"I don't care who you are, Fatso. Just get those reindeer off my roof." "Is there any intelligent life in this planet?" "No. I'm just visiting in here." "Let me think...I wonder if an anvil will drop like an apple?" -- Tradition tells us these are the last words of sir Isaac Newton "Make love, not war." "I'm married, I do both." "So when I die, the first thing I will see in Heaven is a score list?" "This calls for a particularly subtle blend of psychology and extereme violence." -- Vivian, "The Young Ones" "Trust me, I know what I'm doing." -- Sledgehammer "What are you doing?" "Examining the world's major religions. I'm looking for something that's light on morals, has lots of holidays, and with a short initiation period." "What is your operation plan?" "Just get violent, babe. Just get violent." -- Dempsey & Makepeace "What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought you didn't believe in God." "I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears, "but the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be." -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" "When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said. -- A. A. Milne, "Winnie the Pooh" "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 Carrol -- more -- ...and sometimes a piercer drops by. 355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation. 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr -- Core dumped 68: Do me now and I'll owe you one. 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 CONS is an object which cares. -- Bernie Greenberg. A Christian is a man who feels repentance on Sunday for what he did on Saturday and is going to do on Monday. -- Thomas Ybarra A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone, somewhere, is having fun. A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. -- Carl Sandburg A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. -- Don Quinn A booming voice says, "Wrong, cretin!", and you notice that you have turned into a pile of dust. A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours. A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward. A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other. A carelessly planned project takes three times longer to complete than expexted; a carefully planned project will take only twice as long. A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. A chiseler is a man who goes stag to a wife-swapping party. A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. Avoid him. He's a Commie. A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election. -- Bill Vaughan A city is a large community where people are lonesome together. -- Herbert Prochnow A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make. A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time. -- Alfred E. Wiggam A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never learned to walk. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it. A continuing flow of paper is sufficient to continue the flow of paper. -- Dyer A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern. -- Edgar A. Shoaff A day for firm decisions!! Or is it? A day without sunshine is like night. A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. A diplomat is man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never her age. -- Robert Frost A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip. A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply incredible surgical feat." The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an architect." The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said, "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?" A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. -- Ogden Nash A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Winston Churchill A fool must now and then be right by chance. A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. A fractal is by definition a set for which the Hausdorff Besicovitch dimension strictly exceeds the topological dimension. -- Mandelbrot, "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" A genius is a queer who can whistle while he works. -- Bobby Knight A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of). A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James A hand in a bird is worth two on 'er bush. A hard man is good to find. A joke is like watching a woman get out of a car -- sometimes you see it and sometimes you don't. -- Max Miller A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. -- Dennis M. Ritchie A liberal is someone too poor to be a capitalist, and too rich to be a communist. A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any price. A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col A man needs a mistress, just to break the monogamy. A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. A mind is a wonderful thing to waste. A mushroom cloud has no silver lining. A novel approach is to remove all power from the system, which removes most system overhead so that resources can be fully devoted to doing nothing. Benchmarks on this technique are promising; tremendous amounts of nothing can be produced in this manner. Certain hardware limitations can limit the speed of this method, especially in the larger systems which require a more involved & less efficient power-down sequence. An alternate approach is to pull the main breaker for the building, which seems to provide even more nothing, but in truth has bugs in it, since it usually inhibits the systems which keep the beer cool. A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. A nymph hits you and steals your virginity. A penny saved is a penny. A penny saved is ridiculous. A person who has both feet planted firmly in the air can be safely called a liberal. A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? And he answered: It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness. And that is Fate? said the priest. Fate...I thought you said Freight, responded the Master. That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was too. -- Kehlog Albran A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions. -- George Eliot A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. -- IEEE Grid news magazine A raccoon tangled with a 23,000 volt line today. The results blacked out 1400 homes and, of course, one raccoon. -- Steel City News A reactionary is a man whose political opinions always manage to keep up with yesterday. A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. A rumor has it that rumors are just rumors. A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard. -- Prof. Steiner A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson A toast to the kisses you've snatched and vice-versa. A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. A triangle which has an angle of 135 degrees is called an obscene triangle. A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. -- Tennessee Williams A virgin is chaste. A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. A winner never quits. A quitter never wins. A witty saying proves nothing. -- Voltaire A wizard cannot do everything; a fact most magicians are reticent to admit, let alone discuss with prospective clients. Still, the fact remains that there are certain objects, and people, that are, for one reason or another, completely immune to any direct magical spell. It is for this group of beings that the magician learns the subtleties of using indirect spells. It also does no harm, in dealing with these matters, to carry a large club near your person at all times. -- "The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VIII" A woman is like a dresser...some man always goin' through her drawers. -- Blind Lemon Pledge A woman who is guided by the head and not by the heart is a social pestilence: she has all the defects of the passionate and affectionate woman, with none of her compensations; she is without pity, without love, without virtue, without sex. -- Balzac A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. AMAZING BUT TRUE... If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. AMAZING BUT TRUE... There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. APL hackers do it in the quad. APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them. -- Roy Keir Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. -- Herbert Hoover Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. -- Gary Zukav, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" A woman drove me to drink, and I didn't even have the courtesy to thank her. According to my best recollection, I don't remember. -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless. Achilles' Biological Findings: (1) If a child looks like his father, that's heredity. If he looks like a neighbor, that's environment. (2) A lot of time has been wasted arguing over what came first -- the chicken or the egg. It was undoubtedly the rooster. Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing. Admittedly, there are a lot of things that are better than sex, and a lot more that are worse; but there's nothing quite like it... After all is said and done, a hell lot of a lot more is said than done. After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench. After living in New York, you trust nobody, but you believe everything. Just in case. After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. -- Friedrich Schiller Aide to Raygun: Sir, the poor are outside protesting your budget cuts. Raygun himself: Tell them they'll have to help themselves. Aide to Raygun: Sir, the Pentagon wants another $30 billion. Raygun himself: Tell them to help themselves. All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. -- Ashleigh Brilliant All a hacker needs is a tight PUSHJ, a loose pair of UUOs, and a warm place to shift. All extremists should be taken out and shot. All hope abandon, ye who enter here! -- Dante Alighieri All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. -- Jane Wagner All power corrupts, but we need electricity. All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. -- Samuel Butler All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -- E. Rutherford All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right hands. -- Saint Patrick All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism. All the passions make us commit faults; love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones. -- La Rochefoucauld All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. -- Sean O'Casey All things are possible except skiing thru a revolving door. All things dull and ugly, All creatures short and squat, All things rude and nasty, The Lord God made the lot; Each little snake that poisons, Each little wasp that stings, He made their brutish venom, He made their horrid wings. All things sick and cancerous, All evil great and small, All things foul and dangerous, The Lord God made them all. Each nasty little hornet, Each beastly little squid. Who made the spikey urchin? Who made the sharks? He did. All things scabbed and ulcerous, All pox both great and small. Putrid, foul and gangrenous, The Lord God made them all. -- Monty Python's Flying Circus All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for fun. Money's just the way we keep score. All's well that ends. Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else. Always talk to your wife while you're making love...if there's a phone handy. Always try to do things in chronological order; it's less confusing that way. Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. -- Charlie McCarthy Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. An Army travels on her stomach. An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. -- James Michener, "Space" An authority is a person who can tell you more about something than you really care to know. An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing. An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. An older student came to Otis and said, "I have been to see a great number of teachers and I have given up a great number of pleasures. I have fasted, been celibate and stayed awake nights seeking enlightenment. I have given up everything I was asked to give up and I have suffered, but I have not been enlightened. What should I do?" Otis replied, "Give up suffering." -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" Anarchy may not be a better form of government, but it's better than no government at all. And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed." And Jesus replied, "What?" And as we stand on the edge of darkness Let our chant fill the void That others may know In the land of the night The ship of the sun Is drawn by The grateful dead. -- Tibetan "Book of the Dead" ca. 4000 BC. And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. And the fully armed nuclear warheads, are, of course, merely a courtesy detail. And the northern lights commenced to glow. And she said, with a tear in her eye, "Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow." -- Frank Zappa, "The Story of Nanook and the Fur Trapper" Ankh if you love Isis. 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. Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.) Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object. Any stone in your boot always migrates against the pressure gradient to exactly the point of most pressure. -- Milt Barber Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. -- Rich Kulawiec Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. -- Robert Benchley Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. -- Publilius Syrus Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. -- Samuel Goldwyn Anyone who uses the phrase "easy as taking candy from a baby" has never tried taking candy from a baby. -- Robin Hood Anything free is worth what you pay for it. Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" means the price went way up. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. Anytime things appear to be going better, you've overlooked something. Apple owners do it with mice. Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. Around computers it is difficult to find the correct unit of time to measure progress. Some cathedrals took a century to complete. Can you imagine the grandeur and scope of a program that would take as long? -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 Art is 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 far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. -- Weisert As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949 As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there is always a future in Computer Maintenance. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" Assassins do it from behind. At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is not. But obviously it cannot be where it is not. And if it is where it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest. -- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer. -- Marshall Lumsden At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. Audacity, and again, audacity, and always audacity. -- G. J. Danton Avoid reality at all costs. BASIC is the Computer Science equivalent of 'Scientific Creationism'. Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live. -- Socrates Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare. Bare feet magnetize sharp metal objects so they point upward >from the floor -- especially in the dark. Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't. Baruch's Observation: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? (1) Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. (2) Advising the President. (3) Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin. -- David Letterman Be braver -- you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. Be careful when eating bananas. Monsters might slip on the peels. Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his followers. One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She was contentedly grazing. "Tell me, you dumb beast," demanded the Priest in his commanding voice, "why don't you do something worthwhile? What is your Purpose in Life, anyway?" Munching the tasty grass, The Sacred Chao replied "MU". (The Chinese ideogram for No-Thing.) Upon hearing this, absolutely nobody was enlightened. Primarily because nobody understood Chinese. -- Camden Benares, "Zen Without Zen Masters" Before he went off to the wars, King Arthur locked his lovely wife, Guinevere, into her chastity belt. Then he summoned his loyal friend and subject Sir Lancelot. "Lancelot, noble knight," said Arthur, "within this sturdy belt is imprisoned the virtue of my wife. The key to this chaste treasure I will entrust to only one man in the world. To you." Humbled before this great honor, Lancelot knelt, received his king's blessing and took charge of the key. Arthur mounted his steed and rode off. Not half a mile from his castle, he heard hoofbeats behind him and turned to see Sir Lancelot riding hard to catch up with him. "What is amiss, my friend?" asked the king. "My lord," gasped Lancelot, "you have given me the wrong key!" 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 ugly isn't illegal. Yet. Bend over and take it like a man! Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence. -- Time Bandits Better leave the dungeon, otherwise you might get hurt badly. Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald Knuth Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" Beware of the minotaur. He's very horny! Beware of the potion of nitroglycerin - it's not for the weak of heart. Bill Posters Will Be Prosecuted. Bill Is Inncocent! Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same thing as division. Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic. Blessed are the meek for they shall inhibit the earth. Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt. Blood flows down one leg and up the other. Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. Blore's Razor: Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier. 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. Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look. Booze is the answer. I don't remember the question. Boren's Laws: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble. Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in. Brain fried -- Core dumped 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. Bus error -- passengers dumped. But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent. -- R. Emerson -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.") [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"] By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve. -- Robert Frost Byte your tongue. CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. Cahn's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions. Canada Bill Jone's Motto: It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. Supplement: A .44 magnum beats four aces. Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health. Cave(wo)men all belong to the same club. Celebrate Hannibal Day this year. Take an elephant to lunch. Chapter 1 The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Chaste makes waste. Cheer Up! Things are getting worse at a slower rate. Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're going to catch you in next. -- Franklin P. Jones Children aren't happy without something to ignore, And that's what parents were created for. -- Ogden Nash Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried. -- G. K. Chesterton 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. Clark Kent is a transvestite. Coito ergo sum. College is like a woman -- you work so hard to get in, and nine months later you wish you'd never come. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. 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. Communists do it without class. Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are. Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. -- Gilb Confucious say: fool man climb tree to get cherries; wise man spread limbs. man who fishes in other man's well often catch crabs. man who go to bed with sex problem wake up with solution in hand. man who live in glass house should bathe in the basement. man who lose key to girlfriend's apartment get no new key. man who make love on ground have piece on Earth. man who marry girl with no bust has right to feel low down. man who pull out too fast leave rubber. man who screws near graveyard is fucking near dead. man with hole in pocket feel cocky all day. woman who cooks carrots and pees in same pot very unsanitary. woman who ride bicycle peddle ass around town. Confucius say too much. -- Recent Chinese Proverb Conquering Russia should be done steppe by steppe. Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking. -- H. L. Mencken Conserve energy -- make love more slowly. Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts its life to one hole only. -- Titus Maccius Plautus Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. Conway's Law: In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired. Cox's Philosophy: Life's a bitch, then you die. Crime does not pay...as well as politics. -- A. E. Newman Cunnilingus is next to godliness. Dammit, how many times do I have to tell you? First you rape, then you pillage!! David was just a shepherd who liked to get his rocks off in leather. DeVries' Dilemma: If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want hits the paper. Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve. Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. -- R. Geis Death is nature's way of saying 'Howdy'. Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down. Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. -- G. B. Shaw Descend in order to meet more decent monsters. Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him. -- John Barrymore's dying words Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. Divers do it deeper. Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them. Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. -- George Bernard Shaw Do not drink coffee in early a.m. It will keep you awake until noon. Do not meddle in the affairs of the wizards for they are crunchy and good with ketchup. Do not meddle in the affairs of the wizards for they are subtle and quick to anger. Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out if it alive. Do something big -- fuck a giant. Do something unusual today. Pay a bill. Do what comes naturally now. Seethe and fume and throw a tantrum. Do you want to visit hell? Dig a *very* deep hole. Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. Don't drink when you drive -- you might hit a bump and spill it. Don't feed the bats tonight. Don't hate yourself in the morning -- sleep till noon. Don't play hack at your work, your boss might hit you. Don't remember what you can infer. -- Harry Tennant Don't shoot until you're sure you both aren't on the same side. Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice, Unless you get a good percentage of her price... -- Tom Lehrer Don't speak about Time, until you have spoken to him. Don't tell any big lies today. Small ones can be just as effective. Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. Down with categorical imperative! Draft beer, not people. Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. Drinking might affect your health. Drinking potions of booze may land you in jail if you are under 21. Drive defensively. Buy a tank. Ducharm'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. Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders has been discontinued. Dungeon expects every monster to do his duty. Dust is an armor of poor quality. Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. -- W. Somerset Maughm Earn cash in your spare time -- blackmail your friends. Eat 10 cloves of garlic and keep all humans at a two-square distance. Eat the rich -- the poor are tough and stringy. Education kills by degrees. Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. -- Bellamy Brooks Ehrman's Commentary: (1) Things will get worse before they get better. (2) Who said things would get better? Einstein rules relatively ok. Emersons' 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. Enjoy every minute. There's plenty of time to be dead. Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin Even God lends a hand to honest boldness. -- Menander Even nowadays a man can't step up and kill a woman without feeling just a bit unchivalrous. -- Robert Benchley Even peace may be purchased at too high a price. -- Poor Richard Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral. -- Kehlog Albran Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are? Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't. Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. Every solution breeds new problems. Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success. Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how not. So it is with the great programmers. Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way... Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, no one we know belongs. Excellent day to have a rotten day. Excellent time to become a missing person. Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. -- F. P. Jones FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at...uh, when the little hand is on the.... Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic without looking to see whether the seeds move. Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true. -- Nietzsche Famous last words: "Don't worry, I can handle it." "You and what army?" "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be a cop." Fie for shame, you lascivious, lewd, lecherous, libidinous, lustful, licentious, dirty bum!! Fifth Law of Procrastination: Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do. Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. And scratch where it itches. 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 makes it worse. Finagle's second Law: No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it (b) fake it (c) believe it happened 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. Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. First Law of Bicycling: No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind. First Law of Hacking: leaving is much more difficult than entering. First Law of Socio-Genetics: Celibacy is not hereditary. First Rule of History: History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other. Flee at once, all is discovered. Flirting is the gentle art of making a man feel pleased with himself. -- Helen Rowland For any remedy there is a misery. For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years. This gives me great hope for the human race. -- Harlan Ellison 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 Hacking: you will find the exit at the entrance. Fudd's First Law of Opposition: Push something hard enough and it will fall over. Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. -- H. H. Williams G's Third Law: In spite of all evidence to the contrary, the entire universe is composed of only two basic substances: magic and bullshit. H's Dictum: There is no magic... Gautama Principle: You cannot cross a river in two leaps. George Orwell was an optimist. George Washington not only chopped down his father's cherry tree, but he also admitted doing it. Now, do you know why his father didn't punish him? Because George still had the axe in his hand. 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 a man free hands and you'll know where to find them. -- Mae West Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities! Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to a new town. God bless Atheism. God gives us relatives; thank goodness we can chose our friends. God is Dead -- Nietzsche Nietzsche is Dead -- God Nietzsche is God -- Dead God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh. God is a polytheist. God is an atheist. God is big, so don't fuck with him. God isn't dead -- She was never born. God isn't dead, He just couldn't find a parking place. God isn't dead, He's just trying to avoid the draft. God wanted to have a holiday, so He asked St. Peter for suggestions on where to go. "Why not go to Jupiter?" asked St. Peter. "No, too much gravity, too much stomping around," said God. "Well, how about Mercury?" "No, it's too hot there." "Okay," said St. Peter, "What about Earth?" "No," said God,"They're such horrible gossips. When I was there 2000 years ago, I had an affair with a Jewish woman, and they're still talking about it." Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. -- La Rouchefoucauld Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. Good day to let down old friends who need help. Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -- George Saunders' dying words Gordon does it in a Flash. Got Mole problems? Call Avogardo 6.02 x 10^23 Grain grows best in shit. -- Ursula K. LeGuin Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees. Gray's Law of Programming: 'n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as 'n' tasks. Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law: 'n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as 'n' trivial tasks. Grinnell's Law of Labor Laxity: At all times, for any task, you have not got enough done today. Grub first, then ethics. -- Bertolt Brecht H. L. Mencken's Law: Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach. Martin's Extension: Those who cannot teach -- administrate. Hackers do it bottom-up. Hackers do it with all sorts of characters. Hackers do it with bugs. Hackers do it with fewer instructions. Haggis: Haggis is a kind of stuff black pudding eaten by the Scots and considered by them to be not only a delicacy but fit for human consumption. The minced heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, calf or other animal's inner organs are mixed with oatmeal, sealed and boiled in maw in the sheep's intestinal stomach-bag and... [Excuse me a minute. Ed.] Hail to the sun god He's such a fun god Ra! Ra! Ra! Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) Hand: A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. Handy Guide to Modern Science (1) If it's green or it wriggles, it's biology. (2) If it stinks, it's chemistry. (3) If it doesn't work, it's physics. Hang gliders come down very slowly. Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Hard reality has a way of cramping your style. -- Daniel Dennett 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. 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. 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. Have a good meal today: eat a minotaur. Having nothing, nothing can he lose. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" He who enters his wife's dressing room is a philosopher or a fool. -- Balzac He who findeth sensuous pleasures in the bodies of lush, hot, pink damsels is not righteous, but he can have a lot more fun. He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die. -- Giacomo Leopardi He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. -- Lao Tsu He who trains his tongue to quote the learned sages, will be known far and wide as a smart ass. -- Howard Kandel He's just a politician trying to save both his faces. Hear about... the doctor that prescribed sex for insommia? His patients didn't get any more sleep, but they had more fun staying awake. Hear about... the girl with the big wardrobe who started with just a little slip? Hear about... the guy who took a course in exotic lovemaking and announced that he'd never be able to face his girl again? Hear about... the guy who was an incurable romantic until penicillin came along? Heaven can wait. Heisenberg may have done it. Heisengberg might have been here. 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. Help! I'm being held prisoner in a fortune cookie factory! Her kisses left something to be desired -- the rest of her. History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion -- i.e., none to speak of. -- Lazarus Long Hitting is the lingua franca in these regions. 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. 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 Horngren's Observation: Among economists, the real world is often a special case. How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work. Hugh Hefner is a virgin. Humility is the first of the virtues -- for other people. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs. Hungry? There is an abundance of food on the next level. Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to.....to........uh.............. Hypocrisy is the vaseline of social intercourse. I am an atheist, thank God! I believe that Ronald Reagan will someday make this country what it once was...an arctic wilderness. -- Steve Martin I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great intrinsic depravity, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, *petty* -- I call it the *one* mortal blemish of mankind. -- Friedrich Nietzsche I came; I saw; I fucked up. I can resist anything but temptation. I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. -- Joe Walsh I choked Linda Lovelace. I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. -- Isaac Asimov I do not know myself and God forbid that I should. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. -- Ashleigh Brilliant I don't mind arguing with myself. Its when I lose that it bothers me. -- Richard Powers I don't want to bore you, but there's nobody else around for me to bore. I drink to make other people interesting. -- George Jean Nathan I hate it when people call me paranoid. It makes me feel persecuted. I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. -- Kehlog Albran I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent. -- Ashleigh Brilliant I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away. I own my own body, but I share. I prefer the most unjust peace to the most righteous war. -- Cicero I really hate this damned machine I wish that they would sell it. It never does quite what I want But only what I tell it. I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce. -- J. Edgar Hoover I see little divinity about them or you. You talk to me of Christianity when you are in the act of hanging your enemies. Was there ever such blasphemous nonsense! -- George Bernard Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple" I smell a maze of twisty little passages. I think pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything else that has ever happened, and vice versa. -- Frank Zappa I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. I want a girl that can swallow my pride. -- Frank Zappa, "Jewish Princess" I wish you humans would leave me alone. I wished, I never wished a wand of wishing. (Wishful thinking) I wouldn't advise playing catch with a giant. I wouldn't mind dying -- it's that business of having to stay dead that scares the shit out of me. -- R. Geis I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. I'd like to meet the man who invented sex and see what he's working on now. I'm never through with a girl until I've had her three ways. -- J. F. Kennedy I'm not afraid of work... I can even sleep beside it. 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 but totally unprepared for everyday life. I'm sorry if the correct way of doing things offends you. I've had one child. My husband wants to have another. I'd like to watch him have another. I've told you a million times not to exaggerate. -- The Young Ones If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro If God doesn't destroy San Francisco, He should apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire. If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their Heads. If God had meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way. If God had wanted people to give blow jobs, he wouldn't have given them teeth. If God had wanted us to use the metric system, Jesus would have had 10 apostles. If I traveled to the end of the rainbow As Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me The pot's at the other end. -- Bert Whitney If Reagan is the answer, it must have been a VERY silly question. If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up. If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. -- John Kenneth Galbraith If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers? If it doesn't have recursive function calls, Real Software Engineers don't program in it. If it's not in the computer, it doesn't exist. If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament. If men couldn't fuck there'd be a bounty on their heads. If only I could be respected without having to be respectable. If only I could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything. If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. -- Einstein If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. -- Pope John Paul I If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method to get bad data past it. If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it. -- Edward A. Murphy Jr. If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out. If thy dick offends thee, whack it off. If voting should change anything, there would be a law against it. If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry. -- Chekhov If you are too cute some monsters might be tempted to embrace you. If you can believe ten impossible things before breakfast, then you should join: The Church of Counterfactual Belief The Church of Counterfactual Belief has been set up to cater to all who don't allow demonstrable truth to get in the way of their beliefs. In addition to creation science and the flatness of the earth, the following beliefs have been certified by Pope Duane as Church dogma: that there is a hole in the Earth at the North Pole from which UFOs come. that pi equals precisely 3.000. that sex can be enjoyed only by blacks and homosexuals. that Billy Joe Wilson (Hoopla, Miss.) has successfully squared the circle. the circle. that Harry Truman is still president, and doing a fine job. that pi equals precisely 22/7. Several other important counterfactual beliefs are presently being studied, including Reaganomics, A.I., and that the moon landings were done in a Hollywood special effects studio. These will be the subject of a forthcoming Papal Bull... If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars. -- J. Paul Getty If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. If you can't understand it, it is intuitively obvious. If you cannot convince them, confuse them. -- Harry S. Truman If you disassemble and assemble something a couple of times, you will have two of them. If you drink, don't park. Accidents make people. If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will. If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. 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 meet somebody who tells you that he loves you more than anybody in the whole wide world, don't trust him. It means he experiments. If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly develop. If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow enobled and none dare criticize it. 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 sex is a pain in the ass, try different position. If you want to feel great, you must eat something real big. If you would keep a secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend. Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion. -- Robert Burton Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows. -- Robert G. Ingersoll Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. -- Jules de Gaultier Imbesi's Law with Freeman's Extension: In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty; but you can get everything dirty without getting anything clean. Immanuel doesn't pun, he Kant. In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. -- Friedrich Nietzsche In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented six feet downward and covered with dirt. -- Blair P. Houghton Peter Principle: In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetency. In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables. In the long run, every program becomes rococco, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. Interfere? Of course you should interfere! Always do what you're best at, I say. Iron Law of Distribution: Them that has, gets. Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? -- Mae West Is there a Life before Death? 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 has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. It is a sad commentary on today's society that this fortune has to be classified as "offensive" simply because it contains the word "fuck". It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. -- Voltaire It is bad luck to be superstitious. -- Andrew W. Mathis It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -- Kehlog Albran 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 because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. -- Dolph Sharp It is impossible to defend perfectly against the attack of those who want to die. It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. -- Gore Vidal It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. -- Voltaire It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle? It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure. -- Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. It seems you keep overlooking a sign reading "No trespassing"! It takes a brave man to admit his mistakes. Especially in a paternity hearing. It takes a special kind of courage to face what we all have to face. It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give up becuase by that time I was too famous. It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The Greeks never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital lies. -- Edith Hamilton, "The Greek Way" It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour! -- Macy's It's all a matter of life and death, so beware of the undead. It's better to be pissed off than pissed on. It's not the ups and downs of love, it's the ins and outs. It's only by NOT taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess. -- Roger Noe Jehovah is an alien and still threatens this planet! Jenkinson's Law: It won't work. Jesus Saves, Moses Invests, But only Buddha pays Dividends. Jesus died for your sins. Make it worth his time. Jesus was killed by a Moral Majority. Johnson's First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time. Jone's Law: The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. Jone's Motto: Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. Jones' 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 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 he knows what it is. Just do it! Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets. -- The Brigader, from Dr. Who Justice is incidental to law and order. -- J. Edgar Hoover Katz' Law: Man and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted. Keep America beautiful. Swallow your beer cans. Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. Kicking the terminal doesn't hurt the monsters. Kindness is the beginning of cruelty. -- Muad'dib Kinkler's First Law: Responsibility always exceeds authority. Kinkler's Second Law: All the easy problems have been solved. Know thyself. If you need help, call the C.I.A. LAGNAF: Let's All Get Naked And Fuck! LISP-programmers say: "Guess how many parentheses are needed to do this!" Prolog-programmers say: "How can I do it in reasonable time ?" C-programmers say: "Can You guess what this->program does ?" Forth-programmers say: "third stack in is what Guess ?" Basic-'programmers' say: "Where did I goto hell ?" Fortran- and Cobol-slaves cry: "How can I do this ?" Laissez Faire Economics is the theory that if each acts like a vulture, all will end as doves. Large cats can be dangerous, but a little pussy never hurt anyone. Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only in race horses and women. -- Lord Kalvin Laugh at your problems; everybody else does. 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. Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. Learn how to spell. Play Hack. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. Legalize free-enterprise murder: why should governments have all the fun? Leibowitz's Rule: When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you hold the hammer with both hands. Leprechauns hide their gold in a secret room. Let Jesus be your anchor! So when Satan rocks your boat, throw Jesus overboard! Let your fingers do the walking on the yulkjhnb keys. Let's face it: this time you're not going to win. Lewis's Law of Travel: The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, ever. Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. -- Gauguin Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. Life is like a penis: when it's soft you can't beat it, and when it's hard you get fucked. Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat. Life is the childhood of our immortality. -- Goethe 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 would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code. Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. Lisp programmers do it recursively. Lisp programmers have to be bound (to-do 'it)... Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun. Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before. Lo! Men have become the tool of their tools. -- Henry David Thoreau 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. Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence. Looking for a monster -- use a staff of monster summoning. Loose bits sink chips. Lord, what fools these mortals be! -- William Shakespeare, "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" Love at first sight is one of the greatest labor-saving devices the world has ever seen. Love cannot be much younger than the lust for murder. -- Sigmund Freud Love comes in spurts. -- Devo, "Please Please" Love does not make the world go around, just up and down a bit. Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished. -- Goethe Love is just for now...herpes lasts forever. Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes. Love thy neighbor as thyself, but choose your neighborhood. -- Louise Beal Love will make you forget time, and time will make you forget love. Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to. Lowery's Law: If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug. Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games -- but not with pleasure. -- Leo Rosten Maier's Law: If the facts don't conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. Corollaries: (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. Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. -- Lily Tomlin Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. -- Samuel Butler Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy. -- Albert Einstein Many a wife thinks her husband is the world's greatest lover. But she can never catch him at it. Many nice things suck. Many pages make a thick book. Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside desperate to get out. -- Montaigne Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. -- Voltaire Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something entirely different. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Mathematicians do it in groups. Mathematicians do it in theory. Mathematicians take it to the limit. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt. May the Carrier be with you. May the Source be with you...always. Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. -- R. S. Barton McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95. Measure twice because you can only cut once. Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. Meet yourself! Commit suicide and type "hack" Memory fault -- core...uh...um...core...Oh dammit, I forget! Memory flaw - core dumped. Micro Credo: Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift. Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles. 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 Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it. -- Russell Baker Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings. 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. Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than in a Lada. 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 evil. Money is the sixth sense that makes it possible to enjoy the five others. Monsters come from nowhere to hit you everywhere. Monsters sleep because you are boring, not because they ever get tired. Most legislators are so dumb that they couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel. Most monsters prefer minced meat. That's why they are hitting you. Most of the bugs in Hack are on the floor. Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass. -- Frank Zappa Most rumors are just as misleading as this one. Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing. Much ado Nothing Happens. Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory. Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will. My girlfriend's favorite erotic position is bending over my credit cards. My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. -- Christopher Morley NEWS FLASH!! Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West German pole-vault champion. Naeser's Law: You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. Nature abhors a hero. For one thing, he violates the law of conservation of energy. For another, how can it be the survival of the fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he is 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. Need money? Sell your corpses to a tin factory. NetHack is a fantasy, in fact you're dreaming. NetHack is addictive. Too late, you're already hooked. Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him. Never eat more than you can lift. -- Miss Piggy Never go into the dungeon at midnight. 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 to make it complex and wonderful. Never mind the monsters hitting you: they just replace the charwomen. 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 a law 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 trust anybody whose arm is bigger than your leg. Never try to outstubborn a cat. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" Never use "etc." -- it makes people think there is more where there is not or that there is not space to list it all, etc. Never use your best weapon to engrave a curse. Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do. -- R. A. Heinlein 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. 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? Thats the place where the powers that be and their friends hang out. -- Zonker Harris No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a camel -- anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform effectively under such difficult conditions. -- Laurence J. Peter No good deed goes unpunished. -- Clare Boothe Luce No guest is so welcome in a friend's house that he will not become nuiscance after three days. -- Titus Maccius Plautus No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut. -- Channing Pollock No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next. -- E. W. Howe No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style. 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 your direction, and almost none will be returned to the source. -- John L. Shelton No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid. No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining occurrence different from the one identified by the given indication as an indication-applied occurrence. -- ALGOL 68 Report No, "Eureka" is Greek for "This bath is too hot." -- Dr. Who Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition. Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations: Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results. Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none. -- William Shakespeare Not all rumors are as misleading as this one. Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper is from the wrong kind of tree. -- Professor W. Not until a program has been in production for at least six months will the most harmful error then be discovered. Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. Nothing is better than Sex. Masturbation is better than nothing. Therefore, Masturbation is better than Sex. Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. -- Andrew Young Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth. -- Nero Wolfe Nothing recedes like success. -- Walter Winchell Nymphs are blondes. Are you a gentleman? O'Riordan's Theorem: Brains x Beauty = Constant. Purmal's Corollary: As the limit of (Brains x Beauty) goes to infinity, availability goes to zero. O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law: Murphy was an optimist. OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard. -- Dr. Joy Obscenity is the crutch of inarticulate motherfuckers. Official Project Stages: (1) Uncritical Acceptance (2) Wild Enthusiasm (3) Dejected Disillusionment (4) Total Confusion (5) Search for the Guilty (6) Punishment of the Innocent (7) Promotion of the Non-participants Ogden's Law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up. Oh John, let's not park here. Oh John, let's not park. Oh John, let's not. Oh John, let's. Oh John. Oh. Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. -- Trotsky Old hackers never die: young ones do. 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 need it. On Brassieres: Russian : Uplifts the masses -- Salvation Army : Raises the fallen American: Makes mountains out of molehills On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks. -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow" On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague: "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong." -- Wolfgang Pauli Once upon a girl there was a time... Once you've tried to change the world you find it's a whole bunch easier to change your mind. One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone. One homunculus a day keeps the doctor away. One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people. One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs. -- Robert Firth One planet is all you get. Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer. Operation coded OVERKILL has started now. Operators mount anything. 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 look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your nails. Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated. 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. POLITICIAN: 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 Paradise is exactly like where you are right now...only much, much better. -- 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 to criticize, 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, or fattening. Arnold's Addendum: Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats. 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 in 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. Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be. Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. -- Eric Hoffer Paul's Law: You can't fall off the floor. Paulg's Law: In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save. People usually get what's coming to them...unless it's been mailed. People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never slept in a room with a single mosquito. People who have no faults are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them. People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first. Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. [Confound those who have said our remarks before us.] -- Aelius Donatus Peter's Law of Substitution: Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after themselves. Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny. Philosophy will clip an angel's wings. -- John Keats Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. -- Don Marquis Plastic... Aluminum... These are the inheritors of the Universe! Flesh and Blood have had their day... and that day is past! -- Green Lantern Comics Pohl's law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. -- Nikita Khrushchev Politicians do it to everyone. Poverty begins at home. Predestination was doomed from the start. Press any key to start formatting the hard disk. Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side. Printers do it by wrinkling the sheets. Procrastinators do it tomorrow. Prostitution is the only business where you can go into the hole and still come out ahead. Pryor's Observation: How long you live has nothing to do with how long you are going to be dead. Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check three friends. If they're ok, you're it. Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check Push something hard enough and it will fall over. 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 how to tell a Polack at a cockfight? A: He's the only one with a duck. Q: Do you know how to tell an Aggie at a cockfight? A: He's the only one who bets on the duck. Q: And do you know how to tell the Mafia is at the cockfight? A: The duck wins! Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is? A: One per person. Q: How can you tell when a WASP is sexually aroused? A: By the stiff upper lip. Q: How do you play religious roulette? A: You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets struck by lightning first. Q: How do you tell if you're making love to a nurse, a schoolteacher, or an airline stewardess? A: A nurse says: "This won't hurt a bit." A schoolteacher says: "We're going to have to do this over and over again until we get it right." An airline stewardess says: "Just hold this over your mouth and nose, and breath normally." Q: How do you tell that your roommate's gay? A: When his cock tastes like shit. Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None. The Universe spines the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way. 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 hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? A: None: "We'll fix it in software." Q: How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? A: None: "We'll document it in the manual." Q: How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb? A: None: "The user can work it out." Q: How many lesbians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Ten. One to do it, and nine to talk about how gratifying it was without a man. 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 much money do you give to a 900 foot Jesus? A: As much as he wants. Q: If Tarzan was Jewish, and Jane was a princess, what would Cheetah be? A: A fur coat. Q: What can you use used tampons for? A: Tea bags for vampires. Q: What do you call couples that use that rhythm method? A: Parents. Q: What is "SMOORPLAY"? A: It's what SMURFS do before they SMUCK, of course! Q: What's buried in Grant's tomb? A: A corpse. Q: What's the difference between erotic and kinky? A: Erotic is when you use a feather. Kinky is when you use the whole bird... Q: What's the difference between hard and dark? A: It stays dark all night. Q: What's the last thing that goes through a grasshopper's mind when he hits your windshield? A: His ass. Q: Where does virgin wool come from? A: Ugly sheep. Q: Why did God invent booze? A: So ugly men could get laid too. Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together? A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home. 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: ' 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 Smit, "The Bronx Diet" Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives. Read the manual before entering the cave - You might get killed otherwise. Reality corrupts. Absolute reality corrupts absolutely. 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 Rejection: When you're masturbating and your hand falls asleep. Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin. -- Anatole France Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines. -- Bertrand Russell Relying on a dog might turn you in a dog addict. Remember, if you win the rat race -- you're still a rat. 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. Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Werner von Braun Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get another chance later on. Revenge is sleeping with your enemy's wife. Sweet revenge is the realization that she's a lousy lay. 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. Row (3x) that boat gently down the stream, Charon (4x), death is but a dream. Rudin's Law: If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it every time. Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London: Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person shall 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: (1) The boss is always right. (2) When the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1. Run away to fight another day. 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. Sauron is alive in Argentina. Save a forest -- eat a beaver. Save a mouse -- eat a pussy. Save energy: be apathetic. Save the whales -- harpoon a Honda. Save the whales. Collect the whole set. Schapiro's Explanation: The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's because they use more manure. Schizophrenia beats being alone. Science is what happens when preconception meets verification. Scientists were preparing an experiment to ask the ultimate question. They had worked for months gathering one each of every computer that was built. Finally the big day was at hand.All the computers were linked together.They asked the question, "Is there a God?".Lights started blinking, flashing and blinking some more.Suddenly, there was a loud crash, and a bolt of lightning came down from the sky, struck the computers, and welded all the connections permanently together."There is now", came the reply. 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 found to have been wrong in the first place. Corollary: After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation. Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else. 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. Second Law of Hacking: first in, first out. Seeing is deceiving. It's eating that's believing. -- James Thurber Self Test for Paranoia: You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's your own fault. Serocki's Stricture: Marriage is always a bachelor's last option. Sex discriminates against the shy and ugly. Sex is dirty, but only if you do it right. Sex is low in calories, and *oooh* that aftertaste! Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. -- Swami X Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation... the other eight are unimportant. -- Henry Miller Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated. -- M. C. Reed. Sex is what women have and men want. Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. She's fine, upstanding, and wonderful laying down. She's the kind of woman you could fall madly in bed with. Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing golf with his boss. Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change. Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. Simon's Law: Everything put together falls apart sooner or later. Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're alive. -- John Sloan Since we're all here, we must not be all there. -- Bob "Mountain" Beck 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 goes to work. 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. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. -- Bertrand Russell So, if there's no God, who changes the water? -- New Yorker cartoon of two goldfish in a bowl Sodd's Second Law: Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur. Sodomy is a pain in the ass. Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them. -- Ed Howe Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic. 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 women are like musical glasses. To keep them in tune they must be wet. -- Samuel Coleridge Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. -- Lily Tomlin Sometimes, you just gotta say "What the fuck." -- Risky Business Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Speak softly and carry a megawatt laser. Speak softly and carry the Staff of Archmage. Speak softly and own a big, mean Doberman. -- Dave Millman 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. Stability itself is nothing else than a more sluggish motion. Statisticians do it with 95% confidence. Statisticians probably do it. 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. Stult's Report: Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is fight the solutions. Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud. Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood. Success is like a fart -- only your own smells nice. -- James P. Hogan Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring. Support wildlife -- vote for an orgy. Support your local police force -- steal!! Sure he's sharp as a razor...he's a two-dimensional pinhead! Surprise your boss. Get to work on time. Swipple's Rule of Order: He who shouts the loudest has the floor. Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head. Take a long worm from the rear, according to its mate it's a lot more fun. Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way. Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your 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 Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway. Teachers do it with class. Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else. Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure. Test makers do it: (a) sometimes (b) always (c) never Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones. That girl could suck the chrome off a bumper. That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all. That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them. -- Dorothy Parker The Abrams' Principle: The shortest distance between two points is off the wall. 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 C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the readability of assembly language. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost would never throw the Devil out of Heaven as long as they still need him as a fourth for bridge. -- Letter in New Libertarian Notes #19 The Fifth Rule: You have taken yourself too seriously. The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Gods don't like competition. The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences The one who has the gold makes the rules. The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: You can never be sure how many beers you had last night. The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group. The Israelites were all waiting anxiously at the foot of the mountain, knowing that Moses had had a tough day negotiating with God over the Commandments. Finally a tired Moses came into sight. "I've got some good news and some bad news, folks," he said. "The good news is that I got Him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery's still in." The Kennedy Constant: Don't get mad -- get even. The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -- Anatole France The Leprechaun Gold Tru$t is no division of the Magic Memory Vault. The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them. -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. -- Macaulay, "History of England, I" The Real Man's Arctic Breakfast: Ingredients: one bottle of whisky, ten pounds of raw meat. Throw the meat to huskies. Drink the whisky. The Real Man's Bloody Mary: Ingredients: vodka, tomato juice, Tobasco, Worcestershire sauce, A-1 steak sauce, ice, salt, pepper, celery. Fill a large tumbler with vodka. Throw all the other ingredients away. The Roman Rule The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet. -- Michael Jackson The Story of Creation or The Myth of Urk In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt... -- Rico Tudor The Street finds its own uses for technology. -- William Gibson The air is positively magic in here. Better wear a negative armor. The beginning of terror is the suspicion of ones own mortality. The end of terror is the surety of it. The best defense against logic is ignorance. The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time. The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. -- Merrick Furst The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to work. The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy. The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animals. Some of their most esteemed inventions have no other apparent purpose, for example, the dinner party of more than two, the epic poem, and the science of metaphysics. -- H. L. Mencken The chief cause of problems is solutions. 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 will walk carefully. -- Russian Proverb The church saves sinners, but science seeks to stop their manufacture. -- Elbert Hubbard 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 defense attorney was hammering away at the plaintiff: "You claim," he jeered, "that my client came at you with a broken bottle in his hand. But is it not true, that you had something in YOUR hand?" "Yes," he admitted, "his wife. Very charming, of course, but not much good in a fight." The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice" The devil finds work for idle circuits to do. The early worm gets the bird. The easiest way to figure the cost of living is to take your income and add ten percent. The economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on weather forecasters. -- Jean-Paul Kauffmann The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, with symposium to follow. The fact that it works is immaterial. -- L. Ogborn The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. -- Abbie Hoffman The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill. -- Robert Heller The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your hands and hoping when a rock or a club will do. -- McCloctnik the Lucid The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI", Part IV The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least 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 him love and he invented marriage. The good Christian should beware of mathematicians and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell. -- St. Augustine The good die young -- because they see it's no use living if you've got to be good. The greatest lies of all time: (1) I love you. (2) This won't hurt a bit. (3) The Mercedes is paid for. (4) The check is in the mail. (5) I was just going to call you. (6) I've always worn cowboy boots. (7) I swear I won't come in your mouth. (8) Of course I'll respect you in the morning. (9) We have a really challenging assignment for you. (10) I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you. The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray. -- Robert G. Ingersoll The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. -- Albert Einstein The human brain is like an enormous fish -- it is flat and slimy and has gills through which it can see. -- Monty Python The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein -- it rejects it. -- P. Medawar The idea is to die young as late as possible. -- Ashley Montagu 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 intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the number of participants. -- Adam Walinsky The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching train. The light at the end of the tunnel may be an oncoming dragon. The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. -- Alan Ashley-Pitt The meek can have the Earth -- rest of us have other plans. The meek shall inherit the Earth -- they are too weak to refuse. The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the klutz 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 more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. -- R. Bach, "Illusions" The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be. -- Lao Tsu The moss on the tree does not fear the talons of the hawk. The most common form of marriage proposal: "YOU'RE WHAT!?" The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action. The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. 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 thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless. -- Chamfort The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. -- Hegel I know guys can't learn from yesterday...Hegel must be taking the long view. -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar" The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up until 5 or 6 p.m. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Niels Bohr The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here. -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) The pleasure is momentary, The position ridiculous, The expense damnable. -- Chesterfield, on sex The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change. -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action. The problem...is that we have run out of dinosaurs to form oil with. The quality of a blow-job is determined by the length of sheet you have to pull out of your ass. The revolution will not be televised. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. -- Emerson The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom. -- Justice Douglas The ripest fruit falls first. -- William Shakespeare, "Richard II" The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And littered with sloppy analysis! The secret of happiness is total disregard of everybody. The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood as he reported to Fafhrd: "I have seen much, yet cannot explain all. The Gray Mouser is exactly twenty-five feet below the deepest cellar in the palace of Gilpkerio Kistomerces. Even though twenty-four parts in twenty-five of him are dead, he is alive. "Now about Lankhmar. She's been invaded, her walls breached everywhere and desperate fighting is going on in the streets, by a fierce 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 shortest distance between two points is under construction. -- Noelie Alito The so-called lessons of history are for the most part the rationalizations of the victors. History is written by the survivors. -- Max Lerner The superfluous is very necessary. -- Voltaire The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision. Each tends to ascribe to the other side a consistency, forsight and coherence that its own experience belies. Of course, even two blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room. -- Henry Kissinger The surest sign that a man is in love is when he divorces his wife. The thief Left it behind -- The moon at the window. -- Ryokan The three most important parts of a stove: lifter, leg, and poker. The three sexual positions during preganancy. During the first four months: Missionary style During the second four months: Doggie style And during the last month: Coyote style Coyote style? You sit by the hole and howl. The time spent on any item of the agenda [of a finance committee] will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved. -- C. N. Parkinson The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing more important to do. The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was. The trouble with money is it costs too much. The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa. The two most common things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. The universe does not have laws -- it has habits, and habits can be broken. The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination -- but the combination is locked up in the safe. -- Peter DeVries The value of a program is directly proportional to the weight of its output. The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence. -- Adolph Hitler, "Mein Kampf" The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views...which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering. -- Doctor Who, "Face of Evil" The volume of paper expands to fill the available briefcases. -- Jerry Brown The wages of sin are high -- unless you know someone who does it for nothing. The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood. -- Alexander Haig The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start with a large fortune. The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books! The world's as ugly as sin, And almost as delightful -- Frederick Locker-Lampson Theft from a single author is plagiarism. Theft from two is comparative study. Theft from three or more is research. There are many ways to say "I love you", but fucking is the fastest. There are really not many jobs that actually require a penis or a vagina, and all other occupations should be open to everyone. -- Gloria Steinem There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both plants 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 swells and fades over the surface of the earth, collecting in concentrated pools here and there, almost disappearing from other spots, leaving them parched for wonder. There are also those who believe that if you stick your fingers up your nose and blow, it will increase your intelligence. -- "The Teachings of Ebenezum, Volume VII" There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. -- Disraeli There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away >from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; or someone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor. There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I can'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 two sides to every divorce: yours and the shithead's. There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make is so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. -- C. A. R. Hoare There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one works. There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives. There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. -- Henry Kissinger There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about. There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an opinion. -- Anatole France There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum. -- Arthur C. Clarke 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, fast reflexes. There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly. -- Publius Terentius Afer There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. -- C. S. Lewis, "The Chronicles of Narnia" There was something about her I liked, but I couldn't put my finger on it. There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad its not a fence. There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. There's no future in time travel. There's no heavier burden than a great potential. 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 get any worse. They make a desert and call it peace. -- Tacitus They told me I was gullible...and I believed them! 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. Think of your family tonight. Try to crawl home after the computer crashes. Think sideways! -- Edward De Bono Third Law of Hacking: the last blow counts most. This fortune cookie is property of Fortune Cookies, Inc. This is the Leprechaun Law: every purse has a price. This limerick is --SO--FILTHY-- that it would offend you. So I'll put "di-dah" for the filthy words: Di-dah, di-dah, di-dah di-dah, Di-dah di-dah di-dah, di-dah; di-dah di-dah di-dah? Di-dah di-dah di-dah. Di-dah di-dah, di-dah di-fuck. This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force. -- Dorothy Parker This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't. -- Hofstadter This will be a memorable month -- no matter how hard you try to forget it. Those of you who think you know everything are very annoying to those of us who do. Those who can't write, write manuals. Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. -- John F. Kennedy Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. -- Frederick Douglass Thou shalt not omit adultery. Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained. -- The Tao of Programming Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once. To a Real Woman, every ejaculation is premature. To be is to do. -- I. Kant To do is to be. -- A. Sartre Do-be-do-be-do. -- F. Sinatra To be is to do. -- I. Kant To do is to be. -- A. Sartre Yabba-Dabba-Doo! -- F. Flinstone To be or not to be. -- Shakespeare To do is to be. -- Nietzsche To be is to do. -- Sartre Do be do be do. -- Frank Sinatra To be responsive at this time, though I will simply say, and therefore this is a repeat of what I said previously, that which I am unable to offer in response is based on information available to make no such statement. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and whatever you hit, call it the target. To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer. To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System. To err is human, to moo bovine. To generalize is to be an idiot. -- William Blake To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three men, 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. To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war. -- W. Churchill, on Korean War negotiations To spot the expert, pick the one who predicts the job will take the longest and cost the most. To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a test load. To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question...or is it? Today is a good day to bribe a high-ranking public official. Today is a good day to die. -- An apache warrior proverb Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Tomorrow will be canceled due to lack of interest. Too clever is dumb. -- Ogden Nash Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL. -- Mae West Too often I find that the volume of paper expands to fill the available briefcases. -- Governor Jerry Brown Travel important today; Internal Revenue men arrive tomorrow. Trolls are described as rubbery: they keep bouncing back. Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence. -- Henrik Tikkanen Try hacking in the wee hours: you will have more room. 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 written in four tenses: past tense, present tense, future tense, and pretense. Watch for novel uses of CONGRAM (CONtractor GRAMmer), defined by the imperfect past, the insufficient present, and the absolutely perfect future. -- Amrom Katz Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance. Trying to establish voice contact...please yell into keyboard. 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. Twenty percent of zero is better than nothing. -- Walt Kelly Two can live as cheaply as one for half as long. -- Howard Kandel Two is not 3 -- not even for large values of 2. Two percent of zero is almost nothing. Two things I like the best in life -- hot cars and fast women. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do. UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist. 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 a just man is also a prison. -- Henry David Thoreau Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite. -- John Kenneth Galbraith Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic... Unnamed Law: If it happens, it must be possible. Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec...inputdir Using a morning star in the evening has no effect. Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, 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. Van Roy's Law: An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. 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. Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came.) 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 Virtue is its own punishment. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving from where you left them to where you can't find them. Vote anarchist! WARNING from H.M. Govt: Quaffing may be dangerous to your health. Wanted: shopkeepers. Send a scroll of mail to: Mage of Yendor/Level 35/Dungeon. War hath no fury like a non-combatant. -- Charles Edward Montague War is menstruation envy. Warning: end of file 'fortunes' reached. 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 as gods and might as well get good at it. -- Whole Earth Catalog We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough. -- Niels Bohr We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo" We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem. -- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982 We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved. We can embody the truth, but we cannot know it. -- Yates We can't really be wrong if we're just following Gods orders You know, He wrote this book here And in this book He says that He made us to be just like Him So if we're dumb, then God's dumb (and perhaps a little ugly on the side) -- Frank Zappa We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty! -- Vroomfondel We don't have to protect the environment -- the Second Coming is at hand. -- James Watt We don't understand the software, and sometimes we don't understand the hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights! We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best friends are trying to kill us. We took some pictures of the girls, but they weren't developed. We've just recieved the results of a survey conducted to ascertain the various reasons men get out of bed in the middle of the night. According to the report, 2% are motivated by a desire to visit the bathroom, and 3% have an urge to raid the refrigerator. The other 95% get up to go home. Wedding is destiny, and hanging likewise. -- John Heywood 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 if you run out of food. -- Dean McLaughlin. Were there no women, men might live like gods. -- Thomas Dekker 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 I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility. What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. -- WOP, "War Games" What color is a chameleon on a mirror? What fools these mortals be. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca What good is having someone who can walk on water if you don't follow in his footsteps? 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 robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertold Brecht 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 nothing to compare it with. What one fool can do, another can. -- Ancient Simian Proverb What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -- Ursula K. LeGuin What the fuck, over? What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket. What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. -- Wittgenstein What's another word for Thesaurus? -- Steven Wright What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it? -- The Doctor Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not nailed down. -- Collis P. Huntingdon When God created man, She was only testing. When God created two sexes, he may have been overdoing it. -- Charles Merrill Smith When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them. When a banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the money is. -- Robespierre When a female has tears in her eyes the one who cannot see is the male. When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. -- Samuel Johnson When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain relationships 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 Gestapo tactics *with* Gestapo tactics? -- Reuben Flagg When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours." -- Vine Deloria, Jr. When choosing between evils, I always like to take the one I've never tried before. -- Mae West When in doubt, use brute force. -- Ken Thompson When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes. -- Dylan Thomas When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. When the blind lead the blind they will both fall over the cliff. -- Chinese proverb When the candles are out all women are fair. -- Plutarch When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical. -- Jon Carroll When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- Hunter S. Thompson When the prick stands up, the brains get buried in the ground. -- Old Jewish saying [How come there aren't ever any "New Jewish sayings?" Ed.] When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. -- George Bernard Shaw When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. -- Thomas Paine 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 shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer to 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 by asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't know 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've seen one nuclear war, you've seen them all. Whenever anyone says, "theoretically," they really mean, "not really". -- Dave Parnas Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. -- John Kenneth Galbraith Whether you can hear it or not The Universe is laughing behind your back. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata" While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is admission to someone else. While farmers generally allow one rooster for ten hens, ten men are scarcely sufficient to service one woman. -- Boccaccio 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't keep 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 own form 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 very reassuring to know that it's still there. Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process. Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink? Who's on first? Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. Why are you wasting time reading fortunes? Why be a man when you can be a success? -- Bertold Brecht Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones we have? 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 to avoid responsibility with? Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet? -- Lily Tomlin Why marry a virgin? If she wasn't good enough for the rest of them then she isn't good enough for you. 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 as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress. -- Ransom K. Ferm Wizards do it background & 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 Women who want to be equal to men lack imagination. -- Graffito in a women's restroom Work fascinates me... I can sit and watch it for hours. Work is the curse of the drinking classes. Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips? Writers do it between periods. X-rated movies are all alike...the only thing they leave to the imagination is the plot. Xerox does it again and again and again and... Xerox never comes up with anything original. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of APL, I shall fear no evil, for I can string 6 primitive monadic and dyadic operators together. -- Steve Higgins Yeah, but you're taking the universe out of context. Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache. 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 Yield to Temptation...it may not pass your way again. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" You are heading for head-stone for sure. You are just the kind of bad food some monsters like to digest. You are not drunk if you lie under the table. When you no longer order from there, then you are drunk. You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. You are without a doubt a rogue, a rascal, a villain, a thief, a scoundrel, and a mean, dirty, stinking, sniveling, sneaking, pimping, pocketpicking, thrice double-damned, no-good son-of-a-bitch. You can create your own opportunities this week. Blackmail a senior executive. You can find sympathy, in the dictionary, right near shit and suicide. You can get a genuine Amulet of Yendor by doing the following: -- more -- You can get more of what you want with a kind word and a gun than you can 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 only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks. You can't get rid of a cursed plate mail with a can-opener. You can't have everything. Where would you put it? -- Steven Wright You can't teach people to be lazy -- either they have it, or they don'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 come out of a woman and you spend the rest of your life trying to get back inside. -- Heathcote Williams You could get a new lease on life -- if only you didn't need the first and last month in advance. You die... You don't have to be crazy to live in this planet -- but it helps. You have a reputation for being thoroughly reliable and trustworthy. A pity that it's totally undeserved. You have a strong appeal for members of the opposite sex. You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today. You hear the fortune cookie's hissing! You humans are all alike. You know the great thing about TV? If something important happens anywhere 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've been spending too much time on the computer when your friend misdates a check, and you suggest adding a "++" to fix it. You may be recognized soon. Hide. You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the beach. You offend Shai-Hulud by sheathing your crysknife without having drawn blood. You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially if they are dead. You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10^12 to 1. -- Ernest Rutherford You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty. -- Henrick Ibsen You think Oedipus had a problem -- Adam was Eve's mother. You tread upon my patience. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry IV" You will be Told about it Tomorrow. Go Home and Prepare Thyself. You worry too much about your job. Stop it. You're not paid enough to worry. You're going into the morgue at midnight???? 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. Your fault -- core dumped Your life would be very empty if you had nothing to regret. Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor: People are always available for work in the past tense. f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgmn. gy-ro-scope: A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpindicular to each other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two mutually perpindicular axes results from application of torque to the other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin. -- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary Moses, returning from the mountain, spoke to his people: "The good news is we got them down to ten." "The bad news is that adultery is still one of them." We have them just where they want us. -- James T. Kirk "I'd rather have Lockheed deliver the mail than ride around in a plane built by the post office." "I figure I'm pretty good with the bullshit but I love listening to an expert. Keep talking." "Money can't buy happiness but it can certainly rent it for a couple of hours." "The meek shall inherit the Earth after we're done with it." "Beam me up, Scotty. There's no intelligent life down here." -- James T. Kirk Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. -- Albert Einstein Time flies when you don't know what you're doing. Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill. We are the people our parents warned us about. Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive. Lead me not into temptation. I can find it myself. How much sin can I get away with and still go to heaven? There is intelligent life on Earth, but I'm just visiting. Power means not having to respond. Never kick a man unless he's down. We should forgive our enemies, but only after they've been taken out and shot. The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made. I'm not as dumb as you look. I'd like to help you out. Which way did you come in? Everyone needs belief in something. I believe I'll have another beer. How can I love you if you won't lie down? You can find sympathy between shit and syphilis in the dictionary. To err is human. To forgive is unusual. Only those who attempt the absurd can acheive the impossible. I'm not going deaf. I'm ignoring you. I'm the person your mother warned you about. How can I tell you I love you when you're sitting on my face? God is dead and I want His job. I can tell you're lying. Your lips are moving. Our parents were never our age. Nothing was ever accomplished by a reasonable person. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. In the country of the blind the one eye'd man is king. He who laughs last has not been told the terrible truth. It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys. When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better. -- Mae West I'm really enjoying not talking to you, so let's not talk again real soon, okay? He who laughs last didn't get the joke. Obviously the only rational solution to your problem is suicide. Death is the greatest kick of all. That's why they save it for last. I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally. I think I could fall madly in bed with you. I used to be lost in the shuffle. Now I just shuffle along with the lost. Yesterday was the deadline on all complaints. Sex is the most fun you can have without laughing. I worship the ground that awaits you. The future isn't what it used to be. I wish you were a beer. I want to live forever or die in the attempt. Love means telling you why you're sorry. Love your enemies. It'll make 'em crazy. Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma. I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent. I'm having a party in my pants. Want to come? Why be difficult when with a bit of effort you can be impossible? Perfect paranoia is perfect awareness. A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine. Bureocrats do not change the course of the ship of state. They merely adjust the compass. You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word. Don't think of organ donations as giving up part of yourself to keep a total stranger alive. It's really a total stranger giving up almost all of themselves to keep part of you alive. Drink wet cement: Get Stoned. Kite fliers keep it up longer. If you don't know what you're doing, do it neatly. An easily understood, workable falsehood is more useful than a complex, incomprehesable truth. You have a right to your opinions. I just don't want to hear them. Eat a live toad in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day. Nuke the whales Join the Army: travel to exotic distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them. We'll get along fine as soon as you realize I'm God. Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat. I don't know. I don't care. And it doesn't make any difference. Those of you who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do. It's not that you and I are so clever, but that the others are such fools. If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit. I'm not cynical. Just experianced. The torture never stops. Ignore alien orders. I know you think you uderstood what I said, but what you heard was not what I meant. I don't have a drinking problem. I drink I get drunk I fall down No problem It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am. I'm for lust. Bullshit Detector. When alarm sounds, please re-engage your brain.