8) Use common sense in routing cable. Avoid wrapping coax around sources of
strong electric or magnetic fields. Do not wrap the cable around
fluorescent light ballasts or cyclotrons, for example.
--- Ethernet Headstart Product, Information and Installation Guide,
- Bell Technologies, pg. 11
+ -- Ethernet Headstart Product, Information and Installation Guide,
+ Bell Technologies, pg. 11
%
"What a wonder is USENET; such wholesale production of conjecture from
such a trifling investment in fact."
Garbage In, Gospel Out
%
"Being against torture ought to be sort of a multipartisan thing."
--- Karl Lehenbauer, as amended by Jeff Daiell, a Libertarian
+ -- Karl Lehenbauer, as amended by Jeff Daiell, a Libertarian
%
"Facts are stupid things."
--- President Ronald Reagan
- (a blooper from his speech at the '88 GOP convention)
+ -- President Ronald Reagan
+ (a blooper from his speech at the '88 GOP convention)
%
"The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science
collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke
fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion,
misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the
ideas of their opponents."
--- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism",
- The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186
+ -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism",
+ The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 87/88, pg. 186
%
"An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of code."
--- an anonymous programmer
+ -- an anonymous programmer
%
"To IBM, 'open' means there is a modicum of interoperability among some of their
equipment."
--- Harv Masterson
+ -- Harv Masterson
%
"Just think of a computer as hardware you can program."
--- Nigel de la Tierre
+ -- Nigel de la Tierre
%
"If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time
serving it..."
--- Marion Zimmer Bradley, _The Forbidden Tower_
+ -- Marion Zimmer Bradley, _The Forbidden Tower_
%
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
--- Albert Einstein
+ -- Albert Einstein
%
"Card readers? We don't need no stinking card readers."
--- Peter da Silva (at the National Academy of Sciencies, 1965, in a
- particularly vivid fantasy)
+ -- Peter da Silva (at the National Academy of Sciences, 1965, in a
+ particularly vivid fantasy)
%
Your good nature will bring unbounded happiness.
%
"FIFTEEN!! YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?"
%
"If you weren't my teacher, I'd think you just deleted all my files."
--- an anonymous UCB CS student, to an instructor who had typed "rm -i *" to
- get rid of a file named "-f" on a Unix system.
+ -- an anonymous UCB CS student, to an instructor who had typed
+ "rm -i *" to get rid of a file named "-f" on a Unix system.
%
"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral
crisis, preserved their neutrality."
smell her skin, to see the flecked webbing of her lemony eyes, the moulding
of her artful lips. Just for a few precious seconds. Just long enough to
put in one good, clean punch. That's all I ask.
--- Martin Amis, _Money_
+ -- Martin Amis, _Money_
%
"Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail."
--- A Kurt Vonnegut fan
+ -- A Kurt Vonnegut fan
%
New York is a jungle, they tell you. You could go further, and say that
New York is a jungle. New York *is a jungle.* Beneath the columns of
sprung with pits and nets and traps. Hire a guide. Pack your snakebite
gook and your blowdart serum. Take it seriously. You have to get a
bit jungle-wise.
--- Martin Amis, _Money_
+ -- Martin Amis, _Money_
%
Now I was heading, in my hot cage, down towards meat-market country on the
tip of the West Village. Here the redbrick warehouses double as carcass
Fielding tells me, Mother Nature looks on and taps her foot and clicks
her tongue. Always a champion of monogamy, she is cooking up some fancy
new diseases. She just isn't going to stand for it.
--- Martin Amis, _Money_
+ -- Martin Amis, _Money_
%
"You tried it just for once, found it alright for kicks,
but now you find out you have a habit that sticks,
you're an orgasm addict,
you're always at it,
and you're an orgasm addict."
--- The Buzzcocks
+ -- The Buzzcocks
%
"There is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress."
--- Mark Twain
+ -- Mark Twain
%
"You'll pay to know what you really think."
--- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs
+ -- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs
%
"We live, in a very kooky time."
--- Herb Blashtfalt
+ -- Herb Blashtfalt
%
"Pull the wool over your own eyes!"
--- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs
+ -- J.R. "Bob" Dobbs
%
"Okay," Bobby said, getting the hang of it, "then what's the matrix? If
she's a deck, and Danbala's a program, what's cyberspace?"
"The world," Lucas said.
--- William Gibson, _Count Zero_
+ -- William Gibson, _Count Zero_
%
"Our reruns are better than theirs."
--- Nick at Nite
+ -- Nick at Nite
%
Life is a game. Money is how we keep score.
--- Ted Turner
+ -- Ted Turner
%
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
--- The Wizard Of Oz
+ -- The Wizard Of Oz
%
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
--- Karl, as he stepped behind the computer to reboot it, during a FAT
+ -- Karl, as he stepped behind the computer to reboot it, during a FAT
%
"It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us in trouble. It's the
things we know that ain't so."
--- Artemus Ward aka Charles Farrar Brown
+ -- Artemus Ward aka Charles Farrar Brown
%
"Don't discount flying pigs before you have good air defense."
--- jvh@clinet.FI
+ -- jvh@clinet.FI
%
"In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble."
--- Alan Perlis
+ -- Alan Perlis
%
"Pok pok pok, P'kok!"
--- Superchicken
+ -- Superchicken
%
Live Free or Live in Massachusettes.
%
"You can't get very far in this world without your dossier being there first."
--- Arthur Miller
+ -- Arthur Miller
%
"Flight Reservation systems decide whether or not you exist. If your information
isn't in their database, then you simply don't get to go anywhere."
--- Arthur Miller
+ -- Arthur Miller
%
"What people have been reduced to are mere 3-D representations of their own
data."
--- Arthur Miller
+ -- Arthur Miller
%
"The Avis WIZARD decides if you get to drive a car. Your head won't touch the
pillow of a Sheraton unless their computer says it's okay."
--- Arthur Miller
+ -- Arthur Miller
%
"They know your name, address, telephone number, credit card numbers, who ELSE
is driving the car "for insurance", ... your driver's license number. In the
present state of collapse - and Soviet society at the peak of
its "glasnost." This difference has been maintained at great
cost by the Poles since 1944.
--- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a
- gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network)
- to Poland
+ -- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a
+ gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network)
+ to Poland
%
"There is also a thriving independent student movement in
Poland, and thus there is a strong possibility (though no
about, a genuine link - not a vacuum cleaner attachment for a
Bloc information gathering apparatus rationed to trusted
apparatchiks."
--- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a
- gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network)
- to Poland
+ -- David Phillips, SUNY at Buffalo, about establishing a
+ gateway from EARN (Eurpoean Academic Research Network)
+ to Poland
%
"Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture,
an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads."
%
"Why waste negative entropy on comments, when you could use the same
entropy to create bugs instead?"
--- Steve Elias
+ -- Steve Elias
%
"The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of
course you never do."
--- Gregory Bateson
+ -- Gregory Bateson
%
"Your butt is mine."
--- Michael Jackson, Bad
+ -- Michael Jackson, Bad
%
Ship it.
%
"Once they go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department."
--- Werner von Braun
+ -- Werner von Braun
%
"When the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to treat everything as if
it were a nail."
--- Abraham Maslow
+ -- Abraham Maslow
%
"Imitation is the sincerest form of television."
--- The New Mighty Mouse
+ -- The New Mighty Mouse
%
"The lesser of two evils -- is evil."
--- Seymour (Sy) Leon
+ -- Seymour (Sy) Leon
%
"It's no sweat, Henry. Russ made it back to Bugtown before he died. So he'll
regenerate in a couple of days. It's just awful sloppy of him to get killed in
the first place. Humph!"
--- Ron Post, Post Brothers Comics
+ -- Ron Post, Post Brothers Comics
%
"An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled his
creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably
found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with
sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine
perfume."
--- Robert G. Ingersoll
+ -- Robert G. Ingersoll
%
"We are not endeavoring to chain the future but to free the present. ... We are
the advocates of inquiry, investigation, and thought. ... It is grander to think
and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. ... I look for the day
when *reason*, throned upon the world's brains, shall be the King of Kings and
the God of Gods.
--- Robert G. Ingersoll
+ -- Robert G. Ingersoll
%
"I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes
of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe
it was born with the yelping, howling, growling and snarling of wild beasts...
I despise it, I defy it, and I hate it."
--- Robert G. Ingersoll
+ -- Robert G. Ingersoll
%
"Is this foreplay?"
"No, this is Nuke Strike. Foreplay has lousy graphics. Beat me again."
--- Duckert, in "Bad Rubber," Albedo #0 (comics)
+ -- Duckert, in "Bad Rubber," Albedo #0 (comics)
%
egrep patterns are full regular expressions; it uses a fast deterministic
algorithm that sometimes needs exponential space.
--- unix manuals
+ -- unix manuals
%
"A mind is a terrible thing to have leaking out your ears."
--- The League of Sadistic Telepaths
+ -- The League of Sadistic Telepaths
%
"Life sucks, but it's better than the alternative."
--- Peter da Silva
+ -- Peter da Silva
%
If this is a service economy, why is the service so bad?
%
"I shall expect a chemical cure for psychopathic behavior by 10 A.M. tomorrow,
or I'll have your guts for spaghetti."
--- a comic panel by Cotham
+ -- a comic panel by Cotham
%
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
--- Will Rogers
+ -- Will Rogers
%
"An open mind has but one disadvantage: it collects dirt."
--- a saying at RPI
+ -- a saying at RPI
%
"The geeks shall inherit the earth."
--- Karl Lehenbauer
+ -- Karl Lehenbauer
%
"Beware of programmers carrying screwdrivers."
--- Chip Salzenberg
+ -- Chip Salzenberg
%
"Elvis is my copilot."
--- Cal Keegan
+ -- Cal Keegan
%
"The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the
sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment."
--- Richard P. Feynman
+ -- Richard P. Feynman
%
How many Unix hacks does it take to change a light bulb?
Let's see, can you use a shell script for that or does it need a C program?
%
"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because I'm beautiful, smart
and rich."
--- Calvin Keegan
+ -- Calvin Keegan
%
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
--- Bertrand Russell
+ -- Bertrand Russell
%
Always look over your shoulder because everyone is watching and plotting
against you.
%
"Let us condemn to hellfire all those who disagree with us."
--- militant religionists everywhere
+ -- militant religionists everywhere
%
Baby On Board.
%
"The net result is a system that is not only binary compatible with 4.3 BSD,
but is even bug for bug compatible in almost all features."
--- Avadit Tevanian, Jr., "Architecture-Independent Virtual Memory Management
+ -- Avadit Tevanian, Jr., "Architecture-Independent Virtual Memory Management
for Parallel and Distributed Environments: The Mach Approach"
%
"The number of Unix installations has grown to 10, with more expected."
--- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June, 1972
+ -- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June, 1972
%
"Engineering without management is art."
--- Jeff Johnson
+ -- Jeff Johnson
%
"I'm not a god, I was misquoted."
--- Lister, Red Dwarf
+ -- Lister, Red Dwarf
%
Brain off-line, please wait.
%
of Sciences panel -- said achieving such speeds, even using multiple
processors, was impossible. Today, new generation supercomputers operate
at billions of operations per second (gigaflops).
--- Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 9, 1988, "Washington Roundup", pg 13
+ -- Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 9, 1988, "Washington Roundup", pg 13
%
backups: always in season, never out of style.
%
"There was a vague, unpleasant manginess about his appearance; he somehow
seemed dirty, though a close glance showed him as carefully shaven as an
actor, and clad in immaculate linen."
--- H.L. Mencken, on the death of William Jennings Bryan
+ -- H.L. Mencken, on the death of William Jennings Bryan
%
Work was impossible. The geeks had broken my spirit. They had done too
many things wrong. It was never like this for Mencken. He lived like
a Prussian gambler -- sweating worse than Bryan on some nights and drunker
than Judas on others. It was all a dehumanized nightmare...and these
raddled cretins have the gall to complain about my deadlines.
--- Hunter Thompson, "Bad Nerves in Fat City", _Generation of Swine_
+ -- Hunter Thompson, "Bad Nerves in Fat City", _Generation of Swine_
%
"This generation may be the one that will face Armageddon."
--- Ronald Reagan, "People" magazine, December 26, 1985
+ -- Ronald Reagan, "People" magazine, December 26, 1985
%
... The cable had passed us by; the dish was the only hope, and eventually
we were all forced to turn to it. By the summer of '85, the valley had more
standing there with a stopwatch and a notepad.
Donaldson: If we're making decisions based on the stars -- that's a cockamamie
thing. People want to know.
--- "This Week" with David Brinkley, ABC Television, Sunday, May 8, 1988,
- excerpts from a discussion on Astrology and Reagan
+ -- "This Week" with David Brinkley, ABC Television, Sunday, May 8, 1988,
+ excerpts from a discussion on Astrology and Reagan
%
The reported resort to astrology in the White House has occasioned much
merriment. It is not funny. Astrological gibberish, which means astrology
people who doubt experts can also believe any quackery, from the benefits of
laetrile to eye of newt to the movement of planets. We lose the capacity to
make rational -- scientific -- judgments. It's all the same.
--- Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company-Washington Post Writers
+ -- Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe Newspaper Company-Washington Post Writers
Group
%
The spectacle of astrology in the White House -- the governing center of
asked Mikhail Gorbachev for his sign. A contagious good cheer is the
hallmark of this presidency, even when the most dismal matters are concerned.
But this time, it isn't funny. It's plain scary.
--- Daniel S. Greenberg, Editor, _Science and Government Report_, writing in
+ -- Daniel S. Greenberg, Editor, _Science and Government Report_, writing in
"Newsday", May 5, 1988
%
[Astrology is] 100 percent hokum, Ted. As a matter of fact, the first edition
all. It is not even close to a science. A science has to be repeatable, it
has to have a logical foundation, and it has to be potentially vulnerable --
you test it. And in that astrology is really quite something else.
--- Astronomer Richard Berendzen, President, American University, on ABC
+ -- Astronomer Richard Berendzen, President, American University, on ABC
News "Nightline," May 3, 1988
%
Even if we put all these nagging thoughts [four embarrassing questions about
in the real (and fascinating) universe beyond our planet, and not let them
keep us tied to an ancient fantasy left over from a time when we huddled by
the firelight, afraid of the night.
--- Andrew Fraknoi, Executive Officer, Astronomical Society of the Pacific,
+ -- Andrew Fraknoi, Executive Officer, Astronomical Society of the Pacific,
"Why Astrology Believers Should Feel Embarrassed," San Jose Mercury
News, May 8, 1988
%
maintaining a semblance of leadership in the world may rest, paradoxically,
with a new wave of technically interested and trained immigrants who do not
suffer from the anti-science disease rampant in an apparently decaying society.
--- Physicist Tony Feinberg, in "New Scientist," May 19, 1988
+ -- Physicist Tony Feinberg, in "New Scientist," May 19, 1988
%
miracle: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment.
--- Webster's Dictionary
+ -- Webster's Dictionary
%
"The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone
is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be
created in the form of computer programs."
--- Joseph Weizenbaum, _Computer Power and Human Reason_
+ -- Joseph Weizenbaum, _Computer Power and Human Reason_
%
"If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong."
--- Norm Schryer
+ -- Norm Schryer
%
"May your future be limited only by your dreams."
--- Christa McAuliffe
+ -- Christa McAuliffe
%
"It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be
coming up it."
--- Henry Allen
+ -- Henry Allen
%
"Life begins when you can spend your spare time programming instead of
watching television."
--- Cal Keegan
+ -- Cal Keegan
%
Eat shit -- billions of flies can't be wrong.
%
"We never make assertions, Miss Taggart," said Hugh Akston. "That is
the moral crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not tell -- we *show*.
We do not claim -- we *prove*."
--- Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_
+ -- Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_
%
"I remember when I was a kid I used to come home from Sunday School and
my mother would get drunk and try to make pancakes."
--- George Carlin
+ -- George Carlin
%
"My father? My father left when I was quite young. Well actually, he
was asked to leave. He had trouble metabolizing alcohol."
songs by the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, or anyone else. And you may try
to tell me this is of God and that it is leading people to Christ, but I
know better.
--- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocritical sexual pervert and TV preacher, self-described
+ -- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocritical sexual pervert and TV preacher, self-described
pornography addict, "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.",
The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50.
%
"So-called Christian rock. . . . is a diabolical force undermining Christianity
from within."
--- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocrite and TV preacher, self-described pornography addict,
- "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.", The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50.
+ -- Jimmy Swaggart, hypocrite and TV preacher, self-described
+ pornography addict, "Two points of view: 'Christian' rock and roll.",
+ The Evangelist, 17(8): 49-50.
%
"Anyone attempting to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of
course, living in a state of sin."
--- John Von Neumann
+ -- John Von Neumann
%
"You must have an IQ of at least half a million." -- Popeye
%
"Freedom is still the most radical idea of all."
--- Nathaniel Branden
+ -- Nathaniel Branden
%
Aren't you glad you're not getting all the government you pay for now?
%
"I never let my schooling get in the way of my education."
--- Mark Twain
+ -- Mark Twain
%
These screamingly hilarious gogs ensure owners of X Ray Gogs to be the life
of any party.
--- X-Ray Gogs Instructions
+ -- X-Ray Gogs Instructions
%
A student asked the master for help... does this program run from the
Workbench? The master grabbed the mouse and pointed to an icon. "What is
this?" he asked. The student replied "That's the mouse". The master pressed
control-Amiga-Amiga and hit the student on the head with the Amiga ROM Kernel
Manual.
--- Amiga Zen Master Peter da Silva
+ -- Amiga Zen Master Peter da Silva
%
"Thank heaven for startups; without them we'd never have any advances."
--- Seymour Cray
+ -- Seymour Cray
%
"Out of register space (ugh)"
--- vi
+ -- vi
%
"Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor
of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated,
- Oscar Wilde
%
"Ada is PL/I trying to be Smalltalk.
--- Codoso diBlini
+ -- Codoso diBlini
%
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by mean of zeal,
well-meaning but without understanding."
--- Justice Louis O. Brandeis (Olmstead vs. United States)
+ -- Justice Louis O. Brandeis (Olmstead vs. United States)
%
"'Tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true."
--- Poloniouius, in Willie the Shake's _Hamlet, Prince of Darkness_
+ -- Poloniouius, in Willie the Shake's _Hamlet, Prince of Darkness_
%
"All the people are so happy now, their heads are caving in. I'm glad they
are a snowman with protective rubber skin"
--- They Might Be Giants
+ -- They Might Be Giants
%
"Indecision is the basis of flexibility"
--- button at a Science Fiction convention.
+ -- button at a Science Fiction convention.
%
"Sometimes insanity is the only alternative"
--- button at a Science Fiction convention.
+ -- button at a Science Fiction convention.
%
"Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time."
--- a coffee cup
+ -- a coffee cup
%
"The most important thing in a man is not what he knows, but what he is."
--- Narciso Yepes
+ -- Narciso Yepes
%
"All we are given is possibilities -- to make ourselves one thing or another."
--- Ortega y Gasset
+ -- Ortega y Gasset
%
"We will be better and braver if we engage and inquire than if we indulge in
the idle fancy that we already know -- or that it is of no use seeking to
know what we do not know."
--- Plato
+ -- Plato
%
"To undertake a project, as the word's derivation indicates, means to cast an
idea out ahead of oneself so that it gains autonomy and is fulfilled not only
by the efforts of its originator but, indeed, independently of him as well.
--- Czeslaw Milosz
+ -- Czeslaw Milosz
%
"We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic
of life is its coerciveness; it is always urgent, "here and now," without any
possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank."
--- Ortega y Gasset
+ -- Ortega y Gasset
%
"From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere."
--- Dr. Seuss
+ -- Dr. Seuss
%
"When it comes to humility, I'm the greatest."
--- Bullwinkle Moose
+ -- Bullwinkle Moose
%
Remember, an int is not always 16 bits. I'm not sure, but if the 80386 is one
step closer to Intel's slugfest with the CPU curve that is aymptotically
approaching a real machine, perhaps an int has been implemented as 32 bits by
some Unix vendors...?
--- Derek Terveer
+ -- Derek Terveer
%
"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care
what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything
in the bushes to find out, which vitiated his premise
but made him happy.
Moral: Empiricism is more fun than speculation."
--- Sam Weber
+ -- Sam Weber
%
1 1 was a race-horse, 2 2 was 1 2. When 1 1 1 1 race, 2 2 1 1 2.
%
"I figured there was this holocaust, right, and the only ones left alive were
Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet, and the Cleavers."
--- Wil Wheaton explains why everyone in "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
+ -- Wil Wheaton explains why everyone in "Star Trek: The Next Generation"
is so nice
%
"Engineering meets art in the parking lot and things explode."
--- Garry Peterson, about Survival Research Labs
+ -- Garry Peterson, about Survival Research Labs
%
"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having
a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc
answered. "This is where a case of cocktail shrimp fell on me. I told her
to slow down a little, but you know cocktail waitresses, they seem to have
a mind of their own."
--- The Incredibly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs
+ -- The Incredibly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs
National Lampoon, October 1982
%
"Never give in. Never give in. Never. Never. Never."
be to fail to do so. To be a skeptic is to cultivate "street smarts" in
the battle for control of one's own mind, one's own money, one's own
allegiances. To be a skeptic, in short, is to refuse to be a victim.
--- Robert S. DeBear, "An Agenda for Reason, Realism, and Responsibility,"
+ -- Robert S. DeBear, "An Agenda for Reason, Realism, and Responsibility,"
New York Skeptic (newsletter of the New York Area Skeptics, Inc.), Spring 1988
%
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead
stuff."
--- Dave Enyeart
+ -- Dave Enyeart
%
"After one week [visiting Austria] I couldn't wait to go back to the United
States. Everything was much more pleasant in the United States, because of
do in Europe is just, 'No way. No one has ever done it.' They haven't any
more the desire to go out to conquer and achieve -- I realized that I had much
more the American spirit."
--- Arnold Schwarzenegger
+ -- Arnold Schwarzenegger
%
"I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest."
--- Alexandre Dumas (fils)
+ -- Alexandre Dumas (fils)
%
Well, punk is kind of anti-ethical, anyway. Its ethics, so to speak,
include a disdain for ethics in general. If you have to think about some-
thing so hard, then it's bullshit anyway; that's the idea. Punks are anti-
ismists, to coin a term. But nonetheless, they have a pretty clearly defined
stance and image, and THAT is what we hang the term `punk' on.
--- Jeff G. Bone
+ -- Jeff G. Bone
%
I think for the most part that the readership here uses the c-word in
a similar fashion. I don't think anybody really believes in a new, revolution-
ary literature --- I think they use `cyberpunk' as a term of convenience to
discuss the common stylistic elements in a small subset of recent sf books.
--- Jeff G. Bone
+ -- Jeff G. Bone
%
So we get to my point. Surely people around here read things that
aren't on the *Officially Sanctioned Cyberpunk Reading List*. Surely we
rather extreme perspective; this is what CP is all about, no? Maybe there
should be a newsgroup like, say, alt.postmodern or something. Something less
restrictive in scope than alt.cyberpunk.
--- Jeff G. Bone
+ -- Jeff G. Bone
%
"Everyone's head is a cheap movie show."
--- Jeff G. Bone
+ -- Jeff G. Bone
%
Life is full of concepts that are poorly defined. In fact, there are very few
concepts that aren't. It's hard to think of any in non-technical fields.
--- Daniel Kimberg
+ -- Daniel Kimberg
%
...cyberpunk wants to see the mind as mechanistic & duplicable,
challenging basic assumptions about the nature of individuality & self.
"Count Zero," with Katatonenkunst, the automatic box-maker and the girl's
observation that the real art was the building of the machine itself,
rather than its output.
--- Eliot Handelman
+ -- Eliot Handelman
%
It might be worth reflecting that this group was originally created
back in September of 1987 and has exchanged over 1200 messages. The
who thinks that alt.cyberpunk is such a monstrous group that it is in
dire need of being subdivided. Heaven help them if they ever start
reading comp.arch or rec.arts.sf-lovers.
--- Bob Webber
+ -- Bob Webber
%
...I don't care for the term 'mechanistic'. The word 'cybernetic' is a lot
more apropos. The mechanistic world-view is falling further and further behind
the real world where even simple systems can produce the most marvellous
chaos.
--- Peter da Silva
+ -- Peter da Silva
%
As for the basic assumptions about individuality and self, this is the core
of what I like about cyberpunk. And it's the core of what I like about certain
pre-gibson neophile techie SF writers that certain folks here like to put
down. Not everyone makes the same assumptions. I haven't lost my mind... it's
backed up on tape.
--- Peter da Silva
+ -- Peter da Silva
%
Who are the artists in the Computer Graphics Show? Wavefront's latest box, or
the people who programmed it? Should Mandelbrot get all the credit for the
output of programs like MandelVroom?
--- Peter da Silva
+ -- Peter da Silva
%
Trailing Edge Technologies is pleased to announce the following
TETflame programme:
recent acquisition, Keith Doyle. But all he will do is put you in his
kill file. Weemba by special arrangement.
--- Richard Sexton
+ -- Richard Sexton
%
"As I was walking among the fires of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments of
Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity. I collected some of
-- Cal Keegan
%
"Let me guess, Ed. Pentescostal, right?"
--- Starcap'n Ra, ra@asuvax.asu.edu
+ -- Starcap'n Ra, ra@asuvax.asu.edu
"Nope. Charismatic (I think - I've given up on what all those pesky labels
mean)."
--- Ed Carp, erc@unisec.usi.com
+ -- Ed Carp, erc@unisec.usi.com
"Same difference - all zeal and feel, averaging less than one working brain
cell per congregation. Starcap'n Ra, you pegged him. Good work!"
--- Kenn Barry, barry@eos.UUCP
+ -- Kenn Barry, barry@eos.UUCP
%
"BTW, does Jesus know you flame?"
--- Diane Holt, dianeh@binky.UUCP, to Ed Carp
+ -- Diane Holt, dianeh@binky.UUCP, to Ed Carp
%
"I've seen the forgeries I've sent out."
--- John F. Haugh II (jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US), about forging net news articles
+ -- John F. Haugh II (jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US), about forging net news articles
%
"Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some
of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?"
--- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US
+ -- Patricia O Tuama, rissa@killer.DALLAS.TX.US
%
"Bite off, dirtball."
Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM
%
"Oh my! An `inflammatory attitude' in alt.flame? Never heard of such
a thing..."
--- Allen Gwinn, allen@sulaco.Sigma.COM
+ -- Allen Gwinn, allen@sulaco.Sigma.COM
%
(null cookie; hope that's ok)
%
"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality
at any point."
--- Friedrich Nietzsche
+ -- Friedrich Nietzsche
%
"Who alone has reason to *lie himself out* of actuality? He who *suffers*
from it."
--- Friedrich Nietzsche
+ -- Friedrich Nietzsche
%
"You who hate the Jews so, why did you adopt their religion?"
--- Friedrich Nietzsche, addressing anti-semitic Christians
+ -- Friedrich Nietzsche, addressing anti-semitic Christians
%
"Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of
nature are constantly broken for their sakes."
--- Friedrich Nietzsche
+ -- Friedrich Nietzsche
%
"Science makes godlike -- it is all over with priests and gods when man becomes
scientific. Moral: science is the forbidden as such -- it alone is
forbidden. Science is the *first* sin, the *original* sin. *This alone is
morality.* ``Thou shalt not know'' -- the rest follows."
--- Friedrich Nietzsche
+ -- Friedrich Nietzsche
%
"Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true."
--- Friedrich Nietzsche
+ -- Friedrich Nietzsche
%
>One basic notion underlying Usenet is that it is a cooperative.
Having been on USENET for going on ten years, I disagree with this.
The basic notion underlying USENET is the flame.
--- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@Apple.COM
+ -- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@Apple.COM
%
"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one idiot.
Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's sometimes hard
to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all of the hassle and
pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, caustic twits."
--- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@apple.com, about Usenet
+ -- Chuq Von Rospach, chuq@apple.com, about Usenet
%
Backed up the system lately?
%
"It doesn't much signify whom one marries for one is sure to find out next
morning it was someone else."
--- Rogers
+ -- Rogers
%
"If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry."
--- Chekhov
+ -- Chekhov
%
"Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with
the ideal never goes unpunished."
--- Goethe
+ -- Goethe
%
"In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved."
--- Butler
+ -- Butler
%
"The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, `What does
woman want?'"
--- Sigmund Freud
+ -- Sigmund Freud
%
"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world,
and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming
feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
--- Thomas Jefferson
+ -- Thomas Jefferson
%
Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.
--- Dave Butler
+ -- Dave Butler
%
"The preeminence of a learned man over a worshiper is equal to the preeminence
of the moon, at the night of the full moon, over all the stars. Verily, the
learned men are the heirs of the Prophets."
--- A tradition attributed to Muhammad
+ -- A tradition attributed to Muhammad
%
"The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity;
the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of a
private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion;
and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes
who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity."
--- Edward Gibbons, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_
+ -- Edward Gibbons, _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_
%
"The question is rather: if we ever succeed in making a mind 'of nuts and
bolts', how will we know we have succeeded?
--- Fergal Toomey
+ -- Fergal Toomey
"It will tell us."
--- Barry Kort
+ -- Barry Kort
%
"Inquiry is fatal to certainty."
--- Will Durant
+ -- Will Durant
%
"The Mets were great in 'sixty eight,
The Cards were fine in 'sixty nine,
But the Cubs will be heavenly in nineteen and seventy."
--- Ernie Banks
+ -- Ernie Banks
%
"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr.
Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers
come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas
that could provoke such a question."
--- Charles Babbage
+ -- Charles Babbage
%
"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
+ -- Friedrich Nietzsche
%
"The fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to
safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster
You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group.
If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will
only show the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this.
--- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_
+ -- Brad Templeton, _Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette_
%
Q: I cant spell worth a dam. I hope your going too tell me what to do?
A Dan Quayle watch.
--- heard from a Mike Dukakis field worker
+ -- heard from a Mike Dukakis field worker
%
Q: What's the difference between a car salesman and a computer
salesman?
A: The car salesman can probably drive!
--- Joan McGalliard (jem@latcs1.oz.au)
+ -- Joan McGalliard (jem@latcs1.oz.au)
%
"Your stupidity, Allen, is simply not up to par."
--- Dave Mack (mack@inco.UUCP)
+ -- Dave Mack (mack@inco.UUCP)
"Yours is."
--- Allen Gwinn (allen@sulaco.sigma.com), in alt.flame
+ -- Allen Gwinn (allen@sulaco.sigma.com), in alt.flame
%
A selection from the Taoist Writings:
Confucius said: `To be in one's inmost heart in kindly sympathy with all
things; to love all men and allow no selfish thoughts: this is the nature
of benevolence and righteousness.'"
--- Kwang-tzu
+ -- Kwang-tzu
%
"Jesus saves...but Gretzky gets the rebound!"
--- Daniel Hinojosa (hinojosa@hp-sdd)
+ -- Daniel Hinojosa (hinojosa@hp-sdd)
%
"Anything created must necessarily be inferior to the essence of the creator."
--- Claude Shouse (shouse@macomw.ARPA)
+ -- Claude Shouse (shouse@macomw.ARPA)
"Einstein's mother must have been one heck of a physicist."
--- Joseph C. Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu)
+ -- Joseph C. Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu)
%
"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
+ -- Bertrand Russell
%
"Lying lips are abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his
delight.
Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause; and deceive not with
thy lips.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue."
--- Proverbs, some selections from the Jewish Scripture
+ -- Proverbs, some selections from the Jewish Scripture
%
"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and
I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life -- so I became a scientist.
This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls."
--- Matt Cartmill
+ -- Matt Cartmill
%
Heisenberg might have been here.
%
"Any excuse will serve a tyrant."
--- Aesop
+ -- Aesop
%
"Experience has proved that some people indeed know everything."
--- Russell Baker
+ -- Russell Baker
%
How many Zen Buddhist does it take to change a light bulb?
Two. One to change it and one not to change it.
%
"I prefer the blunted cudgels of the followers of the Serpent God."
--- Sean Doran the Younger
+ -- Sean Doran the Younger
%
"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak."
--- Phil Wayne
+ -- Phil Wayne
%
"my terminal is a lethal teaspoon."
--- Patricia O Tuama
+ -- Patricia O Tuama
%
"I am ... a woman ... and ... technically a parasitic uterine growth"
--- Sean Doran the Younger [allegedly]
+ -- Sean Doran the Younger [allegedly]
%
"Is it just me, or does anyone else read `bible humpers' every time
someone writes `bible thumpers?'
--- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu
+ -- Joel M. Snyder, jms@mis.arizona.edu
%
"Money is the root of all money."
--- the moving finger
+ -- the moving finger
%
"...Greg Nowak: `Another flame from greg' - need I say more?"
--- Jonathan D. Trudel, trudel@caip.rutgers.edu
+ -- Jonathan D. Trudel, trudel@caip.rutgers.edu
"No. You need to say less."
--- Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM
+ -- Richard Sexton, richard@gryphon.COM
%
"And it's my opinion, and that's only my opinion, you are a lunatic. Just
because there are a few hundred other people sharing your lunacy with you
does not make you any saner. Doomed, eh?"
--- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU
+ -- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU
%
"Obedience. A religion of slaves. A religion of intellectual death. I like
it. Don't ask questions, don't think, obey the Word of the Lord -- as it
has been conveniently brought to you by a man in a Rolls with a heavy Rolex
on his wrist. I like that job! Where can I sign up?"
--- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU
+ -- Oleg Kiselev,oleg@CS.UCLA.EDU
%
"Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a
cockatoo."
--- George Bernard Shaw
+ -- George Bernard Shaw
%
"Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and
those inside desperate to get out."
--- Montaigne
+ -- Montaigne
%
"For a male and female to live continuously together is... biologically
speaking, an extremely unnatural condition."
--- Robert Briffault
+ -- Robert Briffault
%
"Marriage is low down, but you spend the rest of your life paying for it."
--- Baskins
+ -- Baskins
%
A man is not complete until he is married -- then he is finished.
%
the triumph of hope over experience.
%
"The chain which can be yanked is not the eternal chain."
--- G. Fitch
+ -- G. Fitch
%
"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."
--- Mark Twain
+ -- Mark Twain
%
"I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder have
included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products. This
technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's reign. My
carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go by some more."
--- timw@zeb.USWest.COM, in alt.conspiracy
+ -- timw@zeb.USWest.COM, in alt.conspiracy
%
"If there isn't a population problem, why is the government putting cancer in
the cigarettes?"
--- the elder Steptoe, c. 1970
+ -- the elder Steptoe, c. 1970
%
"If you don't want your dog to have bad breath, do what I do: Pour a little
Lavoris in the toilet."
--- Comedian Jay Leno
+ -- Comedian Jay Leno
%
"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like
`Psychic Wins Lottery.'"
--- Comedian Jay Leno
+ -- Comedian Jay Leno
%
"Well hello there Charlie Brown, you blockhead."
--- Lucy Van Pelt
+ -- Lucy Van Pelt
%
"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
--- Ford Prefect, _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_
+ -- Ford Prefect, _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_
%
"Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows."
--- Robert G. Ingersoll
+ -- Robert G. Ingersoll
%
"Let every man teach his son, teach his daughter, that labor is honorable."
--- Robert G. Ingersoll
+ -- Robert G. Ingersoll
%
"I have not the slightest confidence in 'spiritual manifestations.'"
--- Robert G. Ingersoll
+ -- Robert G. Ingersoll
%
"It is hard to overstate the debt that we owe to men and women of genius."
--- Robert G. Ingersoll
+ -- Robert G. Ingersoll
%
"Joy is wealth and love is the legal tender of the soul."
--- Robert G. Ingersoll
+ -- Robert G. Ingersoll
%
"The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray."
--- Robert G. Ingersoll
+ -- Robert G. Ingersoll
%
"It is the creationists who blasphemously are claiming that God is cheating
us in a stupid way."
--- J. W. Nienhuys
+ -- J. W. Nienhuys
%
"No, no, I don't mind being called the smartest man in the world. I just wish
it wasn't this one."
--- Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, WATCHMEN
+ -- Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, WATCHMEN
%
"Be *excellent* to each other."
--- Bill, or Ted, in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
+ -- Bill, or Ted, in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
%
The Seventh Edition licensing procedures are, I suppose, still in effect,
though I doubt that tapes are available from AT&T. At any rate, whatever
As for the size of v7, wc -l /usr/sys/*/*.[chs] is 19271.
--- Dennis Ritchie, 1989
+ -- Dennis Ritchie, 1989
%
"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it." -- Alex Schure
%
--Matt Groening
%
"I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens."
--- Woody Allen
+ -- Woody Allen
%
"The Street finds its own uses for technology."
--- William Gibson
+ -- William Gibson
%
"I see little divinity about them or you. You talk to me of Christianity
when you are in the act of hanging your enemies. Was there ever such
blasphemous nonsense!"
--- Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple"
+ -- Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple"
%
"You and I as individuals can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but
only for a limited period of time. Why should we think that collectively,
as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?"
--- Ronald Reagan
+ -- Ronald Reagan
%
"He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental effort,
he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable perversion."
--- Mick Farren, _When Gravity Fails_
+ -- Mick Farren, _When Gravity Fails_
%
"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts
most subtly on the human will."
--- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"
+ -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"
%
It's time to boot, do your boot ROMs know where your disk controllers are?
%
"What the scientists have in their briefcases is terrifying."
--- Nikita Khrushchev
+ -- Nikita Khrushchev
%
"...a most excellent barbarian ... Genghis Kahn!"
--- _Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure_
+ -- _Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure_
%
"Pull the trigger and you're garbage."
--- Lady Blue
+ -- Lady Blue
%
"Oh what wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face..."
--- a prisoner in "Life of Brian"
+ -- a prisoner in "Life of Brian"
%
"Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy
of him that brought her birth."
--- Milton
+ -- Milton
%
"If you can't debate me, then there is no way in hell you'll out-insult me."
--- Scott Legrand (Scott.Legrand@hogbbs.Fidonet.Org)
+ -- Scott Legrand (Scott.Legrand@hogbbs.Fidonet.Org)
"You may be wrong here, little one."
--- R. W. F. Clark (RWC102@PSUVM)
+ -- R. W. F. Clark (RWC102@PSUVM)
%
"Yes, I am a real piece of work. One thing we learn at Ulowell is
how to flame useless hacking non-EE's like you. I am superior to you in
how to hack, but Engineering doesn't come nearly as easily. Actually, I'm
not trying to offend all you CS majors out there, but I think EE is one of the
hardest majors/grad majors to pass. Fortunately, I am making it."
--- "Warrior Diagnostics" (wardiag@sky.COM)
+ -- "Warrior Diagnostics" (wardiag@sky.COM)
"Being both an EE and an asshole at the same time must be a terrible burden
for you. This isn't really a flame, just a casual observation. Makes me
glad I was a CS major, life is really pleasant for me. Have fun with your
chosen mode of existence!"
--- Jim Morrison (morrisj@mist.cs.orst.edu)
+ -- Jim Morrison (morrisj@mist.cs.orst.edu)
%
"BYTE editors are men who separate the wheat from the chaff, and then
print the chaff."
--- Lionel Hummel (uiucdcs!hummel), derived from a quote by Adlai Stevenson, Sr.
+ -- Lionel Hummel (uiucdcs!hummel), derived from a quote by
+ Adlai Stevenson, Sr.
%
THE "FUN WITH USENET" MANIFESTO
Very little happens on Usenet without some sort of response from some other
I don't put ellipses in. And by the way, I love using this mechanism for
turning things around. If you think something stinks, say so - don't say you
don't think it's wonderful. ...
--- D. J. McCarthy (dmccart@cadape.UUCP)
+ -- D. J. McCarthy (dmccart@cadape.UUCP)
%
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
+ -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759
%
"I am, therefore I am."
--- Akira
+ -- Akira
%
"Stan and I thought that this experiment was so stupid, we decided to finance
it ourselves."
--- Martin Fleischmann, co-discoverer of room-temperature fusion (?)
+ -- Martin Fleischmann, co-discoverer of room-temperature fusion (?)
%
"I have more information in one place than anybody in the world."
--- Jerry Pournelle, an absurd notion, apparently about the BIX BBS
+ -- Jerry Pournelle, an absurd notion, apparently about the BIX BBS
%
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."
--- John Wooden
+ -- John Wooden
%
#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255)
#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \
- (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \
- (((x)>>3)&0x11111111))
--- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word
+ -- really weird C code to count the number of bits in a word
%
"If you can write a nation's stories, you needn't worry about who makes its
laws. Today, television tells most of the stories to most of the people
most of the time."
--- George Gerbner
+ -- George Gerbner
%
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on
the unreasonable man."
--- George Bernard Shaw
+ -- George Bernard Shaw
%
"We want to create puppets that pull their own strings."
--- Ann Marion
+ -- Ann Marion
"Would this make them Marionettes?"
--- Jeff Daiell
+ -- Jeff Daiell
%
On the subject of C program indentation:
"In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's C programs should be indented
six feet downward and covered with dirt."
--- Blair P. Houghton
+ -- Blair P. Houghton
%
There was, it appeared, a mysterious rite of initiation through which, in
one way or another, almost every member of the team passed. The term that
was necessary for success. You agreed to forsake, if necessary, family,
hobbies, and friends -- if you had any of these left (and you might not, if
you had signed up too many times before).
--- Tracy Kidder, _The Soul of a New Machine_
+ -- Tracy Kidder, _The Soul of a New Machine_
%
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began
to suspect "Hungry."
--- a Larson cartoon
+ -- a Larson cartoon
%
"But don't you see, the color of wine in a crystal glass can be spiritual.
The look in a face, the music of a violin. A Paris theater can be infused
-- Lestat, _The Vampire Lestat_, Anne Rice
%
"Love your country but never trust its government."
--- from a hand-painted road sign in central Pennsylvania
+ -- from a hand-painted road sign in central Pennsylvania
%
I bought the latest computer;
it came fully loaded.
%
To update Voltaire, "I may kill all msgs from you, but I'll fight for
your right to post it, and I'll let it reside on my disks".
--- Doug Thompson (doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG)
+ -- Doug Thompson (doug@isishq.FIDONET.ORG)
%
"Though a program be but three lines long,
someday it will have to be maintained."
--- The Tao of Programming
+ -- The Tao of Programming
%
"Turn on, tune up, rock out."
--- Billy Gibbons
+ -- Billy Gibbons
%
EARTH
smog | bricks
%
"Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power tools aren't
soluble in alcohol..."
--- Crazy Nigel
+ -- Crazy Nigel
%
"Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all...."
--- Thomas J. Kopp
+ -- Thomas J. Kopp
%
n = ((n >> 1) & 0x55555555) | ((n << 1) & 0xaaaaaaaa);
n = ((n >> 2) & 0x33333333) | ((n << 2) & 0xcccccccc);
n = ((n >> 8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n << 8) & 0xff00ff00);
n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000);
--- Yet another mystical 'C' gem. This one reverses the bits in a word.
+ -- Yet another mystical 'C' gem. This one reverses the bits in a word.
%
"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is
constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role
they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume."
--- Noam Chomsky
+ -- Noam Chomsky
%
"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple
system that worked."
--- John Gall, _Systemantics_
+ -- John Gall, _Systemantics_
%
"In my opinion, Richard Stallman wouldn't recognise terrorism if it
came up and bit him on his Internet."
--- Ross M. Greenberg
+ -- Ross M. Greenberg
%
I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments of
others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use
less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily
prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me when I
happened to be in the right.
--- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
+ -- Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
%
"If I ever get around to writing that language depompisifier, it will change
almost all occurrences of the word "paradigm" into "example" or "model."
--- Herbie Blashtfalt
+ -- Herbie Blashtfalt
%
"Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."
--- Marvin the paranoid android
+ -- Marvin the paranoid android
%
Contemptuous lights flashed across the computer's console.
--- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
+ -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
%
"There must be some mistake," he said, "are you not a greater computer than
the Milliard Gargantubrain which can count all the atoms in a star in a
millisecond?"
"The Milliard Gargantubrain?" said Deep Thought with unconcealed contempt.
"A mere abacus. Mention it not."
--- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
+ -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
%
"But are you not," he said, "a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperlobic
Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve, the Magic and
"The Great Hyperlobic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler," said Deep Thought,
thoroughly rolling the r's, "could talk all four legs off an Arcturan
Mega-Donkey -- but only I could persuade it to go for a walk afterward."
--- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
+ -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
%
If builders built buildings the way programmers write programs, Jolt Cola
would be a Fortune-500 company.
If programmers wrote programs the way builders build buildings, we'd still
be using autocoder and running compile decks.
--- Peter da Silva and Karl Lehenbauer, a different perspective
+ -- Peter da Silva and Karl Lehenbauer, a different perspective
%
To err is human, to moo bovine.
%
"America is a stronger nation for the ACLU's uncompromising effort."
--- President John F. Kennedy
+ -- President John F. Kennedy
%
"The simple rights, the civil liberties from generations of struggle must not
be just fine words for patriotic holidays, words we subvert on weekdays, but
living, honored rules of conduct amongst us...I'm glad the American Civil
Liberties Union gets indignant, and I hope this will always be so."
--- Senator Adlai E. Stevenson
+ -- Senator Adlai E. Stevenson
%
"The ACLU has stood foursquare against the recurring tides of hysteria that
>from time to time threaten freedoms everywhere... Indeed, it is difficult
Union's valiant representation in the courts of the constitutional rights
of people of all persuasions, no matter how unpopular or even despised
by the majority they were at the time."
--- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren
+ -- former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren
%
"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each
citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do
his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure."
--- Albert Einstein
+ -- Albert Einstein
%
"Well I don't see why I have to make one man miserable when I can make so many
men happy."
--- Ellyn Mustard, about marriage
+ -- Ellyn Mustard, about marriage
%
"And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what
the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions."
--- David Jones @ Megatest Corporation
+ -- David Jones @ Megatest Corporation
%
"Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser."
--- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew"
+ -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew"
%
"Let's not be too tough on our own ignorance. It's the thing that makes
America great. If America weren't incomparably ignorant, how could we
have tolerated the last eight years?"
--- Frank Zappa, Feb 1, 1989
+ -- Frank Zappa, Feb 1, 1989
%
"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through
three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and
as best you can. Even with the quickness and agility of a kayak, you are
not faster than the river, nor stronger, and you can beat it only by
understanding it."
--- Strung, Curtis and Perry, _Whitewater_
+ -- Strung, Curtis and Perry, _Whitewater_
%
Everyone who comes in here wants three things:
1. They want it quick.
2. They want it good.
3. They want it cheap.
I tell 'em to pick two and call me back.
--- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware
+ -- sign on the back wall of a small printing company in Delaware
%
"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all
other causes combined."
--- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_
+ -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_
%
panic: kernel trap (ignored)
%
"Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile."
--- Karl Lehenbauer
+ -- Karl Lehenbauer
%
"Remember, extremism in the nondefense of moderation is not a virtue."
--- Peter Neumann, about usenet
+ -- Peter Neumann, about usenet
%
"We dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea -- organic law rather than naked
power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation."
--- Supreme Court Justice Potter Steart
+ -- Supreme Court Justice Potter Steart
%
"What man has done, man can aspire to do."
--- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight
+ -- Jerry Pournelle, about space flight
%
"Well, it don't make the sun shine, but at least it don't deepen the shit."
--- Straiter Empy, in _Riddley_Walker_ by Russell Hoban
+ -- Straiter Empy, in _Riddley_Walker_ by Russell Hoban
%
"If you can, help others. If you can't, at least don't hurt others."
--- the Dalai Lama
+ -- the Dalai Lama
%
To the systems programmer, users and applications serve only to provide a
test load.
%
"Just think, with VLSI we can have 100 ENIACS on a chip!"
--- Alan Perlis
+ -- Alan Perlis
%
"...Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military and commercial
technology... Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain
the world's democracies, not the world as a whole."
--- K. Eric Drexler
+ -- K. Eric Drexler
%
"The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between a five-dollar bill
and a whip deserves to learn the difference on his own back -- as, I think, he
will."
--- Francisco d'Anconia, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_
+ -- Francisco d'Anconia, in Ayn Rand's _Atlas Shrugged_
%
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and
the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will
lose that, too."
--- W. Somerset Maugham
+ -- W. Somerset Maugham
%
"Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother
to say it, oh God, I'm so depressed. Here's another of those self-satisfied
doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life."
--- Marvin the Paranoid Android
+ -- Marvin the Paranoid Android
%
One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with
Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just
time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He preferred people to be
puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be
genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about.
--- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_
+ -- Douglas Adams, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_
%
Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the
former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free.
> Subject: Returned mail: unknown mailer error 255
"Dale, your address no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?"
--- Bill Wolfe (wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu)
+ -- Bill Wolfe (wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu)
"Bill, Your brain no longer functions. Can you fix it at your end?"
-- Karl A. Nyberg (nyberg@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu)
So let's just hope there is a promised land,
And until then,
...as best as you can."
--- Steppenwolf, "Rock Me Baby"
+ -- Steppenwolf, "Rock Me Baby"
%
"Help Mr. Wizard!"
--- Tennessee Tuxedo
+ -- Tennessee Tuxedo
%
"The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance.
He of all men should behave as though the law compelled him.
But it is the universal weakness of mankind that what we are
given to administer we presently imagine we own."
--- H.G. Wells
+ -- H.G. Wells
%
"Unlike most net.puritans, however, I feel that what OTHER consenting computers
do in the privacy of their own phone connections is their own business."
--- John Woods, jfw@eddie.mit.edu
+ -- John Woods, jfw@eddie.mit.edu
%
"Don't talk to me about disclaimers! I invented disclaimers!"
--- The Censored Hacker
+ -- The Censored Hacker
%
'On this point we want to be perfectly clear: socialism has nothing to do
with equalizing. Socialism cannot ensure conditions of life and
ability, to each according to his needs." This will be under communism.
Socialism has a different criterion for distributing social benefits:
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."'
--- Mikhail Gorbachev, _Perestroika_
+ -- Mikhail Gorbachev, _Perestroika_
%
"Cable is not a luxury, since many areas have poor TV reception."
--- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989
+ -- The mayor of Tucson, Arizona, 1989
[apparently, good TV reception is a basic necessity -- at least in Tucson -kl]
%
"All the system's paths must be topologically and circularly interrelated for
conceptually definitive, locally transformable, polyhedronal understanding to
be attained in our spontaneous -- ergo, most economical -- geodesiccally
structured thoughts."
--- R. Buckminster Fuller [...and a total nonsequitur as far as I can tell. -kl]
+ -- R. Buckminster Fuller [...and a total nonsequitur as far as I can
+ tell. -kl]
%
"One thing they don't tell you about doing experimental physics is that
sometimes you must work under adverse conditions... like a state of sheer
terror."
--- W. K. Hartmann
+ -- W. K. Hartmann
%
"It's when they say 2 + 2 = 5 that I begin to argue."
--- Eric Pepke
+ -- Eric Pepke
%
Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness of a
pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule."
--- David Guaspari
+ -- David Guaspari
%
"None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary
to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert -- because no one
he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a
state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the
"expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible."
--- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work," p. 86 (1922):
+ -- From Henry Ford Sr., "My Life and Work," p. 86 (1922):
%
"The NY Times is read by the people who run the country. The Washington Post
is read by the people who think they run the country. The National Enquirer
is read by the people who think Elvis is alive and running the country..."
--- Robert J Woodhead (trebor@biar.UUCP)
+ -- Robert J Woodhead (trebor@biar.UUCP)
%
"...'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not
matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality
world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon
reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles
as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming."
--- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny
+ -- Siddartha, _Lord_of_Light_ by Roger Zelazny
%
"Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient.
It's called 'rain'."
--- Michael McClary, in alt.fusion
+ -- Michael McClary, in alt.fusion
%
"The bad reputation UNIX has gotten is totally undeserved, laid on by people
who don't understand, who have not gotten in there and tried anything."
--- Jim Joyce, former computer science lecturer at the University of California
+ -- Jim Joyce, former computer science lecturer at the University of California
%
"We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of
annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn
and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from
being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented."
--- Albert Einstein, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1948
+ -- Albert Einstein, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1948
%
"You can have my Unix system when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers."
--- Cal Keegan
+ -- Cal Keegan
%
We'll be more than happy to do so once Jim shows the slightest sign
of interest in fixing his proposal to deal with the technical
projects / fortune-mod / commitdiff