(2) Nothing is always.
(3) Everything is sometimes.
%
-1.79 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's
+1.80 x 10^12 furlongs per fortnight -- it's not just a good idea, it's
the law!
%
10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.
%
-100 buckets of bits on the bus
+100 buckets of bits on the bus
100 buckets of bits
Take one down, short it to ground
-FF buckets of bits on the bus
+FF buckets of bits on the bus
-FF buckets of bits on the bus
+FF buckets of bits on the bus
FF buckets of bits
Take one down, short it to ground
-FE buckets of bits on the bus
+FE buckets of bits on the bus
ad infinitum...
%
%
3 syncs represent the trinity -- init, the child and the eternal zombie
process. In doing 3, you're paying homage to each and I think such
-traditions are important in this shallow, mercurial business we find
+traditions are important in this shallow, mercurial business we find
ourselves in.
-- Jordan K. Hubbard
%
%
A "No" uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
"Yes" merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
- -- Mahatma Ghandi
+ -- Mahatma Gandhi
%
A [golf] ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree.
Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific
rolled into the rough. Such veering right or left frequently results
from friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball
and the player should not be penalized for the erratic behavior of the
-ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical
-phenomena.
+ball resulting from such uncontrollable physical phenomena.
-- Donald A. Metz
%
A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no
A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking.
%
A CONS is an object which cares.
- -- Bernie Greenberg.
+ -- Bernie Greenberg
%
A consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you what time it
is, pockets the watch, and sends you a bill for it.
facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.
-- H. L. Mencken
%
-A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding
+A general leading the State Department resembles a dragon commanding
ducks.
-- New York Times, Jan. 20, 1981
%
O is for Olive, run through with an awl, P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl
Q is for Quinton who sank in a mire, R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire.
S is for Susan who parished of fits, T is for Titas who flew into bits.
-U is for Una who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train.
+U is for Una who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train.
W is for Winnie, embedded in ice, X is for Xerxes, devoured by mice.
Y is for Yoric whose head was bashed in, Z is for Zilla who drank too much gin.
-- Edward Gorey "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"
%
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
not worth knowing.
+ -- Alan Perlis
%
A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program
in than some that do.
%
A pig is a jolly companion,
Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
-A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
+A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,
When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
%
A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!
- -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Sumatra"
+ -- The Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Sumatra"
%
A priest asked: What is Fate, Master?
%
A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis
of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite
-series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric
+series of incomprehensible answers calculated with micrometric
precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from
inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical
accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality
%
Ah say, son, you're about as sharp as a bowlin' ball.
%
-Ah, but the choice of dreams to live,
+Ah, but the choice of dreams to live,
there's the rub.
For all dreams are not equal,
-- Samuel Butler, "Notebooks"
%
All science is either physics or stamp collecting.
- -- E. Rutherford
+ -- Ernest Rutherford
%
All snakes who wish to remain in Ireland will please raise their right
hands.
%
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged
demo.
+ -- Andy Finkel, Commodore-Amiga Inc.
%
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
-- Arthur C. Clarke
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
%
Art is anything you can get away with.
- -- Marshall McLuhan.
+ -- Marshall McLuhan
%
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
-- Paul Gauguin
santa claus <north pole >town
cat /etc/passwd >list
-ncheck list
+ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice >giftlist
It stands today, a monument to human spirit. If life exists on other
planets, this may be the first message received from us.
- -- The Realist, November, 1964.
+ -- The Realist, November, 1964
%
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it.
Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
%
-BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH!
+BOO! We changed Coke again! BLEAH! BLEAH!
%
Boob's Law:
You always find something in the last place you look.
-- James Thurber
%
Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.
- -- Kin Hubbard
+ -- Kim Hubbard
%
Brace yourselves. We're about to try something that borders on the
unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only
Cogito ergo I'm right and you're wrong.
-- Blair Houghton
%
-Coincidence, n.:
+Coincidence, n.:
You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was
going on.
%
than the estimate the job will cost.
%
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
- -- LaRouchefoucauld
+ -- La Rochefoucauld
%
Concept, n.:
Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than
%
Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that
would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that
-you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer
+you undoubtedly will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer
maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS
OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY
UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED
wish you weren't.
%
Consequences, Schmonsequences, as long as I'm rich.
- -- "Ali Baba Bunny" [1957, Chuck Jones]
+ -- Daffy Duck, "Ali Baba Bunny", [1957, Chuck Jones]
%
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then
give it back to them.
Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe?
Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business
-signs to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a
+signs to alert the reader that an "S" is coming up at the end of a
word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHECK'S, or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR
ANY ITEM'S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when
-creating hand- lettered small-business signs is that you should put
+creating hand-lettered small-business signs is that you should put
quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in "TRY" OUR HOT
DOG'S, or even TRY "OUR" HOT DOG'S.
-- Dave Barry, "Tips for Writer's"
default, n.:
[Possibly from Black English "De fault wid dis system is you,
mon."] The vain attempt to avoid errors by inactivity. "Nothing will
-come of nothing: speak again." -- King Lear.
+come of nothing: speak again." -- King Lear
-- Stan Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
%
#define BITCOUNT(x) (((BX_(x)+(BX_(x)>>4)) & 0x0F0F0F0F) % 255)
-#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \
+#define BX_(x) ((x) - (((x)>>1)&0x77777777) \
- (((x)>>2)&0x33333333) \
- (((x)>>3)&0x11111111))
Demand the establishment of the government
in its rightful home at Disneyland.
%
-Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than
+Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than
we deserve.
-- George Bernard Shaw
%
since withdrawn.
%
Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the
-board. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls.
+board. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls.
%
Dentist, n.:
A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls
E. Whipsnade and other Tarradiddles"
%
Double Bucky
- (Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie")
+ (Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie")
Double bucky, you're the one!
You make my keyboard lots of fun
Oh, I sure wish that I,
Had a couple of bits more!
-Perhaps a set of pedals to make the number of bits four.
+Perhaps a set of pedals to make the number of bits four.
Double bucky, left and right
OR'd together, outta sight!
means the puzzle is solved.
-- Steve Rubenstein
%
-Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.
+Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal.
%
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may work.
%
comes from the English word "egg", meaning "egg". I don't know where
the "nog" comes from.
-To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine gin and, if they are in
+To make eggnog, you'll need rum, whiskey, wine, gin and, if they are in
season, eggs...
%
Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain
Hacker MacKensie
Writing the code for a program that no one will run
-It's nearly done
+It's nearly done
Look at him working, fixing the bugs in the night when there's nobody there.
What does he care?
genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way
of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
- -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
+ -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
%
Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation):
I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece.
But now I think a thought that brings me hope:
Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.
- -- Justin Richardson.
+ -- Justin Richardson
%
For your penance, say five Hail Marys and one loud BLAH!
%
Q: Did he kill you?
A: No.
%
-fortune: cpu time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped.
+fortune: CPU time/usefulness ratio too high -- core dumped.
%
Fortune: You will be attacked next Wednesday at 3:15 p.m. by six samurai
sword wielding purple fish glued to Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
extracurricular activity except you."
"Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?"
"Only to ten, Mudhead."
-
- -- Firesign Theater
+ -- The Firesign Theatre
%
Gee, Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.
%
%
God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man.
%
-God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
+God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
-- Mark Twain
%
God made the integers; all else is the work of Man.
%
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad
example.
- -- La Rouchefoucauld
+ -- La Rochefoucauld
%
Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall.
%
%
Gosh that takes me back... or is it forward? That's the trouble with
time travel, you never can tell.
- -- Doctor Who "Androids of Tara"
+ -- Doctor Who, "Androids of Tara"
%
Got Mole problems?
Call Avogadro 6.02 x 10^23
filled with water that you sit in naked with members of the opposite
sex, none of whom is necessarily your spouse. After a few hours in
their hot tubs, Californians don't give a damn about earthquakes or
-mass murderers. They don't give a damn about anything , which is why
+mass murderers. They don't give a damn about anything, which is why
they are able to produce "Laverne and Shirley" week after week.
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
%
of nothing.
-- Redd Foxx
%
-Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying
-of nothing.
- -- Redd Foxx
-%
Heaven, n.:
A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of
their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you
Hier liegt ein Mann ganz ohnegleich;
Im Leibe dick, an Suenden reich.
Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws
-Weil es uns duenkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head;
+Weil es uns duenkt, er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head;
We buried him today because
As far as we can tell, he's dead.
- -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty
- Sue Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher;
+ -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty-Sue
+ Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher;
"The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele
%
Higgledy Piggledy,
object -- every board, washer, nail and screw -- in the entire store ...
Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the
broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has
-a replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the
+a replacement. The employee, who has never in his life even seen the
inside of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the
same way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at
an electronic calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of
How I love to watch the morn,
With golden sun that shines,
Up above to nicely warm
- These frosty toes of mine.
+ These frosty toes of mine.
The wind doth taste so bitter sweet,
Like Jaspar wine and sugar,
cheese!" and so on.
-- Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"
%
- How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are
-3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand,
+ How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are
+3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand,
who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a
nanocentury.
-- Tom Duff, Bell Labs
-- Gloria Steinem
%
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party.
- -- Dennis Ritchie
+ -- Dennis M. Ritchie
%
I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it.
-- English Professor
I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and
25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be
true.
- -- Harry Truman
+ -- Harry S. Truman
%
I can resist anything but temptation.
%
%
I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very
reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment.
- -- Gotama Buddha
+ -- Gautama Buddha
%
I gave up Smoking, Drinking and Sex. It was the most *__________\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\bhorrifying* 20
minutes of my life!
-- Pete Seeger
%
I had this sudden vision of a klein pizza containing all the mozarella
-in the world.
+in the world.
-- Peter da Silva
%
I had to censor everything my sons watched ... even on the Mary Tyler
beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below. Westbrook Pegler, a
guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. You can take that as more
of an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry.
- -- President Harry S Truman
+ -- President Harry S. Truman
%
I have learned
To spell hors d'oeuvres
-Which still grates on
+Which still grates on
Some people's n'oeuvres.
-- Warren Knox
%
Holes and the Fate of Stars"
%
I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any
-questions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the
+questions, I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the
speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen?
He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening
And no man see me more.
- -- Shakespeare
+ -- William Shakespeare
%
IBM had a PL/I,
Its syntax worse than JOSS;
-- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859)
%
If one studies too zealously, one easily loses his pants.
- -- A. Einstein.
+ -- Albert Einstein
%
If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit
in my name at a Swiss bank.
If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
%
If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
- -- Harry S Truman
+ -- Harry S. Truman
%
If you didn't get caught, did you really do it?
%
payments.
-- Earl Wilson
%
+If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you
+don't understand the problems and you don't understand the technology.
+ -- Bruce Schneier
+%
If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it.
-- Arthur Kasspe
%
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the
usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody
thinks of complaining.
- -- Jeff Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal
+ -- Jef Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal
%
Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has
a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk
... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such
wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of
fact.
- -- Mark Twain
+ -- Mark Twain
%
In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to
drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, it is against the law to open a soda bottle without
the supervision of a licensed engineer.
%
-In West Union, Ohio, No married man can go flying without his spouse
+In West Union, Ohio, no married man can go flying without his spouse
along at any time, unless he has been married for more than 12 months.
%
Incumbent, n.:
-- Voltaire
%
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what
-they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed
-that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so
-much -- the wheel, New York wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins
-had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But
-conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more
-intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.
+they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always
+assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had
+achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst
+all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having
+a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that
+they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same
+reasons.
Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending
-destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to
-alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were
+destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert
+mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were
misinterpreted ...
- -- Douglas Adams "The Hitch-Hikers' Guide To The Galaxy"
+
+ -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
It is better for civilization to be going down the drain than to be
coming up it.
%
Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't
immune to bullets.
- -- The Brigader, "Dr. Who"
+ -- The Brigadier, "Dr. Who"
%
Just out of curiosity does this actually mean something or have some
of the few remaining bits of your brain just evaporated?
-- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"
%
Kin, n.:
- An affliction of the blood
+ An affliction of the blood.
%
Kinkler's First Law:
Responsibility always exceeds authority.
%
Laugh at your problems; everybody else does.
%
-Laughter is the closest distance between two people."
+Laughter is the closest distance between two people."
-- Victor Borge
%
Law of Communications:
Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.
%
Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it.
- -- Marvin, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
+ -- Marvin, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made
sense from things she found in gift shops.
But Hating, my boy, is an Art.
-- Ogden Nash
%
-Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with
+Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with
the ideal never goes unpunished.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
%
%
Love's Drug
-My love is like an iron wand
+My love is like an iron wand
That conks me on the head,
-My love is like the valium
+My love is like the valium
That I take before my bed,
-My love is like the pint of scotch
+My love is like the pint of scotch
That I drink when I be dry;
And I shall love thee still, my dear,
Until my wife is wise.
Malek's Law:
Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.
%
-Man 1: Ask me the what the most important thing about telling a good
+Man 1: Ask me what the most important thing about telling a good
joke is.
Man 2: OK, what is the most impo --
information you need is in the others.
-- Ray Simard
%
-Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon,
+Many years ago in a period commonly known as Next Friday Afternoon,
there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he
was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how
completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ...
from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from Alpha
Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man
had split before. Thus was the Empire forged.
- -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams
+ -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
Men's skin is different from women's skin. It is usually bigger, and
it has more snakes tattooed on it. Also, if you examine a woman's skin
Mencken and Nathan's Sixteenth Law of The Average American:
Milking a cow is an operation demanding a special talent that
is possessed only by yokels, and no person born in a large city can
-never hope to acquire it.
+ever hope to acquire it.
%
Menu, n.:
A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of.
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
%
-Nirvana? Thats the place where the powers that be and their friends
+Nirvana? That's the place where the powers that be and their friends
hang out.
-- Zonker Harris
%
No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless
absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation.
- -- Fran Lebowitz
+ -- Fran Leibowitz
%
No committee could ever come up with anything as revolutionary as a
camel -- anything as practical and as perfectly designed to perform
%
Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
%
-Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
-%
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
%
Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the
-- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
%
Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none.
- -- Shakespeare
+ -- William Shakespeare
%
Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper
is from the wrong kind of tree.
Nuclear war can ruin your whole compile.
-- Karl Lehenbauer
%
-Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption of
+Nuclear war would mean abolition of most comforts, and disruption of
normal routines, for children and adults alike.
-- Willard F. Libby, "You *Can* Survive Atomic Attack"
%
choice.
In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians
-called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka"
+called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukkah"
and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People
passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy
-Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!"
+Hanukkah!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!"
-- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
%
Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict,
Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
%
Parkinson's Fifth Law:
- If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good
+ If there is a way to delay an important decision, the good
bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
%
Parkinson's Fourth Law:
That's the way the chimney smokes
Pope Goestheveezl
-The square was finally cleared by armed carabineri with tears of
+The square was finally cleared by armed carabinieri with tears of
laughter streaming down their faces. The event set a record for
hilarious civic functions, smashing the previous record set when Baron
Hans Neizant B"\bompzidaize was elected Landburgher of K"\boln in 1653.
(2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front.
(3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of
legs for a horse.
-(4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity.
+(4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity.
(5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs.
Topics to be covered in future issues include proof by:
PVLC Punch Variable Length Card
RASC Read And Shred Card
RPM Read Programmers Mind
-RSSC reduce speed, step carefully (for improved accuracy)
-RTAB Rewind tape and break
-RWDSK rewind disk
+RSSC Reduce Speed, Step Carefully (for improved accuracy)
+RTAB Rewind Tape and Break
+RWDSK Rewind Disk
RWOC Read Writing On Card
-SCRBL scribble to disk - faster than a write
+SCRBL Scribble to disk - faster than a write
SLC Search for Lost Chord
SPSW Scramble Program Status Word
SRSD Seek Record and Scar Disk
in San Francisco?
A: Both of them.
%
-Q: How many IBM cpu's does it take to do a logical right shift?
+Q: How many IBM CPUs does it take to do a logical right shift?
A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register.
%
-Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job?
+Q: How many IBM CPUs does it take to execute a job?
A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.
%
Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?
%
Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!!
%
-Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
+Quidquid latine dictum est, altum videtur.
(Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
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Quigley's Law:
Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will
-atttempt to use it.
+attempt to use it.
%
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system?
-
+
SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying that
the country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You can
carry a pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away."
do all that I can to protect the environment of this great nation of
ours, and put prayer back in the schools, where it belongs. What we
need is jobs, not empty promises. I realize I'm risking my political
-career be being so outspoken on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but
+career by being so outspoken on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but
that's just the kind of straight-talking honest person I am, and I
can't help it.
-- Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"
Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made
of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts
is not necessarily science.
- -- Henri Poincair'\be
+ -- Henri Poincar'\be
%
Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.
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-- Swami X
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Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated.
- -- M. C. Reed.
+ -- M. C. Reed
%
Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go,
it's one of the best.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-
bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the
road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space.
- -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
+ -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
Spare no expense to save money on this one.
-- Samuel Goldwyn
Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is
fight the solutions.
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-Stupid, n.:
+Stupid, adj.:
Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay.
%
Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?
start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and
then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the
music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.
- -- H.S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
+ -- H. S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
%
T: One big monster, he called TROLL.
He don't rock, and he don't roll;
-- Thomas Jefferson
%
The Advertising Agency Song:
-
+
When your client's hopping mad,
Put his picture in the ad.
If he still should prove refractory,
The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland";
but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.
%
-The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
+The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
-- W. C. Fields
%
The best defense against logic is ignorance.
%
The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all
who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.
- -- Benjamin Franklin.
+ -- Benjamin Franklin
%
The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog:
The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in
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
%
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #2: RENE
Named after the famous French philosopher and mathematician Rene
-DesCartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The
+Descartes, RENE is a language used for artificial intelligence. The
language is being developed at the Chicago Center of Machine Politics
and Programming under a grant from the Jane Byrne Victory Fund. A
spokesman described the language as "Just as great as dis [sic] city of
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The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that
will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
- -- Mark Twain.
+ -- Mark Twain
%
The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a
soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which
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
+ -- Robert J. Woodhead
%
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to
choose from.
until 5 or 6 p.m.
%
The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
- -- Bohr
+ -- Niels Bohr
%
The optimum committee has no members.
-- Norman Augustine
"The pyramid is opening!"
"Which one?"
"The one with the ever-widening hole in it!"
- -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At
+ -- The Firesign Theatre, "How Can You Be In Two Places At
Once When You're Not Anywhere At All"
%
The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's:
-- Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
%
The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes,
-respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones
-from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the
-milestones are lifted.
+respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven millstones
+from Man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the
+millstones are lifted.
-- George Bernard Shaw
%
The seven eyes of Ningauble the Wizard floated back to his hood
the Russians.
-- Marshall Brickman, Playboy, April, 1973
%
- The STAR WARS Song
+ "Yoda", by "Weird Al" Yankovic;
Sung to the tune of "Lola", by the Kinks:
I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah
-Where it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda
+Where it bubbles all the time like a giant carbonated soda
S-O-D-A soda
I saw the little runt sitting there on a log
I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda
%
The trouble with a kitten is that
When it grows up, it's always a cat
- -- Ogden Nash.
+ -- Ogden Nash
%
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
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There are many intelligent species in the universe. They all own
cats.
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-There are no data that cannot be plotted on a straight line if the axis
+There are no data that cannot be plotted on a straight line if the axes
are chosen correctly.
%
There are no games on this system.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
- -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
+ -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a vacuum.
-- Arthur C. Clarke
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This Fortue Examined By INSPECTOR NO. 2-14
%
-This fortune cookie program out of order. For those in desperate need,
+This fortune cookie program is out of order. For those in desperate need,
please use the program "________\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\brandchar". This program generates random
characters, and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with
something profound. It will, however, take it no time at all to be
This land is full of trousers!
this land is full of mausers!
And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down!
- -- Firesign Theater
+ -- The Firesign Theatre
%
This land is made of mountains,
This land is made of mud,
which identifies errors in the original program.
%
This sentence contradicts itself -- no actually it doesn't.
- -- Hofstadter
+ -- Douglas Hofstadter
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... This striving for excellence extends into people's personal lives
as well. When '80s people buy something, they buy the best one, as
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
%
Today's thrilling story has been brought to you by Mushies, the great new
-cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more
+cereal that gets soggy even without milk or cream. Join us soon for more
spectacular adventure starring ... Tippy, the Wonder Dog.
-- Bob & Ray
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8) Indentation?! - I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
7) What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'.
Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality
- assurance people in its wake.
+ assurance people in its wake.
6) Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments'
- - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
+ - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
5) Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
4) A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!
3) Klingon software does NOT have BUGS. It has FEATURES, and those features
are too sophisticated for a Romulan pig like you to understand.
2) You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the
- original Klingon.
+ original Klingon.
1) Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it!
Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
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(2) Use tape, magnets, or glue instead of paperweights.
(3) Give up skiing and skydiving for more horizontal sports like
curling.
-(4) Avoid showers .. take baths instead.
+(4) Avoid showers ... take baths instead.
(5) Don't hang all your clothes in the closet ... Keep them in one big
pile.
(6) Stop flipping pancakes
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UNIX was half a billion (500000000) seconds old on
Tue Nov 5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch).
- -- Andy Tannenbaum
+ -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
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Unnamed Law:
If it happens, it must be possible.
-- Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982
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We are upping our standards ... so up yours.
- -- Pat Paulsen for President, 1988.
+ -- Pat Paulsen for President, 1988
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We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved.
%
%
Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if
you run out of food.
- -- Dean McLaughlin.
+ -- Dean McLaughlin
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Well, here it is, 1983, so it won't be long before you start reading a
lot of boring stories about people like Vance Hartke. Hartke is a
"Well," Brahma said, "even after ten thousand explanations, a fool is
no wiser, but an intelligent man requires only two thousand five
hundred."
- -- The Mahabharata.
+ -- The Mahabharata
%
Westheimer's Discovery:
A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a
What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so
that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our
country. Nice try anyway, George.
- -- D.J. on KSFO/KYA
+ -- D. J. on KSFO/KYA
%
What good is a ticket to the good life, if you can't find the
entrance?
When you don't know what you are doing, do it neatly.
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When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
- -- Harry Truman
+ -- Harry S. Truman
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When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure
clarified your attitude toward him. You have given a definite answer
In a way, the next move is up to him.
-- R. A. Lafferty
%
-When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."
- -- Winston Churchill, On formal declarations of war
+When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.
+ -- Winston Churchill, on formal declarations of war
%
When you know absolutely nothing about the topic, make your forecast by
asking a carefully selected probability sample of 300 others who don't
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Who's on first?
%
-Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school.
+"Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school.
-- George Ade
%
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
No matter where you stand, no matter how far or fast you flee,
when it hits the fan, as much as possible will be propelled in your
direction, and almost none will be returned to the source.
- -- John L. Shelton
+ -- John L. Shelton
%
Wiker's Law:
Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.
%
With a gentleman I try to be a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I
try to be a fraud and a half.
- -- Otto von Bismark
+ -- Otto von Bismarck
%
With a rubber duck, one's never alone.
- -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
+ -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once
build a nuclear balm?
%
You are a very redundant person, that's what kind of person you are.
%
-You are here:
+You are here:
***
***
*********
But you're not all there.
%
+You are not illiterate.
+ -- a Mary Chung's fortune cookie
+%
"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"All your papers these days look the same;
Those William's would be better unread --
safety glasses.
-- Dave Barry, "Simple, Homespun Gifts"
%
-You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it
+You can bring any calculator you like to the midterm, as long as it
doesn't dim the lights when you turn it on.
-- Hepler, Systems Design 182
%
when I was young!"
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen!"
- -- Douglas Adams, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
+ -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
%
You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.
%
%
You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could
know how seldom they do.
- -- Olin Miller.
+ -- Olin Miller
%
You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially
if they are dead.
another $2 for each "special" he describes involving confusing terms
such as "shallots," and $4 if the menu contains the word "fixin's." In
many restaurants, this means the waiter will actually owe you money.
-If you are traveling with a child aged six months to three years, you
+If you are traveling with a child aged six months to three years, you
should leave an additional amount equal to twice the bill to compensate
for the fact that they will have to take the banquette out and burn it
because the cracks are wedged solid with gobbets made of partially
With memory-dumps, punch cards. Saluted his tombstone,
"I'm close," he muttered. And whispered, "Nice try."
-The mumbling got louder,
-Simple deduction,
-"I've got it, it's right,
-Just change one instruction."
+The mumbling got louder,
+Simple deduction,
+"I've got it, it's right,
+Just change one instruction."
%
Speaking of the philosophy involved in moving humanity into space:
%
Nearly every software professional has heard the term spaghetti code as a
pejorative description for complicated, difficult to understand, and impossible
-to maintain, software. However, many people may not know the other two
+to maintain, software. However, many people may not know the other two
elements of the complete Pasta Theory of Software.
Lasagna code is used to describe software that has a simple, understandable,
simple, is often very difficult in actual practice.
The ideal software structure is one having components that are small and
-loosely coupled; this ideal structure is called ravioli code. In ravioli
+loosely coupled; this ideal structure is called ravioli code. In ravioli
code, each of the components, or objects, is a package containing some meat
or other nourishment for the system; any component can be modified or replaced
without significantly affecting other components.
-- Raymond J. Rubey, in a letter to the editor of Crosstalk
magazine
%
-63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
-ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
+63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
+ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
now there's 63,005 bugs in the code!!
+%
+"It's not very common in Crowthorne"
+%
+ 1) Don't expect fairings.
+ 2) If confused read #1.
+%
+Cheer up. You could have all the problems you have now, and then also
+be named Eustace Clarence Scrubb.
+%
+Never leave a macassar and an antimacassar in the same room together.
+%
+Why did the furry install Unix? Because it supports catman(8).
+%
+Many people don't realize that trailhead doggerel is illegal -- but
+surely you've heard of "hike rhymes and misdemeanors"...
+%
+We all know political bumper stickers and some of us even put them on
+our cars. However, if you show up at headquarters on Friday afternoon
+after a long campaign week, you're more likely to see a stumper
+bicker.
+%
+When you're under siege by a winter storm, that's a "frontal assault".
+%
+Somebody has mail.
+%
+'Agnosis' is when you don't know. 'Diagnosis' is when you don't know
+twice.
+%
+An assortment of ways to be assimilated is a "smorgasborg".
+%
+The Navy's forever doomed to be inefficient because it's always trying
+to do things in a sub-optimal manner.
+%
+Q. What do you do if you find an abomination rooted in and need a
+druid in a hurry?
+A. Call the copse.
+%
+A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.
+-- Jo Godwin
+%
+Give a man a 0day and he'll have access for a day, teach a man to phish
+and he'll have access for life.
+-- the grugq
+%
+Information wants to be free and also extremely difficult to use.
+-- An ancient open source proverb
+%
+I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long.
+-- Mitch Hedberg
+%
+You, the Poles, have a funny nature. When the people going along the
+road are attacked by a dog with its insistent and noisy barking, you
+immediately feel like jumping off the vehicle, standing on all fours
+and starting to bark back at it. We, in the Vilnius region, let the
+dog bark because that is what its canine nature is like but we do not
+stop out journey because of its canine barking and without any war
+against dogs we calmly continue our journey until we reach our
+destination. It seems that you care more about barking more than the
+dog does and about winning the war with any lousy puppy than about
+reaching the destination quickly.
+-- Jozef Pilsudski