Hearing this, the man was Enlightened.
%
A manager asked a programmer how long it would take him to finish the
-program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the programmer
-promptly replied.
+program on which he was working. "I will be finished tomorrow," the
+programmer promptly replied.
"I think you are being unrealistic," said the manager. "Truthfully,
how long will it take?"
The programmer thought for a moment. "I have some features that I wish
invented a new program that became popular and sold well. As a result, the
manager retained his job.
The manager tried to give the programmer a bonus, but the programmer
-refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an interesting
-concept, and thus I expect no reward."
+refused it, saying, "I wrote the program because I though it was an
+interesting concept, and thus I expect no reward."
The manager, upon hearing this, remarked, "This programmer, though he
holds a position of small esteem, understands well the proper duty of an
employee. Lets promote him to the exalted position of management consultant!"
of generalized graphics routines, and artificial intelligence interface,
but not the slightest mention of anything financial.
When the master asked about this, the novice became indignant.
-"Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in eventually."
+"Don't be so impatient," he said, "I'll put the financial stuff in
+eventually."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
%
A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the
Didn't it quit working? I sat and smiled like an idiot as more of the truth
dawned. It's the wiring harness that carries the smoke from one device to
another in your Mini, MG or Jag. And when the harness springs a leak, it lets
-the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter motor
-requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why the wire
-going to it is so large.
+the smoke out of everything at once, and then nothing works. The starter
+motor requires large quantities of smoke to operate properly, and that's why
+the wire going to it is so large.
Feeling very smug, I continued to expand my hypothesis. Why are Lucas
electronics more likely to leak than say Bosch? Hmmm... Aha!!! Lucas is
British, and all things British leak! British convertible tops leak water,
populated by losers, that machine will be freed up for your job through a
cold boot process.
%
-All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts
-you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get
-them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer.
+All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the
+parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't
+get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a
+hammer.
-- IBM maintenance manual, 1925
%
-All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts
-those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds
-of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end
-goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger,
-and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works,
-the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found
-the last bug."
+All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially
+attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the
+hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus
+on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers
+are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection
+process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or
+"I just found the last bug."
-- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"
%
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
(NOT the default) the old garbage collection algorithm remains in force; when
virtual storage is filled, the machine cold boots itself. With SI:%DSK-GC-
QLX-BITS set to 23, the new garbage collector is enabled. Unlike most garbage
-collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather
+collectors, the new gc starts its mark phase from the mind of the user, rather
than from the obarray. This allows the garbage collection of significantly
more Qs. As the garbage collector runs, it may ask you something like "Do you
remember what SI:RDTBL-TRANS does?", and if you can't give a reasonable answer
know that there has to be a reason. Electrical theories are the easiest to
hypothesize: was there a loose with under the carpet, or problems with static
electricity? But electrical problems are rarely consistently reproducible.
-An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's keyboard:
-the tops of two keys were switched. When the programmer was seated he was a
-touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was led
-astray by hunting and pecking.
+An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's
+keyboard: the tops of two keys were switched. When the programmer was seated
+he was a touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was
+led astray by hunting and pecking.
-- "Programming Pearls" column, by Jon Bentley in CACM February 1985
%
An elephant is a mouse with an operating system.
%
An engineer is someone who does list processing in FORTRAN.
%
-An interpretation _\bI satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only if
-each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by the
-function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects designated
-by the corresponding row and column labels.
+An interpretation _\bI satisfies a sentence in the table language if and only
+if each entry in the table designates the value of the function designated by
+the function constant in the upper-left corner applied to the objects
+designated by the corresponding row and column labels.
-- Genesereth & Nilsson, "Logical foundations of Artificial
Intelligence"
%
As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.
-- Weisert
%
-As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name.
+As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true
+name.
-- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie
%
As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into
public parts are visible to all clients; members declared in the private
parts are fully encapsulated; and members declared in the protected parts
are visible only to the class itself and its subclasses. C++ also supports
-the notion of *_______\b\b\b\b\b\b\bfriends*: cooperative classes that are permitted to see each
-other's private parts.
+the notion of *_______\b\b\b\b\b\b\bfriends*: cooperative classes that are
+permitted to see each other's private parts.
-- Grady Booch, "Object Oriented Design with Applications"
%
Calm down, it's *____\b\b\b\bonly* ones and zeroes.
Counting in binary is just like counting in decimal -- if you are all thumbs.
-- Glaser and Way
%
-Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your thumbs.
+Counting in octal is just like counting in decimal--if you don't use your
+thumbs.
-- Tom Lehrer
%
[Crash programs] fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine
directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person. This can cost
as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call!
And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's
-money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an overnight
-letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp!
+money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an
+overnight letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp!
Don't forget. The world will end if your message doesn't get through,
so post it as many places as you can.
-- Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
Due to lack of disk space, this fortune database has been discontinued.
%
During the next two hours, the system will be going up and down several
-times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_\a~{o[po ~y oodsou>#w4k**n~po_\a~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o
+times, often with lin~po_~{po ~poz~ppo\~{ o n~po_\a~{o[po ~y
+oodsou>#w4k**n~po_\a~{ol;lkld;f;g;dd;po\~{o
%
E Pluribus Unix
%
Industries in Danbury, Connecticut, Arenberg Ultrasonics in Jamaica Plain,
Massachusetts, and Hewlett Packard in Sunnyvale, California, where Norman
Packard's cousin, David, presided as chairman of the board. The trick was to
-make these calls at noon, in the hope that out-to-lunch executives would return
-them at their own expense. Eudaemonic Enterprises, for all they knew, might be
-a fast-growing computer company branching out of the Silicon Valley. Sniffing
-the possibility of high-volume sales, these executives little suspected that
-they were talking on the other end of the line to a naked physicist crazed
-over roulette.
+make these calls at noon, in the hope that out-to-lunch executives would
+return them at their own expense. Eudaemonic Enterprises, for all they knew,
+might be a fast-growing computer company branching out of the Silicon Valley.
+Sniffing the possibility of high-volume sales, these executives little
+suspected that they were talking on the other end of the line to a naked
+physicist crazed over roulette.
-- Thomas Bass, "The Eudaemonic Pie"
%
<<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<<
Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and
hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao
lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does
-not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seeks fortune,
-for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time."
- Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
+not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence. It does not seeks
+fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time."
+Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
%
"Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?"
I *____\b\b\b\bknew* I had some reason for not logging you off... If I could just
remember what it was.
%
-I am a computer. I am dumber than any human and smarter than any administrator.
+I am a computer. I am dumber than any human and smarter than any
+administrator.
%
I am NOMAD!
%
I'm still waiting for the advent of the computer science groupie.
%
I'm sure that VMS is completely documented, I just haven't found the
-right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the document
-library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to go), so I
-should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember what it
-was by the time I find it.
+right manual yet. I've been working my way through the manuals in the
+document library and I'm half way through the second cabinet, (3 shelves to
+go), so I should find what I'm looking for by mid May. I hope I can remember
+what it was by the time I find it.
I had this idea for a new horror film, "VMS Manuals from Hell" or maybe
-"The Paper Chase : IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds", except
-that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of binder
-pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally left
-blank."
+"The Paper Chase : IBM vs. DEC". It's based on Hitchcock's "The Birds",
+except that it's centered around a programmer who is attacked by a swarm of
+binder pages with an index number and the single line "This page intentionally
+left blank."
-- Alex Crain
%
I've finally learned what "upward compatible" means. It means we get to
If you ever want to have a lot of fun, I recommend that you go off and program
an imbedded system. The salient characteristic of an imbedded system is that
it cannot be allowed to get into a state from which only direct intervention
-will suffice to remove it. An imbedded system can't permanently trust anything
-it hears from the outside world. It must sniff around, adapt, consider, sniff
-around, and adapt again. I'm not talking about ordinary modular programming
-carefulness here. No. Programming an imbedded system calls for undiluted
-raging maniacal paranoia. For example, our ethernet front ends need to know
-what network number they are on so that they can address and route PUPs
-properly. How do you find out what your network number is? Easy, you ask a
-gateway. Gateways are required by definition to know their correct network
-numbers. Once you've got your network number, you start using it and before
-you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread all
-over creation. Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes he
-was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong
+will suffice to remove it. An imbedded system can't permanently trust
+anything it hears from the outside world. It must sniff around, adapt,
+consider, sniff around, and adapt again. I'm not talking about ordinary
+modular programming carefulness here. No. Programming an imbedded system
+calls for undiluted raging maniacal paranoia. For example, our ethernet front
+ends need to know what network number they are on so that they can address and
+route PUPs properly. How do you find out what your network number is? Easy,
+you ask a gateway. Gateways are required by definition to know their correct
+network numbers. Once you've got your network number, you start using it and
+before you can blink you've got it wired into fifteen different sockets spread
+all over creation. Now what happens when the panic-stricken operator realizes
+he was running the wrong version of the gateway which was giving out the wrong
network number? Never supposed to happen. Tough. Supposing that your
software discovers that the gateway is now giving out a different network
number than before, what's it supposed to do about it? This is not discussed
-in the protocol document. Never supposed to happen. Tough. I think you
-get my drift.
+in the protocol document. Never supposed to happen. Tough. I think you get
+my drift.
%
If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.
%
-- J. Sammet
%
It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden
-directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire.
-During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the
-Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with
+directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative
+Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to
+the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with
enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's
sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script,
custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore
[It is] best to confuse only one issue at a time.
-- K&R
%
-It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty small
-price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands computers.
+It isn't easy being the parent of a six-year-old. However, it's a pretty
+small price to pay for having somebody around the house who understands
+computers.
%
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of
%
news: gotcha
%
-Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name correctly
-(Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les Worth). Which
-is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value.
+Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name
+correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les
+Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call
+him by value.
%
No directory.
%
nohup rm -fr /&
So he did...
%
-Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was, in
-fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they
+Norbert Weiner was the subject of many dotty professor stories. Weiner was,
+in fact, very absent minded. The following story is told about him: when they
moved from Cambridge to Newton his wife, knowing that he would be absolutely
useless on the move, packed him off to MIT while she directed the move. Since
she was certain that he would forget that they had moved and where they had
him. Naturally, in the course of the day, an insight occurred to him. He
reached in his pocket, found a piece of paper on which he furiously scribbled
some notes, thought it over, decided there was a fallacy in his idea, and
-threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the
-old address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they
-had moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of
+threw the piece of paper away. At the end of the day he went home (to the old
+address in Cambridge, of course). When he got there he realized that they had
+moved, that he had no idea where they had moved to, and that the piece of
paper with the address was long gone. Fortunately inspiration struck. There
was a young girl on the street and he conceived the idea of asking her where
he had moved to, saying, "Excuse me, perhaps you know me. I'm Norbert Weiner
and we've just moved. Would you know where we've moved to?" To which the
young girl replied, "Yes, Daddy, Mommy thought you would forget."
The capper to the story is that I asked his daughter (the girl in the
-story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it wasn't
-quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of it,
-however, was pretty close to what actually happened...
+story) about the truth of the story, many years later. She said that it
+wasn't quite true -- that he never forgot who his children were! The rest of
+it, however, was pretty close to what actually happened...
-- Richard Harter
%
Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad.
Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in
BASIC after reaching puberty.
%
-Real Programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and
-crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who wear white socks.
+Real Programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks
+and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who wear white
+socks.
%
Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who can't
decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN.
parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different
types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a
recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language
-so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use?
+so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man
+use?
%
***** Special AI Seminar (abstract)
-It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge
-in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not
-sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly,
-we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call
-"wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a
-wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought.
-IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom
-about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so
-forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic
-rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL
-succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed
-in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those
-underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory
-of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe
-IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly
-discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration.
+It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in
+order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not
+sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we
+have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom
+engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom
+based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL
+was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such
+elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth.
+IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules
+contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL
+succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed
+in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those
+underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's
+theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will
+describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also
+briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil
+exploration.
%
Staff meeting in the conference room in %d minutes.
%
programming. One former student developed the concept of the personalized
form letter. Does the phrase, "Dear Mr.(insert name), You may already be a
winner!," sound familiar? Another student writes "After only five lessons I
-sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing magazine.
-Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a database-management
-program for my department manager. My program touched him so deeply that he
-was speechless. He told me later that he had never seen such a program in
-his entire career. Thank you, Famous Programmers' school; only you could
-have made this possible." Send for our introductory brochure which explains
-in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers' School, and you'll
-be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing, the winner of which
-can vie for a set of free steak knives. If you don't do it now, you'll hate
-yourself in the morning.
+sold a "My Most Unforgettable Program" article to Corrosive Computing
+magazine. Another of our graduates writes, "I recently completed a
+database-management program for my department manager. My program touched him
+so deeply that he was speechless. He told me later that he had never seen
+such a program in his entire career. Thank you, Famous Programmers' school;
+only you could have made this possible." Send for our introductory brochure
+which explains in vague detail the operation of the Famous Programmers'
+School, and you'll be eligible to win a possible chance to enter a drawing,
+the winner of which can vie for a set of free steak knives. If you don't do
+it now, you'll hate yourself in the morning.
%
Such efforts are almost always slow, laborious, political, petty, boring,
ponderous, thankless, and of the utmost criticality.
his head knocked off.
-- Bill Conrad
%
-The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
+The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose
+from.
-- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
%
The nicest thing about the Alto is that it doesn't run faster at night.
%
This is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement.
%
-"This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back to one."
+"This is lemma 1.1. We start a new chapter so the numbers all go back to
+one."
-- Prof. Seager, C&O 351
%
This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the
%
"The biggest problem facing software engineering is the one it will
never solve - politics."
- -- Gavin Baker, ca 1996, An unusually cynical moment inspired by working on a large
- project beseiged by politics
+ -- Gavin Baker, ca 1996, An unusually cynical moment inspired by working on a
+ large project beseiged by politics
%
"Don't fear the pen. When in doubt, draw a pretty picture."
--Baker's Third Law of Design.
29 printf ("Welcome to GNU Hell!\n");
-- "GNU Libtool documentation"
%
-
history of war have so few been led by so many.
- General James Gavin
%
-The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
+The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do
+nothing.
- Edmund Burke
%
You may call me by my name, Wirth, or by my value, Worth.
Police up your spare rounds and frags. Don't leave nothin' for the dinks.
- Willem Dafoe in "Platoon"
%
-"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific."
+"All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more
+specific."
-- Jane Wagner
%
"Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple
make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable.
As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If
we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for
-personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing
-a part of our lives?"
+personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make
+computing a part of our lives?"
-- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984
%
"The greatest warriors are the ones who fight for peace."
%
Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and
bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we
-don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly
-serious problems that face us -- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up
-for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.
+don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the
+truly serious problems that face us -- and we risk becoming a nation of
+suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.
-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987
%
Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging.
psychology is simply that its investigation has not proven fruitful...After
more than 70 years of study, there still does not exist one example of an ESP
phenomenon that is replicable under controlled conditions. This simple but
-basic scientific criterion has not been met despite dozens of studies conducted
-over many decades...It is for this reason alone that the topic is now of little
-interest to psychology...In short, there is no demonstrated phenomenon that
-needs explanation.
+basic scientific criterion has not been met despite dozens of studies
+conducted over many decades...It is for this reason alone that the topic is
+now of little interest to psychology...In short, there is no demonstrated
+phenomenon that needs explanation.
-- Keith E. Stanovich, "How to Think Straight About Psychology", pp. 160-161
%
The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand
is and will always be a wild animal.
-- Charles Galton Darwin
%
-Natural selection won't matter soon, not anywhere as much as concious selection.
-We will civilize and alter ourselves to suit our ideas of what we can be.
-Within one more human lifespan, we will have changed ourselves unrecognizably.
+Natural selection won't matter soon, not anywhere as much as concious
+selection. We will civilize and alter ourselves to suit our ideas of what we
+can be. Within one more human lifespan, we will have changed ourselves
+unrecognizably.
-- Greg Bear
%
"Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin."
-- Michael O'Donohugh
%
-...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from
-beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War"
+...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage
+from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War"
%
"It's like deja vu all over again." -- Yogi Berra
%
The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.
-- Blaise Pascal
%
-"Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning,"
-the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
+"Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the
+beginning," the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then
+stop."
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
%
A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.
A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle
unless there be two. -- Seneca
%
-Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no proverb
-to you till your life has illustrated it. -- John Keats
+Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no
+proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. -- John Keats
%
The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order
of space and time. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
%
Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he
has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has
-the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted
-and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda
-and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and
-make him something less than a man.
+the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with
+distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with
+propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning
+processes, and make him something less than a man.
-- Arthur Hays Sulzberger
%
Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy
-- Jean Cocteau
%
Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same
-rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient
-would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the
-answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75,
-it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it would deliver enough
-power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were interested in
-miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a pinhead.
+rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more
+efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the
+analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a
+Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it
+would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were
+interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a
+pinhead.
-- Christopher Evans
%
In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals.
to this design is that now a system failure can usually be considered to be
the result of two program errors: the first, in the program that started the
problem; the second, in the recovery routine that could not protect the
-system. -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage Operating
+system. -- A. L. Scherr, "Functional Structure of IBM Virtual Storage
+Operating
Systems, Part II: OS/VS-2 Concepts and Philosophies," IBM Systems Journal,
Vol. 12, No. 4, 1973, pp. 382-400
%
After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new
folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or
speaker of intuitive likes".
- -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X the intuitiveness of a Mac interface
+ -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X the intuitiveness of a Mac
+ interface
%
Now I know someone out there is going to claim, "Well then, UNIX is intuitive,
because you only need to learn 5000 commands, and then everything else follows
-- Linus Torvalds, regarding the use of C++ for the Linux kernel
%
It's now the GNU Emacs of all terminal emulators.
- -- Linus Torvalds, regarding the fact that Linux started off as a terminal emulator
+ -- Linus Torvalds, regarding the fact that Linux started off as a terminal
+ emulator
%
Audience: What will become of Linux when the Hurd is ready?
Eric Youngdale: Err... is Richard Stallman here?
-- Linus Torvalds, announcing another kernel patch
%
How do you power off this machine?
- -- Linus, when upgrading linux.cs.helsinki.fi, and after using the machine for several months
+ -- Linus, when upgrading linux.cs.helsinki.fi, and after using the machine
+ for several months
%
Excusing bad programming is a shooting offence, no matter _what_ the
circumstances.
-- Unknown source
%
Winnuke in one line? No problem:
-perl -MIO::Socket -e 'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)'
+perl -MIO::Socket -e \
+'IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr=>"bad.dude.com:139")->send("bye",MSG_OOB)'
And formatted so it's a little easier to read:
Netscape is not a newsreader, and probably never shall be.
-- Tom Christiansen
%
-Stopping Apache webserver...sleeping...starting again...apache: dl-version.c:189:
+Stopping Apache webserver...sleeping...starting again...
+apache: dl-version.c:189:
_dl_check_map_versions: Assertion `needed != ((void *)0)' failed
noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
-- netgod on #Debian at LISC
#Debian makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :)
-- HippieGuy on #Debian
%
-<Myxie> I know. Unless htere is a cookie monster somewhere between us tat muches the amil.
+<Myxie> I know. Unless htere is a cookie monster somewhere between us tat
+muches the amil.
<Myxie> amil/mail
<Myxie> muches/munches tat/that htere/there
<HippieGuy> heheh
straight.
-- From linux-kernel
%
-Do people like check the Debian website every 5 minutes to check it hasn't morphed into another one?
+Do people like check the Debian website every 5 minutes to check it hasn't
+morphed into another one?
Not that I'm one to talk, but some people seriously need to get a life
-- james on #Debian
%
Sozialismus der besseren Art ...
-- Christian Seel in der Berliner Morgenpost v. 9.3.1997
%
-* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the splits in the first place...
+* james would be more impressed if netgod's magic powers could stop the splits
+in the first place...
* netgod notes debian developers are notoriously hard to impress
-- Seen on #Debian
%
* In anticipation of 2.10.02 release, updated to patchlevel
- +ircu2.10.01+.config6-7.config7-8.lgline3.iwho.limit.glibc.motdcache2.trace.whois1-2.config8-9.statsw.sprintf2-3.msgtree2.memleak1-2+.msgtree2-3.gline8-9.gline9-10.invite2.rbr.stats.numclients.whisper.whisper1-2.stats1-2.nokick1-2.chroot.config9-11.snomask7-8.limi+t1-3.userip1-3.userip3-4.config11-12.config12-13.umode2-3.akillsbt.who4-5.kn.kn1-2.freebsdcore2.msgtree3-5.y2k.glibc1-2.rmfunc.msgf+lags2.who5-6.nickchange2.glibc2-3.modeless3
+ +ircu2.10.01+.config6-7.config7-8.lgline3.iwho.limit.glibc.motdcache2.
+ trace.whois1-2.config8-9.statsw.sprintf2-3.msgtree2.memleak1-2+.
+ msgtree2-3.gline8-9.gline9-10.invite2.rbr.stats.numclients.whisper.
+ whisper1-2.stats1-2.nokick1-2.chroot.config9-11.snomask7-8.limi+t1-3.
+ userip1-3.userip3-4.config11-12.config12-13.umode2-3.akillsbt.who4-5.
+ kn.kn1-2.freebsdcore2.msgtree3-5.y2k.glibc1-2.rmfunc.msgf+lags2.
+ who5-6.nickchange2.glibc2-3.modeless3
-- From the annoucement of ircd 2.10.01-3 for Debian GNU/Linux
%
* Joey should not write changelog entries at 5:30am
so poor wee biff is gonna go.
-- John Spence <jspence@lynx.net.au> on debian-user
%
-Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror it.
+Real Men don't make backups. They upload it via ftp and let the world mirror
+it.
-- Linus Torvalds
%
One tree to rule them all,
<dark> Turn all your xterms to black-on-white :) Plenty of light that way.
-- Seen on #Debian
%
-| |-sshd---tcsh-+-dpkg-buildpacka---rules---sh---make---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make
+| |-sshd---tcsh-+-dpkg-buildpacka---rules---sh---make---make---sh
+---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make---sh---make
-- While packaging XFree86 for Debian GNU/Linux
%
/*
use the same package format it only gives a "false sense of compatibility".
-- Stephen Carpenter <sjc@delphi.com>
%
-*** Rince is wagner@schizo.DAINet.de (We have Joey, we have Fun, we have Linux on a Sun)
+*** Rince is wagner@schizo.DAINet.de (We have Joey, we have Fun, we have Linux
+on a Sun)
-- Seen on #Debian
%
... Linux und seine Programme sind damit
have to run Red Hat, just to keep the power balance :)
-- #Debian
%
-<\\swing> and if we're playing old distributions... whatever happened to Yggdrasil? :)
-<joost> \\swing: everybody who tried to pronounce it got their tongue in a knot and choked
+<\\swing> and if we're playing old distributions... whatever happened to
+Yggdrasil? :)
+<joost> \\swing: everybody who tried to pronounce it got their tongue in a knot
+and choked
-- #Debian
%
I'm telling you that the kernel is stable not because it's a kernel,
-- #Debian
%
* LG loves czech girls.
-<vincent> LG: do they have additional interesting "features" other girls don't have? ;)
+<vincent> LG: do they have additional interesting "features" other girls don't
+have? ;)
-- #Debian
%
The first is to ensure your partner understands that nature has root
projects / fortune-mod / commitdiff