Mailbox

From: Sawyer Peterson <Sawyer.Peterson@wilkes.
edu>
Date: Mon Sep 1 15:30:03 CEST 2014
Subject: Thus spake the
Thus spake the master programmer:
"A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program
is its own hell."
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
From: Alice Collins <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Sep 2 13:06:13 CEST 2014
Subject: A woman physician
A woman physician has made the statement that smoking is neither
physically defective nor morally degrading, and that nicotine, even
when indulged to in excess, is less harmful than excessive petting."
-- Purdue Exponent, Jan 16, 1925
From: Lillian Scott <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Sep 3 12:26:19 CEST 2014
Subject: I expect that
I expect that noone has objections. However, if I'd only add these entries
to the list because `I think it's the right thing to do', I'd get a lot of
flames afterwards :)
-- Christian Schwarz
From: Logan Patel <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Sep 4 14:45:51 CEST 2014
Subject: After watching my
After watching my newly-retired dad spend two weeks learning how to make a new
folder, it became obvious that "intuitive" mostly means "what the writer or
speaker of intuitive likes".
(Bruce Ediger, [email protected], in comp.os.linux.misc, on X the
intuitiveness of a Mac interface.)
From: Violet Hughes <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Sep 5 17:22:21 CEST 2014
Subject: Please stand for
Please stand for the National Anthem:
God save our Gracious Queen!
Long live our Noble Queen!
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign o'er us!
God save the Queen!
Thank you. You may resume your seat.
From: Isla Mason <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Sep 6 10:18:10 CEST 2014
Subject: A certain old
A certain old cat had made his home in the alley behind Gabe's bar for some
time, subsisting on scraps and occasional handouts from the bartender. One
evening, emboldened by hunger, the feline attempted to follow Gabe through
the back door. Regrettably, only the his body had made it through when
the door slammed shut, severing the cat's tail at its base. This proved too
much for the old creature, who looked sadly at Gabe and expired on the spot.
Gabe put the carcass back out in the alley and went back to business.
The mandatory closing time arrived and Gabe was in the process of locking up
after the last customers had gone. Approaching the back door he was startled
to see an apparition of the old cat mournfully holding its severed tail out,
silently pleading for Gabe to put the tail back on its corpse so that it could
go on to the kitty afterworld complete.
Gabe shook his head sadly and said to the ghost, "I can't. You know
the law -- no retailing spirits after 2:00 AM."
From: Fiona Moore <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Sep 7 08:26:45 CEST 2014
Subject: If science were
If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible
and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But there is a kind
of Gresham's Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the
good. And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community
ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the
media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful. Every newspaper
in America has a daily astrology column. How many have even a weekly
astronomy column? And I believe it is also the fault of the educational
system. We do not teach how to think. This is a very serious failure that
may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human
future.
-- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer,
Vol. 12, Fall 87
From: Owen Williams <[email protected]>
Subject: Beneath this stone
Beneath this stone lies Murphy,
They buried him today,
He lived the life of Riley,
While Riley was away.
From: Ian McLaughlin <[email protected]>
Subject: Each team building
Each team building another component has been using the most recent tested
version of the integrated system as a test bed for debugging its piece. Their
work will be set back by having that test bed change under them. Of course it
must. But the changes need to be quantized. Then each user has periods of
productive stability, interrupted by bursts of test-bed change. This seems
to be much less disruptive than a constant rippling and trembling.
-- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"
From: Easton Wood <[email protected]>
Subject: A good question
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened
into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the
hope of greening the landscape of idea.
-- John Ciardi
From: Savannah Thomas <[email protected]>
Subject: Delores breezed along
Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever
skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious
to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an
overdose of flouride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic
apathy, doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless
as an appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred pound barbell in a
steroid-free fitness center.
-- Winning sentence, 1990 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
From: Sophie Wilson <[email protected]>
Subject: Please stand for
Please stand for the National Anthem:
O Canada
Our home and native land
True patriot love
In all thy sons' command
With glowing hearts we see thee rise
The true north strong and free
From far and wide, O Canada
We stand on guard for thee
God keep our land glorious and free
O Canada we stand on guard for thee
O Canada we stand on guard for thee
Thank you. You may resume your seat.
From: Lila Foster <[email protected]>
Subject: I went over
I went over to my friend, he was eatin' a pickle.
I said "Hi, what's happenin'?"
He said "Nothin'."
Try to sing this song with that kind of enthusiasm;
As if you just squashed a cop.
-- Arlo Guthrie, "Motorcycle Song"
From: Asher Parker <[email protected]>
Subject: The lovely woman
The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of
the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarian tribe now stacking wood at
her nubile feet, when the strong clear voice of the poetic and heroic
Handsomas roared, 'Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my
steel through your last meal!'
-- Winning sentence, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
From: Dominic Smyth <[email protected]>
Subject: Or you or
Or you or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you.
I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but
we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company.
-- J. Wellington Wells
From: August Murphy <[email protected]>
Subject: The history of
The history of warfare is similarly subdivided, although here the phases
are Retribution, Anticipation, and Diplomacy. Thus:
Retribution:
I'm going to kill you because you killed my brother.
Anticipation:
I'm going to kill you because I killed your brother.
Diplomacy:
I'm going to kill my brother and then kill you on the
pretext that your brother did it.
From: Jasper Hill <[email protected]>
Subject: Your mind is
Your mind is the part of you that says,
"Why'n'tcha eat that piece of cake?"
... and then, twenty minutes later, says,
"Y'know, if I were you, I wouldn't have done that!"
-- Steven and Ondrea Levine
From: Gideon Martinez <[email protected]>
Subject: Wake up all
Wake up all you citizens, hear your country's call,
Not to arms and violence, But peace for one and all.
Crush out hate and prejudice, fear and greed and sin,
Help bring back her dignity, restore her faith again.
Work hard for a common cause, don't let our country fall.
Make her proud and strong again, democracy for all.
Yes, make our country strong again, keep our flag unfurled.
Make our country well again, respected by the world.
Make her whole and beautiful, work from sun to sun.
Stand tall and labor side by side, because there's so much to be done.
Yes, make her whole and beautiful, united strong and free,
Wake up, all you citizens, It's up to you and me.
-- Pansy Myers Schroeder
From: Olivia Ramirez <[email protected]>
Subject: Waving away a
Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white
light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In
a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM
FOR THE 386.
-- Matt Welsh
From: Hannah Allen <[email protected]>
Subject: I have never
I have never seen anything fill up a vacuum so fast and still suck.
-- Rob Pike, on X.
Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain-damaged and it will be
gone in two years. He was half right.
-- Dennis Ritchie
Dennis Ritchie is twice as bright as Steve Jobs, and only half wrong.
-- Jim Gettys
From: Josiah Nelson <[email protected]>
Subject: Did you hear
Did you hear that there's a group of South American Indians that worship
the number zero?
Is nothing sacred?
From: Rosalie Mitchell <[email protected]>
Subject: A cousin of
A cousin of mine once said about money,
money is always there but the pockets change;
it is not in the same pockets after a change,
and that is all there is to say about money.
-- Gertrude Stein
From: Harrison Edwards <[email protected]>
Subject: Every one says
Every one says that politicians lie all the time, and that just isn't so!
But you do have to understand body language to know when they're lying and
when they aren't.
When a politician rubs his nose, he isn't lying.
When a politician tugs on his ear, he isn't lying.
When a politician scratches his collar bone, he isn't lying.
When his mouth starts moving, that's when he's lying!
From: Juliet Miller <[email protected]>
Subject: The only justification
The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they
serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have
no legitimacy.
-- Albert Einstein
From: Aaron Ali <[email protected]>
Subject: If people drank
If people drank ink instead of Schlitz, they'd be better off.
-- Edward E. Hippensteel
[What brand of ink? Ed.]
From: Adeline Owen <[email protected]>
Subject: A man was
A man was kneeling by a grave in a cemetery, crying and praying very loudly,
"Oh why..eeeee did you die...eeeeee, Oh Why..eeeeee,
why did you Di......eeee"
The caretaker walks up, pardons himself and asks politely,
"Excuse me, sir, but I've been seeing you for hours now,
carrying on at this grave. You must have been very close to the deceased."
"No, I never met him. Oh why....eeeee did you dieeeeee,
why....eeeee did you.."
"Sir, you say you never met this person, yet you carry on so?
Tell, me who is buried here?"
"My wife's first husband."
From: Charlotte Gutierrez <[email protected]>
Subject: I used to
I used to be a rebel in my youth.
This cause... that cause... (chuckle) I backed 'em ALL! But I learned.
Rebellion is simply a device used by the immature to hide from his own
problems. So I lost interest in politics. Now when I feel aroused by
a civil rights case or a passport hearing... I realize it's just a device.
I go to my analyst and we work it out. You have no idea how much better
I feel these days.
-- J. Feiffer
From: Avery Rogers <[email protected]>
Subject: There has also
There has also been some work to allow the interesting use of macro names.
For example, if you wanted all of your "creat()" calls to include read
permissions for everyone, you could say
#define creat(file, mode) creat(file, mode | 0444)
I would recommend against this kind of thing in general, since it
hides the changed semantics of "creat()" in a macro, potentially far away
from its uses.
To allow this use of macros, the preprocessor uses a process that
is worth describing, if for no other reason than that we get to use one of
the more amusing terms introduced into the C lexicon. While a macro is
being expanded, it is temporarily undefined, and any recurrence of the macro
name is "painted blue" -- I kid you not, this is the official terminology
-- so that in future scans of the text the macro will not be expanded
recursively. (I do not know why the color blue was chosen; I'm sure it
was the result of a long debate, spread over several meetings.)
-- From Ken Arnold's "C Advisor" column in Unix Review
From: Silas Morris <[email protected]>
Subject: Nuclear powered vacuuum
Nuclear powered vacuuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.
-- Alex Lewyt (President of the Lewyt Corporation,
manufacturers of vacuum cleaners), quoted in The New York
Times, June 10, 1955.
From: Amelia Robinson <[email protected]>
Subject: He who is
He who is intoxicated with wine will be sober again in the course of the
night, but he who is intoxicated by the cupbearer will not recover his
senses until the day of judgement.
-- Saadi
From: Griffin Campbell <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Oct 1 14:12:35 CEST 2014
Subject: Christmas time is
Christmas time is here, by Golly; Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens;
Disapproval would be folly; Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens;
Deck the halls with hunks of holly; Even though the prospect sickens,
Fill the cup and don't say when... Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas day, you can't get sore; Relations sparing no expense'll,
Your fellow man you must adore; Send some useless old utensil,
There's time to rob him all the more, Or a matching pen and pencil,
The other three hundred and sixty-four! Just the thing I need... how nice.
It doesn't matter how sincere Hark The Herald-Tribune sings,
It is, nor how heartfelt the spirit; Advertising wondrous things.
Sentiment will not endear it; God Rest Ye Merry Merchants,
What's important is... the price. May you make the Yuletide pay.
Angels We Have Heard On High,
Let the raucous sleighbells jingle; Tell us to go out and buy.
Hail our dear old friend, Kris Kringle, Sooooo...
Driving his reindeer across the sky,
Don't stand underneath when they fly by!
-- Tom Lehrer
From: Delilah Garcia <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Oct 2 19:07:28 CEST 2014
Subject: Delusions are often
Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's
beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning
them at birth.
-- Robert Heinlein
From: Aria Barnes <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Oct 3 17:35:35 CEST 2014
Subject: Human cardiac catheterization
Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929.
Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating
table to prevent her interference, he placed a ureteral catheter into
a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and
walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory
x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize.
From: Emma Bennett <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Oct 4 16:01:14 CEST 2014
Subject: When license fees
When license fees are too high,
users do things by hand.
When the management is too intrusive,
users lose their spirit.
Hack for the user's benefit.
Trust them; leave them alone.
From: Hadley Murray <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Oct 5 11:12:08 CEST 2014
Subject: Comparing software engineering
Comparing software engineering to classical engineering assumes that software
has the ability to wear out. Software typically behaves, or it does not. It
either works, or it does not. Software generally does not degrade, abrade,
stretch, twist, or ablate. To treat it as a physical entity, therefore, is
misapplication of our engineering skills. Classical engineering deals with
the characteristics of hardware; software engineering should deal with the
characteristics of *software*, and not with hardware or management.
-- Dan Klein
From: Keira Walker <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Oct 6 14:22:31 CEST 2014
Subject: According to a
According to a recent and unscientific national survey, smiling is something
everyone should do at least 6 times a day. In an effort to increase the
national average (the US ranks third among the world's superpowers in
smiling), Xerox has instructed all personnel to be happy, effervescent, and
most importantly, to smile. Xerox employees agree, and even feel strongly
that they can not only meet but surpass the national average... except for
Tubby Ackerman. But because Tubby does such a fine job of racing around
parking lots with a large butterfly net retrieving floating IC chips, Xerox
decided to give him a break. If you see Tubby in a parking lot he may have
a sheepish grin. This is where the expression, "Service with a slightly
sheepish grin" comes from.
From: Max Sullivan <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Oct 7 12:40:41 CEST 2014
Subject: Skill without imagination
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects
such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern
art.
-- Tom Stoppard
From: Sadie White <[email protected]>
Subject: Everyone who comes
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
From: Caleb Roberts <[email protected]>
Subject: Back in the
Back in the early 60's, touch tone phones only had 10 buttons. Some
military versions had 16, while the 12 button jobs were used only by people
who had "diva" (digital inquiry, voice answerback) systems -- mainly banks.
Since in those days, only Western Electric made "data sets" (modems) the
problems of terminology were all Bell System. We used to struggle with
written descriptions of dial pads that were unfamiliar to most people
(most phones were rotary then.) Partly in jest, some AT&T engineering
types (there was no marketing in the good old days, which is why they were
the good old days) made up the term "octalthorpe" (note spelling) to denote
the "pound sign." Presumably because it has 8 points sticking out. It
never really caught on.
From: Mila Long <[email protected]>
Subject: Our congratulations go
Our congratulations go to a Burlington Vermont civilian employee of the
local Army National Guard base. He recently received a substational cash
award from our government for inventing a device for optical scanning.
His device reportedly will save the government more than $6 million a year
by replacing a more expensive helicopter maintenance tool with his own,
home-made, hand-held model.
Not suprisingly, we also have a couple of money-saving ideas that we submit
to the Pentagon free of charge:
(a) Don't kill anybody.
(b) Don't build things that do.
(c) And don't pay other people to kill anybody.
We expect annual savings to be in the billions.
-- Sojourners
From: Arabella Powell <[email protected]>
Subject: I am convinced
I am convinced that the truest act of courage is to sacrifice ourselves
for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man
is to suffer for others.
-- Cesar Chavez
From: Jonah Moss <[email protected]>
Subject: Excitement and danger
Excitement and danger await your induction to tracer duty! As a tracer,
you must rid the computer networks of slimy, criminal data thieves.
They are tricky and the action gets tough, so watch out! Utilizing all
your skills, you'll either get your man or you'll get burned!
-- advertising for the computer game "Tracers"
From: James Lopez <[email protected]>
Subject: Digital computers are
Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people build:
They have very large numbers of states. This makes conceiving, describing,
and testing them hard. Software systems have orders-of-magnitude more states
than computers do.
-- Fred Brooks, Jr.
From: Alexandra Alexander <[email protected]>
Subject: Men ought to
Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our
pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs
and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires
us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness,
inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are
contrary to habit...
-- Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 B.C.), The Sacred Disease
From: Brielle Reid <[email protected]>
Subject: Techical solutions are
Techical solutions are not a matter of voting. Two legislations in the US
states almost decided that the value of Pi be 3.14, exactly. Popular vote
does not make for a correct solution.
-- Manoj Srivastava
From: Leah MacDonald <[email protected]>
Subject: No man is
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the
Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea,
Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if
a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes
me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
-- John Donne, "No Man is an Iland"
From: Eli Ross <[email protected]>
Subject: Now what would
Now what would they do if I just sailed away?
Who the hell really compelled me to leave today?
Runnin' low on stories of what made it a ball,
What would they do if I made no landfall?"
-- Jimmy Buffet, "Landfall"
From: Declan Bailey <[email protected]>
Subject: The common cormorant
The common cormorant, or shag,
Lays eggs inside a paper bag;
The reason, you will see, no doubt,
Is to keep the lightning out.
But what these unobservant birds
Have failed to notice is that herds
Of bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
From: Quinn Gonzalez <[email protected]>
Subject: Anyone who has
Anyone who has attended a USENIX conference in a fancy hotel can tell you
that a sentence like "You're one of those computer people, aren't you?"
is roughly equivalent to "Look, another amazingly mobile form of slime
mold!" in the mouth of a hotel cocktail waitress.
-- Elizabeth Zwicky
From: Eliana Diaz <[email protected]>
Subject: The income tax
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf
has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
-- Will Rogers
From: Bennett Davis <[email protected]>
Subject: The ark lands
The ark lands after The Flood. Noah lets all the animals out. Says he, "Go
and multiply." Several months pass. Noah decides to check up on the animals.
All are doing fine except a pair of snakes. "What's the problem?" says Noah.
"Cut down some trees and let us live there", say the snakes. Noah follows
their advice. Several more weeks pass. Noah checks on the snakes again.
Lots of little snakes, everybody is happy. Noah asks, "Want to tell me how
the trees helped?" "Certainly", say the snakes. "We're adders, and we need
logs to multiply."
From: Micah Cooper <[email protected]>
Subject: I see where
I see where we are starting to pay some attention to our neigbors to
the south. We could never understand why Mexico wasn't just crazy about
us; for we have always had their good will, and oil and minerals, at heart.
-- The Best of Will Rogers
From: Caroline Perry <[email protected]>
Subject: There is a
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what
the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be
replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another
theory which states that this has already happened.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
From: Rose Morrison <[email protected]>
Subject: The startling truth
The startling truth finally became apparent, and it was this: Numbers
written on restaurant checks within the confines of restaurants do not
follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces
of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single statement took
the scientific world by storm. So many mathematical conferences got held
in such good restaurants that many of the finest minds of a generation
died of obesity and heart failure, and the science of mathematics was put
back by years.
-- Douglas Adams
From: Lorelei Robertson <[email protected]>
Subject: Ever since prehistoric
Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what,
exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the
other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the
wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my
wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How
about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How
about ..."
-- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
From: Lily Anderson <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Oct 26 07:17:30 CET 2014
Subject: Bypasses are devices
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to
point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very
fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are
often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people
from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B
that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____
there. They often
wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell
they wanted to be.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
From: Hunter Taylor <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Oct 27 17:40:07 CET 2014
Subject: Women wish to
Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are
pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because
they are themselves.
-- Amiel
From: Isabella Baker <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Oct 28 19:43:02 CET 2014
Subject: Once there was
Once there was a little nerd who loved to read your mail,
And then yank back the i-access times to get hackers off his tail,
And once as he finished reading from the secretary's spool,
He wrote a rude rejection to her boyfriend (how uncool!)
And this as delivermail did work and he ran his backfstat,
He heard an awful crackling like rat fritters in hot fat,
And hard errors brought the system down 'fore he could even shout!
And the bio bug'll bring yours down too, ef you don't watch out!
And once they was a little flake who'd prowl through the uulog,
And when he went to his blit that night to play at being god,
The ops all heard him holler, and they to the console dashed,
But when they did a ps -ut they found the system crashed!
Oh, the wizards adb'd the dumps and did the system trace,
And worked on the file system 'til the disk head was hot paste,
But all they ever found was this: "panic: never doubt",
And the bio bug'll crash your box too, ef you don't watch out!
When the day is done and the moon comes out,
And you hear the printer whining and the rk's seems to count,
When the other desks are empty and their terminals glassy grey,
And the load is only 1.6 and you wonder if it'll stay,
You must mind the file protections and not snoop around,
Or the bio bug'll getcha and bring the system down!
From: Cora Rose <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Oct 29 14:45:37 CET 2014
Subject: A halted retreat
A halted retreat
Is nerve-wracking and dangerous.
To retain people as men -- and maidservants
Brings good fortune.
From: Audrey Stewart <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Oct 30 13:20:00 CET 2014
Subject: This sad little
This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's
side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little
else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds happiness in
a world in which happiness is always in short supply.
-- Lazarus Long
From: Penelope Price <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Oct 31 08:22:29 CET 2014
Subject: Does a good
Does a good farmer neglect a crop he has planted?
Does a good teacher overlook even the most humble student?
Does a good father allow a single child to starve?
Does a good programmer refuse to maintain his code?
From: Layla Graham <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Nov 1 14:02:55 CET 2014
Subject: Rincewind looked down
Rincewind looked down at him and grinned slowly. It was a wide, manic, and
utterly humourless rictus. It was the sort of grin that is normally
accompanied by small riverside birds wandering in and out, picking scraps
out of the teeth.
-- Terry Pratchett, "The Lure of the Wyrm"
From: Tessa King <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Nov 2 18:12:30 CET 2014
Subject: I distrust a
I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk
and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously,
unless you keep in practice. Now, sir, we'll talk if you like. I'll tell
you right out, I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.
-- Sidney Greenstreet, "The Maltese Falcon"
From: Lincoln Cruz <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Nov 3 15:35:42 CET 2014
Subject: My pen is
My pen is at the bottom of a page,
Which, being finished, here the story ends;
'Tis to be wished it had been sooner done,
But stories somehow lengthen when begun.
-- Byron
From: Samuel Johnson <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Nov 4 08:04:01 CET 2014
Subject: For thirty years
For thirty years a certain man went to spend every evening with Mme. ___.
When his wife died his friends believed he would marry her, and urged
him to do so. "No, no," he said: "if I did, where should I have to
spend my evenings?"
-- Chamfort
From: Natalie Torres <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Nov 5 12:53:10 CET 2014
Subject: Behind all the
Behind all the political rhetoric being hurled at us from abroad, we are
bringing home one unassailable fact -- [terrorism is] a crime by any civilized
standard, committed against innocent people, away from the scene of political
conflict, and must be dealt with as a crime. . . .
[I]n our recognition of the nature of terrorism as a crime lies our best hope
of dealing with it. . . .
[L]et us use the tools that we have. Let us invoke the cooperation we have
the right to expect around the world, and with that cooperation let us shrink
the dark and dank areas of sanctuary until these cowardly marauders are held
to answer as criminals in an open and public trial for the crimes they have
committed, and receive the punishment they so richly deserve.
-- William H. Webster, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
, 15 Oct 1985
From: Jace Reed <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Nov 6 10:14:50 CET 2014
Subject: When two people
When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane,
most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear
that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition
continuously until death do them part.
-- George Bernard Shaw
From: Henry Martin <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Nov 7 18:49:34 CET 2014
Subject: The trouble with
The trouble with you
Is the trouble with me.
Got two good eyes
But we still don't see.
-- Robert Hunter, "Workingman's Dead"
From: Mason James <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Nov 8 08:12:11 CET 2014
Subject: It is important
It is important to note that probably no large operating system using current
design technology can withstand a determined and well-coordinated attack,
and that most such documented penetrations have been remarkably easy.
-- B. Hebbard, "A Penetration Analysis of the Michigan Terminal System",
Operating Systems Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, June 1980, pp. 7-20
From: Isaac Phillips <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Nov 9 09:53:31 CET 2014
Subject: A pretty foot
A pretty foot is one of the greatest gifts of nature... please send me your
last pair of shoes, already worn out in dancing... so I can have something
of yours to press against my heart.
-- Goethe
From: Zachary Morgan <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Nov 10 13:57:53 CET 2014
Subject: As part of
As part of an ongoing effort to keep you, the Fortune reader, abreast of
the valuable information that daily crosses the USENET, Fortune presents:
News articles that answer *your* questions, #1:
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: how do I run C code received from sources
Keywords: C sources
Distribution: na
I do not know how to run the C programs that are posted in the
sources newsgroup. I save the files, edit them to remove the
headers, and change the mode so that they are executable, but I
cannot get them to run. (I have never written a C program before.)
Must they be compiled? With what compiler? How do I do this? If
I compile them, is an object code file generated or must I generate
it explicitly with the > character? Is there something else that
must be done?
From: Vivienne Hall <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Nov 11 18:55:47 CET 2014
Subject: The way these
The way these things go, there are probably 6 or 8 kludgey ways to do
it, and a better way that involves rethinking something that hasn't
been rethunk yet.
-- Larry Wall in <[email protected]>
From: Grace Thompson <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Nov 12 17:41:59 CET 2014
Subject: It is imperative
It is imperative when flying coach that you restrain any tendency toward
the vividly imaginative. For although it may momentarily appear to be the
case, it is not at all likely that the cabin is entirely inhabited by
crying babies smoking inexpensive domestic cigars.
-- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies"
From: Xander Sanchez <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Nov 13 16:04:26 CET 2014
Subject: Very few things
Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an
infinitely large Universe, such as the one in which we live, most things one
could possibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow
somewhere. A forest was discovered recently in which most of the trees grew
ratchet screwdrivers as fruit. The life cycle of the ratchet screwdriver is
quite interesting. Once picked it needs a dark dusty drawer in which it can
lie undisturbed for years. Then one night it suddenly hatches, discards its
outer skin that crumbles into dust, and emerges as a totally unidentifiable
little metal object with flanges at both ends and a sort of ridge and a hole
for a screw. This, when found, will get thrown away. No one knows what the
screwdriver is supposed to gain from this. Nature, in her infinite wisdom,
is presumably working on it.
From: Everett Flores <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Nov 14 10:40:31 CET 2014
Subject: There are places
There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed.
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain.
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still recall.
Some are dead and some are living,
In my life I've loved them all.
But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compared with you,
All these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I'll love you more.
-- Lennon/McCartney, "In My Life", 1965
From: Connor Rodriguez <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Nov 15 15:25:24 CET 2014
Subject: Convention organizer to
Convention organizer to Linus Torvalds: "You might like to come with us
to some licensed[1] place, and have some pizza."
Linus: "Oh, I did not know that you needed a license to eat pizza".
[1] Licenced - refers in Australia to a restaurant which has government
licence to sell liquor.
-- Linus at a talk at the Melbourne University
From: Annabelle Jones <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Nov 16 14:39:38 CET 2014
Subject: The day will
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being
as his Father, in the womb of a virgin will be classified with the fable of
the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the
dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with
this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine
doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors.
-- Thomas Jefferson
From: Ryder Harris <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Nov 17 08:53:20 CET 2014
Subject: The only promotion
The only promotion rules I can think of are that a sense of shame is to
be avoided at all costs and there is never any reason for a hustler to
be less cunning than more virtuous men. Oh yes ... whenever you think
you've got something really great, add ten per cent more.
-- Bill Veeck
From: Victoria Kelly <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Nov 18 10:18:32 CET 2014
Subject: Because the demand
Because the demand for it is low enough that it would be best handled
as an XSUB, and the demand for it is low enough that nobody has
bothered to write it as an XSUB.
-- Larry Wall on in-place Perl sorting
From: Ava Watson <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Nov 19 09:11:17 CET 2014
Subject: He heard there
He heard there oft the flying sound
Of feet as light as linden-leaves,
Of music welling underground,
In hidden hollows quavering.
Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,
And one by one with sighing sound
Whispering fell the beechen leaves
In the wintry woodland wavering.
He sought her ever, wandering far
Where leaves of years were thickly strewn,
By light of moon and ray of star
In frosty heavens shivering.
Her mantle glinted in the moon,
As on a hill-top high and far
She danced, and at her feet was strewn
A mist of silver quivering.
When winter passed, she came again,
And her song released the sudden spring,
Like rising lark, and falling rain,
And melting water bubbling.
He saw the elven-flowers spring
About her feet, and healed again
He longed by her to dance and sing
Upon the grass untroubling.
-- J. R. R. Tolkien
From: Joshua Davies <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Nov 20 17:57:06 CET 2014
Subject: It is not
It is not the critic who counts, or how the strong man stumbled, or whether
the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the
man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who
knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and who spends himself in a
worthy cause, and if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that
he'll never be with those cold and timid souls who never know either victory
or defeat.
-- Teddy Roosevelt
From: Leo Jackson <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Nov 21 14:11:01 CET 2014
Subject: Did you hear
Did you hear that Captain Crunch, Sugar Bear, Tony the Tiger, and
Snap, Crackle and Pop were all murdered recently...
Police suspect the work of a cereal killer!
From: Gavin Morales <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Nov 22 14:21:42 CET 2014
Subject: If the weather
If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If
the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the
bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will
exceed all expectations.
-- Reverend Chichester
From: Lucy Smith <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Nov 23 17:53:39 CET 2014
Subject: One may be
One may be able to quibble about the quality of a single experiment, or
about the veracity of a given experimenter, but, taking all the supportive
experiments together, the weight of evidence is so strong as readily to
merit a wise man's reflection.
- Professor William Tiller, parapsychologist, Standford University,
commenting on psi research
From: Michael Brown <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Nov 24 08:07:11 CET 2014
Subject: I value kindness
I value kindness to human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I
don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected
with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger,
the food cheaper, and old men and women warmer in the winter, and happier
in the summer.
-- Brendan Behan
From: Oliver Green <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Nov 25 15:15:36 CET 2014
Subject: The morning sun
The morning sun when it's in your face really shows your age,
But that don't bother me none; in my eyes you're everything.
I know I keep you amused,
But I feel I'm being used.
Oh, Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face.
You took me away from home,
Just to save you from being alone;
You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts.
I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school,
Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool,
Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band,
That needs a helping hand,
Oh, Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face.
You made a first-class fool out of me,
But I'm as blind as a fool can be.
You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without.
-- Rod Stewart, "Maggie May"
From: Mia Paterson <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Nov 26 15:25:08 CET 2014
Subject: I stood on
I stood on the leading edge,
The eastern seaboard at my feet.
"Jump!" said Yoko Ono
I'm too scared and good-looking, I cried.
Go on and give it a try,
Why prolong the agony, all men must die.
-- Roger Waters, "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking"
From: Nolan Hamilton <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Nov 27 17:17:01 CET 2014
Subject: Come live with
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
-- John Donne
From: Liam Rivera <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Nov 28 17:44:11 CET 2014
Subject: Excerpt from a
Excerpt from a conversation between a customer support person and a
customer working for a well-known military-affiliated research lab:
Support: "You're not our only customer, you know."
Customer: "But we're one of the few with tactical nuclear weapons."
From: Holden Johnston <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Nov 29 13:13:23 CET 2014
Subject: One could not
One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast
to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists,
a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also
just stupid.
-- J. D. Watson, "The Double Helix"
From: Julia Gray <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Nov 30 10:22:12 CET 2014
Subject: The little town
The little town that time forgot,
Where all the women are strong,
The men are good-looking,
And the children above-average.
-- Prairie Home Companion
From: Sophia Nguyen <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Dec 1 16:17:23 CET 2014
Subject: As me an
As me an' me marrer was readin' a tyape,
The tyape gave a shriek mark an' tried tae escyape;
It skipped ower the gyate tae the end of the field,
An' jigged oot the room wi' a spool an' a reel!
Follow the leader, Johnny me laddie,
Follow it through, me canny lad O;
Follow the transport, Johnny me laddie,
Away, lad, lie away, canny lad O!
-- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
From: Chloe Myers <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Dec 2 17:51:44 CET 2014
Subject: Whether weary or
Whether weary or unweary, O man, do not rest,
Do not cease your single-handed struggle.
Go on, do not rest.
-- An old Gujarati hymn
From: Elizabeth Cook <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Dec 3 16:24:37 CET 2014
Subject: To be or
To be or not to be.
-- Shakespeare
To do is to be.
-- Nietzsche
To be is to do.
-- Sartre
Do be do be do.
-- Sinatra
From: Ivy Khan <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Dec 4 19:16:37 CET 2014
Subject: To see the
To see the butcher slap the steak, before he laid it on the block,
and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was
agreeable, too -- it really was -- to see him cut it off, so smooth and juicy.
There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen;
it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of
tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of
mind over matter; quite.
-- Dickens, "Martin Chuzzlewit"
From: Iris Perez <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Dec 5 18:47:44 CET 2014
Subject: This sad little
This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's
side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little
else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds happiness in
a world in which happiness is always in short supply.
-- Lazarus Long
From: Xavier Richardson <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Dec 6 11:42:01 CET 2014
Subject: The difference between
The difference between common-sense and paranoia is that common-sense is
thinking everyone is out to get you. That's normal -- they are. Paranoia
is thinking that they're conspiring.
-- J. Kegler
From: Daniel ONeill <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Dec 7 19:08:18 CET 2014
Subject: Twenty two thousand
Twenty two thousand days.
It's not a lot.
It's all you've got.
-- Moody Blues, "Twenty Two Thousand Days"
From: Naomi Russell <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Dec 8 08:53:54 CET 2014
"A well-written program is its own heaven; a poorly-written program
is its own hell."
From: Charles Carter <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Dec 9 12:03:08 CET 2014
Subject: The ideas of
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they
are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is generally
understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else.
-- John Maynard Keynes
From: Ella Young <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Dec 10 11:21:30 CET 2014
Subject: As many of
As many of you know, I am taking a class here at UNC on Personality.
One of the tests to determine personality in our book was so incredibly
useful and interesting, I just had to share it.
Answer each of the following items "true" or "false"
1. I think beavers work too hard.
2. I use shoe polish to excess.
3. God is love.
4. I like mannish children.
5. I have always been diturbed by the sight of Lincoln's ears.
6. I always let people get ahead of me at swimming pools.
7. Most of the time I go to sleep without saying goodbye.
8. I am not afraid of picking up door knobs.
9. I believe I smell as good as most people.
10. Frantic screams make me nervous.
11. It's hard for me to say the right thing when I find myself in a room
full of mice.
12. I would never tell my nickname in a crisis.
13. A wide necktie is a sign of disease.
14. As a child I was deprived of licorice.
15. I would never shake hands with a gardener.
16. My eyes are always cold.
17. Cousins are not to be trusted.
18. When I look down from a high spot, I want to spit.
19. I am never startled by a fish.
20. I have never gone to pieces over the weekend.
From: Autumn Evans <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Dec 11 15:54:39 CET 2014
"Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to
be maintained."
From: Elliot Clark <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Dec 12 14:19:22 CET 2014
Subject: As seen on
As seen on slashdot about what you can do with your cable modems:
(http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=32387&cid=3495418):
Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where
you have permission to stick it.
The post is by "redgekko"
From: Benjamin Wright <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Dec 13 15:19:47 CET 2014
Subject: Half a bee
Half a bee, philosophically, must ipso facto half not be.
But half the bee has got to be, vis-a-vis its entity. See?
But can a bee be said to be or not to be an entire bee,
When half the bee is not a bee, due to some ancient injury?
From: Noah Adams <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Dec 14 08:58:03 CET 2014
Subject: Deliberate provocation of
Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related
hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails
dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take into
account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability to
influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The history
of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can
ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken
for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preparations
are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful
experience.
-- Dr. Albert Hoffman, the discoverer of LSD
From: Matthew Ward <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Dec 15 09:49:43 CET 2014
Subject: Nobody takes a
Nobody takes a bribe. Of course at Christmas if you happen to hold out
your hat and somebody happens to put a little something in it, well, that's
different.
-- New York City Police Commissioner (Ret.) William P.
O'Brien, instructions to the force.
From: Gemma Quinn <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Dec 16 09:16:17 CET 2014
Subject: Long were the
Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and
long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his
pain and his aloneness without regret?
-- Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"
From: Anastasia Griffiths <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Dec 17 10:43:25 CET 2014
Subject: If you put
If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out but tomfoolery.
But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine,
is somehow ennobled and no-one dares criticise it.
-- Pierre Gallois
From: William Fisher <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Dec 18 09:19:11 CET 2014
Subject: There are two
There are two jazz musicians who are great buddies. They hang out and play
together for years, virtually inseparable. Unfortunately, one of them is
struck by a truck and killed. About a week later his friend wakes up in
the middle of the night with a start because he can feel a presence in the
room. He calls out, "Who's there? Who's there? What's going on?"
"It's me -- Bob," replies a faraway voice.
Excitedly he sits up in bed. "Bob! Bob! Is that you? Where are
you?"
"Well," says the voice, "I'm in heaven now."
"Heaven! You're in heaven! That's wonderful! What's it like?"
"It's great, man. I gotta tell you, I'm jamming up here every day.
I'm playing with Bird, and 'Trane, and Count Basie drops in all the time!
Man it is smokin'!"
"Oh, wow!" says his friend. "That sounds fantastic, tell me more,
tell me more!"
"Let me put it this way," continues the voice. "There's good news
and bad news. The good news is that these guys are in top form. I mean
I have *never* heard them sound better. They are *wailing* up here."
"The bad news is that God has this girlfriend that sings..."
From: Lydia Brooks <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Dec 19 15:59:06 CET 2014
Subject: Just to remind
Just to remind everyone. Today, Sept 17, is Linux's 5th birthday. So
happy birthday to all on the list. Thanks go out to Linus and all the
other hard-working maintainers for 5 wonderful fast paced years!
-- William E. Roadcap <[email protected]>
From: Madeline Lee <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Dec 20 11:54:27 CET 2014
Subject: Only great masters
Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse.
-- Oscar Wilde
Most UNIX programmers are great masters of style.
-- The Unnamed Usenetter
From: Isabelle Clarke <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Dec 21 10:53:13 CET 2014
Subject: My band career
My band career ended late in my senior year when John Cooper and I threw my
amplifier out the dormitory window. We did not act in haste. First we
checked to make sure the amplifier would fit through the frame, using the
belt from my bathrobe to measure, then we picked up the amplifier and backed
up to my bedroom door. Then we rushed forward, shouting "The WHO! The
WHO!" and we launched my amplifier perfectly, as though we had been doing it
all our lives, clean through the window and down onto the sidewalk, where a
small but appreciative crowd had gathered. I would like to be able to say
that this was a symbolic act, an effort on my part to break cleanly away
from one state in my life and move on to another, but the truth is, Cooper
and I really just wanted to find out what it would sound like. It sounded
OK.
-- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
From: Felix Jenkins <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Dec 22 13:24:33 CET 2014
Subject: After a few
After a few boring years, socially meaningful rock 'n' roll died out. It was
replaced by disco, which offers no guidance to any form of life more
advanced than the lichen family.
-- Dave Barry, "Kids Today: They Don't Know Dum Diddly Do"
From: Adelaide Hernandez <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Dec 23 12:31:52 CET 2014
Subject: Life in this
Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society
being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded responsible
thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money
system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.
-- Valerie Solanas
From: Hazel Cox <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Dec 24 15:07:51 CET 2014
Subject: But you who
But you who live on dreams, you are better pleased with the sophistical
reasoning and frauds of talkers about great and uncertain matters than
those who speak of certain and natural matters, not of such lofty nature.
-- Leonardo Da Vinci, "The Codex on the Flight of Birds"
From: Zoey Ortiz <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Dec 25 10:13:32 CET 2014
Subject: I used to
I used to live in a house by the freeway. When I went anywhere, I had
to be going 65 MPH by the end of my driveway.
I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights. Now it looks
like I'm the only one moving.
I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know
the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going
to be out that long."
I put a new engine in my car, but didn't take the old one out. Now
my car goes 500 miles an hour.
-- Steven Wright
From: Ethan Lewis <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Dec 26 17:02:48 CET 2014
Subject: Making files is
Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users
tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has
been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the
message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files.
-- System V.2 administrator's guide
From: Claire Howard <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Dec 27 11:45:31 CET 2014
Subject: One day this
One day this guy is finally fed up with his middle-class existence and
decides to do something about it. He calls up his best friend, who is a
mathematical genius. "Look," he says, "do you suppose you could find some
way mathematically of guaranteeing winning at the race track? We could
make a lot of money and retire and enjoy life." The mathematician thinks
this over a bit and walks away mumbling to himself.
A week later his friend drops by to ask the genius if he's had any
success. The genius, looking a little bleary-eyed, replies, "Well, yes,
actually I do have an idea, and I'm reasonably sure that it will work, but
there a number of details to be figured out.
After the second week the mathematician appears at his friend's house,
looking quite a bit rumpled, and announces, "I think I've got it! I still have
some of the theory to work out, but now I'm certain that I'm on the right
track."
At the end of the third week the mathematician wakes his friend by
pounding on his door at three in the morning. He has dark circles under his
eyes. His hair hasn't been combed for many days. He appears to be wearing
the same clothes as the last time. He has several pencils sticking out from
behind his ears and an almost maniacal expression on his face. "WE CAN DO
IT! WE CAN DO IT!!" he shrieks. "I have discovered the perfect solution!!
And it's so EASY! First, we assume that horses are perfect spheres in simple
harmonic motion..."
From: Arianna Bell <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Dec 28 16:46:42 CET 2014
-- Dan Klein
From: Milo Butler <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Dec 29 19:41:34 CET 2014
Subject: Ever since prehistoric
Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what,
exactly, make people laugh. That's why they were called "wise men." All the
other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the
wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my
wife? No. How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now. No How
about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available. No. How
about ..."
-- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
From: Joseph Rees <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Dec 30 13:45:20 CET 2014
Subject: Topologists are just
Topologists are just plane folks.
Pilots are just plane folks.
Carpenters are just plane folks.
Midwest farmers are just plain folks.
Musicians are just playin' folks.
Whodunit readers are just Spillane folks.
Some Londoners are just P. Lane folks.
From: Dylan Doherty <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Dec 31 09:11:14 CET 2014
Subject: I truly wish
I truly wish I could be a great surgeon or philosopher or author or anything
constructive, but in all honesty I'd rather turn up my amplifier full blast
and drown myself in the noise.
-- Charles Schmid, the "Tucson Murderer"
From: Elijah Gomez <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Jan 1 10:08:38 CET 2015
Subject: The evidence of
The evidence of the emotions, save in cases where it has strong objective
support, is really no evidence at all, for every recognizable emotion has
its opposite, and if one points one way then another points the other way.
Thus the familiar argument that there is an instinctive desire for immortality,
and that this desire proves it to be a fact, becomes puerile when it is
recalled that there is also a powerful and widespread fear of annihilation,
and that this fear, on the same principle proves that there is nothing
beyond the grave. Such childish "proofs" are typically theological, and
they remain theological even when they are adduced by men who like to
flatter themselves by believing that they are scientific gents....
-- H. L. Mencken
From: Thomas Thomson <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Jan 2 11:28:01 CET 2015
Subject: If just one
If just one piece of mail gets lost, well, they'll just think they forgot
to send it. But if *two* pieces of mail get lost, hell, they'll just think
the other guy hasn't gotten around to answering his mail. And if *fifty*
pieces of mail get lost, can you imagine it, if *fifty* pieces of mail get
lost, why they'll think someone *else* is broken! And if 1Gb of mail gets
lost, they'll just *know* that Arpa [ucbarpa.berkeley.edu] is down and
think it's a conspiracy to keep them from their God given right to receive
Net Mail ...
-- Casey Leedom
From: Cole Driscoll <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Jan 3 08:27:08 CET 2015
Subject: I prefer the
I prefer the most unjust peace to the most righteous war.
-- Cicero
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price.
-- Poor Richard
From: Emily Reyes <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Jan 4 15:30:13 CET 2015
Subject: The story of
The story of the butterfly:
"I was in Bogota and waiting for a lady friend. I was in love,
a long time ago. I waited three days. I was hungry but could not go
out for food, lest she come and I not be there to greet her. Then, on
the third day, I heard a knock."
"I hurried along the old passage and there, in the sunlight,
there was nothing."
"Just," Vance Joy said, "a butterfly, flying away."
-- Peter Carey, BLISS
From: Elise Turner <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Jan 5 11:15:16 CET 2015
Subject: In an age
In an age when the fashion is to be in love with yourself, confessing to
be in love with somebody else is an admission of unfaithfulness to one's
beloved.
-- Russell Baker
From: Wyatt Sanders <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Jan 6 11:10:01 CET 2015
Subject: Stress has been
Stress has been pinpointed as a major cause of illness. To avoid overload
and burnout, keep stress out of your life. Give it to others instead. Learn
the "Gaslight" treatment, the "Are you talking to me?" technique, and the
"Do you feel okay? You look pale." approach. Start with negotiation and
implication. Advance to manipulation and humiliation. Above all, relax
and have a nice day.
From: Ronan Peterson <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Jan 7 10:31:39 CET 2015
Subject: Got a wife
Got a wife and kids in Baltimore Jack,
I went out for a ride and never came back.
Like a river that don't know where it's flowing,
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going.
Everybody's got a hungry heart.
Lay down your money and you play your part,
I met her in a Kingstown bar,
We fell in love, I knew it had to end.
We took what we had and we ripped it apart,
Now here I am down in Kingstown again.
Everybody needs a place to rest,
Everybody wants to have a home.
Don't make no difference what nobody says,
Ain't nobody likes to be alone.
-- Bruce Springsteen, "Hungry Heart"
From: Addison Collins <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Jan 8 16:54:20 CET 2015
Subject: I suggest you
I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too
much damage if it catches fire or explodes. First you decide which
direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy. After much
trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face
is up.
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
From: Elsa Scott <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Jan 9 14:16:57 CET 2015
Subject: They went rushing
They went rushing down that freeway,
Messed around and got lost.
They didn't care... they were just dying to get off,
And it was life in the fast lane.
-- Eagles, "Life in the Fast Lane"
From: Finn Patel <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Jan 10 15:05:00 CET 2015
Subject: Still a few
Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle
Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad
so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he
wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's
very little call for those up there.
-- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone
From: Ruby Hughes <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Jan 11 17:07:01 CET 2015
Subject: If for every
If for every rule there is an exception, then we have established that there
is an exception to every rule. If we accept "For every rule there is an
exception" as a rule, then we must concede that there may not be an exception
after all, since the rule states that there is always the possibility of
exception, and if we follow it to its logical end we must agree that there
can be an exception to the rule that for every rule there is an exception.
-- Bill Boquist
From: Luke Mason <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Jan 12 11:27:29 CET 2015
Subject: To be is
To be is to do.
-- I. Kant
To do is to be.
-- A. Sartre
Do be a Do Bee!
-- Miss Connie, Romper Room
Do be do be do!
-- F. Sinatra
Yabba-Dabba-Doo!
-- F. Flintstone
From: Hudson Moore <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Jan 13 12:39:49 CET 2015
Subject: I tell ya
I tell ya, gambling never agreed with me. Last week I went to the track
and they shot my horse with the opening gun.
Well, just last week I was at a Chinese restaurant and when I opened my
fortune cookie I found the guy's check sitting at the next table. I said,
"Hey, buddy, I got your check", he said, "Thanks."
-- Rodney Dangerfield
From: Scarlett Williams <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Jan 14 12:34:19 CET 2015
Subject: A recent study
A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen
objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer
scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration
needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects.
From: Eleanor McLaughlin <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Jan 15 14:01:34 CET 2015
Subject: Remove me from
Remove me from this land of slaves,
Where all are fools, and all are knaves,
Where every knave and fool is bought,
Yet kindly sells himself for nought;
-- Jonathan Swift
From: Christopher Wood <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Jan 16 18:16:37 CET 2015
Subject: The street preacher
The street preacher looked so baffled
When I asked him why he dressed
With forty pounds of headlines
Stapled to his chest.
But he cursed me when I proved to him
I said, "Not even you can hide.
You see, you're just like me.
I hope you're satisfied."
-- Bob Dylan
From: Aidan Thomas <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Jan 17 11:46:08 CET 2015
Subject: Because the demand
Because the demand for it is low enough that it would be best handled
as an XSUB, and the demand for it is low enough that nobody has
bothered to write it as an XSUB.
-- Larry Wall on in-place Perl sorting
From: Genevieve Wilson <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Jan 18 14:06:54 CET 2015
Subject: As the system
As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear,
bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete,
or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new
version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new
component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and
efficient test cases will usually be available.
-- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month"
From: Nora Foster <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Jan 19 14:53:10 CET 2015
Subject: Fortune finishes the
Fortune finishes the great quotations, #17
"This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet."
Juliet, this bud's for you.
From: Lucas Parker <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Jan 20 16:00:15 CET 2015
Subject: The way these
The way these things go, there are probably 6 or 8 kludgey ways to do
it, and a better way that involves rethinking something that hasn't
been rethunk yet.
-- Larry Wall in <[email protected]>
From: Nathan Smyth <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Jan 21 08:21:15 CET 2015
Subject: You got to
You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues,
And you know it don't come easy ...
I don't ask for much, I only want trust,
And you know it don't come easy ...
From: Adam Murphy <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Jan 22 09:12:42 CET 2015
Subject: Even in the
Even in the moment of our earliest kiss,
When sighed the straitened bud into the flower,
Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this;
And that I knew, though not the day and hour.
Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,
To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:
Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,
I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost."
I only hoped, with the mild hope of all
Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,
A fairer summer and a later fall
Than in these parts a man is apt to see,
And sunny clusters ripened for the wine:
I tell you this across the blackened vine.
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Even in the Moment of
Our Earliest Kiss", 1931
From: Jack Hill <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Jan 23 19:56:21 CET 2015
Subject: When license fees
When license fees are too high,
users do things by hand.
When the management is too intrusive,
users lose their spirit.
Hack for the user's benefit.
Trust them; leave them alone.
From: Daphne Martinez <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Jan 24 08:48:47 CET 2015
Subject: Has the great
Has the great art and mystery of politics no apparent utility? Does it
appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene and low down,
and its salient virtuosi a gang of umitigated scoundrels? Then let us
not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickel the midriff, its
incomparable services as a maker of entertainment.
-- H. L. Mencken, "A Carnival of Buncombe"
From: Rhys Ramirez <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Jan 25 19:54:48 CET 2015
Subject: As soon as
As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't
as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be
discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large
part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in
my own programs.
-- Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949
From: Abigail Allen <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Jan 26 09:08:56 CET 2015
Subject: A lady with
A lady with one of her ears applied
To an open keyhole heard, inside,
Two female gossips in converse free --
The subject engaging them was she.
"I think", said one, "and my husband thinks
That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
As soon as no more of it she could hear
The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
"I will not stay," she said with a pout,
"To hear my character lied about!"
-- Gopete Sherany
From: Graham Nelson <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Jan 27 10:23:42 CET 2015
Subject: We may not
We may not be able to persuade Hindus that Jesus and not Vishnu should
govern their spiritual horizon, nor Moslems that Lord Buddha is at the
center of their spiritual universe, nor Hebrews that Mohammed is a major
prophet, nor Christians that Shinto best expresses their spiritual
concerns, to say nothing of the fact that we may not be able to get
Christians to agree among themselves about their relationship to God.
But all will agree on a proposition that they possess profound spiritual
resources. If, in addition, we can get them to accept the further
proposition that whatever form the Deity may have in their own theology,
the Deity is not only external, but internal and acts through them, and
they themselves give proof or disproof of the Deity in what they do and
think; if this further proposition can be accepted, then we come that
much closer to a truly religious situation on earth.
-- Norman Cousins, from his book "Human Options"
From: Harper Mitchell <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Jan 28 18:09:40 CET 2015
Subject: Against all odds
Against all odds, over a noisy telephone line, tapped by the tax
authorities and the secret police, Alice will happily attempt, with
someone she doesn't trust, whom she cannot hear clearly, and who is
probably someone else, to fiddle her tax returns and to organise a coup
d'etat, while at the same time minimising the cost of the phone call.
A coding theorist is someone who doesn't think Alice is crazy.
-- John Gordon, "Alice and Bob After-Dinner Speech", Zurich Seminar,
April 1984
From: Isaiah Edwards <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Jan 29 13:08:33 CET 2015
Subject: It has long
It has long been known that birds will occasionally build nests in the
manes of horses. The only known solution to this problem is to sprinkle
baker's yeast in the mane, for, as we all know, yeast is yeast and nest
is nest, and never the mane shall tweet.
From: Anna Miller <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Jan 30 11:04:33 CET 2015
Subject: Fourteen years in
Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue
ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature.
This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays.
-- Robert Parker, quoted in "Murder Ink", ed. D. Wynn
From: Clara Ali <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Jan 31 19:44:46 CET 2015
Subject: American culture is
American culture is based on the automobile, and any young man of promise
is going to own one and want to travel great distances in it. Consequently,
any young woman of aspiration should expect to spend most of her vacations
in a car, probing into unfamiliar corners. She is not required to know how
to drive but she will certainly be expected to read the road map while her
husband drives, and if she can't, or if she's abnormally slow in giving him
help, she's bound to cause trouble. Therefore, you'd think that colleges
which train the bright young women who're going to marry the bright young
men who are going to own the Cadillacs that roar back and forth across this
continent would teach the girls to read maps. None do. They teach a hundred
other useless things, but never a word about the one that will cause the
greatest friction.
-- James Michener, "Space"
From: Jacob Owen <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Feb 1 14:34:50 CET 2015
Subject: Any great truth
Any great truth can -- and eventually will -- be expressed as a cliche --
a cliche is a sure and certain way to dilute an idea. For instance, my
grandmother used to say, "The black cat is always the last one off the fence."
I have no idea what she meant, but at one time, it was undoubtedly true.
-- Solomon Short
From: Evangeline Gutierrez <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Feb 2 08:37:46 CET 2015
Subject: I sent a
I sent a letter to the fish, I said it very loud and clear,
I told them, "This is what I wish." I went and shouted in his ear.
The little fishes of the sea, But he was very stiff and proud,
They sent an answer back to me. He said "You needn't shout so loud."
The little fishes' answer was And he was very proud and stiff,
"We cannot do it, sir, because..." He said "I'll go and wake them if..."
I sent a letter back to say I took a kettle from the shelf,
It would be better to obey. I went to wake them up myself.
But someone came to me and said But when I found the door was locked
"The little fishes are in bed." I pulled and pushed and kicked and
knocked,
I said to him, and I said it plain And when I found the door was shut,
"Then you must wake them up again." I tried to turn the handle, But...
"Is that all?" asked Alice.
"That is all." said Humpty Dumpty. "Goodbye."
From: Adalyn Rogers <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Feb 3 09:29:35 CET 2015
Subject: The trouble with
The trouble with you
Is the trouble with me.
Got two good eyes
But we still don't see.
-- Robert Hunter, "Workingman's Dead"
From: Alexander Morris <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Feb 4 08:40:21 CET 2015
Subject: Soldiers who wish
Soldiers who wish to be a hero
Are practically zero,
But those who wish to be civilians,
They run into the millions.
From: Evelyn Robinson <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Feb 5 12:17:30 CET 2015
Subject: Your worship is
Your worship is your furnaces
which, like old idols, lost obscenes,
have molten bowels; your vision is
machines for making more machines.
-- Gordon Bottomley, 1874
From: Chase Campbell <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Feb 6 08:32:45 CET 2015
Subject: Under the wide
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig my grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And laid me down with a will,
And this be the verse that you grave for me,
Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
-- Robert Loius Stevenson, "Requiem"
From: Stella Garcia <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Feb 7 18:54:55 CET 2015
Subject: What a bonanza
What a bonanza! An unknown beginner to be directed by Lubitsch, in a script
by Wilder and Brackett, and to play with Paramount's two superstars, Gary
Cooper and Claudette Colbert, and to be beaten up by both of them!
-- David Niven, "Bring On the Empty Horses"
From: Landon Barnes <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Feb 8 10:03:03 CET 2015
Subject: I made it
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
of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion,
such as "certainly", "undoubtedly", etc. I adopted instead of them "I
conceive", "I apprehend", or "I imagine" a thing to be so or so; or "so it
appears to me at present".
When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the
pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately some
absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing that in
certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present
case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc.
I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I
engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my
opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction. I had
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
From: Theodore Bennett <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Feb 9 08:23:59 CET 2015
Subject: If one inquires
If one inquires why the American tradition is so strong against any
connection of State and Church, why it dreads even the rudiments of
religious teaching in state-maintained schools, the immediate and
superficial answer is not far to seek....
The cause lay largely in the diversity and vitality of the various
denominations, each fairly sure that, with a fair field and no favor,
it could make its own way; and each animated by a jealous fear that,
if any connection of State and Church were permitted, some rival
denomination would get an unfair advantage.
- John Dewey (1859-1953), American philosopher,
from "Democracy in the Schools", 1908
From: Josephine Murray <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Feb 10 09:58:43 CET 2015
Subject: A public debt
A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be
too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which
was intended for her preservation.
-- Colton
From: Luna Walker <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Feb 11 12:40:09 CET 2015
Subject: What is important
What is important is food, money and opportunities for scoring off one's
enemies. Give a man these three things and you won't hear much squawking
out of him.
-- Brian O'Nolan, "The Best of Myles"
From: Grayson Sullivan <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Feb 12 14:56:46 CET 2015
Subject: The rhino is
The rhino is a homely beast,
For human eyes he's not a feast.
Farewell, farewell, you old rhinoceros,
I'll stare at something less prepoceros.
-- Ogden Nash
From: Nathaniel White <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Feb 13 17:25:07 CET 2015
Subject: I think that
I think that I shall never hear
A poem lovelier than beer.
The stuff that Joe's Bar has on tap,
With golden base and snowy cap.
The stuff that I can drink all day
Until my mem'ry melts away.
Poems are made by fools, I fear
But only Schlitz can make a beer.
From: Willow Roberts <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Feb 14 08:41:47 CET 2015
Subject: Getting the job
Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules.
Corollary:
Following the rules will not get the job done.
From: Parker Long <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Feb 15 17:45:05 CET 2015
Subject: I sent a
I sent a message to another time,
But as the days unwind -- this I just can't believe,
I sent a message to another plane,
Maybe it's all a game -- but this I just can't conceive.
...
I met someone who looks at lot like you,
She does the things you do, but she is an IBM.
She's only programmed to be very nice,
But she's as cold as ice, whenever I get too near,
She tells me that she likes me very much,
But when I try to touch, she makes it all too clear.
...
I realize that it must seem so strange,
That time has rearranged, but time has the final word,
She knows I think of you, she reads my mind,
She tries to be unkind, she knows nothing of our world.
-- ELO, "Yours Truly, 2095"
From: Ezra Powell <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Feb 16 15:37:37 CET 2015
-- Dan Klein
From: Zoe Moss <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Feb 17 13:11:23 CET 2015
Subject: A cow is
A cow is a completely automated milk-manufacturing machine. It is encased
in untanned leather and mounted on four vertical, movable supports, one at
each corner. The front end of the machine, or input, contains the cutting
and grinding mechanism, utilizing a unique feedback device. Here also are
the headlights, air inlet and exhaust, a bumper and a foghorn.
At the rear, the machine carries the milk-dispensing equipment as
well as a built-in flyswatter and insect repeller. The central portion
houses a hydro- chemical-conversion unit. Briefly, this consists of four
fermentation and storage tanks connected in series by an intricate network
of flexible plumbing. This assembly also contains the central heating plant
complete with automatic temperature controls, pumping station and main
ventilating system. The waste disposal apparatus is located to the rear of
this central section.
Cows are available fully-assembled in an assortment of sizes and
colors. Production output ranges from 2 to 20 tons of milk per year. In
brief, the main external visible features of the cow are: two lookers, two
hookers, four stander-uppers, four hanger-downers, and a swishy-wishy.
From: Phoebe Lopez <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Feb 18 08:25:19 CET 2015
Subject: I lay my
I lay my head on the railroad tracks,
Waitin' for the double E.
The railroad don't run no more.
Poor poor pitiful me. [chorus]
Poor poor pitiful me, poor poor pitiful me.
These young girls won't let me be,
Lord have mercy on me!
Woe is me!
Well, I met a girl, West Hollywood,
Well, I ain't naming names.
But she really worked me over good,
She was just like Jesse James.
She really worked me over good,
She was a credit to her gender.
She put me through some changes, boy,
Sort of like a Waring blender. [chorus]
I met a girl at the Rainbow Bar,
She asked me if I'd beat her.
She took me back to the Hyatt House,
I don't want to talk about it. [chorus]
-- Warren Zevon, "Poor Poor Pitiful Me"
From: Colton Alexander <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Feb 19 15:05:42 CET 2015
Subject: You know you
You know you're in trouble when...
(1) Your only son tells you he wishes Anita Bryant would mind
her own business.
(2) You put your bra on backwards and it fits better.
(3) You call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold.
(4) You see a `60 Minutes' news team waiting in your office.
(5) Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles.
(6) Your 4-year old reveals that it's "almost impossible" to
flush a grapefruit down the toilet.
(7) You realize that you've memorized the back of the cereal box.
From: Eva Reid <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Feb 20 18:19:32 CET 2015
Subject: I went over
I went over to my friend, he was eatin' a pickle.
I said "Hi, what's happenin'?"
He said "Nothin'."
Try to sing this song with that kind of enthusiasm;
As if you just squashed a cop.
-- Arlo Guthrie, "Motorcycle Song"
From: Piper MacDonald <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Feb 21 17:11:04 CET 2015
Subject: Excerpt from a
Excerpt from a conversation between a customer support person and a
customer working for a well-known military-affiliated research lab:
Support: "You're not our only customer, you know."
Customer: "But we're one of the few with tactical nuclear weapons."
From: Archer Ross <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Feb 22 15:45:00 CET 2015
Subject: When someone makes
When someone makes a move We'll send them all we've got,
Of which we don't approve, John Wayne and Randolph Scott,
Who is it that always intervenes? Remember those exciting fighting scenes?
U.N. and O.A.S., To the shores of Tripoli,
They have their place, I guess, But not to Mississippoli,
But first, send the Marines! What do we do? We send the Marines!
For might makes right, Members of the corps
And till they've seen the light, All hate the thought of war:
They've got to be protected, They'd rather kill them off by
peaceful means.
All their rights respected, Stop calling it aggression--
Till somebody we like can be elected. We hate that expression!
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo;
They love us everywhere we go,
So when in doubt, send the Marines!
-- Tom Lehrer, "Send The Marines"
From: Levi Bailey <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Feb 23 17:58:25 CET 2015
Subject: The five rules
The five rules of Socialism:
(1) Don't think.
(2) If you do think, don't speak.
(3) If you think and speak, don't write.
(4) If you think, speak and write, don't sign.
(5) If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised.
-- being told in Poland, 1987
From: Jackson Gonzalez <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Feb 24 13:38:58 CET 2015
Subject: As soon as
As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't
as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be
discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large
part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in
my own programs.
-- Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949
From: Eloise Diaz <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Feb 25 16:48:43 CET 2015
Subject: Fortune suggests uses
Fortune suggests uses for YOUR favorite UNIX commands!
Try:
ar t "God"
drink < bottle; opener (Bourne Shell)
cat "food in tin cans" (all but 4.[23]BSD)
Hey UNIX! Got a match? (V6 or C shell)
mkdir matter; cat > matter (Bourne Shell)
rm God
man: Why did you get a divorce? (C shell)
date me (anything up to 4.3BSD)
make "heads or tails of all this"
who is smart
(C shell)
If I had a ) for every dollar of the national debt, what would I have?
sleep with me (anything up to 4.3BSD)
From: Miles Davis <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Feb 26 09:11:20 CET 2015
Subject: You know you
You know you're in trouble when...
(1) Your only son tells you he wishes Anita Bryant would mind
her own business.
(2) You put your bra on backwards and it fits better.
(3) You call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold.
(4) You see a `60 Minutes' news team waiting in your office.
(5) Your birthday cake collapses from the weight of the candles.
(6) Your 4-year old reveals that it's "almost impossible" to
flush a grapefruit down the toilet.
(7) You realize that you've memorized the back of the cereal box.
From: Evan Cooper <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Feb 27 14:28:31 CET 2015
Subject: If the colleges
If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get
the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in
college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural
method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall
learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should
be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the
young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits.
I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not
by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise
instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the
attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools,
not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to
put on a professor.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
From: Carter Perry <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Feb 28 14:32:48 CET 2015
Subject: When asked the
When asked the definition of "pi":
The Mathematician:
Pi is the number expressing the relationship between the
circumference of a circle and its diameter.
The Physicist:
Pi is 3.1415927, plus or minus 0.000000005.
The Engineer:
Pi is about 3.
From: Eden Morrison <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Mar 1 09:39:54 CET 2015
Subject: The seven deadly
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.
-- George Bernard Shaw
From: Andrew Robertson <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Mar 2 19:29:13 CET 2015
Subject: Convention organizer to
Convention organizer to Linus Torvalds: "You might like to come with us
to some licensed[1] place, and have some pizza."
Linus: "Oh, I did not know that you needed a license to eat pizza".
[1] Licenced - refers in Australia to a restaurant which has government
licence to sell liquor.
-- Linus at a talk at the Melbourne University
From: Adrian Anderson <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Mar 3 15:03:16 CET 2015
Subject: Nitwit ideas are
Nitwit ideas are for emergencies. You use them when you've got nothing
else to try. If they work, they go in the Book. Otherwise you follow
the Book, which is largely a collection of nitwit ideas that worked.
-- Larry Niven, "The Mote in God's Eye"
From: Sebastian Taylor <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Mar 4 11:38:53 CET 2015
Subject: A recent study
A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen
objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer
scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration
needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects.
From: Aurora Baker <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Mar 5 11:51:52 CET 2015
Subject: Each of these
Each of these cults correspond to one of the two antagonists in the age of
Reformation. In the realm of the Apple Macintosh, as in Catholic Europe,
worshipers peer devoutly into screens filled with "icons." All is sound and
imagery and Appledom. Even words look like decorative filigrees in exotic
typefaces. The greatest icon of all, the inviolable Apple itself, stands in
the dominate position at the upper-left corner of the screen. A central
corporate headquarters decrees the form of all rites and practices.
Infalliable doctrine issues from one executive officer whose selection occurs
in a sealed boardroom. Should anyone in his curia question his powers, the
offender is excommunicated into outer darkness. The expelled heretic founds
a new company, mutters obscurely of the coming age and the next computer,
then disappears into silence, taking his stockholders with him. The mother
company forbids financial competition as sternly as it stifles ideological
competition; if you want to use computer programs that conform to Apple's
orthodoxy, you must buy a computer made and sold by Apple itself.
-- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988
From: Paige Rose <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Mar 6 16:12:22 CET 2015
Subject: Do you feel
Do you feel personally responsible for the world food shortage?
Every time you go to the beach, does the tide come in?
Have you ever eaten an entire moose?
Can you see your neck?
Do joggers take laps around you for exercise?
If so, welcome to National Fat Week.
This week we'll eat without guilt, and kick off our membership campaign,
...by force-feeding a box of cornstarch to a skinny person.
-- Garfield
From: Jude Stewart <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Mar 7 14:21:10 CET 2015
Subject: Under the wide
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig my grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And laid me down with a will,
And this be the verse that you grave for me,
Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
-- Robert Loius Stevenson, "Requiem"
From: Jane Price <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Mar 8 13:34:14 CET 2015
Subject: Hug me now
Hug me now, you mad, impetuous fool!!
Oh wait...
I'm a computer, and you're a person. It would never work out.
Never mind.
From: Seth Graham <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Mar 9 09:17:42 CET 2015
Subject: This land is
This land is my land, and only my land,
I've got a shotgun, and you ain't got one,
If you don't get off, I'll blow your head off,
This land is private property.
-- Apologies to Woody Guthrie
From: Atticus King <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Mar 10 08:15:15 CET 2015
Subject: When one woman
When one woman was asked how long she had been going to symphony concerts,
she paused to calculate and replied, "Forty-seven years -- and I find I mind
it less and less."
-- Louise Andrews Kent
From: Felicity Cruz <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Mar 11 08:32:46 CET 2015
Subject: A guy walks
A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer, carries it to the bathroom and dumps it
into a urinal. Over the course of the next few hours, he goes back to the bar
and repeats this sequence -- several times. Finally the bartender got so
curious that he leaned over the bar and asked him what he was doing.
Replied the customer, "Avoiding the middleman."
From: Gabriella Johnson <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Mar 12 14:23:16 CET 2015
"You can demonstrate a program for a corporate executive, but you
can't make him computer literate."
From: Emmett Torres <[email protected]>
Date: Fri Mar 13 19:54:11 CET 2015
Subject: I opened the
I opened the drawer of my little desk and a single letter fell out, a
letter from my mother, written in pencil, one of her last, with unfinished
words and an implicit sense of her departure. It's so curious: one can
resist tears and "behave" very well in the hardest hours of grief. But
then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window... or one notices
that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed... or
a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.
-- Letters From Colette
From: Everly Reed <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Mar 14 11:13:49 CET 2015
Subject: It cannot be
It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind starts and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.
From: Gabriel Martin <[email protected]>
Date: Sun Mar 15 09:40:32 CET 2015
Subject: To those accustomed
To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional
system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy,
inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence:
precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel,
uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar,
well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures
of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very
secure ecological niche.
-- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers"
From: Nicholas James <[email protected]>
Date: Mon Mar 16 17:16:45 CET 2015
Subject: A blind rabbit
A blind rabbit was hopping through the woods, tripping over logs and crashing
into trees. At the same time, a blind snake was slithering through the same
forest, with identical results. They chanced to collide head-on in a clearing.
"Please excuse me, sir, I'm blind and I bumped into you accidentally,"
apologized the rabbit.
"That's quite all right," replied the snake, "I have the same
problem!"
"All my life I've been wondering what I am," said the rabbit, "Do
you think you could help me find out?"
"I'll try," said the snake. He gently coiled himself around the
rabbit. "Well, you're covered with soft fur, you have a little fluffy tail
and long ears. You're... hmmm... you're probably a bunny rabbit!"
"Great!" said the rabbit. "Thanks, I really owe you one!"
"Well," replied the snake, "I don't know what I am, either. Do you
suppose you could try and tell me?"
The rabbit ran his paws all over the snake. "Well, you're low, cold
and slimey..." And, as he ran one paw underneath the snake, "and you have
no balls. You must be an attorney!"
From: David Phillips <[email protected]>
Date: Tue Mar 17 15:50:06 CET 2015
Subject: Still a few
Still a few bugs in the system... Someday I have to tell you about Uncle
Nahum from Maine, who spent years trying to cross a jellyfish with a shad
so he could breed boneless shad. His experiment backfired too, and he
wound up with bony jellyfish... which was hardly worth the trouble. There's
very little call for those up there.
-- Allucquere R. "Sandy" Stone
From: Sienna Morgan <[email protected]>
Date: Wed Mar 18 18:07:40 CET 2015
Subject: And did those
And did those feet, in ancient times,
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
In England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon these crowded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spears! O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I shall not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword rest in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
-- William Blake, "Jerusalem"
From: Elias Hall <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Mar 19 08:36:49 CET 2015
Subject: There is a
There is a time in the tides of men,
Which, taken at its flood, leads on to success.
On the other hand, don't count on it.
-- T. K. Lawson

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