy 1981-1987%Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically.%Power, n: The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA.%Practical people would be more practical if they would take a littlemore time for dreaming. -- J. P. McEvoy%Predestination was doomed from the start.%President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits andforecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax.%President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of thevote. In a democracy, that's not called quitting. -- The Washington Post%Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist!%Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side.%[Prime Minister Joseph] Chamberlain loves the working man -- he lovesto see him work. -- Winston Churchill%Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.%Probable-Possible, my black hen,She lays eggs in the Relative When.She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive NowBecause she's unable to postulate how. -- Frederick Winsor%Probably the question asked most often is: Do one-celled animals haveorgasms? The answer is yes, they have orgasms almost constantly, whichis why they don't mind living in pools of warm slime. -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every Teen Should Know"%Prof: So the American government went to IBM to come up with a data encryption standard and they came up with ...Student: EBCDIC!"%Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem.Eng. 130 midterm. Once again no student received a single point onhis exam. Newell has now tossed five shutouts this quarter. Newell'searned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%%Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:BBW Branch Both WaysBEW Branch Either WayBBBF Branch on Bit Bucket FullBH Branch and HangBMR Branch Multiple RegistersBOB Branch On BugBPO Branch on Power OffBST Backspace and Stretch TapeCDS Condense and Destroy SystemCLBR Clobber RegisterCLBRI Clobber Register ImmediatelyCM Circulate MemoryCMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programmingCPPR Crumple Printer Paper and RipCRN Convert to Roman Numerals%Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:DC Divide and ConquerDMPK Destroy Memory Protect KeyDO Divide and OverflowEMPC Emulate Pocket CalculatorEPI Execute Programmer ImmediatelyEROS Erase Read Only StorageEXCE Execute Customer EngineerHCF Halt and Catch FireIBP Insert Bug and ProceedINSQSW Insert into queue somewhere (for FINO queues [First in never out])PBC Print and Break ChainPDSK Punch Disk%Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set:PI Punch InvalidPOPI Punch Operator ImmediatelyPVLC Punch Variable Length CardRASC Read And Shred CardRPM Read Programmers MindRSSC reduce speed, step carefully (for improved accuracy)RTAB Rewind tape and breakRWDSK rewind diskRWOC Read Writing On CardSCRBL scribble to disk - faster than a writeSLC Search for Lost ChordSPSW Scramble Program Status WordSRSD Seek Record and Scar DiskSTROM Store in Read Only MemoryTDB Transfer and Drop BitWBT Water Binary Tree%"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smallerthan the both put together."%Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Checkthree friends. If they're OK, you're it.%Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get wellanyhow and is certainly a damn fool. -- H. L. Mencken%Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person lovesto spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied wayto indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far thecleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when infact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in alifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end ofthe first day even if they have plenty of food and water. -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"%Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen.%Pushing 40 is exercise enough.%Put no trust in cryptic comments.%Put your Nose to the Grindstone! -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd.%Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand.%Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is?A: One per person.%Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence?A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.%Q: How many DEC repairmen does it take to fix a flat?A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.%Q: How many DEC repairmen does it take to fix a flat?A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.Q: How long does it take?A: It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them.Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats?A: They replace your generator.%Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness.%Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb in San Francisco?A: Both of them.%Q: How many IBM cpu's does it take to do a logical right shift?A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register.%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: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks".%Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb assassin to break the bulb in the first place.%Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?A: One and a half.%Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem to the earlier joke.%Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those Californians trying to share the experience.%Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.%Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way.%Q: What's a light-year?A: One-third less calories than a regular year.%Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?A: Because it was on the other side.%Q: Why do ducks have flat feet?A: To stamp out forest fires.Q: Why do elephants have flat feet?A: To stamp out flaming ducks.%Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home.%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"%Quality Control, n.: The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100 works.%Question:Man Invented Alcohol,God Invented Grass.Who do you trust?%Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!%Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!!%Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.(Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)%Quigley's Law: Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will attempt to use it.%QUOTE OF THE DAY: `%"Qvid me anxivs svm?"%QWERT (kwirt), n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth]: 1. a unit of weight equal to 13 poiuyt avoirdupois (or 1.69kiloliks), commonly used in structural engineering; 2. [colloq.] onethirteenth the load that a fully grown sligo can carry; 3. [anat.] apainful irritation of the dermis in the region of the anus; 4. [slang]person who excites in others the symptoms of a qwert. -- Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed.%Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.%Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of somethingI saw at the airport... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles ofcomputer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airportstore. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being toldall of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how allthe lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Arethey taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the currentrate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions onInformation Theory" at the A&P checkout counters. Who's going to beimpressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the sayinggoes, giving away the store? -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President%Ray's Rule of Precision: Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.%Razors pain you;Rivers are damp;Acids stain you;And drugs cause cramp.Guns aren't lawful;Nooses give;Gas smells awful;You might as well live. -- Dorothy Parker, "Resume", 1926%Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describethe picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately describedwith pictures.%Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member ofCongress. But I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain%Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aestheticvalue but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it ismuch too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't noticethis because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA.%Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardwarehas limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turingmachines are so poor at I/O.%Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers areso long they can't afford the disk space.%Real computer scientists don't program in assembler. They don't writein anything less portable than a number two pencil.%Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinkerwith `programming systems', but those are so high level that theyhardly count (and rarely count accurately; precision is forapplications.)%Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might runon future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homosapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet.%Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structuredprogramming is for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet-trained. They wear neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwiseclear desks.%Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machinedoesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sellquiche.%Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, itshould be hard to understand.%Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, theilliterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look howmuch good it did them.%Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requiresyou to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmerswear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenlyspring up in the middle of the machine room.%Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers writein BASIC after reaching puberty.%Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stressfreaks and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers whowear white socks.%Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers whocan't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN.%Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue.%Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they usefunctions for scratch space after they are finished calling them?%Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness.This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on acomputer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package.%Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way thejob is described in the formal spec. Working late would feel likeusing an undocumented external procedure.%Real Time, adj.: Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs thereand then.%Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're neverafraid to break your face.%Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shutsdown the system for days.%Real Users hate Real Programmers.%Real Users know your home telephone number.%Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when yourprogram doesn't deliver it.%Real Users never use the Help key.%Real World, The n.: 1. In programming, those institutions at which programming maybe used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. Toprogrammers, the location of non-programmers and activities not relatedto programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt andtie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5.4. The location of the status quo. 5. Anywhere outside a university."Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world." Usedpejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talkingof someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about adeceased person.%Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs.%Reality is an obstacle to hallucination.%Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth? -- Patrick Sky%Reality is for people who lack imagination.%Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.%Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity. -- Alvy Ray Smith%Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -- Philip K. Dick%"Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!"%Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better thanbeing flat broke and having a stomach ache. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"%Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when youlose your job. These economic downturns are very difficult to predict,but sophisticated econometric modeling houses like Data Resources andChase Econometrics have successfully predicted 14 of the last 3recessions.%Reclaimer, spare that tree!Take not a single bit!It used to point to me,Now I'm protecting it.It was the reader's CONSThat made it, paired by dot;Now, GC, for the nonce,Thou shalt reclaim it not.% "Reflections on Ice-Breaking"CandyIs dandyBut liquorIs quicker. -- Ogden Nash%"Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universeagain ..." An unusually long pause followed, "... but I don't knowwhich part. We seem to have changed our position in space." Aspherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show thestarfield surrounding the ship."Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORACannounced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but theyare obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have beenintercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, andtransferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown.Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious." -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star"%Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia: If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.%Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin. -- Anatole France%"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it." -- Dave Barry%Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only beworse in Cleveland. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"%Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a goodoffense!%Remember, even if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat.%Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU.%Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life. -- Dave Butler%Renning's Maxim: Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying.%Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization?Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.%Reporter, n.: A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system?SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying thatthe country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You cancarry a pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away."I have no idea why the country folk say this. Maybe there's some kindof chemical pollutant in their drinking water. That is why I pledge todo all that I can to protect the environment of this great nation ofours, and put prayer back in the schools, where it belongs. What weneed is jobs, not empty promises. I realize I'm risking my politicalcareer by being so outspoken on a sensitive issue such as the MX, butthat's just the kind of straight-talking honest person I am, and Ican't help it. -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"%Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Wernher von Braun%Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probablyget another chance later on.%Review Questions(1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH, and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship?(2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week?(3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice?%Rhode's Law: When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening, circumstance, or result can in no way be directly, indirectly, empirically, or circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred, induced, deducted, estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always for the purpose of convenience, expediency, political advantage, material gain, or personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or none of the above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed, proclaimed, and adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably, universally, immutably, and infinitely so, until such time as it becomes advantageous to assume otherwise, maybe.%Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. -- Steven Wright%Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will reject the proposal.%Romeo wasn't bilked in a day. -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo"%ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church- door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.%Rudin's Law: If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do itevery time.%Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London: Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shallbe liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind personshall be deemed to be a cat.%Rule of Creative Research: (1) Never draw what you can copy. (2) Never copy what you can trace. (3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down.%Rule of Defactualization: Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.%Rule of Feline Frustration: When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.%Rule of the Great: When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.%Rules for Academic Deans: (1) HIDE!!!! (2) If they find you, LIE!!!! -- Father Damian C. Fandal%Rules for driving in New York: (1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal. (2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers on. (3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the intersection.%RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED (1) Never eat on an empty stomach. (2) Never leave the table hungry. (3) When traveling, never leave a country hungry. (4) Enjoy your food. (5) Enjoy your companion's food. (6) Really taste your food. It may take several portions to accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned. (7) Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare, for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a brownie. Which feels better against your cheeks? (8) Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal. (9) Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You can always eat it later. (10) Avoid any wine with a childproof cap. (11) Avoid blue food. -- Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet"%Rules: (1) The boss is always right. (2) When the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1.% Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence Tip #1: How to tell when you are dead.(1) Little things start bothering you: little things like worms, bugs, ants.(2) Something is missing in your personal relationships.(3) Your dog becomes overly affectionate.(4) You have a hard time getting a waiter.(5) Exotic birds flock around you.(6) People ignore you at parties.(7) You have a hard time getting up in the morning.(8) You no longer get off on cocaine.% Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence(1) Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear bomb; use the stairs.(2) When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit the ground.(3) If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials.(4) Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to psychological problems.(5) Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc.(6) Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs will be scarce in the post-nuclear age.(7) Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles.(8) Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be staggering illegally.(9) Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more sanitary due to limited circulation.(10) Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on D-Day.%SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21) You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People laugh at you a great deal.%San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was. -- Herb Caen%San Francisco, n.: Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse.%Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold%Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, He must be a communist.And a beard and long hair, Must be a pacifist. What's in that pipe that he's smoking? -- Arlo Guthrie%Satellite Safety Tip #14: If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck.%Sattinger's Law: It works better if you plug it in.%Saturday night in Toledo Ohio, Is like being nowhere at all,All through the day how the hours rush by, You sit in the park and you watch the grass die. -- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio"%Sauron is alive in Argentina!%Save energy: be apathetic.%Save the Whales -- Harpoon a Honda.%Save the whales. Collect the whole set.%Saw a sign on a restaurant that said Breakfast, any time -- so Iordered French Toast in the Renaissance. -- Steven Wright%SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! -- Ken Thompson%Schapiro's Explanation: The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's because they use more manure.%Schizophrenia beats being alone.%Schlattwhapper, n.: The window shade that allows itself to be pulled down, hesitates for a second, then snaps up in your face. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Schnuffel, n.: A dog's practice of continuously nuzzling in your crotch inmixed company. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Schwiggle, n.: The amusing rotation of one's bottom while sharpening apencil. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.%Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it. -- William Buckley%SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21) You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered.%Scott's first Law: No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right.%Scott's second Law: When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be foundto have been wrong in the first place.Corollary: After the correction has been found in error, it will beimpossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation.%Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock?Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.Kirk: Then it's of external origin?Spock: Affirmative.Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.%Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else.%Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as thePresidency. -- Richard Nixon%Second Law of Business Meetings: If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you will pick the wrong one.Corollary: If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it wrong, anyway.%Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State). In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received amultiline message byte. In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC messagemust be sent passive true. The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter: (1) The ANRS if DAV is false (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither: (a) The LADS is active (b) Nor LACS is active -- from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for Programmable Instrumentation%Security check: INTRUDER ALERT!%Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.She scissored short. Sorely shorn,Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,Silently scheming,Sightlessly seekingSome savage, spectacular suicide. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"%"See - the thing is - I'm an absolutist. I mean, kind of ... in a way ..."%Seleznick's Theory of Holistic Medicine: Ice Cream cures all ills.%Self Test for Paranoia: You know you have it when you can't think of anything that'syour own fault.%Seminars, n.: From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion.%Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would notify you if the record has pornographic material or material glorifying violence?"Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me."Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's legs on the album cover is good indication that it's not for little Johnny." -- The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985%Senate, n.: A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties andmisdemeanors. -- Ambrose Bierce%Serenity through viciousness.%Serocki's Stricture: Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.%Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence.% "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeatedthoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MYadvice, I'd have said `Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now." "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly. "Too proud?" the other enquired. Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean,"she said, "that one can't help growing older." "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. Withproper assistance, you might have left off at seven." -- Lewis Carroll%Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build abig store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed atreasonable prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with that, let'sbuild a home center. And before long home centers were springing uplike crabgrass all over the United States. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%Sex is a natural bodily process, like a stroke.%Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. -- Swami X%Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated. -- M. C. Reed.%Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go,it's one of the best. -- Woody Allen%Shamus, n. [Yiddish]: A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around thetemple, and makes sure everything is in working order. A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagoguefunctionaries, and there's a joke about that: A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in themiddle of a service, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The cantor, not to bebested, also cries out, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, "Oh, Lord, Iam nobody!" The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, "Look who thinkshe's nobody!" -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"%Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts offduring games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent. -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every Teen Should Know"%Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.%She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to. -- Gypsy Rose Lee%She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot. -- Mark Twain%She liked him; he was a man of many qualities, even if most of themwere bad.%She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you couldhave poured on a waffle.%She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing,you should hear me play piano.' -- Morrisey%She's genuinely bogus.%Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must havetaken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such anexcess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature. -- Samuel Johnson%SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT!POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE!%Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who isplaying golf with his boss.%Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change.%Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help. -- from the Brown University Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet%Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.%Simon's Law: Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.%Since I hurt my pendulumMy life is all erratic.My parrot, who was cordial,Is now transmitting static.The carpet died, a palm collapsed,The cat keeps doing poo.The only thing that keeps me saneIs talking to my shoe. -- My Shoe%Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they'realive. -- John Sloan%Since we're all here, we must not be all there. -- Bob "Mountain" Beck%[Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of thevices I admire. -- Winston Churchill%Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the VulgateBible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automaticallyexcommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text.This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personallyexamined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the publishedVulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to beprinted and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wrycomments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus hadno recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy.%Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have gotten.%Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goesto work.%Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not,when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, andapparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that Ineither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told atale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension: theywere tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint ofsouls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was atestimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance fromchains. -- Frederick Douglass%Slick's Three Laws of the Universe: (1) Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check. (2) A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat. (3) There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is attracted to dark objects.%Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ...%Slurm, n.: The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when it sits in the dish too long. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. -- Fletcher Knebel%Snacktrek, n.: The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantlyreturning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will havematerialized. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%So as your consumer electronics adviser, I am advising you to donateyour current VCR to a grate resident, who will laugh sardonically andhurl it into a dumpster. Then I want you to go out and purchase a vastarray of 8-millimeter video equipment.... OK! Got everything? Well, *too bad, sucker*, because while youwere gone the electronics industry came up with an even newer formatthat makes your 8-millimeter VCR look as technologically advanced astoenail dirt. This format is called "3.5 hectare" and it will not bemade available until it is outmoded, sometime early next week, by aformat called "Elroy", so *order yours now*. -- Dave Barry, "No Surrender in the Electronics Revolution"%So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels inpraise of intelligence. -- Bertrand Russell%... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, thosewho wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent,and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religiousand otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. -- Voltarine de Cleyre% So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark].With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed tomaneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort ofcorner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than toflop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching towardit, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and --I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily inthe armpit area -- headed right straight toward us. Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard andI were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept ourheads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you'reunarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in waterup to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in theopposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms ofour feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran allthe way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brotherscartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seenthese two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonkedinto trees and coconuts fell onto their heads. -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"%So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an applepie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street popsits head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she veryimprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies,and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top,and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till thegunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots. -- Samuel Foote%... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, theirprocedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so asto infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source ofsharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people makingdocumentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairlylistless. The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, anotherdocumentary." So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking,under the guise of Scientific Research. "We know very little about theeffect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeplyscientific voice. "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great Whitein the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers keep this kind ofthing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, andthen they act as though this was a totally unexpected and verydangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted allalong. -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"%So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway?And why can't he ever remember his Bible?%Sodd's Second Law: Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances isbound to occur.%Software, n.: Formal evening attire for female computer analysts.%Some don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit.%Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them. -- Ed Howe%Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going tocelebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting aroundstringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on"The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kindof subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. Thegovernment would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-levelDepartment of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions andbillions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, whichit would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maimingthousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along withthe Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of moneyand go to a mall. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"%Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and somepeople have mediocrity thrust upon them. -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"%Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have onlyone life to live, let me live it as a jerk."%Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hitthem on the head.%Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic.%Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but whenyou finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be evenworse. -- Avery%Some points to remember [about animals]:(1) Don't go to sleep under big animals, e.g., elephants, rhinoceri, hippopotamuses;(2) Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the front of your clothes;(3) Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or dogs you have just kicked. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%Some primal termite knocked on wood.And tasted it, and found it good.And that is why your Cousin MayFell through the parlor floor today. -- Ogden Nash%Some programming languages manage to absorb change but withstandprogress.%Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstandprogress. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982%Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that thepens will multiply instead of disappear.%Someone will try to honk your nose today.%Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'mthe only ashtray.%Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. -- Lily Tomlin%"Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of theMachineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, thenintimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy menand women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at ourbest, with good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, arewe not God's Machineries of Joy?""If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin." -- R. Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy"%Somewhere, just out of sight, the unicorns are gathering.%Song Title of the Week: "They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the changein me."%Sooner or later you must pay for your sins.(Those who have already paid may disregard this fortune).%Sorry, no fortune this time.%Sorry. I forget what I was going to say.%Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down theroad to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"%"Spare no expense to save money on this one." -- Samuel Goldwyn%Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers: If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him asif he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the questionback at him.%Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes:He only does it to annoy Because he knows it teases. Wow! wow! wow!I speak severely to my boy, And beat him when he sneezes:For he can thoroughly enjoy The pepper when he pleases! Wow! wow! wow! -- Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"%Speak roughly to your little VAX, And boot it when it crashes;It knows that one cannot relax Because the paging thrashes! Wow! Wow! Wow!I speak severely to my VAX, And boot it when it crashes;In spite of all my favorite hacks My jobs it always thrashes! Wow! Wow! Wow!%Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword.%Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman. -- Dave Millman%Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I amsure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging,cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and freethe middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times abit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free acontrolled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it beforepassing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the samememory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well,no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviouslydesigned and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use?%Speaking of Godzilla and other things that convey horror: With a purposeful grimace and a Mongo-like flair He throws the spinning disk drives in the air! And he picks up a Vax and he throws it back down As he wades through the lab making terrible sounds! Helpless users with projects due Scream "My God!" as he stomps on the tape drives, too! Oh, no! He says Unix runs too slow! Go, go, DECzilla! Oh, yes! He's gonna bring up VMS! Go, go, DECzilla!"* VMS is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation* DECzilla is a trademark of Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Death, Inc. -- Curtis Jackson%Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequentlythese days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of peopleto communicate with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can'tcommunicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and soon. And the characters in these books and plays and so on (and in reallife, I might add) spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can'tcommunicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very _____leasthe can do is to Shut Up! -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was"%Speed is subsittute fo accurancy.%Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading: The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the number of times you have looked at it.%Spelling is a lossed art.%Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers.%Spirtle, n.: The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in your eye. -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"%Spouse, n.: Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single.%Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantistdrivel; Star Trek can turn your brains to pur'ee of bat guano; and thegreatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'lltake you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up! -- Harlan Ellison%Stay away from flying saucers today.%Stay away from hurricanes for a while.%Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly.%Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy: Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have another drink.%Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming: Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.%Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you.%Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you.Now, if they'd only take a bath ...%Stult's Report: Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is fight the solutions.%Stupid, adj.: Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay.%Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?%Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.%Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; youreditor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. -- Mark Twain%Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the waybefore it is understood.%Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring.%Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminarwithout his duck ...%(Sung to the tune of "The Impossible Dream" from MAN OF LA MANCHA) To code the impossible code, To bring up a virgin machine, To pop out of endless recursion, To grok what appears on the screen, To right the unrightable bug, To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To mount the unmountable magtape, To stop the unstoppable crash!%Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!%Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy.%Support your local police force -- steal!!%Support your local Search and Rescue unit -- get lost.%Sure he's sharp as a razor ... he's a two-dimensional pinhead!%Surprise due today. Also the rent.%Surprise your boss. Get to work on time.%Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just typein your name and social security number. Please remember that leavingthe room is punishable under law:Name #%Swahili, n.: The language used by the National Enquirer to print their retractions. -- Johnny Hart%Sweater, n.: A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly.%Swipple's Rule of Order: He who shouts the loudest has the floor.%Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982%System/3! System/3!See how it runs! See how it runs! Its monitor loses so totally! It runs all its programs in RPG! It's made by our favorite monopoly!System/3!%Systems have sub-systems and sub-systems have sub-systems and so on adinfinitum -- which is why we're always starting over. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982%Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weaselsstart closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals andthen drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with themusic at top volume and at least a pint of ether. -- H. S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"%T: One big monster, he called TROLL. He don't rock, and he don't roll; Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies. He just Love To Eat Them Roguies. -- The Roguelet's ABC%Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has ahole in his head.%Tact, n.: The unsaid part of what you're thinking.%Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way.%Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally gettingenough cheese. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"%Take it easy, we're in a hurry.%Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but itneeds a very clever woman to manage a fool. -- Kipling%Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content to sitback and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a goodbeverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown updrinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put anail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolvesand the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" SoCoca-Cola was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management sawno need to improve ... -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"%Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way toyour execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms,and they'll call you crazy. -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul"%Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. -- Euripides%Talkers are no good doers. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"%Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. -- Friedrich Nietzsche%TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20) You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged determination and work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bull headed. You are a Communist.%Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behindthe tree." -- Russell Long%Taxes are going up so fast, the government is likely to price itselfout of the market.%Taxes, n.: Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get an extension.%Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when theygrows up, they will never be able to edge a car onto a freeway.%Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else.%Technological progress has merely provided uswith more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley%Telephone, n.: An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. -- Ambrose Bierce%Tell me, O Octopus, I begs,Is those things arms, or is they legs?I marvel at thee, Octopus;If I were thou, I'd call me us. -- Ogden Nash%Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stopwriting. -- R. Geis%Terence, this is stupid stuff:You eat your victuals fast enough;There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,To see the rate you drink your beer.But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,It gives a chap the belly-ache.The cow, the old cow, she is dead;It sleeps well the horned head:We poor lads, 'tis our turn nowTo hear such tunes as killed the cow.Pretty friendship 'tis to rhymeYour friends to death before their time.Moping, melancholy mad:Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad. -- A. E. Housman%Termiter's argument that God is His own grandmother generated a surprisingamount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one hand consideredthe argument unsupported by scripture but on the other hand were unwillingto risk offending God's grandmother. -- Len Cool, "American Pie"%Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was apagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his cityuntil about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him isascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believebecause it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historicalfact, for he merely said: "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain because it is impossible."Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty ofphilosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it. -- C. G. Jung, in Psychological Types(Tertullian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church).%Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones.%Texas law forbids anyone to have a pair of pliers in his possession.%Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, evenone which cannot be justified on any other grounds. -- J. Finnegan, USC.%Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future. -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly%That boy's about as sharp as a pound of wet liver -- Foghorn Leghorn%That must be wonderful: I don't understand it at all. -- Moliere%That secret you've been guarding, isn't.%That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them. -- Dorothy Parker%The 80's -- when you can't tell hairstyles from chemotherapy.%The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded bypeople who want some. -- Dwight MacDonald%The Abrams' Principle: The shortest distance between two points is off the wall.%The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper -- Thomas Jefferson%The Advertising Agency Song: When your client's hopping mad, Put his picture in the ad. If he still should prove refractory, Add a picture of his factory.%The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mugsomeone with it. -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340%... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem thatconsists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tuneof "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has tolisten to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%The Arkansas legislature passed a law that states that the ArkansasRiver can rise no higher than to the Main Street bridge in LittleRock.%The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion.Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creedand color, but also on ability. -- T. Lehrer%The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe. -- Bill Murray%The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical usein effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in theDeclaration not for that, but for future use. -- Abraham Lincoln%The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m.%The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because theaverage man can see better than he can think.%The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on bypeople who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and triedanything. -- Jim Joyce, owner of Jim Joyce's UNIX Bookstore%The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient thancities. Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded anddifficult to park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots,which are also dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but --here is the big difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NORULES. You're allowed to do anything. You can drive as fast as youwant in any direction you want. I was once driving in a mall parkinglot when my car was struck by a pickup truck being driven backward by asquat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" on his forearm, who got outand explained to me, in great detail, why the accident was my fault,his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, whereas I wasneither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall parkinglots. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"%The basic menu item, in fact the ONLY menu item, would be a food unitcalled the "patty," consisting of -- this would be guaranteed inwriting -- "100 percent animal matter of some kind." All patties wouldbe heated up and then cooled back down in electronic devicesimmediately before serving. The Breakfast Patty would be a patty on abun with lettuce, tomato, onion, egg, Ba-Ko-Bits, Cheez Whiz, a SpecialSauce made by pouring ketchup out of a bottle and a little slip ofpaper stating: "Inspected by Number 12". The Lunch or Dinner Pattywould be any Breakfast Patties that didn't get sold in the morning.The Seafood Lover's Patty would be any patties that were starting toemit a serious aroma. Patties that were too rank even to be SeafoodLover's Patties would be compressed into wads and sold as "Nuggets." -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"%The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland";but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.%The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. -- W. C. Fields%The best defense against logic is ignorance.%The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time.%"The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff andblow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake atnight listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your onlylove, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, orknow your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is onlyone thing for it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and whatwags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust,never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and neverdream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what alot of things there are to learn." -- T. H. White, "The Once and Future King"%The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of themis a match. -- Will Rogers%The bigger the theory the better.%The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reusetime. -- Merrick Furst%The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for MissManners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public.It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has beenknown to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and,in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or twounder the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight ofpeople strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up acity considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shakingumbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind ofactivity that frightens the horses on the street ...%The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch.%The bogosity meter just pegged.%The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get upin the morning, and does not stop until you get to school.%The Briggs/Chase Law of Program Development: To determine how long it will take to write and debug a program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and convert to the next higher units.%The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be.Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed inautomobile accidents than are killed by buffalo. -- Art Buchwald%The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expandingbureaucracy.%The C Programming Language -- A language which combines theflexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language.%The camel has a single hump;The dromedary two;Or else the other way around.I'm never sure. Are you? -- Ogden Nash%The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastlygreater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemedinventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinnerparty of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics. -- H. L. Mencken%The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain. -- G. Fitch%The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show upat the steam fitters' picnic.%The chief cause of problems is solutions. -- Eric Sevareid%The chief danger in life is that you may take too may precautions. -- Alfred Adler%The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I willwalk carefully. -- Russian Proverb%The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere.%The Computer made me do it.%The computing field is always in need of new cliches. -- Alan Perlis%The confusion of a staff member is measured by the length of hismemos. -- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981%The conservation movement is a breeding ground of Communists and othersubversives. We intend to clean them out, even if it means rounding upevery bird watcher in the country. -- John Mitchell, Atty. General 1969-1972%The Consultant's Curse: When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give himwhat he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strongmedicine, and is normally only required once.%The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it isnone of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but."Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period.Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get youtalked about. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"%The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.%The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down.%The cow is nothing but a machine which makes grass fit for us people toeat. -- John McNulty%The Crown is full of it! -- Nate Harris, 1775%The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition shouldtherefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country couldhardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only todeclare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny ... In war,then, as in peace, assert the freedom of speech and of the press.Cling to this as the bulwark of all our rights and privileges. -- William Ellery Channing%The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.%The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most ofus who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watchingCharlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe.%The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary?%The devil finds work for idle circuits to do.%The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fellinto the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged himout again, it would be a calamity. -- Benjamin Disraeli%The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that sciencerequires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship. -- Robert Heinlein%The District of Columbia has a law forbidding you to exert pressure ona balloon and thereby cause a whistling sound on the streets.%The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no manreally clever who has not found that he is stupid. -- Gilbert K. Chesterson%The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to showoff this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on hisnext hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as theduck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved theduck and returned it to his master. "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly. "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim."%The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in lateand owns the worm farm. -- Travis McGee%The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier.%The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income andadd ten percent.%The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does onweather forecasters. -- Jean-Paul Kauffmann%"The eleventh commandment was `Thou Shalt Compute' or `Thou Shalt NotCompute' -- I forget which." -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982%The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die ofcivilization. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson%The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, withsymposium to follow.%The English have no respect for their language, and will not teachtheir children to speak it. -- G. B. Shaw%The fact that boys are allowed to exist at all is evidence of aremarkable Christian forbearance among men. -- Ambrose Bierce%The fact that it works is immaterial. -- L. Ogborn%The faster we go, the rounder we get. -- The Grateful Dead%The Fifth Rule: You have taken yourself too seriously.%The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. -- Abbie Hoffman%The first Great Steward, Parrafin the Climber, was employed in KingChloroplast's kitchen as second scullery boy when the old King met atragic death. He apparently fell backward by accident on a dozen saladforks. Simultaneously the true heir, his son Carotene, mysteriouslyfled the city, complaining of some sort of plot and a lot ofthreatening notes left on his breakfast tray. At the time, this lookedsuspicious what with his father's death, and Carotene was suspected offoul play. Then the rest of the King's relatives began to drop deadone after the other in an odd fashion. Some were found strangled withdishrags and some succumbed to food poisoning. A few were founddrowned in the soup vats, and one was attacked by assailants unknownand beaten to death with a pot roast. At least three appear to havethrown themselves backward on salad forks, perhaps in a noble gestureof grief over the King's untimely end. Finally there was no one leftin Minas Troney who was either eligible or willing to wear the accursedcrown, and the rule of Twodor was up for grabs. The scullery slaveParrafin bravely accepted the Stewardship of Twodor until that day whena lineal descendant of Carotene's returns to reclaim his rightfulthrone, conquer Twodor's enemies, and revamp the postal system. -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"%The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth ofmanagement is that success equals skill. -- Robert Heller%The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewishchild, was propounded to me by my father: "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- andwhistles?" I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexitygave up. "A herring," said my father. "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!" "So hang it there." "But a herring isn't green!" I protested. "Paint it." "But a herring isn't wet." "If it's just painted it's still wet." "But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herringdoesn't whistle!!" "Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make ithard." -- Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish"%"The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving yourhands and hoping when a rock or a club will do." -- McCloctnik the Lucid%The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it.The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet. -- Michael Jackson%The first time, it's a KLUDGE!The second, a trick.Later, it's a well-established technique! -- Mike Broido, Intermetrics%The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk FunctionsManual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals:As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector oflogical blocks. From a performance viewpoint, however, it is moreappropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, thefour dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector. . . .Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessibleblocks form a line parallel to the track axis. This line movesparallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edgeof the hyper-cube.%The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and bya major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities.%The four building blocks of the universe are fire, water, gravel andvinyl. -- Dave Barry%The full impact of parenthood doesn't hit you until you multiply thenumber of your kids by 32 teeth.%The generation of random numbers is too important to be left tochance.%The gentlemen looked one another over with microscopic carelessness.%The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of thecenter we find the South End. This is not to be confused with SouthBoston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the SouthEnd is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.%The giraffe you thought you offended last week is willing to be nuzzledtoday.%The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last atleast until we've finished building it.%The goal of science is to build better mousetraps.The goal of nature is to build better mice.%The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave himlove and he invented marriage.%THE GOLDEN RULE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES The one who has the gold makes the rules.%"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those whomake empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicianshave made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confineman in the bonds of Hell." -- St. Augustine%The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've gotto be good. -- John Barrymore% "The Good Ship Enterprise" (to the tune of "The Good Ship Lollipop")On the good ship EnterpriseEvery week there's a new surpriseWhere the Romulans lurkAnd the Klingons often go berserk.Yes, the good ship EnterpriseThere's excitement anywhere it fliesWhere Tribbles playAnd Nurse Chapel never gets her way. See Captain Kirk standing on the bridge, Mr. Spock is at his side. The weekly menace, ooh-ooh It gets fried, scattered far and wide.It's the good ship EnterpriseHeading out where danger liesAnd you live in dreadIf you're wearing a shirt that's red. -- Doris Robin and Karen Trimble of The L.A. Filkharmonics%The government [is] extremely fond of amassing great quantities ofstatistics. These are raised to the _nth degree, the cube roots areextracted, and the results are arranged into elaborate and impressivedisplays. What must be kept ever in mind, however, is that in everycase, the figures are first put down by a village watchman, and he putsdown anything he damn well pleases. -- Sir Josiah Stamp%The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by allwho have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature. -- Benjamin Franklin.%The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog: The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in courtship, his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk clerks. Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods of time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog Eater. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by menof zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis%The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. -- Albert Einstein%The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a customwhereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary, nohow.%The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: You can never be sure how many beers you had last night.%The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independentthinkers.%The hieroglyphics are all unreadable except for a notation on the back,which reads "Genuine authentic Egyptian papyrus. Guaranteed to be atleast 5000 years old."%The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion forlists of "Ten Best". -- H. Allen Smith%The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy andhas gills through which it can see. -- Monty Python%The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent ofits capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.%The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strangeprotein -- it rejects it. -- P. Medawar%The human race has been fascinated by sharks for as long as I canremember. Just like the bluebird feeding its young, or the spiderstruggling to weave its perfect web, or the buttercup blooming inspring, the shark reveals to us yet another of the infinite andwonderful facets of nature, namely the facet that it can bite your headoff. This causes us humans to feel a certain degree of awe. -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"%The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. -- Mark Twain%The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in thatprocession but carrying a banner. -- Mark Twain%The idea is to die young as late as possible. -- Ashley Montague%The idea there was that consumers would bring their broken electronicdevices, such as television sets and VCR's, to the destruction centers,where trained personnel would whack them (the devices) withsledgehammers. With their devices thus permanently destroyed,consumers would then be free to go out and buy new devices, rather thanhave to fritter away years of their lives trying to have the old onesrepaired at so-called "factory service centers," which in fact consistof two men named Lester poking at the insides of broken electronicdevices with cheap cigars and going, "Lookit all them WIRES in there!" -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"%The identical is equal to itself, since it is different. -- Franco Spisani%The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer. -- Henry Kissinger%The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golfhas. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't knowwhen it's through if you are a crook or a martyr. -- Will Rogers%The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an importantpoint to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasinglyimportant thing to people. -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King%The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of thenumber of participants. -- Adam Walinsky%The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group dividedby the number of people in the group.%The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-freeinformation hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of adynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them areal tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless.So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business neverpays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a bigconsumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes... -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"%The Kennedy Constant: Don't get mad -- get even.%The Killer Ducks are coming!!!%The ladies men admire, I've heard,Would shudder at a wicked word.Their candle gives a single light;They'd rather stay at home at night.They do not keep awake till three,Nor read erotic poetry.They never sanction the impure,Nor recognize an overture.They shrink from powders and from paints...So far, I've had no complaints. -- Dorothy Parker%The last time somebody said, "I find I can write much better with aword processor," I replied, "They used to say the same thing aboutdrugs." -- Roy Blount, Jr.%The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make thelaw free. -- Henry David Thoreau%The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as thepoor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to stealbread. -- Anatole France%The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of allmen should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is theuniversal weakness of mankind that what we are given to administer wepresently imagine we own. -- H. G. Wells% THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLESIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming LanguageEnvironment. This language, developed at the Hanover College forTechnological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write codewith errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't makea syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thusthey achieve the results of programs written in other languages withoutthe tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.% THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHPThis otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence ofan "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is saidto be useful in protheththing lithtth.% THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOLSLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler.Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while theycompile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick thecoffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredomsitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program tocompile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (butinfinitely faster) language, COCAINE.% THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRENamed after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremelyunstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they justare. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions.SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun atparties.% THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: C-This language was named for the grade received by its creator when hesubmitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- isbest described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, thelanguage generally requires more C- statements than machine-codestatements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is verysimilar to COBOL.% THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18a: FIFTHFIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data typesrefer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, andJIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM andBLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY,CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND.The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication andfinancial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect includeVSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCHand RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmerswho end up using this language.% THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENENamed after the famous French philosopher and mathematician ReneDesCartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. Thelanguage is being developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politicsand Programming under a grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. Aspokesman described the language as "Just as great as dis [sic] city ofours."The center is very pleased with progress to date. They say they havealmost succeeded in getting a VAX to think. However, sources inside theorganization say that each time the machine fails to think it ceases toexist.% THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #5: VALGOLFrom its modest beginnings in Southern California's San Fernando Valley,VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge of popularity across the industry.Here is a sample program: LIKE, Y*KNOW(I MEAN)START IF PIZZA = LIKE BITCHEN AND GUY = LIKE TUBULAR AND VALLEY GIRL = LIKE GRODY**MAX(FERSURE)**2 THEN FOR I = LIKE 1 TO OH*MAYBE 100 DO*WAH - (DITTY**2) BARF(I)=TOTALLY GROSS(OUT) SURE LIKE BAG THIS PROGRAM REALLY LIKE TOTALLY (Y*KNOW) IM*SURE GOTO THE MALLWhen the user makes a syntax error, the interpreter displays the message: GAG ME WITH A SPOON!!% THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACKThis language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi,Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative tothe more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley.The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubswhile they worked. Unfortunately few programmers could survive therebecause the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu andPerrier.Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentleand non-threatening language since all error messages are in lowercase. For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with themessage: "i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that. can you find the time to try it again?"%The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approachingtrain.%The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon.%The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't getmuch sleep. -- Woody Allen%The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself. -- Henry Kissinger%The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much aswe could with both of them. -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"%The makers may makeAnd the users may use,But the fixers must fixWith but minimal clues%The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than thecrowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places noone has ever been. -- Alan Ashley-Pitt%The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something thatwill always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. -- Mark Twain.%The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of asoda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car whichwhen properly cared for will rust out in two or three years.%"... the Mayo Clinic, named after its founder, Dr. Ted Clinic ..." -- Dave Barry%The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.% The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while theklutz said, "Life is like a bowl of sour cream." "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?" "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?"%The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks todevise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation. -- Lew Mammel, Jr.%The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what mightbe general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested thelaw that any field that had the word "science" in its name wasguaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examplesMilitary Science, Library Science, Political Science, HomemakingScience, Social Science, and Computer Science. Discuss the generalityof this law, and possible reasons for its predictivepower. -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking."%The modern child will answer you back before you've said anything. -- Laurence J. Peter%The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me. -- Nicol Williamson%The moon is a planet just like the Earth, only it is even deader.%The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away.%The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and thelower the mailing cost. -- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"%The more laws and order are made prominent,the more thieves and robbers there will be. -- Lao Tsu%The more things change, the more they stay insane.%The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of usis right.%The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey. -- Andy Warhol%The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing andto watch someone else do it wrong without comment. -- Theodore H. White%The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds newdiscoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov%The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on.%... the MYSTERIANS are in here with my CORDUROY SOAP DISH!!% "... The name of the song is called `Haddocks' Eyes'!" "Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying tofeel interested. "No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a littlevexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is, `The AgedAged Man.'" "Then I ought to have said "That's what the song is called'?"Alice corrected herself. "No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song iscalled `Ways and Means': but that's only what it is called you know!" "Well, what is the song then?" said Alice, who was by this timecompletely bewildered. "I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is"A-sitting on a Gate": and the tune's my own invention." -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"%"The National Association of Theater Concessionaires reported that in1986, 60% of all candy sold in movie theaters was sold to Roger Ebert." -- D. Letterman%The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says: Support your right to bare arms!%The net of law is spread so wide,No sinner from its sweep may hide.Its meshes are so fine and strong,They take in every child of wrong.O wondrous web of mystery!Big fish alone escape from thee! -- James Jeffrey Roche%The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. Ihope I don't get run over again.%The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory,in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system. But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. -- Matthew 5:37%"The New York Times is read by the people who run the country. TheWashington Post is read by the people who think they run the country.The National Enquirer is read by the people who think Elvis is aliveand running the country ..." -- Robert J Woodhead%The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them tochoose from. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum%The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the80-column card. -- Dennis M. Ritchie%The notion that the church, the press, and the universities shouldserve the state is essentially a Communist notion ... In a free societythese institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that theirfunction is to serve as checks upon the state. -- Alan Barth%The number of arguments is unimportant unless some of them arecorrect. -- Ralph Hartley%The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughlyanalyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to theiroccurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solvethese problems when called upon.However, when you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult toremind yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp.%The Official MBA Handbook on business cards: Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate Planning."%The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy.%The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that agebrings wisdom. -- H. L. Mencken%The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the readercatch his own breath. -- Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart%The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know whento cringe.%The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the`social sciences' is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford%The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stopand take a rest.%The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon. -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and Over and Over"%The only really decent thing to do behind a person's back is pat it.%The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumberhas already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture,finished, and put inside boxes. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on.It is never any use to oneself. -- Oscar Wilde%The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing fromhistory. -- HegelI know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking thelong view. -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar"%The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. -- Oscar Wilde%The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get upuntil 5 or 6 p.m.%The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Bohr%The optimum committee has no members. -- Norman Augustine%The other day I put instant coffee in my microwave oven ... I almostwent back in time. -- Steven Wright%The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant becauseit isn't here. -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley)%The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if itwere not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence. -- H. L. Mencken% The people of Halifax invented the trampoline. During theVictorian period the tripe-dressers of Halifax stretched tripe across alarge wooden frame and jumped up and down on it to `tender and dress'it. The tripoline, as they called it, degenerated into becoming theapparatus for a spectator sport. The people of Halifax also invented the harmonium, a device forcastrating pigs during Sunday service. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%The Pig, if I am not mistaken,Gives us ham and pork and Bacon.Let others think his heart is big,I think it stupid of the Pig. -- Ogden Nash%The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batterswang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time thebatter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. Thecenter fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minutehis eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it. -- Dizzy Dean%The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose. -- David Lardner%The polite thing to do has always been to address people as they wishto be addressed, to treat them in a way they think dignified. But itis equally important to accept and tolerate different standards ofcourtesy, not expecting everyone else to adapt to one's ownpreferences. Only then can we hope to restore the insult to its propersocial function of expressing true distaste. -- Judith Martin, "Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior"%The porcupine with the sharpest quills gets stuck on a tree more often.%The Preacher, the Politician, the Teacher, Were each of them once a kiddie.A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature. Do I want one? God Forbiddie! -- Ogden Nash%The President publicly apologized today to all those offended by hisbrother's remark, "There's more Arabs in this country than there isJews!". Those offended include Arabs, Jews, and English teachers. -- Baltimore, Channel 11 News, on Jimmy Carter%The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that somedaythey might force their beliefs on us. -- Mario Cuomo%The primary cause of failure in electrical appliances is an expiredwarranty. Often, you can get an appliance running again simply bychanging the warranty expiration date with a 15/64-inch felt-tippedmarker. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names toconstants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at everyappearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATAstatement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. Thisalso simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change. -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers%The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enoughvoters to win the next election.%The primary theme of SoupCon is communication. The acronym "LEO"represents the secondary theme: Law Enforcement OfficialsThe overall theme of SoupCon shall be: Avoiding Communication with Law Enforcement Officials -- M. Gallaher%... the privileged being which we call human is distinguished fromother animals only by certain double-edged manifestations which incharity we can only call "inhuman." -- R. A. Lafferty%The probability of someone watching you is proportional to thestupidity of your action.%The problem ... is that we have run out of dinosaurs to form oil with.Scientists working for the Department of Energy have tried to form oilusing other animals; they've piled thousands of tons of sand and MiddleEastern countries on top of cows, raccoons, haddock, laboratory rats,etc., but so far all they have managed to do is run up an enormousbulldozer-rental bill and anger a lot of Middle Eastern persons. Noneof the animals turned into oil, although most of the laboratory ratsdeveloped cancer. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"%The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to goto erase it. -- Glaser and Way%The problem with engineers is that they tend to cheat in order to getresults.The problem with mathematicians is that they tend to work on toyproblems in order to get results.The problem with program verifiers is that they tend to cheat at toyproblems in order to get results.%The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can bepretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues. -- Elizabeth Taylor%The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.%The Psblurtex is an 18-inch long anaconda that hides in the gentlemen'soutfitting departments of Amazonian stores and is often bought bymistake since its colors are those of the London Reform Club. Oncetied around its victim's neck, it strangles him gently and then claimsthe insurance before running off to Germany where it lives in hiding. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%"The pyramid is opening!""Which one?""The one with the ever-widening hole in it!" -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All"%The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's: "My brain is paged out to my liver"%The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What isit about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television,that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece ofindustrial waste? -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"%The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella,But chiefly on the just, because The unjust steals the just's umbrella. --Lord Bowen%The reader this message encounters not failing to understand iscursed.%The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much.%The reason it's called "Grape Nuts" is that it contains "dextrose",which is also sometimes called "grape sugar", and also because "GrapeNuts" is catchier, in terms of marketing, than "A Cross Between GerbilFood and Gravel", which is what it tastes like. -- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"%The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable onepersists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore allprogress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw%The revolution will not be televised.%The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. -- Emerson%The rhino is a homely beast,For human eyes he's not a feast.Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros,I'll stare at something less prepoceros. -- Ogden Nash%The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. Thismeans that only left handed people are in their right mind.%"The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jestsand to his imagination for his facts." -- Sheridan%The right to revolt has sources deep in our history. -- Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas%The rights you have are the rights given you by this Committee [theHouse Un-American Activities Committee]. We will determine what rightsyou have and what rights you have not got. -- J. Parnell Thomas%The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And littered withsloppy analysis!%The Roman Rule The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.%The Ruffed Pandanga of Borneo and Rotherham spreads out his feathers inhis courtship dance and imitates Winston Churchill and Tommy Cooper onone leg. The padanga is dying out because the female padanga doesn'ttake it too seriously. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"%The rule on staying alive as a forecaster is to give 'em a number orgive 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once. -- Jane Bryant Quinn%"The Schizophrenic: An Unauthorized Autobiography"%The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100showed that all had these things in common: (1) They all had moderate appetites. (2) They all came from middle class homes (3) All but two of them were dead.%The scum also rises. -- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson%The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes,respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven millstonesfrom Man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until themillstones are lifted. -- George Bernard Shaw% The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hoodas he reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all.The Gray Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar inthe palace of Gilpkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts intwenty-five of him are dead, he is alive. "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breachedeverywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by afierce host which out-numbers Lankhmar's inhabitants by fifty to one --and equipped with all modern weapons. Yet you can save the city." "How?" demanded Fafhrd. Ningauble shrugged. "You're a hero. You should know." -- Fritz Leiber, from "The Swords of Lankhmar"%The sheep that fly over your head are soon to land.%The shortest distance between two points is under construction. -- Noelie Alito%The Sixth Commandment of Frisbee: The greatest single aid to distance is for the disc to be goingin a direction you did not want. (Goes the wrong way = Goes a longway.) -- Dan Roddick%The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activityand tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exaltedactivity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ...neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.%The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find their money. -- Ed Bluestone, "The National Lampoon"%The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up!%The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the sooner you will beable to correct them. -- Nicolaides%The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.%The Soviet pre-eminence in chess can be traced to the average Russian'sreadiness to brood obsessively over anything, even the arrangement ofsome pieces of wood. Indeed, the Russians' predisposition for quietreflection followed by sudden preventive action explains why they ledthe field for many years in both chess and ax murders. It is wellknown that as early as 1970, the U.S.S.R., aware of what a defeat atReykjavik would do to national prestige, implemented a vigorous programof preparation and incentive. Every day for an entire year, a team ofpsychologists, chess analysts and coaches met with the top threeRussian grand masters and threatened them with a pointy stick. Thatthese tactics proved fruitless is now a part of chess history and afurther testament to the American way, which provides that if you wantsomething badly enough, you can always go to Iceland and get it fromthe Russians. -- Marshall Brickman, Playboy, April, 1973% The STAR WARS Song Sung to the tune of "Lola", by the Kinks:I met him in a swamp down in DagobahWhere it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda S-O-D-A sodaI saw the little runt sitting there on a logI asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo YodaWell I've been around but I ain't never seenA guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo YodaWell I'm not dumb but I can't understandHow he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda%The state law of Pennsylvania prohibits singing in the bathtub.%The steady state of disks is full. -- Ken Thompson% THE STORY OF CREATION or THE MYTH OF URKIn the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null,and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBMwas moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there beregisters"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried;and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the dataStack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was eveningand there was morning, one interrupt. -- Rico Tudor%The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who makethem unsafe. -- Mayor Frank Rizzo%The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group andis an emerging underachiever.%The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephantbiology.%"The subspace _W inherits the other 8 properties of _V. And there aren'teven any property taxes." -- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b%The sum of the Universe is zero.%The sun was shining on the sea,Shining with all his might:He did his very best to makeThe billows smooth and bright --And this was very odd, because it wasThe middle of the night. -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass"%The superfluous is very necessary. -- Voltaire%The surest protection against temptation is cowardice. -- Mark Twain%The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Ourauthority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be asthe light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, asthe light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as muchradiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as muchas the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light wereceive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from theSun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven willheat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal tothe heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as muchheat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law forradiation, (_H/_E)^4 = 50, where _E is the absolute temperature of theearth (-300K), gives _H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hellcannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But thefearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake whichburneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone meansthat its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. Wehave, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C. -- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972%The Third Law of Photography: If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out.%The Three Laws of Thermodynamics: (1) You can't get anything without working for it. (2) The most you can accomplish by working is to break even. (3) You can only break even at absolute zero.% The Three Major Kind of Tools* Tools for hitting things to make them loose or to tighten them up or jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a manner that they function perfectly. (These are your hammers, maces, bludgeons, and truncheons.)* Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot. (Awls)* Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far greater than the value of any project that could possibly result. (Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.) -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%The trouble with a kitten is thatWhen it grows up, it's always a cat -- Ogden Nash.%The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.%The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciateit. -- Franklin P. Jones%The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothingmore important to do.%The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobodyappreciates how difficult it was.%The trouble with superheros is what to do between phone booths. -- Ken Kesey%The truth is what is; what should be is a dirty lie. -- Lenny Bruce%The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility.And vice versa.%The turtle lives 'twixt plated decksWhich practically conceal its sex.I think it clever of the turtleIn such a fix to be so fertile. -- Ogden Nash%The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison%The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no moreannoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation. -- Oscar Wilde%The United States also has its native Fascists who say that they are"100 percent American"... -- U.S. Army (1945)%The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine toeverybody and still nobody likes him. -- Jim Samuels%The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can bebroken.%The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but thecombination is locked up in the safe. -- Peter DeVries%The University of California Bears announced the signing of ReggiePhilbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is saidto make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of hisdecision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride."%The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges andreligious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs rangingfrom the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at itsyielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of theworld put together. -- Sir Peter Medawar%The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, beregarded as a criminal offense. -- E. W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5%The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokesthe worst cigars. -- H. L. Mencken%The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluidprejudice. -- Mark Twain%The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the factsto fit their views ... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen tobe one of the facts that needs altering. -- Doctor Who, "Face of Evil"%The voters have spoken, the bastards ...%"The wages of sin are death; but after they're done taking out taxes,it's just a tired feeling:"%The wages of sin are high but you get your money's worth.%"The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguitythat would be clearly understood." -- Alexander Haig%The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to startwith a large fortune.% THE WOMBATThe wombat lives across the seas,Among the far Antipodes.He may exist on nuts and berries,Or then again, on missionaries;His distant habitat precludesConclusive knowledge of his moods.But I would not engage the wombatIn any form of mortal combat.%The world is coming to an end ... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!%The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books!%The world is coming to an end. Please log off.%The world's as ugly as sin,And almost as delightful. -- Frederick Locker-Lampson%The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages offour and eighteen. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen allthe answers.%Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations.He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the Jordan,then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an openmarket.If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he shouldnot accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of himself.Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree.Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg.Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"%Then here's to the City of Boston,The town of the cries and the groans.Where the Cabots can't see the Kabotschniks,And the Lowells won't speak to the Cohns. -- Franklin Pierce Adams% THEORYInto love and out again, Thus I went and thus I go.Spare your voice, and hold your pen: Well and bitterly I knowAll the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said;Could it be, when I was young, Someone dropped me on my head? -- Dorothy Parker%There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable,and praiseworthy ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%There are many intelligent species in the universe. They all owncats.%There are no data that cannot be plotted on a straight line if the axisare chosen correctly.%There are no games on this system.%There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because theexistence of a "hottest part" implies a temperature difference, and anymarginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heatengine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This isobviously impossible. -- Richard Davisson%There are people so addicted to exaggerationthat they can't tell the truth without lying. -- Josh Billings%There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or avagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone. -- Gloria Steinem% There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee thatsomeone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew namedJohnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid orLarsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee thatevery other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why isthis? Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question forcenturies and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think ___youcan find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it'sforbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster-- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don'teven understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discoverwhy there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance. -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"%There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of bothplants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis;and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again,don't we all?%There are those who claim that magic is like the tide; that it swellsand fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentratedpools here and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leavingthem parched for wonder. There are also those who believe that if youstick your fingers up your nose and blow, it will increase yourintelligence. -- The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII%There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. -- Benjamin Disraeli%There are three possibilities:Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from the sun;there's a large meteor blocking transmission; orsomeone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor.%There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must beoffered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begina series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amountof food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount ofaffection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately.When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating.Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. -- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior%There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, andengineers. While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by farthe more certain. -- Baron Rothschild, ca. 1800%There are three schools of magic. One: State a tautology, then ringthe changes on its corollaries; that's philosophy. Two: Record manyfacts. Try to find a pattern. Then make a wrong guess at the nextfact; that's science. Three: Be aware that you live in a malevolentUniverse controlled by Murphy's Law, sometimes offset by Brewster'sFactor; that's engineering.%There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third Ican't remember. -- Italo Svevo%There are three ways to get something done: (1) Do it yourself. (2) Hire someone to do it for you. (3) Forbid your kids to do it.%There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hiresomeone, or forbid your kids to do it.%There are times when truth is stranger than fiction and lunch time isone of them.%There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collectthe sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect thesunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"%There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The goodsleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more. -- Woody Allen%"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is tomake is so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and theother way is to make it so complicated that there are no obviousdeficiencies." -- C. A. R. Hoare%There are two ways of disliking poetry: one way is to dislike it, theother is to read Pope. -- Oscar Wilde%There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third oneworks.%There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through asuitable application of high explosives.%There can be no twisted thought without a twisted molecule. -- R. W. Gerard%There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. -- Henry Kissinger%There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than 10 men or fewerthan 100. -- Steele's Law%There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you knownothing about.%There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for anopinion. -- Anatole France%There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that ofpaying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write.%There is a green, multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.%There is a Massachusetts law requiring all dogs to have their hind legstied during the month of April.%There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish. -- Walt Disney%There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor,Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, andlove of the Fatherland. -- Adolf Hitler%There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactlywhat the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantlydisappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre andinexplicable. There is another theory which states that this hasalready happened. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"%There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in avacuum. -- Arthur C. Clarke%There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. -- Mark Twain%There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion thetools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will notabuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics andwar hold him in check. And also the wife who wants him home by five,of course. -- Encyclopedia Apocryphia, 1990 ed.%There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home. -- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society Convention, 1977%There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. -- G. B. Shaw%There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fastreflexes.%There is no such thing as fortune. Try again.%There is no time like the pleasant.%There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to bedoing.%There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY.There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS. I'm very probably wrong.%"There is nothing which cannot be answered by means of my doctrine,"said a monk, coming into a teahouse where Nasrudin sat. "And yet just a short time ago, I was challenged by a scholarwith an unanswerable question," said Nasrudin. "I could have answered it if I had been there." "Very well. He asked, `Why are you breaking into my house inthe middle of the night?'"%There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in theocean level wouldn't cure. -- Ross MacDonald%There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, andthat is not being talked about. -- Oscar Wilde%There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesalereturns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. -- Mark Twain%There once was a girl named IreneWho lived on distilled kerosene But she started absorbin' A new hydrocarbonAnd since then has never benzene.%There once was a member of MensaWho was a most excellent fencer. The sword that he used Was his -- (line is refused,And has now been removed by the censor).%There once was an old man from Esser,Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser. It at last grew so small, He knew nothing at all,And now he's a College Professor.%There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. -- C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia%There was a plane crash over mid-ocean, and only three survivors wereleft in the life-raft: the Pope, the President, and Mayor Daley.Unfortunately, it was a one-man life-raft, and quickly sinking, so theystarted debating who should be allowed to stay.The Pope pointed out that he was the spiritual leader of millions allover the world, the President explained that if he died then Americawould be stuck with the Vice-President, and so forth. Then Mayor Daleysaid, "Look! We're not solving anything like this! The only fairthing to do is to vote on it." So they did, and Mayor Daley won by 97votes.%There was a young lady from HydeWho ate a green apple and died. While her lover lamented The apple fermentedAnd made cider inside her inside.%There was a young man who said "God,I find it exceedingly odd, That the willow oak tree Continues to be,When there's no one about in the Quad.""Dear Sir, your astonishment's odd,For I'm always about in the Quad; And that's why the tree, Continues to be,"Signed "Yours faithfully, God."%There was a young poet named Dan,Whose poetry never would scan. When told this was so, He said, "Yes, I know.%There was a young poet named Dan,Whose poetry never would scan. When told this was so, He said, "Yes, I know.It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that last line that I can."%"There was an interesting development in the CBS-Westmoreland trial:both sides agreed that after the trial, Andy Rooney would be allowed totalk to the jury for three minutes about little things that annoyed himduring the trial." -- David Letterman%There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger ofthe two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double-digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the8-cent postcard. The second was responsible for such things as thetransistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelitystereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negativefeedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switchingsystems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, thefirst electrical digital computer, and the first communicationssatellite. Guess which one got to tell the other how to run thetelephone business?%There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's nota fence.%There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to.%There's little in taking or giving, There's little in water or wine:This living, this living, this living, Was never a project of mine.Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is The gain of the one at the top,For art is a form of catharsis, And love is a permanent flop,And work is the province of cattle, And rest's for a clam in a shell,So I'm thinking of throwing the battle -- Would you kindly direct me to hell? -- Dorothy Parker%There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through ourwhole lives, win, lose, or draw. -- Walt Kelly%There's no future in time travel.%There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. -- Dr. Who%There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't getany worse.%There's no room in the drug world for amateurs.%There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole governmentworking for you. -- Will Rodgers%There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and deadarmadillos. -- Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner%There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won'taggravate.%There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learnwhat it is I'll get married again. -- Clint Eastwood%There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin isbecoming an endangered synthetic. -- Lily Tomlin%"These are DARK TIMES for all mankind's HIGHEST VALUES!""These are DARK TIMES for FREEDOM and PROSPERITY!""These are GREAT TIMES to put your money on BAD GUY to kick the CRAPout of MEGATON MAN!"%These days the necessities of life cost you about three times what theyused to, and half the time they aren't even fit to drink.%They also surf who only stand on waves.%They make a desert and call it peace. -- Tacitus (55?-120?)%They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreignersalways spell better than they pronounce. -- Mark Twain%They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporarysafety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759%They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!%They told me you had proven it When they discovered our results About a month before. Their hair began to curlThe proof was valid, more or less Instead of understanding it But rather less than more. We'd run the thing through PRL.He sent them word that we would try Don't tell a soul about all this To pass where they had failed For it must ever beAnd after we were done, to them A secret, kept from all the rest The new proof would be mailed. Between yourself and me.My notion was to start again Ignoring all they'd doneWe quickly turned it into code To see if it would run.%They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid!%They're unfriendly, which is fortunate, really. They'd be difficult to like. -- Avon%Things are more like they used to be than they are now.%Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face.%Think big. Pollute the Mississippi.%Think honk if you're a telepath.%Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!%Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computercrashes.%Think twice before speaking, but don't say "think think click click".%"Thirty days hath Septober,April, June, and no wonder.all the rest have peanut butterexcept my father who wears red suspenders."%This Fortue Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14%This fortune intentionally not included.%This fortune is false.%This fortune is inoperative. Please try another.%This is a country where people are free to practice their religion,regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling keys...%This is a job for BOB VIOLENCE and SCUM, the INCREDIBLY STUPID MUTANT DOG. -- Bob Violence%This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. If this had been anactual emergency, do you really think we'd stick around to tell you?%This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly,because the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy underwhich it recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has"deregulated" the airline industry. What this means for you, theconsumer, is that the airlines are no longer required to follow anyrules whatsoever. They can show snuff movies. They can charge foroxygen. They can hire pilots right out of Vending Machine RefillPerson School. They can conserve fuel by ejecting husky passengersover water. They can ram competing planes in mid-air. Theseinnovations have resulted in tremendous cost savings which have beenpassed along to you, the consumer, in the form of flights withamazingly low fares, such as $29. Of course, certain restrictions doapply, the main one being that all these flights take you to Newark,and you must pay thousands of dollars if you want to fly back out. -- Dave Barry, "Iowa -- Land of Secure Vacations"%This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement.%This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot,For them to read when they're in trouble And I am not. -- A. E. Housman%"This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go backto one." -- Prof. Seager, C&O 351%This is National Non-Dairy Creamer Week.%THIS IS PLEDGE WEEK FOR THE FORTUNE PROGRAMIf you like the fortune program, why not support it now with yourcontribution of a pithy fortune, clean or obscene? We cannot continuewithout your support. Less than 14% of all fortune users arecontributors. That means that 86% of you are getting a free ride. Wecan't go on like this much longer. Federal cutbacks mean less moneyfor fortunes, and unless user contributions increase to make up thedifference, the fortune program will have to shut down between midnightand 8 a.m. Don't let this happen. Mail your fortunes right now to"fortune". Just type in your favorite pithy saying. Do it now beforeyou forget. Our target is 300 new fortunes by the end of the week.Don't miss out. All fortunes will be acknowledged. If you contribute30 fortunes or more, you will receive a free subscription to "TheFortune Hunter", our monthly program guide. If you contribute 50 ormore, you will receive a free "Fortune Hunter" coffee mug ....%This is the ____LAST time I take travel suggestions from Ray Bradbury!%This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates thepower of computers:Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instructthe thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with aminimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. Theresults are that one should eat each day: 1/2 chicken 1 egg 1 glass of skim milk 27 heads of lettuce. -- Rev. Adrian Melott%This is the story of the beeWhose sex is very hard to seeYou cannot tell the he from the sheBut she can tell, and so can heThe little bee is never stillShe has no time to take the pillAnd that is why, in times like theseThere are so many sons of bees.%This is your fortune.%This land is full of trousers!this land is full of mausers! And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down! -- Firesign Theater%This land is made of mountains,This land is made of mud,This land has lots of everything,For me and Elmer Fudd.This land has lots of trousers,This land has lots of mousers,And pussycats to eat themWhen the sun goes down.%This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life,you would have received further instructions as to what to do and whereto go.%This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88%This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled withgreat force. -- Dorothy Parker%This planet has -- or rather had -- a problem, which was this: most ofthe people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Manysolutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these werelargely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper,which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces ofpaper that were unhappy. -- Douglas Adams%This process can check if this value is zero, and if it is, it doessomething child-like. -- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454%This quote is taken from the Diamondback, the University of Marylandstudent newspaper, of Tuesday, 3/10/87. One disadvantage of the Univac system is that it does not use Unix, a recently developed program which translates from one computer language to another and has a built-in editing system which identifies errors in the original program.%This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't. -- Hofstadter%... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal livesas well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, asdetermined by (1) price and (2) lack of availability. Eighties peoplebuy imported dental floss. They buy gourmet baking soda. If an '80scouple goes to a restaurant where they have made a reservation threeweeks in advance, and they are informed that their table is available,they stalk out immediately, because they know it is not an excellentrestaurant. If it were, it would have an enormous crowd ofexcellence-oriented people like themselves waiting, their beepers goingoff like crickets in the night. An excellent restaurant wouldn't havea table ready immediately for anybody below the rank of Liza Minnelli. -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence"%This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it.% Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entirerainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel betterthan he does. As for the truth about his health: I have asked around aboutit. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadilysane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if weconsider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he isbeing eaten alive by tinhorn politicians. The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we cando for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in hishonor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans canbe as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to publicrelations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from HunterThompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes.This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease. -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72"%Those of you who think you know everything are very annoying to thoseof us who do.%Those who can't write, write manuals.%Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.%Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics. -- French Proverb%Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer%Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents,for these only gave life, those the art of living well. -- Aristotle%Those who express random thoughts to legislative committees are oftensurprised and appalled to find themselves the instigators of law. -- Mark B. Cohen%Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.%Those who make peaceful revolution impossiblewill make violent revolution inevitable. -- John F. Kennedy%Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, aremen who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the oceanwithout the roar of its many waters. -- Frederick Douglass%Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe arethe molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, withHaeckel, the condensation or precipitation of matter from ether --whose existence is proved by the condensation or precipitation ... Afifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know anymore about the matter than the others. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Time flies like an arrowFruit flies like a banana%Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.%Time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so. -- Ford Prefect%Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen atonce.%'Tis the dream of each programmer,Before his life is done,To write three lines of APL,And make the damn things run.% (to "The Caissons Go Rolling Along")Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plugRoll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tugAnd the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all,Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hallAnd the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash.And we've also found Just flip one switchWhen you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitchYou turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble in a flash.Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPUNow the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo,"And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash.% To A Quick Young Fox:Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp,Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice?Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp --Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice. -- Lazy Dog%To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it.%To be is to do. -- I. KantTo do is to be. -- A. SartreYabba-Dabba-Doo! -- F. Flintstone%"To be responsive at this time, though I will simply say, and thereforethis is a repeat of what I said previously, that which I am unable tooffer in response is based on information available to make no suchstatement."%To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit,call it the target.%To err is human, to forgive is Not Company Policy.%To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System.%To err is human, to moo bovine.%To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D. -- B. Duggan%To generalize is to be an idiot. -- William Blake%To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than threemen, two of them absent.%To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. -- Thomas Edison%To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. -- Robert Heller%To the best of my recollection, Senator, I can't recall.%To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to providea test load.%To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventionalsystem development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy,inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence:precision and flexibility may be just as dysfunctional in novel,uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar,well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structuresof dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their verysecure ecological niche. -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers"%To understand this important story, you have to understand how thetelephone company works. Your telephone is connected to a localcomputer, which is in turn connected to a regional computer, which isin turn connected to a loudspeaker the size of a garbage truck on thelawn of Edna A. Bargewater of Lawrence, Kan.Whenever you talk on the phone, your local computer listens in. If itsuspects you're going to discuss an intimate topic, it notifies thecomputer above it, which listens in and decides whether to alert theone above it, until finally, if you really humiliate yourself, maybebreak down in tears and tell your closest friend about a sordidincident from your past involving a seedy motel, a neighbor's spouse,an entire religious order, a garden hose and six quarts of tapiocapudding, the top computer feeds your conversation into Edna'sloudspeaker, and she and her friends come out on the porch to listenand drink gin and laugh themselves silly. -- Dave Barry, "Won't It Be Just Great Owning Our Own Phones?"%To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?%To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition. -- Woody Allen%Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official.%Today is National Existential Ennui Awareness Day.%Today is the first day of the rest of the mess.%Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage.%Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.%Today's scientific question is: What in the world is electricity?And where does it go after it leaves the toaster? -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"%Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great newcereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for morespectacular adventure starring ... Tippy, the Wonder Dog! -- Bob & Ray%Today, of course, it is considered very poor taste to use the F-wordexcept in major motion pictures. -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"%Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest.%Tonight's the night: Sleep in a eucalyptus tree.%Too clever is dumb. -- Ogden Nash%Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL. -- Mae West%Too much of everything is just enough. -- Bob Wier%Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the availablebriefcases. -- Governor Jerry Brown%Top scientists agree that with the present rate of consumption, theearth's supply of gravity will be exhausted before the 24th century.As man struggles to discover cheaper alternatives, we need your help.Please... CONSERVE GRAVITYFollow these simple suggestions:(1) Walk with a light step. Carry helium balloons if possible.(2) Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights.(3) Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like curling.(4) Avoid showers ... take baths instead.(5) Don't hang all your clothes in the closet ... Keep them in one big pile.(6) Stop flipping pancakes%Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow.%Troubled day for virgins over 16 who are beautiful and wealthy and livein eucalyptus trees.%Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence. -- Henrik Tikkanen%Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it. -- Mark Twain%Truth will be out this morning. (Which may really mess things up.)%Truthful, adj.: Dumb and illiterate. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational. -- Charles Schulz%Try to be the best of whatever you are, even if what you are is no good.%Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done,is it being done, or is something to be done? Reports are now writtenin four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, andpretense. Watch for novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmer),defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and theabsolutely perfect future. -- Amrom Katz%Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.%Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the onlyspecification is that it should run noiselessly.%Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth. -- Alan Watts%Turnaucka's Law: The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord.%Tussman's Law: Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.%TV is chewing gum for the eyes. -- Frank Lloyd Wright%'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacksDid gyre and gimble in their caveAll mimsy was the CS-VAXAnd Cory raths outgrabe."Beware the software rot, my son!The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash!Beware the broken pipe, and shunThe frumious system crash!"% 'Twas the Night before Crisis'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house, Not a program was working not even a browse.The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care, Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer.The users were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of inquiries danced in their heads.When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter.And what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear.More rapid than eagles, his programs they came, And he whistled and shouted and called them by name;On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete! On Batch Jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete!His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean, From Weekends and nights in front of a screen.A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread...%'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And throughout our place of residence,Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus,Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ...%Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing. -- Walt Kelly%Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel%Two men came before Nasrudin when he was magistrate. The first mansaid, "This man has bitten my ear -- I demand compensation." Thesecond man said, "He bit it himself." Nasrudin withdrew to hischambers, and spent an hour trying to bite his own ear. He succeededonly in falling over and bruising his forehead. Returning to thecourtroom, Nasrudin pronounced, "Examine the man whose ear was bitten.If his forehead is bruised, he did it himself and the case isdismissed. If his forehead is not bruised, the other man did it andmust pay three silver pieces."%Two percent of zero is almost nothing.%Two sure ways to tell a sexy male; the first is, he has a bad memory.I forget the second.%Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.%U: There's a U -- a Unicorn! Run right up and rub its horn. Look at all those points you're losing! UMBER HULKS are so confusing. -- The Roguelet's ABC%"Ubi non accusator, ibi non judex."(Where there is no police, there is no speed limit.) -- Roman Law, trans. Petr Beckmann (1971)%UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist.%"Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?""It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food,right?" -- MacNelley, "Shoe"%Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it.%Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for ajust man is also a prison. -- Henry David Thoreau%Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for ajust man is also in prison. -- Henry David Thoreau%Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, itcan wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic ...%Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics: Superiority is recessive.%Unfair animal names:-- tsetse fly -- bullhead-- booby -- duck-billed platypus-- sapsucker -- Clarence -- Gary Larson%United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of theChristmas season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike ofall the military forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts ofall the patriots of every persuasion.Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time low over theworld. -- Isaac Asimov%Universe, n.: The problem.%University, n.: Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to fix it, and ...%unix soit qui mal y pense%UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old onTue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch). -- Andy Tannenbaum%Unnamed Law: If it happens, it must be possible.%Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays outtwice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages. -- H. L. Mencken%Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir%User n.: A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.%USER, n.: The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot." -- Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top"%Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach. -- S. C. Johnson%Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two,opulence is when you have three -- and paradise is when you have none. -- Doug Larson%Vail's Second Axiom: The amount of work to be done increases in proportion to the amount of work already completed.%Valerie: Aww, Tom, you're going maudlin on me ...Tom: I reserve the right to wax maudlin as I wane eloquent ... -- Tom Chapin%Van Roy's Law: An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.%Vanilla, adj.: Ordinary flavor, standard. See FLAVOR. When used of food,very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanillaextract! For example, "vanilla-flavored won ton soup" (or simply"vanilla won ton soup") means ordinary won ton soup, as opposed to hotand sour won ton soup.%Velilind's Laws of Experimentation: (1) If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once. (2) If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.%Veni, Vidi, Visa.% "Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the pastyear strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barleyreap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject theirartichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a bluemoon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbonHolstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and theentrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of thesun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips." "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it madegood copy." -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"%Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.%Vila: "I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life."Orac: "It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater mistakes waiting to be made by someone with your obvious talent for it."%Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Salvor Hardin%Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in theyard.%VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22) Learn something new today, like how to spell or how to count to ten without using your fingers. Be careful dressing this morning. You may be hit by a car later in the day and you wouldn't want to be taken to the doctor's office in some of that old underwear you own.%VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22) You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and sometimes fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus drivers.%"Virtual" means never knowing where your next byte is coming from.%Virtue is its own punishment.%Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously movingfrom where you left them to where you can't find them.%Vitamin C deficiency is apauling.%VMS is like a nightmare about RSX-11M.%Vote anarchist.%Vote for ME -- I'm well-tapered, half-cocked, ill-conceived andTAX-DEFERRED!%VYARZERZOMANIMORORSEZASSEZANSERAREORSES?%"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." -- Mark Twain%Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?"1st customer: "I'll have tea."2nd customer: "Me, too -- and be sure the glass is clean!" (Waiter exits, returns)Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?"%Walk softly and carry a megawatt laser.%War hath no fury like a non-combatant. -- Charles Edward Montague%War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable.% WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL:Firings will continue until morale improves.%WARNING: Reading this fortune can affect the dimensionality of your mind, change the curvature of your spine, cause the growth of hair on your palms, and make a difference in the outcome of your favorite war.%Warning: Listening to WXRT on April Fools' Day is not recommended forthose who are slightly disoriented the first few hours after wakingup. -- Chicago Reader 4/22/83%Warp 7 -- It's a law we can live with.%Washington [D.C.] is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. -- John F. Kennedy%Waste not, get your budget cut next year.%Wasting time is an important part of living.%Watson's Law: The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the number and significance of any persons watching it.%We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question whichdivides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of beingcorrect. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough. -- Niels Bohr%We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -- Oscar Wilde%We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm. -- Winston Churchill%We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it. -- Whole Earth Catalog%We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo"%We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, tosocialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by itself. Thebad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its ... Did I saysocialism? -- Fidel Castro%We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-lasttheorem. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982%We are upping our standards ... so up yours. -- Pat Paulsen for President, 1988.%We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved.%We can predict everything, except the future.%We cannot put the face of a person on a stamp unless said person isdeceased. My suggestion, therefore, is that you drop dead. -- James E. Day, Postmaster General%We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty! -- Vroomfondel%"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."%We don't know who discovered water, but we're certain it wasn't afish.%We gave you an atomic bomb, what do you want, mermaids? -- I. I. Rabi to the Atomic Energy Commission%We had it tough ... I had to get up at 9 o'clock at night, half anhour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours downmill, and when we came home our Dad would kill us, and dance about onour grave singing Hallelujah ... -- Monty Python%We have met the enemy, and he is us. -- Walt Kelly%We have only two things to worry about: That things will never getback to normal, and that they already have.%We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free hishands for masturbation. -- Lily Tomlin%We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has anofficial name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian DeathFlu". You may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wishyou had another setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", thatsaid "ELECTROCUTION".Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) yourteeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushingprocess, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for acouple of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sidewaysout of your mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpastestalagmites that would bond your head permanently to the bathroomfloor, which is how the police would find you.You know the kind of flu I'm talking about. -- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"%We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in allpurely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to startwith? Many people think that a very abstract activity, like theplaying of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it isbest to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money canbuy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. -- Alan M. Turing%We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we alwaysrespect their good judgment.%We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackassno matter how self-seeking. -- F. G. Withington%We ought to be very grateful that we have tools. Millions of years agopeople did not have them, and home projects were extremely difficult.For example, when a primitive person wanted to put up paneling, he hadto drive the little paneling nails into the cave wall with his barefist, so generally the paneling wound up getting spattered withprimitive blood, which isn't really all that bad when you consider howugly paneling is to begin with. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our bestfriends are trying to kill us.% We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a MerleHaggard song at a French restaurant. ... I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, ofher milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. Ihad punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyonetold him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he waslean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then hefought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doingwhat men must do. ... "Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terriblesadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knewnot how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with aquiet and peace I will never forget. "I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "thetollway belle's for thee." The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness wasa lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as Ipoured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day. -- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway Competition%We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve onetechnical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter.%we will invent new lullabies, new songs, new acts of love,we will cry over things we used to laugh &our new wisdom will bring tears to eyes of gentilecreatures from other planets who were afraid of us till then &in the end a summer with wild winds &new friends will be.%We wish you a Hare KrishnaWe wish you a Hare KrishnaWe wish you a Hare KrishnaAnd a Sun Myung Moon! -- Maxwell Smart%We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later.%We're deep into the holiday gift-giving season, as you can tell fromthe fact that everywhere you look, you see jolly old St. Nick urgingyou to purchase things, to the point where you want to slug him rightin his bowl full of jelly. -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"%We're only in it for the volume. -- Black Sabbath%We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The centerof the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week,but for some reason nobody's ever done it. -- Andy Rooney%Weiler's Law: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.%Weinberg's First Law: Progress is made on alternate Fridays.%Weinberg's Principle: An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.%Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.%Weiner's Law of Libraries: There are no answers, only cross references.%Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy ifyou run out of food. -- Dean McLaughlin.%Well, here it is, 1983, so it won't be long before you start reading alot of boring stories about people like Vance Hartke. Hartke is agovernor or mayor or something from one of the flatter states, and thereason you'll be reading about him is that he's one of the 50 topcontenders for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. These menwill spend the next 18 months going around the country engaging in themost degrading activities imaginable, such as wearing idiot hats andappearing on "Meet the Press". "Meet the Press" is one of those Sundaymorning public interest shows that the public is not the least bitinterested in. It features a panel of reporters who ask questions of aguest politician, who wins an Amana home freezer if he can get throughthe entire show without answering a single question ... -- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"%Well, I would -- if they realized that we -- again if -- if we led themback to that stalemate only because our retaliatory power, our seconds,or strike at them after our first strike, would be so destructive theythey couldn't afford it, that would hold them off. -- President Ronald Reagan, on the MX missile%Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *___can*you believe?! -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]%Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail, And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail;I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.If you think that it's nice that you get what you C, Then go : illogical statement with your whole family,'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views. I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues.On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze, But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze.Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. -- Core Dumped Blues%"Well, that was a piece of cake, eh K-9?""Piece of cake, Master? Radial slice of baked confection ...coefficient of relevance to Key of Time: zero." -- Dr. Who%"Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool isno wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand fivehundred." -- The Mahabharata.%Westheimer's Discovery: A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library.%Wethern's Law: Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.%"What are we going to do?""Me, I'm examining the major Western religions. I'm looking forsomething that's soft on morality, generous with holidays, and has ashort initiation period."%"What are you doing?""Examining the world's major religions. I'm looking for somethingthat's light on morals, has lots of holidays, and with a shortinitiation period."%What color is a chameleon on a mirror?% "What do you give a man who has everything?" the prettyteenager asked her mother. "Encouragement, dear," she replied.%What does "it" mean in the sentence "What time is it?"?%What does it mean if there is no fortune for you?%What garlic is to food, insanity is to art.%What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.%"What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, sothat we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running ourcountry. Nice try anyway, George." -- D.J. on KSFO/KYA%What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find theentrance?%What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't followin his footsteps?%What I do, first thing [in the morning], is I hop into the showerstall. Then I hop right back out, because when I hopped in I landedbarefoot right on top of See Threepio, a little plastic robot characterfrom "Star Wars" whom my son, Robert, likes to pull the legs off ofwhile he showers. Then I hop right back into the stall because ourdog, Earnest, who has been alone in the basement all night building uppowerful dog emotions, has come bounding and quivering into thebathroom and wants to greet me with 60 or 70 thousand playful nips, anyone of which -- bear in mind that I am naked and, without my contactlenses, essentially blind -- could result in the kind of injury whereyou have to learn a whole new part if you want to sing the "Messiah",if you get my drift. Then I hop right back out, because Robert, withthat uncanny sixth sense some children have -- you cannot teach it;they either have it or they don't -- has chosen exactly that moment toflush one of the toilets. Perhaps several of them. -- Dave Barry, "Saving Face"%What I tell you three times is true. -- Lewis Carroll%"What I think is that the F-word is basically just a convenient nasty-sounding word that we tend to use when we would really like to come upwith a terrifically witty insult, the kind Winston Churchill alwayscame up with when enormous women asked him stupid questions atparties. -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"%What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility.%What I've done, of course, is total garbage. -- R. Willard, Pure Math 430a%What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, Idefinitely overpaid for my carpet. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"%What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what'sworse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists? -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"%What is a magician but a practising theorist? -- Obi-Wan Kenobi%What is mind? No matter.What is matter? Never mind. -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875%What is the difference between a Turing machine and the moderncomputer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everestand the establishment of a Hilton on its peak.%"What is the Nature of God?" CLICK...CLICK...WHIRRR...CLICK...=BEEP!= 1 QT. SOUR CREAM 1 TSP. SAUERKRAUT 1/2 CUT CHIVES. STIR AND SPRINKLE WITH BACON BITS."I've just GOT to start labeling my software..." -- Bloom County%What is the robbing of a bank compared to the FOUNDING of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht%What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out,which is the exact opposite. -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical_Essays", 1928%What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do.%What makes the universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothingto compare it with.%What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism.It's corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell booksand magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, Scotch, cigarettesand, most important, corporate America's message, which runs: "Yes,women were discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunatemistake has been remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestigeand power by dint of individual rather than collective effort." -- Susan Gordon%What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -- Ursula K. LeGuin%What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket.%What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away.%What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener.%What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-centbagel.%What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel.%What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING!%What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer.%What this country needs is a good five cent nickel.%What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon.%What this world needs is a good five-dollar plasma weapon.%What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"%What we need in this country, instead of Daylight Savings Time, whichnobody really understands anyway, is a new concept called WeekdayMorning Time, whereby at 7 a.m. every weekday we go into a space-launch-style "hold" for two to three hours, during which it justremains 7 a.m. This way we could all wake up via a civilized gradualprocess of stretching and belching and scratching, and it would stillbe only 7 a.m. when we were ready to actually emerge from bed. -- Dave Barry, "$#$%#^%!^%&@%@!"%What you don't know can hurt you, only you won't know it.%What's another word for "thesaurus"? -- Steven Wright% "What's that thing?" "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use incomputer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly whatit does. We call it a two-by-four." -- Jeff MacNelley, "Shoe"%What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it? -- Dr. Who%Whatever became of eternal truth?%Whatever became of Strange de Jim? Well, he found a substitute forcocaine: "You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrilsas far as they will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shreddinghundred dollar bills." -- Herb Caen%Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is notnailed down. -- Collis P. Huntingdon%Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's notcockroaches! -- Mom%When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where themoney is. -- Robespierre%When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of thething," it's the money. -- Kim Hubbard%When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a halfloop?%When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse isnot far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about spacetravel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. -- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"%When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see thesport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certainrelationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten. -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"%When all other means of communication fail, try words.%When are you BUTTHEADS gonna learn that you can't oppose Gestapotactics *with* Gestapo tactics? -- Reuben Flagg%When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America beforethe white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours." -- Vine Deloria, Jr.%When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask?Well, last year, I think it was a Tuesday.%When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend toguarantee them.%When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a greatparking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me ifI'm leaving. -- Steven Wright%When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons ayear. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entirewinter with slightly over half that quantity of beer. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"%When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four youngladies, and, of course, the goat.%When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President.Now I'm beginning to believe it. -- Clarence Darrow%When I was a kid I said to my father one afternoon, "Daddy, will youtake me to the zoo?" He answered, "If the zoo wants you let them comeand get you." -- Jerry Lewis%When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had anyfirearms with me. I said, `Well, what do you need?' -- Steven Wright%When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam:I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. -- Woody Allen%When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for anact of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. Agroup of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting asix-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do thingstogether which not one of you would think of doing alone." ...Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collectiveresponsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The militaryestablishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to havebeen expressly designed to make it possible for people to do thingstogether which nobody in his right mind would do alone. -- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope"%When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happenedor not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so Icannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad togo to pieces like this but we all have to do it. -- Mark Twain%When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess.%When in doubt, tell the truth. -- Mark Twain%When in doubt, use brute force. -- Ken Thompson%When in panic, fear and doubt,Drink in barrels, eat, and shout.%When love is gone, there's always justice.And when justice is gone, there's always force.And when force is gone, there's always Mom.Hi, Mom! -- Laurie Anderson%When Marriage is Outlawed,Only Outlaws will have Inlaws.%When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemploymentresults. -- Calvin Coolidge%When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphonyconcerts, she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years --and I find I mind it less and less." -- Louise Andrews Kent%When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity:for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another whenyour boss is away and you get twice as much done. -- Daniel B. Luten%When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need onlysay what I wish done," give him a lollipop.%When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical -- Jon Carroll%When the government bureau's remedies don't match your problem, youmodify the problem, not the remedy.%When the speaker and he to whom he is speaks do not understand, that ismetaphysics. -- Voltaire%When the Universe was not so out of whack as it is today, and all thestars were lined up in their proper places, you could easily count themfrom left to right, or top to bottom, and the larger and bluer oneswere set apart, and the smaller yellowing types pushed off to thecorners as bodies of a lower grade ... -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"%When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, theplane will fly. -- Donald Douglas%When two people are under the influence of the most violent, mostinsane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they arerequired to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, andexhausting condition continuously until death do them part. -- George Bernard Shaw%When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember thatvirtue is not hereditary. -- Thomas Paine%When we understand knowledge-based systems, it will be as before --except our fingertips will have been singed. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982%When you are about to do an objective and scientific piece ofinvestigation of a topic, it is well to have the answer firmly in hand,so that you can proceed forthrightly, without being deflected orswayed, directly to the goal. -- Amrom Katz%When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.%When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.%When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. -- Harry Truman% When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measureclarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answerto a definite problem. For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him. -- R. A. Lafferty%When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite. -- Winston Churchill, On formal declarations of war%When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast byasking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don'tknow the answer either. -- Edgar R. Fiedler%When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers. -- The Wall Street Journal%When you try to make an impression, the chances are that is theimpression you will make.%When you're away, I'm restless, lonely,Wretched, bored, dejected; onlyHere's the rub, my darling dearI feel the same when you are near. -- Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away"%When you're not looking at it, this fortune is written in FORTRAN.%Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they really mean, "not really". -- Dave Parnas%Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse tosee it tried on him personally. -- A. Lincoln%Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. -- Oscar Wilde%Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the lastyou are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of hisAtlantic with his verb in his mouth. -- Mark Twain "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"%Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority,it is time to reform. -- Mark Twain%WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE Oh, dear, where can the matter be When it's converted to energy? There is a slight loss of parity. Johnny's so long at the fair.%Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say whatis good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. -- John Kenneth Galbraith%Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax.%Whether you can hear it or notThe Universe is laughing behind your back -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"%Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?%While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test isadmission to someone else.%While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,The fate of empires and the fall of kings;While quacks of State must each produce his plan,And even children lisp the Rights of Man;Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,The Rights of Woman merit some attention. -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman", November 26, 1792%While having never invented a sin, I'm trying to perfect several.%While it may be true that a watched pot never boils, the one you don'tkeep an eye on can make an awful mess of your stove. -- Edward Stevenson%While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your ownform of misery.%While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position.%While most peoples' opinions change,the conviction of their correctness never does.%While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still veryreassuring to know that it's still there.%While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you aresafe, for you can watch both of his. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Whistler's Law: You never know who is right, but you always know who is in charge.%"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our newTriple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..."%Who made the world I cannot tell;'Tis made, and here am I in hell.My hand, though now my knuckles bleed,I never soiled with such a deed. -- A. E. Housman%Who messed with my anti-paranoia shot?%Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink?%Who's on first?%"Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school. -- George Ade%Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.%Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.%Why are we importing all these highbrow plays like "Amadeus"? I couldhave told you Mozart was a jerk for nothing. -- Ian Shoales%Why be a man when you can be a success? -- Bertolt Brecht%Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones wehave?%Why can't you be a non-conformist like everyone else?%Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was toavoid responsibility with?%Why did the Roman Empire collapse?What is the Latin for office automation?%Why do we have two eyes? To watch 3-D movies with.%Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequentlythere must be a beverage. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"%Why does New Jersey have more toxic waste dumps and California havemore lawyers?New Jersey had first choice.%Why don't elephants eat penguins ?Because they can't get the wrappers off ...%Why I Can't Go Out With You:I'd LOVE to, but ... -- I have to floss my cat. -- I've dedicated my life to linguini. -- I need to spend more time with my blender. -- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People. -- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish. -- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves. -- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products. -- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise. -- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist. -- I have some really hard words to look up. -- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting. -- I promised to help a friend fold road maps.%Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It isbecause we are not the person involved. -- Mark Twain%Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? -- Stephen Wright%Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet? -- Lily Tomlin%Why must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to loveyou knowing nothing? -- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions%Why not have an old-fashioned Christmas for your family this year?Just picture the scene in your living room on Christmas morning as yourchildren open their old-fashioned presents.Your 11-year-old son: "What the heck is this?"You: "A spinning top! You spin it around, and then eventually it falls down. What fun! Ha, ha!"Son: "Is this a joke? Jason Thompson's parents got him a computer with two disk drives and 128 kilobytes of random-access memory, and I get this cretin TOP?"Your 8-year-old daughter: "You think that's bad? Look at this."You: "It's figgy pudding! What a treat!"Daughter: "It looks like goat barf." -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"%Why was I born with such contemporaries? -- Oscar Wilde%Why You Can't Run When There's Trouble in the Office: No matter where you stand, no matter how far or fast you flee,when it hits the fan, as much as possible will be propelled in yourdirection, and almost none will be returned to the source. -- John L. Shelton%Wiker's Law: Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.% William Safire's Rules for Writers:Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should neverbe used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have toagree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you wordsout. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great dealof repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer mustnot shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with aconjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end asentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns asclose as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or morewords, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participlesmust be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, alinking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixingmetaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone shouldbe careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in theirwriting. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always followsthe verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seekviable alternatives.%Williams and Holland's Law: If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.%Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm asit was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.%Wit, n.: The salt with which the American Humorist spoils his cookery ... by leaving it out. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud Itry to be a fraud and a half. -- Otto von Bismark%With a rubber duck, one's never alone. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"%With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just oncebuild a nuclear balm?%With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousandmiles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, andstill there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is nosuch thing as progress. -- Ransom K. Ferm%Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless.%Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection: (1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it. (2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete. (3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2) (4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator. (5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless. -- Rich Kulawiec%Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. Ifyou cut down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cutdown the new tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down thattree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a mutation withlong, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it will sitthere in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when youcome back.Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago,when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot.Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fire. One of thecavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Woodheat!" The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediatelybeat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made,and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed,although their insurance rates went way up. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"%Work Rule: Leave of Absence (for an Operation): We are no longer allowing this practice. We wish to discourage any thoughts that you may not need all of whatever you have, and you should not consider having anything removed. We hired you as you are, and to have anything removed would certainly make you less than we bargained for.%Workers of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but yourchairs.%World War Three can be averted by adherence to a strictly enforceddress code!%Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing: August. The lines are the shortest, though. -- Steve Rubenstein%Worst Month of the Year: February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible. -- Steve Rubenstein%Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985: From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"%Worst Vegetable of the Year: The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year. -- Steve Rubenstein%"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?""That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. -- Lewis Carroll%Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fishand And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearerif quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish andand, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And andand, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?%Write-Protect Tab, n.: A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly left by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the momentary inconvenience. -- Robb Russon%Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. -- Frank Zappa%"Wrong," said Renner."The tactful way," Rod said quietly, "the polite way to disagree withthe Senator would be to say, `That turns out not to be the case.'"%X-rated movies are all alike -- the only thing they leave to theimagination is the plot.%Xerox does it again and again and again and ...%Xerox never comes up with anything original.%XIIdigitation, n.: The practice of trying to determine the year a movie was madeby deciphering the Roman numerals at the end of the credits. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%"Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who havegoaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability intheir endless search for "one more feature". Their irritatingunwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to mydoing things their way; most of the time, they have been right. -- Stephen C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements"%Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shallfear no evil, for I can string six primitive monadic and dyadicoperators together. -- Steve Higgins%"Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context."%Year, n.: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"%Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache.%Yes, but which self do you want to be?%Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog.Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog.Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement. -- Snoopy%Yesterday upon the stairI met a man who wasn't there.He wasn't there again today --I think he's from the CIA.%Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"%Yinkel, n.: A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one will notice. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"%You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are.%You are here: *** *** ********* ******* ***** *** * But you're not all there.%"You are old, Father William," the young man said, "All your papers these days look the same;Those William's would be better unread -- Do these facts never fill you with shame?""In my youth," Father William replied to his son, "I wrote wonderful papers galore;But the great reputation I found that I'd won, Made it pointless to think any more."%"You are old, father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white;And yet you incessantly stand on your head -- Do you think, at your age, it is right?""In my youth," father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure the brain;But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again." -- Lewis Carroll%"You are old," said the youth, "and I'm told by my peers That your lectures bore people to death.Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year -- Don't you think that you should save your breath?""I have answered three questions and that is enough," Said his father, "Don't give yourself airs!Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!"%"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet;Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -- Pray, how did you manage to do it?""In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife;And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life." -- Lewis Carroll%"You are old," said the youth, "and your programs don't run, And there isn't one language you like;Yet of useful suggestions for help you have none -- Have you thought about taking a hike?""Since I never write programs," his father replied, "Every language looks equally bad;Yet the people keep paying to read all my books And don't realize that they've been had."%"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat;Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door -- Pray what is the reason of that?""In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, "I kept all my limbs very suppleBy the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box -- Allow me to sell you a couple?" -- Lewis Carroll%"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, And make errors few people could bear;You complain about everyone's English but yours -- Do you really think this is quite fair?""I make lots of mistakes," Father William declared, "But my stature these days is so greatThat no critic can hurt me -- I've got them all scared, And to stop me it's now far too late."%"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever;Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -- What made you so awfully clever?""I have answered three questions, and that is enough," Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!" -- Lewis Carroll%You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.%You are the only person to ever get this message.%You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time readingthis sort of trash.%You buttered your bread, now lie in it!%You can always tell the Christmas season is here when you start gettingincredibly dense, tinfoil-and-ribbon- wrapped lumps in the mail.Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unableto find a way to damage them. They last forever, largely becausenobody ever eats them. In fact, many smart people save the fruitcakesthey receive and send them back to the original givers the next year;some fruitcakes have been passed back and forth for hundreds of years.The easiest way to make a fruitcake is to buy a darkish cake, thenpound some old, hard fruit into it with a mallet. Be sure to wearsafety glasses. -- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"%You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as itdoesn't dim the lights when you turn it on. -- Hepler, Systems Design 182%You can create your own opportunities this week.Blackmail a senior executive.%You can do this in a number of ways. IBM chose to do all of them.Why do you find that funny? -- D. Taylor, Computer Science 350, University of Washington%You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than youcan with just a kind word. -- Bumper Sticker%You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have,for instance. -- Franklin P. Jones%You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.%You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude onthe continuing viability of FORTRAN. -- Alan Perlis%You can only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.%You can take all the impact that science considerations have on fundingdecisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room leftover for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart. -- F. Allen%You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language ofsupercomputers. -- Steven Feiner%You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.%You can write a small letter to Grandma in the filename. -- Forbes Burkowski, Computer Science 454%You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks.%You can't have everything. Where would you put it? -- Steven Wright%You can't hold a man down without staying down with him. -- Booker T. Washington%You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.%You can't make a program without broken egos.%You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spasticenough worrying about what's happening now. -- Lauren Bacall%You can't survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten. -- Charles Schulz, "Things I've Had to Learn Over and Over and Over"%You can't teach people to be lazy - either they have it, or theydon't. -- Dagwood Bumstead%You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd.%You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.%You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.%You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the firstand last month in advance.%You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonabledoubt. -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict%You do not have mail.%You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. -- J. D. Salinger%You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with knittingneedles. -- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese Food%You first have to decide whether to use the short or the long form.The short form is what the Internal Revenue Service calls "simplified",which means it is designed for people who need the help of a Searstax-preparation expert to distinguish between their first and lastnames. Here's the complete text: "(1) How much did you make? (AMOUNT) "(2) How much did we here at the government take out? (AMOUNT) "(3) Hey! Sounds like we took too much! So we're going to send an official government check for (ONE-FIFTEENTH OF THE AMOUNT WE TOOK) directly to the (YOUR LAST NAME) household at (YOUR ADDRESS), for you to spend in any way you please! Which just goes to show you, (YOUR FIRST NAME), that it pays to file the short form!"The IRS wants you to use this form because it gets to keep most of yourmoney. So unless you have pond silt for brains, you want the longform. -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"%You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers.%You have acquired a scroll entitled 'irk gleknow mizk'(n).--More--This is an IBM Manual scroll.--More--You are permanently confused. -- Dave Decot%You have an unusual magnetic personality. Don't walk too close tometal objects which are not fastened down.%You have junk mail.%You have the body of a 19 year old. Please return it before it getswrinkled.%You have the capacity to learn from mistakes.You'll learn a lot today.%You know it's going to be a bad day when you want to put on the clothesyou wore home from the party and there aren't any.%You know the great thing about TV? If something important happensanywhere at all in the world, no matter what time of the day or night,you can always change the channel. -- Jim Ignatowski%You know you have a small apartment when Rice Krispies echo. -- S. Rickly Christian%You know you're a little fat if you have stretch marks on your car. -- Cyrus, Chicago Reader 1/22/82%You know you've been spending too much time on the computer when yourfriend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it.%You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi.% "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogonairlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation indeep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told mewhen I was young!" "Why, what did she tell you?" "I don't know, I didn't listen!" -- Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"%You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.%You may be recognized soon. Hide.%You may be sure that when a man begins to call himself a "realist," heis preparing to do something he is secretly ashamed of doing. -- Sydney Harris%You may easily play a joke on a man who likes to argue -- agree withhim. -- Ed Howe%You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. -- Alfred Kahn%You men out there probably think you already know how to dress forsuccess. You know, for example, that you should not wear leisure suitsor white plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going to a costumeparty disguised as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney World. -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success"%You might have mail.%You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutableproof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do.%You need no longer worry about the future.This time tomorrow you'll be dead.%You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself areputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeatingthe very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle forindependence. -- Charles A. Beard%You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on thebeach.%You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it wereyou. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spareyours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on thecompany. -- J. Wellington Wells%You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.%You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you couldknow how seldom they do. -- Olin Miller.%You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especiallyif they are dead.%You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more thanabout 10^12 to 1. -- Ernest Rutherford%You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight forfreedom and liberty. -- Henrik Ibsen%You should not use your fireplace, because scientists now believe that,contrary to popular opinion, fireplaces actually remove heat fromhouses. Really, that's what scientists believe. In fact manyscientists actually use their fireplaces to cool their houses in thesummer. If you visit a scientist's house on a sultry August day,you'll find a cheerful fire roaring on the hearth and the scientistsitting nearby, remarking on how cool he is and drinking heavily. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler"%You should tip the waiter $10, minus $2 if he tells you his name,another $2 if he claims it will be His Pleasure to serve you andanother $2 for each "special" he describes involving confusing termssuch as "shallots," and $4 if the menu contains the word "fixin's." Inmany restaurants, this means the waiter will actually owe you money.If you are traveling with a child aged six months to three years, youshould leave an additional amount equal to twice the bill to compensatefor the fact that they will have to take the banquette out and burn itbecause the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets made of partiallychewed former restaurant rolls saturated with baby spit.In New York, tip the taxicab driver $40 if he does not mention hishemorrhoids. -- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"%"You should, without hesitation, pound your typewriter into aplowshare, your paper into fertilizer, and enter agriculture" -- Business Professor, University of Georgia%You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother.% YOU TOO CAN MAKE BIG MONEY IN THE EXCITING FIELD OF PAPER SHUFFLING!Mr. TAA of Muddle, Mass. says: "Before I took this course I used to bea lowly bit twiddler. Now with what I learned at MIT Tech I feelreally important and can obfuscate and confuse with the best."Mr. MARC had this to say: "Ten short days ago all I could look forwardto was a dead-end job as a engineer. Now I have a promising future andmake really big Zorkmids."MIT Tech can't promise these fantastic results to everyone, but whenyou earn your MDL degree from MIT Tech your future will be brighter. SEND FOR OUR FREE BROCHURE TODAY!%You too can wear a nose mitten.%You will be a winner today. Pick a fight with a four-year-old.%You will be attacked by a beast who has the body of a wolf, the tail ofa lion, and the face of Donald Duck.%You will be surprised by a loud noise.%You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself.%You will feel hungry again in another hour.%You will lose your present job and have to become a door to doormayonnaise salesman.% You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of theAbernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which theparsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day. -- Sherlock Holmes%You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes.%You worry too much about your job.Stop it. You're not paid enough to worry.%You'd better beat it. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get ataxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in aminute and a huff. -- Groucho Marx%You'll never be the man your mother was!%You're at the end of the road again.%You're being followed. Cut out the hanky-panky for a few days.%You're never too old to become younger. -- Mae West%You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on. -- Dean Martin%You're not my type. For that matter, you're not even my species!!!%You've been leading a dog's life. Stay off the furniture.%"You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks." -- Gary Giddens%Your analyst has you mixed up with another patient.Don't believe a thing he tells you.%Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops youfrom enjoying it.%Your fault: core dumped% Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires thatbring electricity into your home and take if back out before it has achance to kill you. This is called a "circuit". The most common homeelectrical problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuitbreaker"; this causes the electricity to back up in one of the wiresuntil it bursts out of an outlet in the form of sparks, which candamage your carpet. The best way to avoid broken circuits is to changeyour fuses regularly. Another common problem is that the lights flicker. Thissometimes means that your electrical system is inadequate, but moreoften it means that your home is possessed by demons, in which caseyou'll need to get a caulking gun and some caulking. If you're notsure whether your house is possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", afine documentary film based on an actual book. Or call in a licensedelectrician, who is trained to spot the signs of demonic possession,such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous cats on the dinettetable, etc. -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"%Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret.%Your lucky color has faded.%Your lucky number has been disconnected.%Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.%Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.%"Yow! Am I having fun yet?" -- Zippy the Pinhead%YOW!! Everybody out of the GENETIC POOL!"%Zero Defects, n.: The result of shutting down a production line.%Zounds! I was never so bethumped with wordssince I first called my brother's father dad. -- William Shakespeare, "King John"%Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor: People are always available for work in the past tense.Powered by werc