C, n.: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -- Ray Simard On-line, adj.: The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer. All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling. -- H. L. Mencken If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country. 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. If you don't have a nasty obituary you probably didn't matter. -- Freeman Dyson Predestination was doomed from the start. There once was a girl named Irene Who lived on distilled kerosene But she started absorbin' A new hydrocarbon And since then has never benzene. If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. -- Ronald Reagan Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics. -- Fletcher Knebel Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery: Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a simple yes or no answer. Keep you Eye on the Ball, Your Shoulder to the Wheel, Your Nose to the Grindstone, Your Feet on the Ground, Your Head on your Shoulders. Now ... try to get something DONE! "His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had money, he went to Southern California." "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society Convention, 1977 We need to remember that people buy microcomputers to get work done. They are not a productivity tool if you're tripping over details. Then the computer becomes part of the problem, not the solution. Tom Tompson senior technical editor, BYTE The trouble with computers is, they only do what you tell them and not what you want them ! Anyone who can stay calm in the midst of all this confusion simply dosn't understand the situation! There are only two ways to write error-free programs, only the third one works. The Hacker Hym Sing to the melody of: "Put another nickel in" Put another password in Bomb it out and try again, Try to get past logging in, We're hacking, hacking, hacking. Try his first wife's maiden name, This is more then just a game, It's real fun, it is the same, It's hacking, hacking, hacking. Sys-call, let's try a sys-call. Remember the great bug from version 3, Of RSX it's here! Whopee! Put another sys-call in, Run those passwords out and then, Dial backup, we're logging in, We're hacking, hacking, hacking. Cheshire Catalyst TPA-Magazine Hakito ergo sum ! Forget about girls and bikinis, forget about sea, sand and sun. The warm winds are gone, your brain must switch on, and surfing BIG BLUE is real fun! MAA9003 94" reflector, mint condition, barely used. Optics need some work. Original cost $1.5 billion. Will trade for good 6" scope or B.O. You pick up. NASA, Washington D.C. Sky & Telescope Recently, over the atlantic ocean: "Ladies and Gentlemen, here is your captain speeking. Welcome on flight SR 824 from Zurich to New York. We are flying at an altitude of 30'000 feet above sea-level, which is about 9150 meters, outside temperature is 13 degrees fahrenheit below zero, which is 25 degrees centigrades below freezing, and we are traveling at a speed of 497 knots, which is about 920 kilometers per hour. Now turn your head to the right, please! There you can see engines three and four on fire! If you turn your head to the left, then you can see engines one and two on fire too! Now turn your head to the right again! Do you discover the tiny little white spot down in the wide blue sea? That's me and my parachute! I wish you have a pleasent journey...!"" In every small problem lies hidden a big problem struggling to get out. No problem is so big not to run away form. My favorite programming language is solder. Stieven Ciarcia American Electronic Engineer Writer of BYTE-Magazine If you think of something to be foolproof, the fools are always greater then the proof! Eduard Teller American Nuclear Physicist "A distributed system is one in which I cannot get something done because a machine I've never heard of is down" --Leslie Lamport + OHNOSECOND: Time between pressing Enter + + and realizing you did something terribly + + and irrevocably wrong. + "Before a lethal injection, the condemned person's arm is swabbed with alcohol to prevent infection." --Utne Reader, quoted in The Progressive, February 1994. "One legislator started wearing a bullet-proof vest, and a group that supports guns has started warning its members that they cannot educate lawmakers if they keep threatening them with late-night phone calls. 'You just make them more sure that they want you disarmed,' the group, Firearms Coalition of Colorado, advised its members." --The New York Times, February 13, 1994. "They're failures. Well, that's a little strong. But if $120,000 a year is the best job you've ever had, you haven't really done much." --Tom Clancy, speaking about members of Congress, quoted in The Virginia Pilot and the Ledger Star, July 13, 1993. "Someone once said that to experience the thrill of sailing one only needs to go in the shower fully clothed, turn the cold water on, and start tearing $20 bills. To experience the thrill of windsurfing follow the same instructions with a minor variation: once in a while throw yourself against the wall." -- Luigi Semenzato >From MacWeek, 17 Oct 1994 The 'Mac the Knife' column concluded with: "It was just this week that a MacWEEK mug was hastily dispatched to the source who observed that with Office 4.2, Microsoft had managed to market software of sufficient bulk that it may automatically invoke an obscure U.S. Department of Transportation regulation requiring an audible safety beep when it is backing up." "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." Mark Twain "The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it is unfamiliar territory." -Paul Fix More political gaffes from the 10/9 Baltimore Sun: Frank G. Bonelli of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors welcomed a presidential commission on drug trafficking and said: "I am sure the committee will do an infinitesimal amount of good." Layne Marshal sent me this one. "The Constitution is a forthright peice of work and quite succinct--21 pages (in the American Civics E-Z reader large-type version) giving the complete operating instructions for a nation of 250 million people. The manual for a Toyota Camray, which only seats five, is four times as long." From "A Parliament of Whores" by P.J. O'Rourke Here are the last of the too-hastily-written advertisements from Nick Hart . "Stock up and save. Limit: one." "Wanted: Preparer of food. Must be dependable, like the food business, and be willing to get hands dirty." "Girl wanted to assist magician in cutting-off-head illusion. Blue Cross and salary." "Wanted. Widower with school-age children requires person to assume general housekeeping duties. Must be capable of contributing to growth of family." "Mother's helper--peasant working conditions." "Semi-Annual after-Christmas Sale." "And now, the Superstore--unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled inconvenience." "We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $1.00." From: John=Ings%TECH%CSA_DFL@sso.sci.sp-agency.ca The New York Times reports that the following list is being passed around in Washington, DC: Lord's Prayer: 56 words 23rd Psalm: 118 words Gettysburg Address: 226 words Ten Commandments: 297 words U.S. Department of Agriculture order on the price of cabbage: 15,629 words. From: dbell@maths.tcd.ie (Derek Bell) Subject: Is Quayleitis contagious? Des O'Malley, an important minister in the Irish government, made the following comment about the Danish rejection of the Maastricht treaty: "The Maastricht treaty ... has been dealt, at least temporarily, a fatal blow." From: bsingh@cory.berkeley.edu (Balraj Singh) Organization: EECS at University of California, at Berkeley Subject: food stamps Clipping in Newsweek :- From a letter to a dead person from the Greenville County (S.C.) Department of Social Services.. "Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992, because we have received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances." From: bsingh@cory.berkeley.edu (Balraj Singh) Organization: EECS at University of California, at Berkeley Subject: is this going to take too long??? Clipping in Newsweek :- "Is this going to take long? I've got someplace to go tonight." An 8-year old Chicago boy being questioned by detectives after he shot a girl classmate in the spine with a semiautomatic handgun. From: jmkell1@ptsfa.pacbell.com (Jim Kelly) Subject: Automation Efficienies >From the San Francisco Chronicle, March 24, 1992 (without permission): "Unemployment Checks to be Delayed 3-4 Days" Unemployment checks will be delayed three to four days starting tomorrow as Bay Area offices of the Employment Development Department [California's unemployment office] switch over to a faster automated system. I can't wait for them to come up with new ways to process my tax refund... From: dbd2x@kelvin.seas.virginia.edu (Dan Duncan) Subject: joke TRUE, ORIGINAL I was driving down the street the other day and I stopped behind a car with a bumper sticker reading "Jesus can heal YOU!" Of course, the car also had handicapped plates... Forwarded-by: guy@netapp.com (Guy Harris) The "Notebook" section of the November 7 *The New Republic* reports the following headline from the October 12 *New York Times*: After Detour to California, Shuttle Returns to Earth From mbr@larch.LCS.MIT.EDU Tue Jul 8 09:26:53 EDT 1997 New York Times, 25 April 1989, in an article on new operating systems for the IBM PC: Real concurrency -- in which one program actually continues to function while you call up and use another -- is more amazing but of small use to the average person. How many programs do you have that take more than a few seconds to perform any task? "I find myself unable to endorse the "Objections to Astrology" statement, not because I feel that astrology has any validity whatsoever, but because I felt and still feel that the tone of the statement is authoritarian. The fundamental point is not that the origins of astrology are shrouded in superstition. This is true as well for chemistry, medicine, and astronomy, to mention only three. To discuss the psychological motivation of those who believe in astrology seems to me quite peripheral to the issue of its validity. That we can think of no mechanism for astrology is relevant but unconvincing. No mechanism was known, for example, for continental drift when it was proposed by Wegener. Nevertheless, we see that Wegener was right, and those who objected on the grounds of unavailable mechanism were wrong. Statements...that appear to have an authoritarian tone...confirm the impression that scientists are rigid and closed-minded." - Carl Sagan "Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks; but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a pile of bricks is a house." Henri Poincare Research Assistant | "We have all heard that a million monkeys Dept. of Psychology | banging on a million typewriters will Carnegie Mellon University | eventually reproduce the entire works Baker Hall 329A/342C | of William Shakespeare. Now, thanks to Pittsburgh PA 15213 | the Internet, we know this is not true." (412) 268-8228 | -Robert Silensky Re: British Political Culture "Understanding ritual is, of course, the key to understanding any primitive society, such as the Conservative Party." -- from the Economist "...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.] --(Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD) Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein