Most techies would rather get syphilis than be managers.
-- Bryan
~~~
Normal people worry me. That's why I'm so comfortable around myself.
-- Heather M.
~~~
Don't make me kill you and eat you.
-- Mike Bossart
~~~
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
-- Plato (427-347 B.C.)
~~~
Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
-- George Eliot (1819-1880)
~~~
You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
-- G. K. Chesterfield
~~~
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-- Umberto Eco
~~~
Grove giveth and Gates taketh away.
-- Bob Metcalfe (inventor of Ethernet) on the trend of hardware speedups not being able to keep up with software demands
~~~
How can I lose to such an idiot?
-- A shout from chessmaster Aaron Nimzovich (1886-1935)
~~~
Hell is paved with good samaritans.
-- William M. Holden
~~~
The average person thinks he isn't.
-- Father Larry Lorenzoni
~~~
I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!
-- Will Rogers (1879-1935)
~~~
If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
-- Will Rogers (1879-1935)
~~~
Man is a game playing animal and a computer is another way to play games.
-- Scott Adams
~~~
There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.
-- Daniel C. Dennett
~~~
Let us face ourselves bravely as we are. For only a philosophy that recognizes reality can lead us into true happiness, and only that kind of philosophy is sound and healthy.
-- Lin Yutang
~~~
Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all other philosophers are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.
-- H.L. Mencken
~~~
Last night as I lay in bed looking at the stars I thought 'Where the hell is the ceiling ?'
~~~
Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.
-- Wernher von Braun.
~~~
In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.
-- Edward P. Tryon.
~~~
What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.
-- Dave Barry.
~~~
I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost...
~~~
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
-- Richard Feynman.
~~~
Never face facts; if you do, you'll never get up in the morning.
-- Marlo Thomas.
~~~
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
-- Woody Allen.
~~~
That's the problem with nature. Something's always stinging you or oozing mucus on you. Let's go watch TV.
-- Calvin.
~~~
Campaigns to bearproof all garbage containers in wild areas have been difficult because, as one biologist put it, 'There is a considerable overlap between the intelligence levels of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists'.
~~~
I knew a mathematician who said 'I do not know as much as God. But I know as much as God knew at my age'.
-- Milton Shulman (1925-), Canadian writer, journalist, and critic.
~~~
But in science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.
-- Francis Darwin (1848-1925), British scientist.
~~~
Jesus loves you. Then again, so does Barney.
~~~
Life does not require us to be consistent, cruel, patient, helpful, angry, rational, thoughtless, loving, rash, open-minded, neurotic, careful, rigid, tolerant, wasteful, rich, downtrodden, gentle, sick, considerate, funny, stupid, healthy, greedy, beautiful, lazy, responsive, foolish, sharing, pressured, intimate, hedonistic, industrious, manipulative, insightful, capricious, wise, selfish, kind or sacrificed. Life does however, require us to live with the consequences of our choices.
-- Richard Bach, Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit
~~~
Man is a social animal - If you don't want to be an animal, don't be social.
~~~
Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.
~~~
Sorry I missed church, I've been busy practicing witchcraft and becoming a lesbian.
~~~
Stick with me baby and I'll buy you rocks as big as diamonds.
~~~
WANTED: Meaningful overnight relationship.
~~~
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
~~~
Billy Graham has described heaven as a family reunion that never ends. What could hell possibly be like? Home videos of the same reunion?
~~~
Cooking lesson #1: don't fry bacon in the nude.
~~~
Cry me a river, build a bridge, and get over it.
~~~
Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is your list of girls who were naughty.
~~~
If it were truly the thought that counted, more women would be pregnant.
~~~
Being married to a programmer is like having a cat. You talk to it but you're never really sure if it hears you, much less comprehends what you say.
~~~
Memory is like an orgasm. It's a lot better if you don't have to fake it.
-- Seymore Cray, on virtual memory.
~~~
Mountain Dew and doughnuts... because breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
~~~
Multitasking /adj./ 3 PCs and a chair with wheels.
~~~
Programmer /n./ A red-eyed, mumbling mammal capable of conversing with inanimate objects.
~~~
For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to buy Microsoft.
~~~
Sometimes I think about going to the gym and working out in order to impress women, but hey, that's why I learned UNIX.
~~~
The young specialist in English Lit, ...lectured me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern "knowledge" is that it is wrong. ... My answer to him was, ... when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
-- Isaac Asimov,The Relativity of Wrong
~~~
It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. In fact, some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it is that it is unquestionably correct.
-- Michio Kaku, Hyperspace
~~~
Working with Unix is like wrestling a worthy opponent. Working with windows is like attacking a small whining child who is carrying a .38.
-- puck
~~~
Sanity is a one trick pony - all you have is rational thought. But when you're good and loony, the sky's the limit!
-- The Tick
~~~
I couldn't help myself. They were so big and round and beautiful, I just had to touch them! Then she started screaming "MY EYES!, MY EYES!" and ruined the mood.
~~~
Practice safe eating - always use condiments.
~~~
If the sales person at your local software store gives you a blank stare or says they don't carry it, I recommend scrunching your face up and saying something incredibly condescending like "It runs under Windows - maybe you've heard of THAT." (Macintosh users adjust accordingly. If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a UNIX user to show you how it's done.)
-- Scott Adams, author of Dilbert
~~~
The sooner all the animals are dead, the sooner we'll find their money.
-- Ed Bluestone, The National Lampoon
~~~
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.  Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
-- Brian Kernighan
~~~
Developing skills that depend on a proprietary product makes you a sharecropper on your own brain.
-- Donald B. Marti Jr.
~~~
Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.
-- Tim Berners-Lee, Technology Review, July 1996
~~~
If you want the type of support that is available from proprietary software companies, we will try to find you a consultant to sing to you on the phone for half an hour, then give you a wrong answer.
~~~
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.
-- Doug Gwyn
~~~
The Three Great Virtues of a Programmer
Laziness
The quality that makes you go to the great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer.
Impatience
The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you write programs that don't just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or at least pretend to. Hence, the second great virtue of a programmer.
Hubris
Excessive pride, the sort of thing Zeus zaps you for. Also the quality that makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won't want to say bad things about. Hence, the third great virtue of a programmer.
-- Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, Programming Perl
~~~
Elegance?
Pardon me, Your Honor, the concept is not easy to explain - there is an ineffable quality to some technology, described by its creators as a concinnitous, or technically sweet, or a nice hack--signs that it was made with great care by one who was not merely motivated but inspired.  It is the difference between an engineer and a hacker.
-- Judge Fang and Miss Pao in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
~~~
People understand instinctively that the best way for computer programs to communicate with each other is for each of the them to be strict in what they emit, and liberal in what they accept. The odd thing is that people themselves are not willing to be strict in how they speak, and liberal in how they listen.  You'd think that would also be obvious.
-- Larry Wall
~~~
Sometime when you least expect it, Love will tap you on the shoulder...and ask you to move out of the way because it still isn't your turn.
-- N.V. Plyter
~~~
It's like being in a library where someone has scattered all the books on the floor, attached them together with threads and you are in the dark.
-- MorningSide, CBC Radio, about the WWW
~~~
If you can't lower heaven, raise hell
~~~
Order is for idiots, genius can handle chaos
~~~
The question is not if you are paranoid, it is if you are paranoid enough
~~~
From an actual newspaper contest where entrants age 4 to 15 were asked to imitate "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey": My young brother asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth - that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally - but I didn't want to upset him.
-- Age 10
~~~
Earth First! We'll strip mine the other planets later.
~~~
Once I tried to kill myself with bungee cord. I kept almost dying.
-- Stephen Wright
~~~
Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.
-- P.J. O'Rourke
~~~
I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.
~~~
The reason attempted suicide is illegal: The government can't tax you if you're dead.
~~~
For refund, insert baby here.
-- Graffiti on condom machine
~~~
Men are like fine wine. They start out as grapes and it is our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something we'd like to have dinner with.
~~~
They say making love with me is like a roller coaster ride. Over far too quickly, and afterwards they wanna throw up.
-- Victor Lewis-Smith
~~~
Nobody's perfect... well, there was this guy, but we killed him.
~~~
I prefer to describe my profession as that of a "Contemporary Anthropological Interactive Observer" because it has just the right amount of flair. Besides, "stalker" is such an ugly word.
~~~
Memorize quotes. They're useful in ending and winning arguments. Then again, so are semi-automatic weapons.
-- Tony Detharidge
~~~
Abortion brings out the inner child in you.
-- Jeff Epperson
~~~
Got a cat the other day. Had to swerve to get it, but I got it.
~~~
I like going to a school yard and watching all the little kids run and scream on the school grounds. Of course they don't know that I'm using blanks.
~~~
When birds fly in the right formation, they need only exert half the effort. Even in nature, teamwork results in collective laziness.
-- Despair.com
~~~
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
-- Despair.com
~~~
When I die, I would like to be cremated and have my ashes put into the "Mr.Coffee" machine. Brew up a cup of "Joe." It would one be stiff drink.
-- Joe Flush, comedian
~~~
On Achievement: The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the lawn-mower.
-- www.despair.com
~~~
I work very hard every day. Millions on welfare depend on me.
~~~
The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. And then you die. What's that? A bonus? I think the life-cycle is all backwards. You should die first and get it all over with. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young. You get a gold watch. You go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol and party. You get ready for high school. You go to grade school and become a kid. You play. You have no responsibilities. You become a little baby & go back into the womb. You spend your last nine months floating... Then, you finish off as an orgasm. I like it.
-- Andy Rooney
~~~
Never argue with a fool - they will drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.
-- The Fool's Law
~~~
Truth hurts. Maybe not as much as jumping on a bicycle with a seat missing, but it hurts.
-- Drebin, Naked Gun 2 1/2
~~~
I'd like to quit thinking of the present as some minor insignificant preamble to something else.
-- Dazed and confused
~~~
Now it's time for one of my favorite cartoons. It's a sad, depressing story about a pathetic coyote who spends every waking moment in the futile pursuit of a sadistic roadrunner, who mocks him and laughs at him as he is repeatedly crushed and maimed. I hope you enjoy it!
-- Uncle Nutzie, UHF
~~~
May the best of your past be the worst of your future.
-- Long kiss goodnight
~~~
I'm not a follower... I'm a leader with the same idea.
-- Kenny Dude
~~~
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point. We go round every two hundred million years. And its only one of millions and billions in this amazing and expanding universe. So remember you feeling very small and insecure and how amazingly unlikely was your birth. Just hope that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space. 'Cause there's bugger all down her on Earth!
-- Monty Python, The Galaxy Song
~~~
Women might be able to fake orgasms, but men can fake whole relationships.
-- Matt a.k.a. NoFear
~~~
Sanity is the playground for the unimaginative
~~~
Everyone has issues except me - I have a damn subscription.
-- JD Ives
~~~
Eskimo's have 49 words in their language to define snow because they have so much of it. In the English language, there are more then 50 ways to define a moron...
~~~
Life is a roller-coaster. We spend part of the time waiting for the ups, part of the time screaming at the downs, wishing we could ride it again when we're dying, and the entire time sitting on our butts getting lazier.
-- Grace K
~~~
The reason why grandchildren and grandparents get along so well is that they have a common enemy.
-- Sam Levenson
~~~
In the sixties, normal people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
-- JC Mikesell
~~~
Human Cloning doesn't scare me. People are "unethically making babies" in America all the time.
~~~
May the Lord reach out to you with his guiding hand and smack you upside the head with it.
-- Excel
~~~
My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it was. You're lucky to get out alive.
~~~
I may not be Fred Flinstone, but I bet I can make your bed rock!
~~~
If you are reading this, I am already dead. Ever since Mr. Wonka left me the Chocolate Factory, my life has been a living hell. I have woken on several occasions to what I am sure were the Oompa Loompas stroking my young body. Within two weeks of taking control of the factory my Grandfather became addicted to Fizzy Lifting drinks, culminating in a tragic fan accident. I am sure the Oompa Loompas ate the remains.
The ghosts of the dead children haunt my every waking moment, and pursue me through these twisted halls in my nightmares. Veruca screams, burning from the harsh flames of the furnace. Augustus Gloop gurgles chocolate from his bloated features as he struggles to call my name. The gum-chewing girl bursts on a regular basis, showering me with blueberry-scented entrails. I think Mike TV still lives in the walls like a mouse, stealing my things and keeping me awake with his tiny footsteps.
My other grandparents died long ago, and I shudder to think of their final fate at the hands of those tiny orange-skinned monsters. My mother long ago went insane, teeth rotting from candy. She is locked in the cellar now, though I feel her fetid breath washing over me from time to time and hear her shrieking laughter... "golden ticket... golden ticket."
The pressures of all this have broken me, compounded with the trials of a ten year old trying to run a factory populated with imps, with the ledgers all cut in half and unreadable. As I take my life, leaping from the Wonkavator (freedom, sweet freedom), I damn thee Wonka.
Where ever your soul may rest, I damn thee.
Farewell.
Charlie
~~~
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all planets in the universe can be said to be zero. From this, it follows, that the population of the whole universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely products of a deranged imagination.
-- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
~~~
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
-- Richard Lovelace, from To Althea, from Prison
~~~
When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church - and there was nobody left to be concerned.
-- Martin Niemoller (1892-1984), in Congressional Record 14 October 1968, p. 31636, (Howard Samuels speaking and "recalling the answer that Pastor Martin Niemoller...gave...")
~~~
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
-- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Pense'es, #895.
~~~
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
-- Alexander Pope. 1688-1744. Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 95.
~~~
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserv'd to blame or to commend,
A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged,
And so obliging that he ne'er oblig'd;
Like Cato, give his little Senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause.
-- Alexander Pope,_Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_
~~~
O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
But when we've practised quite a while
How vastly we improve our style.
-- J.R. Pope, A Word of Encouragement (updating Sir Walter Scott's Marmion)
~~~
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survived, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-- Ozymandias by Percy Blythe Shelley:
~~~
If you want the truth to go round the world you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go round the world. it will fly; it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb,'a lie will go round the world while truth is putting its boots on.
-- C H Spurgeon (1834-1892) Gems from Spurgeon 1859.
~~~
I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman's cares.
-- George Washington (1732-99), U.S. general, president. Letter, 20 July 1794.
~~~
Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize,
And sailed through bloody seas?
-- Isaac Watts, Am I a Soldier of the Cross? 1721
~~~
The age is dull and mean. Men creep,
Not walk; with blood too pale and tame
To pay the debt we owe to shame;
Buy cheap, sell dear; eat, drink, and sleep
Down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want;
Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep
Six day to Mammon, one to Cant.
-- John Greeleaf Whittier (1809-1892), For Righteousness' Sake, 1855
~~~
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword.
-- Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol).
~~~
If I am to speak for ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.
-- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) (From Josephus Daniels' _The Wilson Era: Years of War and After_ [1946])
~~~
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given out hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
-- William Wordsworth
~~~
When you get what you want in your
struggle for self and the world makes you
king for a day just go to the mirror and look
at yourself and see what that man has to say.
For it isn't your father or mother or wife,
whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict count most in
your life is the one staring back from the glass.
Some people may think you a straight
shootin' chum and call you a wonderful guy.
But the man in the glass says you're only
a bum if you can't look him straight in the eye.
He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
for he's with you clear up to the end, and you've
passed your most dangerous, difficult test if the
man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway
of life and get pats on the back as you go,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears if you've
cheated the man in the glass
-- Anonymous
~~~
When you love, you must not expect anything in return, for if you do you are not loving but investing. If you love you must prefer to accept pain, for if you expect happiness, you are not loving, but using.
~~~
Love isn't a matter of finding the right person, but creating the right relationship. The question isn't how much love there is at the beginning, but how much love there is at the end.
~~~
Christians believe life begins at conception. Liberals believe that life begins at birth. Jews believe that life begins when the children leave home and the dog dies.
~~~
In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.
-- Francis Schaeffer
~~~
There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable,drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation.They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.
-- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
~~~
Great men of action . . . never mind on occasion being ridiculous; in a sense it is part of their job, and at times they all are. A prophet or an achiever must never mind an occasional absurdity, it is an occupational risk.
-- Oswald Mosley, (1896-1980)
~~~
To congratulate oneself on one's warm commitment to the environment, or to peace, or to the oppressed, and think no more is a profound moral fault.
-- Robert Conquest, _Reflections on a Ravaged Century_, 1999
~~~
As the wicked are hurt by the best things, so the godly are bettered by the worst things.
-- William Jenkyn
~~~
It is by affliction chiefly that the heart of man is purified, and that the thoughts are fixed on a better state. Prosperity has power to intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to make him who enjoys affluence and honors forget the hand by which they were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise than by affliction awakened to a sense of our imbecility, or taught to know how little all our acquisitions can conduce to safety or quiet, and how justly we may inscribe to the superintendence of a higher power those blessings which in the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments of our policy and courage....
-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
~~~
I'd like to know why sociologists can't decide whether movie sex and violence has any effect on children, but there's a universal consensus that even a glimpse of a Camel will force children to become lifelong smokers.
-- Jonah Goldberg
~~~
You can stay young as long as you learn. 
-- Emily Dickinson
~~~
The long dull monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the Devil.
-- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) "The Screwtape Letters," 1941
~~~
Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about man's search for God. For me, they might as well talk about the mouse's search for a cat...
-- C. S. Lewis
~~~
If the general attitude of Canadians toward their mighty neighbor to the south could be distilled into a single phrase, that phrase would probably be "Oh, shut up." The Americans talked too much, mainly about themselves. Their torrid love affair with their own history and legend exceeded--painfully--the quasi-British Canadian idea of modesty and self-restraint. ... They were forever busting their buttons in spasms of insufferable yahoo pride or all too publicly agonizing over their crises.
-- Bruce McCall, _Thin Ice: Coming of Age in Canada_, 1997
~~~
One of the peculiarities of the American Revolution was that its leaders pinned their hopes on the organization of decision-making units, the structuring of their incentives, and the counterbalancing of the units against one another, rather than on the more usual (and more exciting) principle of substituting "the good guys" for "the bad guys".
-- Thomas Sowell
~~~
I desired as many as could to join together in fasting and prayer, that God would restore the spirit of love and of a sound mind to the poor deluded rebels in America.
-- John Wesley, Journal, Aug 1, 1777
~~~
Green politics at its worst amounts to a sort of Zen fascism; less extreme, it denounces growth and seeks to stop the world so that we can all get off.
-- Chris Patten, London, April 19, 1989
~~~
Can you understand it, for I cannot, how a man is a free agent, a responsible agent, so that his sin is his own willful sin and lies with him and never with God, and yet at the same time God's purposes are fulfilled and his will is done even by demons and corrupt men? I cannot comprehend it: without hesitation I believe it, and rejoice so to do , I never hope to comprehend it.
-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon
~~~
The Bible teaches that both God is in control and that people make real choices. These two truths go side by side throughout the Scriptures. The Bible absolutely does not teach fatalism. But neither does it teach that people are absolutely free and autonomous. The effects of the Fall and our very natures restrain us. This is called an antinomy. That is (per the American Heritage Dictionary) "A contradiction between principles or conclusions that seem equally necessary and reasonable."
-- Mike Walbert
~~~
I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.
-- Charles Schulz
~~~
Lost interest? It's so bad I've lost apathy.
~~~
The theory of the unmorality of art has established itself firmly in the strictly artistic classes. They are free to produce anything they like. They are free to write a _Paradise Lost_ in which Satan shall conquer God. They are free to write a _Divine Comedy_ in which heaven shall be under the floor of hell. And what have they done? Have they produced in their universality anything grander or more beautiful than the things uttered by the fierce Ghibelline Catholic, by the rigid Puritan schoolmaster? ... Milton does not merely beat them at his piety, he beats them at their own irreverence. In all their little books of verse you will not find a finer defiance of God than Satan's. Nor will you find the grandeur of paganism felt as that fiery Christian felt it who described Faranata lifting his head as in disdain of hell.
-- G. K. Chesterton, _Heretics_, 1905
~~~
My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because man is not a water animal: a fish would not feel wet. Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
-- C.S. Lewis _Mere Christianity_
~~~
Every nickel spent doesn't return a dime, some things you do take longer than you expect, and some things don't materialize at all. That's the nature of using IT to solve new problems in new ways.
-- Bill Murphy, CTO of Omnexus, a digital marketplace for the plastics industry
~~~
I'm sorry, but comfortable is the last thing I want in my server room. I want it unbearably cold, and noisy. I want items scattered dangerously around the floor. I want random floor tiles to be missing. I want a very old sandwich of undetermined origin sitting half-eaten in the corner. I want the first thought of any person that enters my server room to be "Dear $DEITY, I must get out of this place IMMEDIATELY!"
-- Mike Sphar
~~~
I love the way Microsoft follows standards. In much the same manner that fish follow migrating caribou.
-- Paul Tomblin
~~~
Contestant number two, how do you set up a dial-up connection in Windows 95?
Call the systems administration people and tell them my machine is broken.
BZZZZZZZZT! Oh, I'm sorry but that answer is so wrong that our systems people have already found your address and will be visiting you personally tonight.
-- Janet Rolsma
~~~
Never meddle in the affairs of NT. It is slow to boot and quick to crash.
-- Stephen Harris
~~~
BTW. Violence, rude language, excessive drinking, paganism. It's hard to find children's books like that these days.
-- Stig Morten Valstad
~~~
Every time you apply the LART, you give some poor luser a chance to redeem itself and RTFM next time.
-- Infinitas
Oh. You didn't apply the LART hard enough. They get to RTFM next time around the Wheel Of Reincarnation, if you do it right. :)  
-- Thorf
~~~
For their next act, they'll no doubt be buying a firewall running under NT, which makes about as much sense as building a prison out of meringue.
-- Tanuki
~~~
You can lead an idiot to knowledge but you cannot make him think.
You can, however, rectally insert the information, printed on stone tablets, using a sharpened poker.  
-- Nicolai
~~~
Remember - if all you have is an axe, every problem looks like hours of fun.
-- Frossie
~~~
The ability to watch M*A*S*H on demand justified purchasing a VCR for myself. That show taught me a lot of useful things; for example, if one's skills are sufficiently in demand, one can wear a bathrobe to work, and generally have one's eccentricities tolerated.
-- Gus
~~~
Embrace your inner cynicism. Delight in the joy of knowing, with complete certainty, that the world is filled with idiots, losers, and all other assorted manner of higher life forms, and that a great many of of them trying their damndest to win the competition for "Species Least Likely To Be Useful". I figure, they'll probably lose that competition too, proving once again that the cockroach is mightier than the "man".
-- Jeff Gostin
~~~
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to using Windows NT for mission-critical applications.
-- What Yoda *meant* to say Devin L. Ganger
~~~
We are either doing something, or we are not. 'Talking about' is a subset of 'not'.
~~~
When people ask me what my religion is, I say either "Frisbeetarianism" which satisfies them if they're not listening closely, or "I'm trying to make up my mind between the Greek and Babylonian chaos goddesses, do you think Eris or Mummu has dishier priestesses?"  Though now I'm a minister I should probably take that question more seriously.
-- Peter da Silva
~~~
First time I've gotten a programming job that required a drug test. I was worried they were going to say "you don't have enough LSD in your system to do Unix programming".
-- Paul Tomblin
~~~
I mean, we all self-LART to varying degrees on occasion. What sets us apart from the lusers is that we can pull ourselves out of the nosedive.
-- Mike Sphar
~~~
I'm not lean and mean, I'm surly and anorexic.
-- Chris "Saundo" Saunderson
~~~
I quite often tell my SO to iron my shirts, make dinner, do the cleaning, etc... but only because I like to hear her laugh.
-- manc0046
~~~
No lusers were harmed in the creation of this Usenet article.
AND I WANT TO KNOW WHY NOT!
-- Geoff. Lane
~~~
If USENET is anarchy, IRC is a paranoid schizophrenic after 6 days on speed.
-- Chris "Saundo" Saunderson
~~~
[Re: "Da Bomb" hot sauce]  This stuff will not only take the paint off a battleship, it'll also hunt down the painter and hir family, murder them, desecrate the bodies, and proceed to have its way with the family pet.
-- Mark C. Langston
~~~
The difference between math and physics is the difference between masturbation and sex.
-- Paul Tomblin
They're both messy, but physics can get you in much more trouble.
-- Malcom Ray
~~~
We aim to please. Ourselves, mostly, but we do aim to please.
-- Anthony DeBoer
~~~
The only sound a luser should make is a pleasant squishing sound as they're turned into a twitching pile of mince meat.
-- Chris "Saundo" Saunderson
~~~
Let's face it, sysadmins are composed of the most adaptable, least stress-susceptible people around. Lusers aren't. Pit one against the other, and I'll not be taking any bets on the luser winning (10 000 to 1 against the luser, anyone? No? Nobody? Thought not.)
-- Dan Holdsworth
~~~
And I can't even begin to describe what a joy it is to work with a real metal case, with swing-out drive bays, that was designed for easy access and not built by the lowest-bidding Malaysian Monkey On Crack.
-- Adam J. Thornton
~~~
Actually, we have scientifically determined that Heisenberg did indeed sleep exactly here. However, we have no idea whatsoever just how fast asleep he was.
-- Dave Aronson
~~~
Hi, we're a group of ominous looking people who happen to deal with way too much spam. We'd like to wander aimlessly around your house discussing vivid images of what should be done to spammers, their families and casual acquaintances, and make veiled threats as to the future of your limbs (attached or not), animals and the insertion of farming implements into your orifices.
-- Chris "Saundo" Saunderson
~~~
Give a luser a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a luser to fish and he'll bug you for life:
My bait's not working, but I haven't changed anything!
The river's gone down. Fix it!
Why is the net so slow today?
-- Malcolm Ray
I keep on getting my line caught on myself - why is it so hard to fish ?
Can I surf the river ?
I fell in the river and now I'm all wet - fix things so that I don't get wet when I fall in
Why can't the fish just jump out of the river into my frying pan ? It would make fishing so much easier
What is a fish ?
I can't fish (which could be anything from not having a fishing rod to using a brick for bait).
-- Simes
Light a fire for a luser and he'll be warm for a night; set a luser on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
-- fun
Give a man dynamite and soon the village will be showered with mud and rocks and unrecognizable bits of fish.
-- Peter Gutmann
~~~
I have to agree though, showing a misbehaving machine one of it's brethren in pieces, in pain, and in trouble seems to make them behave.  Swearing at them, bleeding into them and showing them their fates - three of the tenets of sysadminning.
-- Chris "Saundo" Saunderson
~~~
Well, that's a whole 'nother thread by now, and I don't want to tangle too many threads in one place. Being called a Usenet Kitten would be embarrassing.
-- Alan
~~~
In a small way, Windows NT is a Unix.
-- Bill Gates
Because of the way it resembles something decent that's been emasculated?
-- adamsc
~~~
While preceding your entrance with a grenade is a good tactic in Quake, it can lead to problems if attempted at work.
-- C Hacking
~~~
Is it just me, or does anyone else here find it vaguely unsettling that you get your theology from Star Trek?
-- Anthony DeBoer
Yeah, he should get it from B5 like us normal people.
-- Paul Tomblin
~~~
The correct way to roll NT out is out the door and into the nearest Dempster Dumpster or other large waste receptacle.
-- Mike Andrews
~~~
The problem with people whose minds are in the gutter is that they keep blocking my periscope.
-- Peter Gutmann
~~~
When computers emit smoke, it means they've chosen a new Pope. Unfortunately, they invariably choose the wrong one and immediately get condemned to non-functionality for heresy.
-- Anthony DeBoer
~~~
Re : ex-teamster, ex-nun potential PFY
...she can use the nun training to guilt the lusers after LARTing them: "Did you think Jesus died for your sins so you could fsck with the laser printer?"
-- Paul Joslin
~~~
Bleh. If I ever witness such a thing I'll become Amish, I swear.
-- Caton Little
All right son, get up to your room. That's it, I've had it, you are Amish, young man. For the rest of this weekend. Did you hear me? Amish! And don't come down till you've made some noodles and raised a barn.
-- Joe Thompson
~~~
Re: alt.sysadmin.recovery
A fitting punishment for kindly naivete, to end up belonging here.
-- Chris Johnson
~~~
Lucky Charms with Bailey's...the true Irish breakfast.
-- Daniel Macks
~~~
AFAIR, being insane is usually a pre-requisite for becoming a sysadmin. In the few cases where it's not pre-requisite, it's certainly going to be a bonus.
-- SIggi the Underpaid
~~~
Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly. It just happens to be very selective about who its friends are.
-- Kyle Hearn
~~~
Today I got to meet someone who had put their disk, naked, in a backpack, with a LIVE CAT. The cat had mauled the metal cover, managed to separate the plastic shell of the disk, and played with it. Of course, she wanted to know if we could recover her files.  Fortunately, someone who was not required by their job to be really friendly to the lusers got to laugh loudly at her first...
-- Yonatan Zunger
~~~
You are in the presence of a system administrator. KNEEL
~~~
SCSI is *not* magic. There are fundamental technical reasons why it is necessary to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain now and then.
~~~
Pete Krawczyk wrote :
> *sigh* Oh, how I wish lusers could read documentation more than they read
> porn...
That's IT! PORNOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION!
...and as she finally reached orgasm, she screamed 'the mail server will be down for three hours tonight! Yes! Oh, yes!'
-- J.D. Falk
~~~
My group's mission statement - You want *what* ? By *WHEN* ?
-- Simon Burr
~~~
It's nice to be loved, but there's a lot to be said for CRINGING RESPECT
~~~
Managers are those lusers who can tell you what to do and you kinda[3] have to listen.
[3] I mean "kinda" in the "not really, in fact, not at all" mode.
-- Chris Saunderson
~~~
ZENgineering: v. when you've looked at the obvious to solve a problem you start doing something completely different to fix it. Other examples of ZENingeering solutions are: rebooting the router the opposite side of the campus to where the lusers are reporting network problems (Tuesday). I have no idea what the ATM bridge/router was doing to affect the network. it's not even got anything plugged into the Ethernet interfaces, and it only has one ATM port!  Richard
~~~
Sanity is like money; you should just have enough to get by. Any more and you turn into a freak.
-- rone
~~~
Impossible Code
To code the impossible code
To bring up a virgin machine
To pop out of endless recursion
To grok what appears on the screen
To right the unrightable bug
To endlessly twiddle and thrash
To mount the unmountable magtape
To stop the unstoppable crasvin : That's plenty. By the timh
This is my quest
To debug that code
No matter how hopeless
No matter the load
To write those routines
Without question or pause
To be willing to hack FORTRAN IV
For a heavenly cause
And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my code will run cuspy and calm
When it's put to the test
And the queue will be better for this
That one man, scorned and destined to lose
Still strove with his last allocation
To scrap the unscrappable kludge
~~~
Another effective [debugging] technique is to explain your code to someone else. This will often cause you to explain the bug to yourself. Sometimes it takes no more than a few sentences, followed by an embarrassed "Never mind. I see what's wrong. Sorry to bother you." This works remarkably well; you can even use non-programmers as listeners. One university computer center kept a teddy bear near the help desk. Students with mysterious bugs were required to explain them to the bear before they could speak to a human counselor.
-- From "The Practice Programming" by Brian W Kernighan & Rob Pike
~~~
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating
and impenetrable fog!
-- Calvin
~~~
That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!
-- Calvin
~~~
Well, it just seemed wrong to cheat on an ethics test.
-- Calvin
~~~
Calvin: Can you make a living playing silly games?
His Dad: Actually, you can be among the most overpaid people on the planet.
~~~
If you do the job badly enough, sometimes you don't get asked to do it again.
-- Calvin
~~~
The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life.
-- Calvin
~~~
Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles!
-- Calvin
~~~
But Calvin is no kind and loving god! He's one of the old gods! He demands sacrifice!
-- Calvin
~~~
If something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway.
-- Calvin
~~~
You can present the material, but you can't make me care.
-- Calvin
~~~
I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life ... Procrastinating and rationalizing.
-- Calvin
~~~
I liked things better when I didn't understand them.
-- Calvin
~~~
I think nighttime is dark so you can imagine your fears with less distraction.
-- Calvin
~~~
Miss Wormwood: What state do you live in?
Calvin: Denial.
Miss Wormwood: I don't suppose I can argue with that...
~~~
My life needs a rewind/erase button.
-- Calvin
~~~
Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.
-- Calvin
~~~
Susie: You'd get a good grade without doing any work.
Calvin: So?
Susie: It's wrong to get rewards you haven't earned.
Calvin: I've never heard of anyone who couldn't live with that.
~~~
If you couldn't find any weirdness, maybe we'll just have to make some!
-- Calvin
~~~
MOM, CAN I SET FIRE TO MY BED MATTRESS?
No, Calvin.
CAN I RIDE MY TRICYCLE ON THE ROOF?
No, Calvin.
Then can I have a cookie?
No, Calvin.
(She's on to me.)
~~~
I don't need to compromise my principles, because they don't have the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway.
-- Calvin
~~~
Calvin : I think we have got enough information now, don't you?
Hobbes : All we have is one "fact" that you made up.
Calvin : That's plenty. By the time we add an introduction, a few illustrations and a conclusion, it'll look like a graduate thesis.
~~~
Hobbes : Shouldn't we read the instructions?
Calvin : Do I look like a sissy?
~~~
Why can't I ever build character at a Miami condo or a casino somewhere?
-- Calvin
~~~
There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want.
-- Calvin
~~~
Dad are you vicariously living through me in the hope that my accomplishments will validate your mediocre life and in some way compensate for all the opportunities you botched ?
-- Calvin
~~~
I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.
-- Calvin
~~~
A good compromise leaves everyone mad.
-- Calvin
~~~
Miss Wormwood, could we arrange our seats in a little circle and have a little discussion? Specifically, I'd like to debate whether cannibalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders since it is less wasteful.
-- Calvin
~~~
Calvin: Who can fathom the feminine mind?
Hobbes: I like 'em anyway
~~~
"When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade." -Susie 
"I say, when life gives you a lemon, wing it right back and add some lemons of your own!" -Calvin
~~~
Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers.
-- Hobbes being sarcastic
~~~
It's great to have a friend who appreciates an earnest discussion of ideas.
-- Calvin
~~~
That's the problem with science.  You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.
-- Calvin
~~~
All this modern technology just makes people try to do everything at once.
-- Hobbes
~~~
I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.
-- Hobbes
~~~
I don't understand this!  Not a single part of my horoscope came true!  ... The paper should print Mom's daily predictions.  Those sure come true.
-- Calvin
~~~
I don't know which is worse, ...that everyone has his price, or that the price is always so low.
-- Calvin
~~~
That's the problem with nature, something's always stinging you or oozing mucous all over you. Let's go and watch TV.
-- Calvin
~~~
Mom and dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I believe in. But every time I do, they tell me to stop it.
-- Calvin
~~~
Then you admit confirming not denying you ever said that?
NO! ... I mean Yes!  WHAT?
I'll put 'maybe.'
-- Bloom County
~~~
What the historical record shows is that parents who wish their tots to achieve greatness should beat them regularly, destroy their self-esteem, and cruelly deprive them of ordinary comforts, such as ice cream or mother's affection. It would be especially helpful for one of the parents, probably dad, to die before the onset of adolescence; suicide is fine for the purpose.
-- Denis Dutton
~~~
If ignorance is bliss you must be orgasmic
~~~
Darling, I have a .45 and a shovel - do you think someone will miss you?
~~~
Christian Fundamentalism: The doctrine that there is an absolutely powerful, infinitely knowledgeable, universe-spanning entity that is deeply and personally concerned about my sex life.
~~~
This product is not intended for use by personnel incapable of understanding the manual.
~~~
Computing is a terminal condition.
~~~
The only secure computer is one that is turned off, locked in a safe and buried 20 feet down in a secret location, and I'm not completely confident of that either.
-- Bruce Schneier
~~~
It is...fruitless to question and debate early design decisions; better solutions are often quite obvious in hindsight. Perhaps the most important point was that someone did make decisions, in spite of uncertainties.
-- Niklaus Wirth
~~~
Eagleson's Law: Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)
~~~
When in doubt, use brute force.
-- Ken Thompson
~~~
Purity isn't enough. You can program with NAND gates. The purpose of a programming languages is to map human mental models to machine constructs. The easier and more accurate the mapping, the "better" the language. Maybe a language that's unusable without a huge support environment isn't very usable.
-- Bob Bagwill
~~~
A study in the January 2001 issue of the American Journal of Sociology showed that teenagers who made pledges to remain sexual virgins until marriage were more likely to delay sex (up to 18 months).  However, when they did eventually have premarital sexual intercourse, they were more likely to have sex without contraceptive than their counterparts who didn't make such pledges.
-- National Public Radio, Morning Edition, 2001-01-04
~~~
I got enough guilt to start my own religion
-- Tori Amos,
~~~
I cannot convince myself that there is anyone so wise, so universally comprehensive in his judgment, that he can be trusted with the power to tell others: 'You shall not express yourself thus, you shall not describe your own experiences; or depict the fantasies which your mind has created; or laugh at what others set up as respectable; or question old beliefs; or contradict the dogmas of the church, of our society, our economic systems, and our political orthodoxy.'
-- Jake Zeitlin
~~~
It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
-- U.S. Supreme Court
~~~
The third 'right'? - the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives - but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.
-- from Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
~~~
Human beings, being unique in their ability to learn from others, are also unique in their disinclination to do so.
-- from Job by Robert Heinlein
~~~
I've written a commercial for Apple Computer. It goes like this: 'Macintosh - we might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end.'
-- Douglas Adams
~~~
I'd offer to change your mind for you, but I don't have a fresh diaper.
-- Leah to pro-spammer in news.admin.net-abuse.email
~~~
I am logged in, therefore I am.
~~~
The truth is out there? Anyone knows the URL?
~~~
Unix is not a "A-ha" experience, it is more of a "holy-shit" experience.
-- Colin McFadyen in alt.folklore.computers
~~~
Today's CS lecture will be conducted entirely through the medium of interpretive dance.
-- something I've always wanted to hear but never will.
~~~
When a filesystem no longer needs to be mounted, it can be unmounted with umount.*
*It should of course be unmount, but the n mysteriously disappeared in the 70's, and hasn't been seen since. Please return it to Bell Labs, NJ, if you find it.
-- From Linux System Administrators' Guide
~~~
Getting a SCSI chain working is perfectly simple if you remember that there must be exactly three terminations: one on one end of the cable, one on the far end, and the goat, terminated over the SCSI chain with a silver-handled knife whilst burning *black* candles.
-- Anthony DeBoer
~~~
Microsoft is a cross between The Borg and the Ferengi.  Unfortunately, they use Borg to do their marketing and Ferengi to do their programming.
-- Simon Slavin in asr
~~~
My company motto: If this stuff worked, you wouldn't need me.
~~~
Posting to the 'net these days it's more like shouting into a deep cave
in which lives a fire-breathing dragon who hordes Hormel products.
You get an echo back with flames and Spam
~~~
YOUR PC's broken and I'VE got a problem?
-- The BOFH Slogan
~~~
On a more familiar note, I'm learning many new and exciting things about the UNIX operating system.  However, I was shocked to discover that few of these things will get me chicks. Sucks to be me!  But, seeing as how my life is running a solid PG rating, I'm trying to boost that up to at least PG-13 by increased use of foul language.
~~~
On the wall of the women's restroom on the Enterprise:  Where no man has gone before
~~~
UNIX is a well appointed kitchen. Windows is a kitchen full of bread machines and other Shopping Channel specialized tools. Which would a cook rather use?
-- Peter da Silva
~~~
I'm sorry, our software is perfect.  The problem must be you.
-- Dogbert
~~~
I explicitly give people the freedom not to use Perl, just as god gives people the freedom to go to the devil if they so choose.
-- Larry Wall
~~~
The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.
-- Brian Kernighan [1978]
~~~
The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it.
-- Brian Kernighan
~~~
Sometimes it pays to stay in bed on Monday, rather than spending the rest of the week debugging Monday's code.
-- Dan Salomon
~~~
It's a well known fact that computing devices such as the abacus were invented thousands of years ago. But it's not well known that the first use of a common computer protocol occurred in the Old Testament. This, of course, was when Moses aborted the Egyptians' process with a control-sea...
-- Tom Galloway
~~~
Einstein was a genius: Head in the clouds, feet on the ground. But those of us who are not as tall, have to make a choice.
-- Richard Feynman
~~~
In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
-- Stephen Jay Gould
~~~
No matter how cynical you get, you can't keep up.
-- Lilly Tomlin
~~~
There are three principal ways to lose money: wine, women, and engineers. While the first two are more pleasant, the third is by far the more certain.
-- Baron Rothschild
~~~
We can debug relationships, but it's always good policy to consider the people themselves to be features. People get annoyed when you try to debug them.
-- Larry Wall, second State of the Onion speech
~~~
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.
-- Thomas Pynchon
~~~
It has been one of the great errors of our time that to think that by thinking about thinking, and then talking about it, we could possibly straighten out and tidy up our minds. There is no delusion more damaging than to get the idea in your head that you understand the functioning of your own brain. Once you acquire such a notion, you run the danger of moving in to take charge, guiding your thoughts, shepherding your mind from place to place, controlling it, making lists of regulations. The human mind is not meant to be governed, certainly not by any book of rules yet written; it is supposed to run itself, and we are obliged to follow it along, trying to keep up with it as best we can. It is all very well to be aware of your awareness, even proud of it, but never try to operate it. You are not up to the job.
-- Lewis Thomas, Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony
~~~
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
-- Rudyard Kipling
~~~
Those who have never tried electronic communication may not be aware of what a "social skill" really is. One social skill that must be learned, is that other people have points of view that are not only different, but *threatening*, to your own. In turn, your opinions may be threatening to others. There is nothing wrong with this. Your beliefs need not be hidden behind a facade, as happens with face-to-face conversation. Not everybody in the world is a bosom buddy, but you can still have a meaningful conversation with them. The person who cannot do this lacks in social skills.
-- Nick Szabo
~~~
Most papers in computer science describe how their author learned what someone else already knew.
-- Peter Landin
~~~
It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.
~~~
A programming language is low level when its programs require attention to the irrelevant.
~~~
It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than 10 functions on 10 data structures.
~~~
Make no mistake about it: Computers process numbers - not symbols. We measure our understanding (and control) by the extent to which we can arithmetize an activity.
~~~
The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.
-- Edsger Dijkstra
~~~
A logician trying to explain logic to a programmer is like a cat trying to explain to a fish what it's like to get wet.
~~~
If you give someone a program, you will frustrate them for a day; if you teach them how to program, you will frustrate them for a lifetime.
~~~
To err is human. To really foul things up requires a computer. To create utter chaos with no perceivable possibility of salvation calls for an MBA.
~~~
For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless, and then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.
-- Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country
~~~
Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.
-- John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
~~~
Crime doesn't pay... does that mean my job is a crime?
~~~
Take everything in stride.  Trample anyone who gets in your way.
~~~
Not only does the English Language borrow words from other languages, it sometimes chases them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and goes through their pockets.
-- Eddy Peters
~~~
The most thoroughly and relentlessly Damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all Damned things is the individual human being. The social engineers, statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commissars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this Damned Thing into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the Damned Thing will not fit into the slot assigned to it. The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it. The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it. The psychotherapist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the Damned Thing will not fit into their slots.
-- Robert Anton Wilson
~~~
I can not accept your canon that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power ... power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely
-- Lord John Emerich Edward Dalbert-Acton
~~~
There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine . . . been here 4 1/2 billion years. We've been here, what, a 100,000 years, maybe 200,000. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry a little over 200 years. 200 years versus 4 1/2 billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat? The planet isn't going away. We are.
-- George Carlin
~~~
No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique. Anger may in time turn to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never again come into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.
-- Sun Tzu
~~~
>Executions have been quite effective against recidivism.
>No executed felon has EVER re-offended. --Paul Ciszek
Well, there is the alleged case of a Jewish heretic and general rabble-rouser who managed a brief return to his life of crime shortly after his execution...
-- John Schilling
~~~
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
-- Jack London
~~~
Reality is stranger than fiction, and so we write stranger things to compensate... A vicious cycle.
~~~
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
-- Bertrand Russell
~~~
Ranko, such language!
Daddy taught me. He also teach me <censored> and <very censored> and <oh boy is this censored.> He also said <you wouldn't believe how censored> once when he was trying to teach me to drink.
-- Ranko Saotome age 8 to her mother, The Bet: Fist of Orion, by Gregg Sharp
~~~
A child-programmers approach to parents:
While Parent_patience > 0
Do Annoying_action
~~~
A programmers approach to sex:
While Orgasm = 0
Do F***
~~~
I once absent-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce.
-- Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett
~~~
Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil...prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon...
-- Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett
~~~
I heard if you play the NT-4.0-CD backwards, you get a satanic message.
That's nothing, if you play it forward, it installs NT-4.0
~~~
Humanity faced a tremendous setback ca. 1100 A.D., when the first law school was established in Bologna. Ironically, the free exchange of ideas at the law school spurred the law students to invent new ways (patents, trademarks, copyrights) to stifle the free exchange of ideas in other industries.
-- Brief history of Linux by James Baughn
~~~
Along with the standard computer warranty agreement which said that if the machine 1) didn't work, 2) didn't do what the expensive advertisement said, 3) electrocuted the immediate neighbourhood, 4) and in fact failed entirely to be inside the expensive box when you opened it, this was expressly, absolutely, implicitly and in no event the fault or responsibility of the manufacturer, that the purchaser should consider himself lucky to be allowed to give his money to the manufacturer, and that any attempt to treat what had just been paid for as the purchaser's own property would result in the attentions of serious men with menacing briefcases and very thin watches.
-- Good Omens, Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
~~~
Looking deeply into the crystal, the Amazon matriarch began the arcane chant that would open its scrying powers.  The crystal began to glow, faintly, revealing characters, words that would tell the elder what she needed to know.
YOU'RE SCREWED.
She had hoped for something more detailed...
"Stupid oracle."  Cologne glared at the crystal in aggravation. "Could you possibly be more specific?
YOU'RE REALLY SCREWED.
That's not telling me anything helpful...
SEVERELY SCREWED?  MAJOR SCREWED?  SCREWED BEYOND BELIEF?
It is a little known fact that in the Amazon dialect of Chinese there are no less that sixty-two ways to call someone or something a moron.  Cologne ran through them all twice in three and a half minutes.
-- Girl Days, A Ranma 1/2 fanfic by Robert Haynie
~~~
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
(Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
~~~
Religious leaders have often ranted and railed against certain sexual practices, from masturbation and oral sex to homosexuality, as though these were the handiwork of the devil. But what if God feels more honored when a person joyfully masturbates as opposed to saying a speedy rosary or spending an obligatory hour in church.  After all, God created orgasm, while prayers and churches are the creations of men. What if God receives more joy when an unmarried couple lovingly shares oral sex than when a church-going husband and wife have passionless, missionary position intercourse? And who is to say that God hasn't created a group of homosexual angels to guard the gates of heaven? Maybe God has a sense of humor and brings out the queer angels whenever a redneck preacher or one of his intolerant parishioners has just died and is awaiting judgment.
-- from The Guide to Getting it On
~~~
I'm an apatheist. The question is no longer interesting, and the answer no longer matters.
-- petro
~~~
People who are willing to rely on the government to keep them safe are pretty much standing on Darwin's mat, pounding on the door, screaming, "Take me, take me!"
-- Carl Jacobs
~~~
The immoral man takes his pleasures without moderation, leaving himself vulnerable to a descent into gluttony and drunkenness.  He will neglect his duties, abuse those who hold him dear, and pee on others in the public baths.  It is the duty of the moral man try and steer him towards the moral path, and failing that, to hold him under the water until the little bubbles stop rising and he turns a faint bluish colour.
-- From the unrecorded Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
~~~
You must someday reach a point in your life where you can honestly admit to yourself that setting fire to senior citizens is not as fulfilling as it once was.
-- Reverend Shayne Dark of the CofD mailinglist
~~~
It's amazing how many of the religious say "God will punish" but haven't enough faith to let God actually do it.
-- Marc Wolfe on the CofD mailing list
~~~
According to the current doctrines of mysticoscientism, we human animals are really and actually nothing but 'organic patterns of nodular energy composed of collocations of infinitesimal points oscillating on the multi-dimensional coordinates of the space-time continuum'. I'll have to think about that. Sometime. Meantime, I'm going to gnaw on this sparerib, drink my Blatz beer, and contemplate the a posteriori coordinates of that young blonde over yonder, the one in the tennis skirt, tying her shoelaces.
-- Edward Abbey
~~~
I'm going to hell so fast the hand basket burned up on re-entry.
~~~
Isn't it ironic that the previous generation defined themselves in terms of rebellion against authority, and now that they're in charge, all they do is give people reasons to want to rebel against authority.
-- posted on Slashdot
~~~
When I was a kid, I used to pray to God to give me a bike. Then I realized that wasn't the way God works. So I went out and stole a bike, and I prayed to God to forgive me.
~~~
It is true that some lawyers are dishonest, arrogant, greedy, venal, amoral, ruthless buckets of slime. On the other hand, it is unfair to judge the entire profession by a few hundred-thousand bad apples.
-- James D. Gordon III, The Washington Post
~~~
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
-- H.L. Menken
~~~
Trench Coat - 50 dollars. Pipebombs - 75 dollars. Ammo - 250 dollars. Assault Rifle - 600 dollars. The look on your classmates' faces before you blow them away - priceless. There are some things money can't buy, for everything else, there's MasterCard.
-- rejected idea for a Mastercard commercial
~~~
Who says Osama 'evil man' Bin Laden has to develop any of these 'evil' weapons?  You want a chemical weapon?  You blow up a bloody paper mill!  Or a fertilizer factory!  Ask Union Carbide what can happen by stupidity and negligence and then apply that information to a homeland terrorist action scenario. Has this presidential git learned nothing from the actions against his country.  Don't think like a pentagon general with a budget the size of Rhode Island, stealth bombers and enough munitions to clear the coke from the presidential sinuses.  Think cheap!  Think accessible!  Think about terrorists doing with your infrastructure what Jackie Chan does with a ladder, a shopping cart and seven feet of garden hose.  Here endeth the lesson.
-- The Reverend Shayne Dark on the CofD mailing list
~~~
When it comes to survival, you can't be choosy about the company you keep. You may have to make alliances with unsavory people.  So I'm announcing tonight my decision to co-operate with the United States government.
-- George Carlin
~~~
Honestly must be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
-- George Carlin
~~~
That assumes computer science is a functional engineering discipline. Its not, at best we are at the alchemy stage of progression. You put two things together it goes bang and you try to work out why...But right now given two chunks of code, I find out what happens by putting them together not by formal methods. In the case of alchemy versus chemistry the chemists know whether it will probably go bang before they try it (and the chemical engineers still duck anyway)
-- Alan Cox
~~~
If you're so filled with holiday cheer you can't stand it, try calling your friends and going caroling yourself. Especially if you're old, a drug addict,an alcoholic or obviously homosexual and have a lot of effeminate friends. Go In packs. If you are black, go to a prissy white neighbourhood. Ring doorbells, and when the Father Knows Best-type family answers, start screeching hostilely your favorite carol. Watch their faces. There's nothing they can do. It's not illegal. Maybe they'll give you a present.
-- Why I Love Christmas, By John Waters
~~~
This guy has more things wrong with him than fish-flavored soda.
-- A Tribute To Forgotten Heroes, by Matt from X-Entertainment
~~~
Trance: . . . and a human, which means patching him up is as easy as cake.
Dylan: Easy as pie.
Trance: Are you sure about that? I think making pie is a lot harder than cake.
Dylan: Just fix him Trance.
Trance: Oh, he'll be fine. Compared to baking, brain surgery is a snap.
-- Andromeda
~~~
You know . . . I can cook too.
-- Tyr, Andromeda
~~~
Now if we're through, I'd like to get back to my troubled mind.
-- Rev Bem, Andromeda
~~~
Yeah, but you like everyone, even people who try to kill you. *Especially* people that try to kill you.
-- Beka, Andromeda
~~~
Beka: Umm, where'd ya get all the candles?
Tyr: I rendered them from the fat of my enemies.
Beka: Can't wait to see the entree.
-- Andromeda
~~~
And you know why? Cause I could get away with it. Because I'm cute!
-- Trance, Andromeda
~~~
She hates you.
I know. She's hot, *and* she's a good judge of character.
-- Beka and Harper, Andromeda
~~~
So what if she holds me in utter contempt? At least she's thinking of me.
-- Harper, Andromeda
~~~
Trance: And what if they're not decoys?
Beka: Then when we get to the pearly gates, make sure everyone lines up behind Rev- he's got spin control.
Rev: I'll see what I can do.
-- Andromeda
~~~
Okay. Alright. I know when I'm not wanted. I usually don't listen, but I know.
-- Harper
~~~
.. I used to get in more fights with SCO than I did my girlfriend, but now, thanks to Linux, she has more than happily accepted her place back at number one antagonist in my life..  
-- Jason Stiefel, krypto@s30.nmex.com
~~~
If the current stylistic distinctions between open-source and commercial software persist, an open-software revolution could lead to yet another divide between haves and have-nots: those with the skills and connections to make use of free software, and those who must pay high prices for increasingly dated commercial offerings.
-- Scientific American
~~~
From the Linux getopt(3) manpage:
BUGS
This manpage is confusing.
~~~
Every day I send overnight packages filled with rabid weasels to people who use frames for no good reason.
-- The Usenet Oracle, Oracularity #1017-1
~~~
Science is everything we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else.
-- David Knuth
~~~
... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
~~~
Everything that I've learned about computers at MIT I have boiled down into three principles:
Unix: You think it won't work, but if you find the right wizard, he can make it work.
Macintosh: You think it will work, but it won't.
PC/Windows: You think it won't work, and it won't.'
-- Philip Greenspun
~~~
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.'
-- Hume
~~~
Anatomy (n): something everyone has, but which looks better on a girl.'
-- Bruce Raeburn.
~~~
Cleavage (n): something you can approve of and look down on at the same time.
-- W. Garnett.
~~~
Like a ski resort full of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetric as it might seem.
-- Marc Unangst
~~~
Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.  The little man has no way to judge and the shoddy lies are packaged more attractively. 
-- Robert Heinlein, Assignment In Eternity, p.63, Fantasy Press, Reading PA, 1953. {Kettle-Belly Baldwin speaking, in the story 'Gulf'}
~~~
[...] The thought was infuriating; the notion that the government might be spying on his home, his castle, was as repulsive as having his mail opened.
They might be doing that, too! Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the rest stupid fumbling - oh, Harshaw conceded that man, a social animal, could not avoid government, any more than an individual could escape bondage to his bowels.  But simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it "good." He wished that government would wander off and get lost!
-- Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger In A Strange Land
~~~
The people will again respect the law when the law again respects the will of the people.
-- Jim Ray - Campaign '92
~~~
There are those who are born UNIX; Those who are made UNIX; And those who become UNIX; For the kingdom of heaven's sake. (Matthew 19:12) 
-- Stuart Yeates
~~~
Officer!  Officer!  Arrest that man!  He's whistling a dirty song!
-- Jean
~~~
I don't remember exactly where, but it was rather cool.
-- Jeffrey C. Ollie 
They should make that last sentence into a motto for the whole Web.
-- Ade Rixon
~~~
All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal.  Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: 'This time it will surely run' or 'I just found the last bug'.
-- Fred Brooks.
~~~
Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?
~~~
When in doubt, use brute force. 
-- Ken Thompson (author of Unix)
~~~
I will not call it my philosophy; for I did not make it. God and humanity made it; and it made me.
-- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 1908
~~~
A sysadmin's life is a sorry one.  The only advantage he has over Emergency Room doctors is that malpractice suits are rare.  On the other hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients installing new versions of their own innards.
-- Sysadmin's Lament
~~~
A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope  of fame and money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well.
-- G. K. Chesterton
~~~
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. 
-- Plato
~~~
Perl: The only language that looks the same before and after RSA encryption.
~~~
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for card playing.
~~~
If you want to learn, the best way to do so is through experience. Unless you can't stand a loss on your record, just play somebody, get whooped, ask for any tips at the end of the game, rinse and repeat until people ask for your tips. Good luck. 
-- Zirale
~~~
You could write a DeCSS implementation using Perl's English module, record yourself reading the code out loud with Metallica playing in the background, encode it as an MP3, and piss of both the RIAA and the MPAA at the same time. :-)
~~~
A Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer is to computing what a McDonald's Certified Food Specialist is to fine cuisine.
~~~
LOGAN: I always knew that underneath that bioengineered, military-issue armor plating there was a beating heart.
MAX: Let's not go overboard here. I'm not signing up to join the Logan Cale brigade for the defense of widows, small children, and lost animals.
LOGAN: You could be field commander.
MAX: I think not.
~~~
On a Win 9X box, try CTRL-ESC, ALT-MINUS-C
~~~
MALE: Why would Manticore try to get rid of us?
ALEC: I want to get rid of you, and I just met you.
-- Dark Angel
~~~
ALEC: It's just 'cause she's hot, you know.
LOGAN: What is?
ALEC: Everything. Everything she gets away with. You honestly think we'd be down here in this moldy dump looking for God-knows-what if she were ugly?
LOGAN: We're down here to give Max a hand.
-- Dark Angel
~~~
EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A VICTIM. And the paradox is that victim status accrues precisely to those who can acquire enough clout to make others afraid of them. Victimhood has become one of the fruits of power. Anyone can be an underdog; the trick is to be a registered, pedigreed underdog.
-- Joseph Belloc Sobran.
~~~
PURPOSE OF YOUR CAREER
Astronaut:  Advancing scientific knowledge for the good of humanity.
Fireman:  Saving lives and property.
Sysadmin: Assuring uninterrupted access to alt.binaries.erotica.sheep.
-- The Usenet oracle
~~~
As you reach for the web, a venomous spider appears.  Unable to pull your hand away in time, the spider promptly, but politely, bites you.  The venom takes affect quickly causing your lips to turn plaid along with your complexion.  You become dazed, and in your stupor you fall from the limbs of the tree.  Snap!  Your head falls off and rolls all over the ground.  The instant before you croak, you hear the whoosh of a vacuum being filled by the air surrounding your head.  Worse yet, the spider is suing you for damages.
-- an actual quote from the original Adventure game
~~~
Time to stop beating around the bush.  Beat the bush _itself_.  Give it a good thrashing, and say "bad bush!" in a loud stern tone.
-- Fred Barling, Humorscope
~~~
Diaper spelled backwards is Repaid.  Think about it.
-- Marshall McLuhan
~~~
You people are still using *computers*?  I just whistle into my phone at 56Kbps, doing the compression, decoding the images, and running the Java programs all in my head.  PGP encryption does slow me down a bit though...
-- Guy Macon (guymacon@deltanet.com), in alt.shenanigans
~~~
First you will know pain.  Then you will know fear.  Then you will die.  Have a nice flight.
-- G'kar, on Babylon 5
~~~
Like frozen sentries of the Serengeti, the century-old termite mounds had withstood all tests of time and foe - all tests, that is, except the one involving drunken aardvarks and a stolen wrecking ball.
-- Gary Larson
~~~
Actually this is a common misconception...I do *not* in fact have a lot of time on my hands at all! I just have a very very very very bad sense of priorities.
-- Dean Engelhardt
~~~
You know how people who don't exactly like to read buy those books on tape?  Well I'm one of those people. And of all the books on tape, I think that "Where's Waldo" is my favorite....
~~~
The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make a nuisance of himself to other people.
-- John Stuart Mill, _On Liberty_
~~~
I recently shampooed my pet rabbit with Body Shop shampoo. Its eyes bulged out and turned red. If you tested your stuff on animals like everyone else, this sort of thing wouldn't happen.
-- Extract from a customer complaint letter
~~~
Some scientists think that the sun may have something to do with global warming.  
-- ITV News, UK, 30 May 1996
~~~
> Can you see evidence of aliens on the moon as well ???
You can see evidence of aliens in your oatmeal, if you look with the right mind-set and expectations.
-- Jeramie Hicks, in sci.space.policy
~~~
But then you could make ANY word derogatory by INTENDING it to be. (Say the word "cabbage" and it stirs no emotion:glare at somebody and throw in an expletive or two  and it's bound to offend people.)
-- from alt.appalachian
~~~
quartic (n): fourth degree.  e.g., My parents gave me the quartic for coming home late.
-- Tom Hunter, Swarthmore math professor
~~~
Your Horoscope:
You are easily influenced by what you read, and have the ability to relate vague sentences to your own mundane existence.
~~~
A certain amount of reverie is good, like a narcotic in discreet doses. It soothes the fever, occasionally high, of the brain at work, and produces in the mind a soft, fresh vapor that corrects the all too angular contours of pure thought, fills up the gaps and intervals here and there, binds them together, and dulls the sharp corners of ideas. But too much reverie submerges and drowns.
-- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
~~~
Men are like fudge: sweet, dense, and rarely good for you.
-- Audrey Walton-Hadlock
~~~
I really don't want to find my soulmate/life partner now. It would be incredibly inconvenient.
-- Xanthi Carras
~~~
Being a social outcast helps you stay concentrated on the really important things, like thinking and hacking.
-- Eric S Raymond, How to be a Hacker
~~~
A debugged program is one for which you have not yet found the conditions that make it fail.
-- Jerry Ogdin
~~~
A manager went to the master programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application.  The manager asked the master: How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?
It will take one year, said the master promptly.
But we need this system immediately or even sooner!  How long will it take it I assign ten programmers to it?
The master programmer frowned.  In that case, it will take two years.
And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?
The master programmer shrugged.  Then the design will never be completed, he said.
-- Geoffrey James, The Tao of Programming
~~~
A novice of the temple once approached the Chief Priest with a question.
Master, does Emacs have the Buddha nature? the novice asked.
The Chief Priest had been in the temple for many years and could be relied upon to know these things.  He thought for several minutes before replying.
I don't see why not.  It's got bloody well everything else.
With that, the Chief Priest went to lunch.  The novice suddenly achieved enlightenment, several years later.
Commentary:
His Master is kind,
Answering his FAQ quickly,
With thought and sarcasm.
~~~
A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a strings of pearls.  The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout.  There should be neither too little nor too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity.
A program should follow the 'Law of Least Astonishment'.  What is this law?  It is simply that the program should always respond to the user in the way that astonishes him least.
A program, no matter how complex, should act as a single unit.  The program should be directed by the logic within rather than by outward appearances.
If the program fails in these requirements, it will be in a state of disorder and confusion.  The only way to correct this is to rewrite the program.
-- Geoffrey James, The Tao of Programming
~~~
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
-- F. Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month
Whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed by two persons and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.
-- George Washington, 1732-1799
~~~
Although it is still a truism in industry that "no one was ever fired for buying IBM," Bill O'Neil, the chief technology officer at Drexel Burnham Lambert, says he knows for a fact that someone has been fired for just that reason.  He knows it because he fired the guy.
He made a bad decision, and what it came down to was, 'Well, I bought it because I figured it was safe to buy IBM,'  Mr. O'Neil says. I said, 'No.  Wrong.  Game over.  Next contestant, please.'
-- The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1989
~~~
As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know its true name.
-- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie
~~~
Computer Science is the only discipline in which we view adding a new wing to a building as being maintenance
-- Jim Horning
~~~
Creating computer software is always a demanding and painstaking process - an exercise in logic, clear expression, and almost fanatical attention to detail.  It requires intelligence, dedication, and an enormous amount of hard work.  But, a certain amount of unpredictable and often unrepeatable inspiration is what usually makes the difference between adequacy and excellence.
~~~
Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow.
~~~
If the designers of X-window built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same principles - but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo.  Useful feature, that.
-- From the programming notebooks of a heretic, 1990.
~~~
It is possible by ingenuity and at the expense of clarity... {to do almost anything in any language}.  However, the fact that it is possible to push a pea up a mountain with your nose does not mean that this is a sensible way of getting it there.  Each of these techniques of language extension should be used in its proper place.
-- Christopher Strachey
~~~
NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All software is supplied as is, without guarantee.  The user assumes all responsibility for damages resulting from the use of these features, including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake system failure, invasion, hashing collisions, normal wear and tear of friction surfaces, comic radiation, inadvertent destruction of sensitive electronic components, windstorms, the Riders of Nazgul, infuriated chickens, malfunctioning mechanical or electrical sexual devices, premature activation of the distant early warning system, peasant uprisings, halitosis, artillery bombardment, explosions, cave-ins, and/or frogs falling from the sky.
~~~
Some of my readers ask me what a "Serial Port" is.
The answer is: I don't know.  Is it some kind of wine you have with breakfast?
~~~
Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you only have to climb it once.
~~~
The "cutting edge" is getting rather dull.
-- Andy Purshottam
~~~
The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance
The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system in a portable package the size of a briefcase.  The guy on the left has an Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case.  Also in the case are four fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition.  The owner of the Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered - and delivered on target - in less time, and with less effort.  All for $795. It's inevitable. If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 - or any personal computer - he's the one who's in trouble.  One round from an Uzi can zip through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum.  In fact, detachable magazines for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied into Ethernet or other local-area networks.  What about the new 16-bit computers, like the Lisa and Fortune?  Even with the Winchester backup, they're no match for the Uzi.  One quick burst and they'll find out what Unix means.  Make your commanding officer proud.  Get an Uzi - and come home a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons.
-- InfoWorld, June, 1984
~~~
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL
SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the coffee.  Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to compile.  Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but infinitely faster) language, COCAINE.
~~~
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #8: LAIDBACK
This language was developed at the Marin County Center for T'ai Chi, Mellowness and Computer Programming (now defunct), as an alternative to the more intense atmosphere in nearby Silicon Valley.
The center was ideal for programmers who liked to soak in hot tubs while they worked.  Unfortunately few programmers could survive there because the center outlawed Pizza and Coca-Cola in favor of Tofu and Perrier.
Many mourn the demise of LAIDBACK because of its reputation as a gentle and non-threatening language since all error messages are in lower case.  For example, LAIDBACK responded to syntax errors with the message:
i hate to bother you, but i just can't relate to that.  can you find the time to try it again?
~~~
This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go, explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do.
We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of making anything out of all the hard work.
If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not.  Just keep your doors locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark.
-- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow
~~~
We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything - if you think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide.  If Interactive EasyFlow doesn't work: tough.  If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us.  If you don't like this disclaimer: tough.  We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing.
This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese.
We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted.  We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the attack shark at which point we relented.
-- Haven Tree Software Limited, Interactive EasyFlow
~~~
When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple
of asterisked sentences:
It weighs less than 8 pounds.*
And costs less than $1,300.**
In tiny type were these "fuller explanations":
* Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out?  Well, all this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you might not be able to figure this out for yourself.
** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if you really want to.  Or less.
-- Forbes
~~~
Yacc owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in their endless search for "one more feature."  Their irritating unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right.
-- S. C. Johnson, Yacc guide acknowledgements
~~~
A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) - by Charles Dickens
A lawyer who looks like a French Nobleman is executed in his place.
~~~
The Metamorphosis LITE(tm)- by Franz Kafka
A man turns into a bug and his family gets annoyed.
~~~
Lord of the Rings LITE(tm) - by J.R.R. Tolkien
Some guys take a long vacation to throw a ring into a volcano.
~~~
Hamlet LITE(tm) - by Wm. Shakespeare
A college student on vacation with family problems, a screwy girl-friend and a mother who won't act her age.
~~~
A Tale of Two Cities LITE(tm) - by Charles Dickens
A man in love with a girl who loves another man who looks just like him has his head chopped off in France because of a mean lady who knits.
~~~
Crime and Punishment LITE(tm) - by Fyodor Dostoevski
A man sends a nasty letter to a pawnbroker, but later feels guilty and apologizes.
~~~
The Odyssey LITE(tm) - by Homer
After working late, a valiant warrior gets lost on his way home.
~~~
Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the mid-fork of the Feather River before the completion of the Oroville Dam in 1959.
-- Grand Panjandrum's Special Award, 1984 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
~~~
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 fluoride 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.
~~~
Gone With The Wind LITE(tm) - by Margaret Mitchell
A woman only likes men she can't have and the South gets trashed.
~~~
Gift of the Magi LITE(tm) - by O. Henry
A husband and wife forget to register their gift preferences.
~~~
The Old Man and the Sea LITE(tm) - by Ernest Hemingway
An old man goes fishing, but doesn't have much luck.
~~~
Diary of a Young Girl LITE(tm) - by Anne Frank
A young girl hides in an attic but is discovered.
~~~
No group of professionals meets except to conspire against the public at large.
-- Mark Twain
~~~
The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant, the second half still balmy and quite pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know.
-- Winning sentence, 1986 Bulwer-Lytton bad fiction contest.
~~~
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
-- Bulwer-Lytton
~~~
When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all.
-- Roger Zelazny, Doorways in the Sand
~~~
The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.
-- Jean Kerr
~~~
Excuse me. This life isn't working. I want to exchange it.
Have you tried plugging it in?
~~~
I believe in compulsory cannibalism. If people were forced to eat what they killed, there would be no more wars.
-- Abbie Hoffman
~~~
The real world is not user-friendly.
-- Kelvin Throop III
~~~
Do you think it's possible to discuss politics without preaching? Or just not for you?
SKB: Not for me personally. I spent years and years and years studying intensely, carefully, putting a lot of time and energy and work into it. I therefore am convinced I know a lot. Even if I don't, I think I do. So I run into someone who makes, generally speaking, a dismissive remark, which shows that he has not put in anywhere near the time, energy and effort and study I have, and I turn into an arrogant, pompous asshole. So I'd rather not do that. That's why I just stay loose on it.
-- Steven K. Brust
~~~
There. There, said the marquis de Carabas, awkwardly, patting her shoulder. And he added, for good measure, There. He did not comfort well.
-- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
~~~
Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place
-- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
~~~
Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well - he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
~~~
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks.
-- Will Durant, The History of Civilization
~~~
If you mean whiskey, the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pits of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, my friend, I am opposed to it with every fiber of my being.
However, if by whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the elixir of life, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of an elderly gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean that drink that enables man to magnify his joy, and to forget life's great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars each year, that provides tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it.
This is my position, and as always, I refuse to be compromised on matters of principle.
-- Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat, Jr, 1952 Whiskey Speech
~~~
Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude. In the immortal words of Lafcadio Hearn, a geek of incredible obscurity whose work is still in print after a hundred years, "Woo the muse of the odd." . . . You may be a geek. You may have geek written all over you. You should aim to be one geek they'll never forget. Don't aim to be civilized. Don't hope that straight people will keep you on as some kind of pet. To hell with them. You should fully realize what society has made of you and take a terrible revenge. Get weird. Get way weird. Get dangerously weird. Get sophisticatedly, thoroughly weird, and don't do it halfway. Put every ounce of horsepower you have behind it. . . . Don't become a well rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and dull. Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikes from every angle. Stick in their throats like a pufferfish.
-- Bruce Sterling, speech on The Wonderful Power of Storystelling to the Computer Game Developers Conference, March 1991
~~~
A not unfamiliar expression in the description of human relations is "the Hawthorne effect," Many people assume that the Hawthorne somehow refers to a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, but actually it is the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago. There in 1924 C. E. Snow of the National Research Council undertook to study the influence of lighting on the productivity of industrial workers, in this case women working on assembly lines making telephone components such as electrical relays.
At first Snow and his colleagues measured the productivity at the normal level of illumination. Then they raised the level of illumination. The productivity of the workers increased. Then they raised the level again; the productivity increased again. They raised it still more; the productivity continued to increase.
Being good scientists, Snow and his colleagues now LOWERED the level of illumination below what it had been at first. To their surprise, the productivity continued to increase. They lowered the level of illumination still more, with the same result. Finally when the level was so low that the workers could hardly see what they were doing, the productivity fell off. It suddenly dawned on everyone. The workers were not responding to the changes in illumination. They were responding to someone's paying attention to them. That is the Hawthorne effect.
-- Dennis Flagan, Flanagan's Version, 1989
~~~
The last time I gave an interview they told me to just relax and say what I really felt. Ten minutes after the broadcast I got transferred to an outpost so far off the starmaps you couldn't find it with a hunting dog and an Ouija board.
Don't sweat it. Just be that charming, effervescent commander we've all come to know and love. What's the worst that could happen? They fire you, ship you off to the Rim and I get promoted to Commander. I don't see a problem here.
-- Sinclair and Garibaldi, Infection
~~~
When I hear of a long time smoker dying of lung cancer I think "That's too bad, but they made their choices". When I hear about companies getting screwed by Microsoft, I think the same thing.
-- GNUTroll (2002-05-01)
~~~
piracy is copying.
So 18th century pirates just boarded your ship, copied everything, and left?
-- Anonymous Coward on Slashdot.org (2002-04-29)
~~~
The BSA is nothing more than a legalized protection racket.
-- chill (2002-04-29)
~~~
Thus continueth the cycle:
1. A few people pirate software/music.
2. Corporations get pissed at piracy.
3. Corporation spends millions on development of an anti-piracy scheme.
4. Corporation has to raise prices to compensate.
5. Scheme gets cracked within DAYS of release.
6. More people pirate because prices are higher.
7. Goto 1.
-- Desco (2001-10-19)
~~~
The second was a lesson I received in group dynamics from my high school theater group's director, a guy named Lou. About a hundred of us kids had gathered together in the gym, doing warmup exercises. Lou got up and introduced a new exercise. We were going to count up from one to ten, slowly adjusting our attitude and appearance from utter dejection to triumphant at ten. One... we were slumped over and suicidal. Two... we straighted a little... Three... perhaps I shall not hang myself today. And so on to a hearty, confident, triumphant roar of TEN! "TEN!" shouted Lou. "TEN!!" we yelled back. "SEIG HEIL!" shouted Lou. "SEIG HEIL!!" we roared. "SEIG HEIL!!! SEIG HEIL!!! SEIG..."
Lou clapped his hands sharply for attention. He looked at us for a long moment. "Never forget," he said softly, "how easy it was for one man to make you do that."
I never will.
-- bill.sheehan
~~~
This message was encrypted with rot-26 cryptography. Attempting to circumvent this encoding is illegal under the DMCA.
-- ajuda (2001-08-02)
~~~
You know what I never understood: Why did it become expected that technical support people should be able to fix any software problem through the phone? I can't call up Toyota and ask them to walk me through replacing the starter on the car, especially if I don't know what a wrench is. They'll tell me to bring it to the repair shop. I can't demand that Maytag explain to me how to repair a washing machine through the phone, even if it is under warranty!
-- Stan Seibert (2001-07-11)
~~~
Software of the living dead... This is why Microsoft hates GPL software. The company goes bust and a month later there is a new release of the competing software. Nothing, but customer disinterest has ever killed a GPL project. And Microsoft _still_ can't beg, buy, borrow, or steal the software. It is just too funny.
-- Jimmy the Geek (2001-07-05, discussing the Nautilus 1.0.4 release)
~~~
When the USA does it, it's progress. When Canada does it, it's just another tax grab by socialists.
-- Anonymous Coward (2001-06-20)
~~~
I'm sorry buddy, but that's just crap. If we Canadians felt like building some great nationalistic ventures, we would, cost doesn't even venture into it. How many nations of 30 million people have G7 status eh? Us and Australia that's who - and there are scads of countries with way more people who can't claim that. We have definitely got the money to burn on meaningless nationalism if we wanted. The reason we don't do it is two-fold: firstly Canadians just don't have any nationalist sentiments, or very little. Hell most of us don't even know what it is we identify with as a country. Secondly the business and political culture of our country is so tight-assed and conservative that they refuse to invest in anything Canadian for fear that it will flop, despite the overwhelming evidence that as such a small nation we have an insane overabundance of intelligent, talented and creative people.
-- corvi42 (2001-04-16)
~~~
What I find interesting is that my English teacher last year hated violent video games, thinking they corrupt kids. She also knew I loved them and spent much time at them. Yet, she still preferred me as the quiet genius type to the immature jocks, who wouldn't know Quake from Shogo. She never seemed to notice the discrepancy between her preconceived notions and reality, but that just goes to show you.
-- Datafage
~~~
Children - the universal scapegoats for any political agenda.
~~~
I used to be an idealist, but then I got mugged by reality.
~~~
After The Matrix, I cannot wear sunglasses. As soon as I put them on, people recognize me.
-- Carrie-Anne Moss ("Trinity", The Matrix)
~~~
Q: What is the #1 remote-administration tool for Windows NT?
A: A car.
-- ms-monopoly.com
~~~
The Feynman Problem Solving Algorithm:
1) Write down the problem.
2) Think very hard.
3) Write down the solution.
~~~
If it weren't for lack of context, there would be no news.
-- Scott Adams
~~~
One World, One Web, One Program - Microsoft Promotional Ad
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer - Adolf Hitler
~~~
So, when you think about it, kissing is just pressing your lips up against the sweet end of 66 feet of intestines.
-- Oswald, Drew Carey
~~~
I'm a nobody, nobody is perfect, therefore I'm perfect.
~~~
Canadian Unity: Something that works in practice, but which just doesn't work in theory.
-- Bowser & Blue
~~~
The Earth is degenerating today. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer obey their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.
-- Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BC
~~~
Interdigitation, n.: The act of holding hands. These days, both the word and the act are endangered and fun. Try it. Ask your date to INTERDIGITATE with you. Did you get your face slapped? You said it right!
-- Archive of Endangered, Special, or Fun Words
~~~
Is there a lawyer in the house? -=}BLAM{=- Any more?
~~~
I am McMahon of Borg. You may already have been assimilated.
~~~
There is nothing noble in being superior to another.  True nobility arises from being superior to one's past self.
~~~
Think about it.  You are not going to positively influence people by alienating them.  Even I know that. 
-- Craig Bruce, (commenting on radical feminism)
~~~
...I'm talking about ways to manage to be true to your introverted, intuitive, thinking, and judging self in a social situation that favors the feeling extrovert. 
-- Alison Evans
~~~
You yourself are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you almost don't exist.  I've experienced this time and again.  My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening.  I just sit there watching in a state of awe and wonderment.  And it just flows out by itself.
-- A composer, describing The Zone
~~~
The purpose of small talk is not to communicate weighty information, and if you dismiss it because it doesn't contain weighty information, then you're missing the point.  The purpose of small talk is to act as a conduit for social reassurance.
-- Eric Pepke
~~~
With apologies to a colleague of mine who would probably like to say this, I need to point out to you and the Feds that you hardly represent anybody.  The great majority of students don't even bother to vote in student elections.  They don't particularly care.  They are here to get their degree, period.  The primary service of MathSoc that the undergraduate population uses are the photocopiers. And, heck, if they disappeared, students would go to the library or graphic services.  You guys all take yourselves a little too seriously (or at least your peers would seem to think so).
-- Herb Kunze, probably applicable to all student governments
~~~
Sometimes my level of frustration exceeds my capability to not care. I shall endeavor to increase my capability to not care.
-- Craig Bruce (2001-06-27, #717)
~~~
Be yourself! Be yourself, the magazines insistently croon, so long as your REAL self has a killer body and a starlet's face. Granted the magazines also speak to ambition and self-worth, but image rules tyrannically over all.
-- Judith Timson (speaking about teen magazines), McCleans, Sept 2001.
~~~
Acknowledgement is a no-kidding, unvarnished, bottom-line, truthful confrontation with yourself about what you are doing or not doing, or what you are putting up with in your life that is destructive. It's not some pious, phoney-baloney, half-hearted rendition of what you think they want to hear. Nor is it a watered-down, politically correct 'confession' that you think will buy you closure at the expense of truth. I mean brutal reality: slapping yourself in the face and admitting what you are doing to screw up your life. This also means admitting that you are getting payoffs for what you're doing, however sick or subtle those payoffs are.
-- Philip C. McGraw (from Life Strategies)
~~~
Acknowledgement is just the FIRST step down a very long road. And I have seen people stuck on that one for *years* (wah wah, I'm an alcoholic. [knock back another drink]) - just look at X. All those years of therapy have done is to provide her with the ability to go 'Oh look. I have a navel.' She hasn't made any REAL progress, because REAL progress means REAL work, and letting go of ego-centricity. And she gets far too much attention and too many opportunities for excuses to get beyond merely acknowledging her childhood abuse and get her shit together. Hell she isn't even an abuse SURVIVOR because she still BLAMES her bad behavior on her past, and expects people to cut her slack and feel sorry for her as a result. That's not SURVIVING it, that's WALLOWING.
-- Annesthesia
~~~
Now let's add the ingredient of feeling ones-self innocent and yet punished. 'I may have done something wrong, but it wasn't THAT bad - surely I don't deserve THIS.' Isn't that perfect? We even use our misdeeds to our own advantage. I've done something wrong but I turn it around so that *I'm* the victim and should be compensated. And Egocentricity is usually right there with suggestions that could make up for this 'injustice'. Things like ice cream, or not returning a wallet I find, or driving discourteously, or gossiping or having an affair with someone else's partner. After all, [the 'victim-mentality' believes] 'Life owes me something'.
-- Cheri Huber, from Going beyond Self-hate
~~~
PEACE comes, not from an ABSENCE of Strife and Conflict, but in our ability to COPE with it.
-- unknown (Seen on a Jacket in a pharmacy late at night)
~~~
To want to get better means be ready to face the pain. It is only when you face the pain that you will begin to gain a healthy perspective from which you can then think less distortedly, to the point where you will be able to recognize when you are so triggered as to blur your past with someone in your present. Personal responsibility is key here as well. You must take responsibility for your needs, your wants, your pain, your actions and you must learn that there is no excuse for abuse. Blaming anyone else, even someone who abused or hurt you in childhood is not going to help you heal now. It will not help you meet your needs. It will not help you learn how to maintain relationships. It will not help you to find yourself.
-- A.J. Mahari, from "The Blame Game", an article on BPD at Suite101
~~~
I'm also starting to believe that men are more in touch with the realities of commitment, and that's why they (for the most part, or the ones I know) avoid making them. My experience with women shows me that they candy-coat the reality of co-habitation.
-- JadeSyren
~~~
Just saying no prevents teenage pregnancy the way 'Have a nice day' cures chronic depression.
-- Faye Wattleton
~~~
Lately, the only thing that keeps me from being a serial killer is my distaste for manual labor.
-- Dilbert
~~~
Oh, well, Chaney said, quoting one of his basic axioms for Guerrilla Ontology, insanity is another viable alternative.
-- The Trick Top Hat, Robert Anton Wilson
~~~
I would like to see an anime where Love conquers all, then goes mad with the power and sets up a repressive totalitarian regime that ruthlessly crushes and oppresses all non-love. Agents with little pink-heart armbands kick in doors and round up people who are not madly in love. Even Like is sent to the camps. Then a small but brave group of Platonic rebels has to overthrow Love in a bloody revolution.
-- Frank Raymond Michaels
~~~
Fleeting interest sort of maimed the cat.
-- Jim Benton
~~~
As for my thesis, I will defend it with a small number of highly trained ninja warriors followed by waves scantly clad barbarians and finally a large fortified castle guarded by all manner of exotic beasts.
-- Joanna's friend Devin
~~~
The night seemed long. Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's always hard to sleep.
-- Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
~~~
The best thing for being sad, replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn...
-- T.H. White, The Once and Future King
~~~
Love is not always glamorous, but it will help you get to the bathroom when you're sick. Love means only one of you can be crazy at a time.
-- unknown
~~~
Let's face it. Do you stay off the streets at night because you fear attack from uncontrolled, irrational women in the throes of their Premenstrual Syndrome? Probably not. We stay home at night because we fear the behavior of men.
-- Harriet Goldhor Lerner
~~~
The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the toad's deception, screaming madly, 'You lied!'
-- Barbara C. Kroll, Kennett Square, PA
~~~
Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half might reach you.
-- Kahlil Gibran
~~~
I'm still bloody insulted by people in general insisting that I need 'strong female role models.' Some of us already have one. It's called a mirror.
-- M. Fae Glasgow, "Two Heads are Better than One," SBF 1, May 1993
~~~
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character
~~~
. . .anything two - or more - people want to do is all right as long as it does no physical harm . . . the words 'moral' and immoral' [are] ridiculous when applied to sexual relations.
-- Robert A. Heinlein
~~~
Don't blame me. I told her 'more' was a stupid safeword.
-- Unknown
~~~
If you can't be good in bed, be funny
~~~
A horse is a horse, of course; of course,
He follows a lifestyle we don't endorse.
He drinks the blood of a sheep by force,
the vampire horse, Count Ed.
~~~
This is the nineties; you don't just go around punching people. You have to say something cool first.
~~~
Pull here for an Arts degree. (Seen on toilet paper dispenser in GVSU arts building)
~~~
I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves.
~~~
I said "NO" to drugs, but they didn't listen.
~~~
Banshee begins to do fun and decorative things with  the probes from her dissection kit...
-- Banshee
~~~
Curiosity?  Nah, I took care of that cat with the lawn mower!
-- Killj0y
~~~
Next year, why not vacation in the millions of worlds of a used book store?
~~~
Federal Espresso - When you absolutely, positively have to have something that will get you going, no matter what you were doing overnight!
~~~
whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories.
-- Killj0y
~~~
test him for drugs... then pump him full of whatever he is low on
-- Beki
~~~
I'm not paranoid. Which of my enemies told you that?
-- rainman
~~~
Navigating through crises like a drunk on a unicycle
-- rainman
~~~
for me, love is knowing that there will always be times when you'll make mistakes or need to lean on the other person, when the other person will give you slack. and in return, you do all the little kindnesses you can think of - in advance of, during, or after the times when you're taking more than you're giving
-- Rose Platt
~~~
Sad how whole families are torn apart by simple things,like wild dogs
~~~
Every five years or so I look back on my life and I have a good laugh. 
-- Indigo Girls
~~~
If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton you might as well make it dance.
-- George Bernard Shaw
~~~
Free the Bound Periodicals!!!!
-- seen in a library
~~~
Conga Rats!  (dah dah dah dah dah *squeek* dah dah dah dah dah *squeek*) 
-- James
~~~
War is fundamentally an interactive social process.
-- Warfighting, a U. S. Marine Corp doctrine manual
~~~
It is by Caffeine alone I set my Mind in motion
It is by the Beans of Java Thoughts acquire Speed
The Hands acquire Shakes
The Shakes become a Warning
It is by Caffeine alone I set my Mind in motion
~~~
I know that there is a world outside. People put pictures of it on the Internet.
~~~
Help! We are lost, crazed and starving and without any good books as well.
~~~
They've been shooting themselves in the foot for so long they're up to mid-thigh by now
-- Ryland, about Apple
~~~
the modern definition of evil lies somewhere between unenlightened self-interest and 100% calories from fat
~~~
If you're up against someone more intelligent than you are, do something totally insane and let him think himself to death.
-- Pyanfar Chanu
~~~
The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.
-- Joe Ancis
~~~
...for more insinuation, send a super stressed stomped antelope to...
~~~
SUVs are Monster Trucks for Yuppies.  All they've done is traded the gun rack for a cell phone.
-- RJ
~~~
Oh there's my heterosexuality, it was under the couch cushions this whole time
~~~
I'm sure you can do it, unless you're an idiot.
-- Jay Ko, the embittered low-level calc instructor:
~~~
No nookie before bio!
-- Dr. Sue Styer
~~~
Some of you have seemed frustrated by the computer. Remember, in primitive societies they have coming of age requirements - things like killing an antelope with your bare hands, walking on hot coals, building a thatch house by yourself. The analysis of your honors data is the equivalent - but much worse. After you finish these analyses, you will be a full-fledged researcher, with all the rights and benefits of that esteemed position.
-- Prof. Michael G. H. Coles
~~~
I was also thinking of distributing Valium.
-- Bayta, the grad stats TA, on the final exam
~~~
Of course he's got a knife. You've got a knife. I've got a knife. Everyone's got a knife. It's 1183 and we're all barbarians.
-- Katherin Hepburn, The Lion in Winter
~~~
Wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, [and] shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits.
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1801 Inaugural Address
~~~
[on why space is worth the trouble]:
'We have to stay [in space] and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu and Einstein and Morobuto and Buddy Holly and Aristophenes...and all of this...all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars.'
-- Jeffrey Sinclair, Babylon 5
~~~
This is Usenet. Is anyone *not* cynical?
-- T. McNemar
~~~
The simplest way to stop a flamewar is to breathe deeply, swallow your bile and just LET an idiot have the last word.
-- Daniel Walker. Words to live by.
~~~
It was so freeing for me to realize that the people around me were so caught up in worrying that others were noticing their terrible social gaffes and ineptitude and inadequacies that they had no time to spare for noticing my huge embarrassing idiotic comments and behavior.
-- Ann Burlingham
~~~
Would someone please explain to me why the triumph of Evil is always accompanied by ugly, skimpy and non-functional clothing, an exponential increase in power, and a total failure of intellect?
-- Dani Zwei
~~~
I'll admit it, my muse has two forms: most times it's a lyrical William Shakespeare, but other times it's a lyrical William Shakespeare swinging a two-by-four with a railroad spike through the end.
-- C. Schooley
~~~
Nothing cures sophomoric salacious behavior towards women faster than an actual sex life.
-- Christopher Priest
~~~
When _did_ you and reality part company, Doug? 
Oh, about one and a half years ago - I got possession of the fantasies, though.
-- Kid Dynamo
~~~
Well, it IS great. Now we get what we were BORN to do! What all super-heroes do BEST!
Mindless violence?
You got it, Maj!
-- G'nort and Major Force
~~~
I fancy not, sir. The Dark Priestess of the Esoteric Order of Dagon is in the sitting-room and desires to speak to you.
Ia! Ia! Aunt Agatha!
-- Jeeves and Wooster
~~~
Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever.
-- Baron Munchausen,  The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
~~~
Why, you speak treason! 
Fluently.
-- Maid Marian and Robin Hood,  Robin Hood (Errol Flynn version)
~~~
How can you close me up? On what grounds?
I'm shocked ... shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. 
[A waiter hands Renault a pile of money] 
Your winnings, sir.
Oh thank you. Thank you very much. Everybody out at once!
-- Bogart, Rains, and a waiter,  Casablanca
~~~
Nervous? I'm not nervous. Just... poised for action, that's all.
-- Vila
~~~
What did I do to deserve this?
How long a list would you like?
-- Vila & Avon
~~~
We've talked about it and discovered we care what happens to you.
Within reason, of course.
We're as surprised as you are.
Not to mention, embarrassed.
-- Cally, Tarrant, Dayna and Vila to Avon
~~~
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
-- Abraham Lincoln
~~~
I think we're in for a bad spel of wether.
-- A button
~~~
They told me I was gullible . . . and I BELIEVED them!
-- a button
~~~
Baldrick, your brain is like the four headed, man-eating haddock fish beast of Aberdeen.
In what way?
It doesn't exist
-- Blackadder
~~~
I always admired atheists. I think it takes a lot of faith.
-- Joel
~~~
No one imagines that symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them.
-- Alan Watts
~~~
For the wonderful thing about saints is that they were _human_. They lost their tempers, got hungry, scolded God, were egotistical or testy or impatient in their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. Still they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven.
-- Phyllis McGinley
~~~
Rabbit's clever, said Pooh thoughtfully. 
Yes, said Piglet, Rabbit's clever.
And he has Brain.
Yes, said Piglet, Rabbit has Brain. 
There was a long silence. 
I suppose, said Pooh, that that's why he never understands anything.
-- The House at Pooh Corner
~~~
Calvin, can you tell us what Lewis and Clark did?
No, but I can recite the secret superhero origin of each member of Captain Napalm's Thermonuclear League of Liberty.
See me after class, Calvin.
I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.
-- Mrs. Wormwood and Calvin
~~~
Recommendations? 
The fervent invocation of deity.
-- Kirk and McCoy
~~~
Nurse, bring me the really large anesthetic mallet.
-- Doctor McCoy, The Starship Trap
~~~
Vir, do you believe in fate ?
Well, actually, I believe there are currents in the Universe. Eddies and tides that pull us one way or another. Some we have to fight, some we have to embrace. Unfortunately, the currents that we have to fight look exactly like the currents we have to embrace. The currents that we *think* are the one that's gonna make us stronger, they are the ones that are going to destroy us. And the ones that we think are going to destroy us, they are going to make us stronger. Now, the other current ..
-- Londo and an oversharing Vir
~~~
What makes a religion false ? If any religion is right, then maybe they *all* have to be right. Maybe God doesn't care how you say your prayers, just as long as you say them.
-- Sinclair to doctor Franklin
~~~
When they come for the innocent without crossing over your body, CURSED be your religion and your life.
-- B. Walsh
~~~
Some people think of their body as a temple. I like to think of mine as an amusement park.
-- Kei
~~~
There's more to a relationship than just sex.
That's right. Th