Magazine Quotes

QOTD: How can I miss you if you won't go away?

QOTD: I looked out my window, and saw Kyle Pettys' car upside down, then I thought 'One of us is in real trouble'.

— Davey Allison, on a 150 m.p.h. crash

QOTD: I love your outfit, does it come in your size?

QOTD: I opened Pandora's box, let the cat out of the bag and put the ball in their court.

— Hon. J. Hacker (The Ministry of Administrative Affairs)

QOTD: I've heard about civil Engineers, but I've never met one.

QOTD: If it's too loud, you're too old.

QOTD: If you're looking for trouble, I can offer you a wide selection.

QOTD: Ludwig Boltzmann, who spend much of his life studying statistical mechanics died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn.

— Goodstein, States of Matter

QOTD: Money isn't everything, but at least it keeps the kids in touch.

QOTD: My mother was the travel agent for guilt trips.

QOTD: On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say... oh, somewhere in there.

QOTD: Sacred cows make great hamburgers.

QOTD: Silence is the only virtue he has left.

QOTD: Some people have one of those days. I've had one of those lives.

QOTD: Talent does what it can, genius what it must. I do what I get paid to do.

QOTD: Talk about willing people... over half of them are willing to work and the others are more than willing to watch them.

QOTD: The forest may be quiet, but that doesn't mean the snakes have gone away.

QOTD: The only easy way to tell a hamster from a gerbil is that the gerbil has more dark meat.

QOTD: Y'know how s'm people treat th'r body like a TEMPLE? Well, I treat mine like 'n AMUSEMENT PARK... S'great...

Quality control, n.: Assuring that the quality of a product does not get out of hand and add to the cost of its manufacture or design.

Quality Control, n.: The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100 works.

quark: The sound made by a well bred duck.

Quigley's Law: Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will atttempt to use it.

QWERT (kwirt) n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth] 1. a unit of weight equal to 13 poiuyt avoirdupois (or 1.69 kiloliks), commonly used in structural engineering 2. [Colloq.] one thirteenth the load that a fully grown sligo can carry. 3. [Anat.] a painful irritation of the dermis in the region of the anus 4. [Slang] person who excites in others the symptoms of a qwert.

— Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed.

Ralph's Observation: It is a mistake to let any mechanical object realise that you are in a hurry.

Random, n.: As in number, predictable. As in memory access, unpredictable.

Ray's Rule of Precision: Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe.

Real Time, adj.: Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there and then.

Real World, The, n.: 1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. To programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related to programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5. 4. The location of the status quo. 5. Anywhere outside a university. "Poor fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the real world." Used pejoratively by those not in residence there. In conversation, talking of someone who has entered the real world is not unlike talking about a deceased person.

Reappraisal, n.: An abrupt change of mind after being found out.

Recursion n.: See Recursion.

— Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary

Reformed, n.: A synagogue that closes for the Jewish holidays.

Regression analysis: Mathematical techniques for trying to understand why things are getting worse.

Reichel's Law: A body on vacation tends to remain on vacation unless acted upon by an outside force.

Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia: If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.

Reliable source, n.: The guy you just met.

Renning's Maxim: Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying.

Reporter, n.: A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Reputation, adj.: What others are not thinking about you.

Research, n.: Consider Columbus: He didn't know where he was going. When he got there he didn't know where he was. When he got back he didn't know where he had been. And he did it all on someone else's money.

Responsibility: Everyone says that having power is a great responsibility. This is a lot of bunk. Responsibility is when someone can blame you if something goes wrong. When you have power you are surrounded by people whose job it is to take the blame for your mistakes. If they're smart, that is.

— Cerebus, "On Governing"

Revolution, n.: A form of government abroad.

Revolution, n.: In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.

— Ambrose Bierce

revolutionary, adj.: Repackaged.

Rhode's Law: When any principle, law, tenet, probability, happening, circumstance, or result can in no way be directly, indirectly, empirically, or circuitously proven, derived, implied, inferred, induced, deducted, estimated, or scientifically guessed, it will always for the purpose of convenience, expediency, political advantage, material gain, or personal comfort, or any combination of the above, or none of the above, be unilaterally and unequivocally assumed, proclaimed, and adhered to as absolute truth to be undeniably, universally, immutably, and infinitely so, until such time as it becomes advantageous to assume otherwise, maybe.

Robot, n.: University administrator.

Robustness, adj.: Never having to say you're sorry.

Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention: Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will reject the proposal.

Rudd's Discovery: You know that any senator or congressman could go home and make $300,000 to $400,000, but they don't. Why? Because they can stay in Washington and make it there.

Rudin's Law: If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it every time. Rudin's Second Law: In a crisis that forces a choice to be made among alternative courses of action, people tend to choose the worst possible course.

rugged, adj.: Too heavy to lift.

Rule #1: The Boss is always right. Rule #2: If the Boss is wrong, see Rule #1.

Rule of Creative Research: (1) Never draw what you can copy. (2) Never copy what you can trace. (3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down.

Rule of Defactualization: Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.

Rule of Feline Frustration: When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom.

Rule of the Great: When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.

Rules for Academic Deans: (1) HIDE!!!! (2) If they find you, LIE!!!!

— Father Damian C. Fandal

Rules for driving in New York: (1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal. (2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers on. (3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the intersection.

Rules for Writers: Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. Don't use no double negatives. Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't. Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed. No sentence fragments. Avoid commas, that are unnecessary. Eschew dialect, irregardless. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. Hyphenate between sy-llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens. Write all adverbial forms correct. Don't use contractions in formal writing. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms. Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole. Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration. Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. "Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'"

Rune's Rule: If you don't care where you are, you ain't lost.

Ryan's Law: Make three correct guesses consecutively and you will establish yourself as an expert.

Satellite Safety Tip #14: If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck.

Sattinger's Law: It works better if you plug it in.

Savage's Law of Expediency: You want it bad, you'll get it bad.

scenario, n.: An imagined sequence of events that provides the context in which a business decision is made. Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case.

Schlattwhapper, n.: The window shade that allows itself to be pulled down, hesitates for a second, then snaps up in your face.

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Schmidt's Observation: All things being equal, a fat person uses more soap than a thin person.

Scott's First Law: No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right. Scott's Second Law: When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been wrong in the first place. Corollary: After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation.

scribline, n.: The blank area on the back of credit cards where one's signature goes.

— "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends

Second Law of Business Meetings: If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you will pick the wrong one. Corollary: If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it wrong, anyway.

Secretary's Revenge: Filing almost everything under "the".

Seleznick's Theory of Holistic Medicine: Ice Cream cures all ills. Temporarily.

Self Test for Paranoia: You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's your own fault.

Senate, n.: A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.

— Ambrose Bierce

senility, n.: The state of mind of elderly persons with whom one happens to disagree.

serendipity, n.: The process by which human knowledge is advanced.

Serocki's Stricture: Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.

Shannon's Observation: Nothing is so frustrating as a bad situation that is beginning to improve.

share, n.: To give in, endure humiliation.

Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

Shedenhelm's Law: All trails have more uphill sections than they have downhill sections.

Shick's Law: There is no problem a good miracle can't solve.

Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.

Simon's Law: Everything put together falls apart sooner or later.

Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you got, gives you the answer you should have gotten.

Slick's Three Laws of the Universe: (1) Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check. (2) A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat. (3) There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is attracted to dark objects.

Slous' Contention: If you do a job too well, you'll get stuck with it.

Slurm, n.: The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when it sits in the dish too long.

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Snacktrek, n.: The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have materialized.

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

snappy repartee: What you'd say if you had another chance.

Sodd's Second Law: Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur.

Software, n.: Formal evening attire for female computer analysts.

Some points to remember [about animals]: (1) Don't go to sleep under big animals, e.g., elephants, rhinoceri, hippopotamuses; (2) Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the front of your clothes; (3) Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or dogs you have just kicked.

— Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"

spagmumps, n.: Any of the millions of Styrofoam wads that accompany mail-order items.

— "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends

Speer's 1st Law of Proofreading: The visibility of an error is inversely proportional to the number of times you have looked at it.

Spence's Admonition: Never stow away on a kamikaze plane.

Spirtle, n.: The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in your eye.

— Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends"

Spouse, n.: Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single.

squatcho, n.: The button at the top of a baseball cap.

— "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends

standards, n.: The principles we use to reject other people's code.

statistics, n.: A system for expressing your political prejudices in convincing scientific guise.

Steckel's Rule to Success: Good enough is never good enough.

Steele's Law: There exist tasks which cannot be done by more than ten men or fewer than one hundred.

Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming: Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.

Stenderup's Law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you will have to catch up.

Stock's Observation: You no sooner get your head above water but what someone pulls your flippers off.

Stone's Law: One man's "simple" is another man's "huh?"

strategy, n.: A comprehensive plan of inaction.

Strategy: A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime after those creating it have left the organization.

Stult's Report: Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is fight the solutions.

Stupid, n.: Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay.

Sturgeon's Law: 90\% of everything is crud.

sugar daddy, n.: A man who can afford to raise cain.

SUN Microsystems: The Network IS the Load Average.

sunset, n.: Pronounced atmospheric scattering of shorter wavelengths, resulting in selective transmission below 650 nanometers with progressively reducing solar elevation.

sushi, n.: When that-which-may-still-be-alive is put on top of rice and strapped on with electrical tape.

Sushido, n.: The way of the tuna.

Swahili, n.: The language used by the National Enquirer to print their retractions.

— Johnny Hart

Sweater, n.: A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly.

Swipple's Rule of Order: He who shouts the loudest has the floor.

system-independent, adj.: Works equally poorly on all systems.

T-shirt Of The Day: I'm the person your mother warned you about.

T-shirt: Life is *not* a Cabaret, and stop calling me chum!

Tact, n.: The unsaid part of what you're thinking.

take forceful action: Do something that should have been done a long time ago.

tax office, n.: Den of inequity.

Taxes, n.: Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get an extension.

taxidermist, n.: A man who mounts animals.

TCP/IP Slang Glossary, #1: Gong, n: Medieval term for privy, or what pased for them in that era. Today used whimsically to describe the aftermath of a bogon attack. Think of our community as the Galapagos of the English language. "Vogons may read you bad poetry, but bogons make you study obsolete RFCs."

— Dave Mills

teamwork, n.: Having someone to blame.

Technicality, n.: In an English court a man named Home was tried for slander in having accused a neighbor of murder. His exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken his cook upon the head, so that one side of his head fell on one shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder." The defendant was acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges holding that the words did not charge murder, for they did not affirm the death of the cook, that being only an inference.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Telephone, n.: An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.

— Ambrose Bierce

telepression, n.: The deep-seated guilt which stems from knowing that you did not try hard enough to look up the number on your own and instead put the burden on the directory assistant.

— "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends

Teutonic: Not enough gin.

The 357.73 Theory: Auditors always reject expense accounts with a bottom line divisible by 5.

The Abrams' Principle: The shortest distance between two points is off the wall.

The Ancient Doctrine of Mind Over Matter: I don't mind... and you don't matter.

— As revealed to reporter G. Rivera by Swami Havabanana

The Beatles: Paul McCartney's old back-up band.

The Briggs-Chase Law of Program Development: To determine how long it will take to write and debug a program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and convert to the next higher units.

The Consultant's Curse: When the customer has beaten upon you long enough, give him what he asks for, instead of what he needs. This is very strong medicine, and is normally only required once.

The Fifth Rule: You have taken yourself too seriously.

The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet.

— Michael Jackson

The five rules of Socialism: (1) Don't think. (2) If you do think, don't speak. (3) If you think and speak, don't write. (4) If you think, speak and write, don't sign. (5) If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised.

— being told in Poland, 1987

The Following Subsume All Physical and Human Laws: (1) You can't push on a string. (2) Ain't no free lunches. (3) Them as has, gets. (4) You can't win them all, but you sure as hell can lose them all.

The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences: He who has the gold makes the rules.

The Gordian Maxim: If a string has one end, it has another.

The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog: The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in courtship, his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk clerks. Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods of time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog Eater.

— Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"

The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: You can never be sure how many beers you had last night.

The history of warfare is similarly subdivided, although here the phases are Retribution, Anticipation, and Diplomacy. Thus: Retribution: I'm going to kill you because you killed my brother. Anticipation: I'm going to kill you because I killed your brother. Diplomacy: I'm going to kill my brother and then kill you on the pretext that your brother did it.

The Illiterati Programus Canto 1: A program is a lot like a nose: Sometimes it runs, and sometimes it blows.

The Law of the Letter: The best way to inspire fresh thoughts is to seal the envelope.

The Marines: The few, the proud, the dead on the beach.

The Marines: The few, the proud, the not very bright.

The Modelski Chain Rule: (1) Look intently at the problem for several minutes. Scratch your head at 20-30 second intervals. Try solving the problem on your Hewlett-Packard. (2) Failing this, look around at the class. Select a particularly bright-looking individual. (3) Procure a large chain. (4) Walk over to the selected student and threaten to beat him severely with the chain unless he gives you the answer to the problem. Generally, he will. It may also be a good idea to give him a sound thrashing anyway, just to show you mean business.

The most dangerous organization in America today is: (a) The KKK (b) The American Nazi Party (c) The Delta Frequent Flyer Club

The Official MBA Handbook on business cards: Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate Planning."

The Official MBA Handbook on doing company business on an airplane: Do not work openly on top-secret company cost documents unless you have previously ascertained that the passenger next to you is blind, a rock musician on mood-ameliorating drugs, or the unfortunate possessor of a forty-seventh chromosome.

The Official MBA Handbook on the use of sunlamps: Use a sunlamp only on weekends. That way, if the office wise guy remarks on the sudden appearance of your tan, you can fabricate some story about a sun-stroked weekend at some island Shangri-La like Caneel Bay. Nothing is more transparent than leaving the office at 11:45 on a Tuesday night, only to return an Aztec sun god at 8:15 the next morning.

The Phone Booth Rule: A lone dime always gets the number nearly right.

The qotc (quote of the con) was Liz's: "My brain is paged out to my liver."

The real man's Bloody Mary: Ingredients: vodka, tomato juice, Tobasco, Worcestershire sauce, A-1 steak sauce, ice, salt, pepper, celery. Fill a large tumbler with vodka. Throw all the other ingredients away.

The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics: If you think things are in a mess now, just wait!

— Jim Warner

The Seventh Commandments for Technicians: Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in other ways.

The Sixth Commandment of Frisbee: The greatest single aid to distance is for the disc to be going in a direction you did not want. (Goes the wrong way = Goes a long way.)

— Dan Roddick

The Third Law of Photography: If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out.

The three biggest software lies: (1) *Of course* we'll give you a copy of the source. (2) *Of course* the third party vendor we bought that from will fix the microcode. (3) Beta test site? No, *of course* you're not a beta test site.

The three laws of thermodynamics: (1) You can't get anything without working for it. (2) The most you can accomplish by working is to break even. (3) You can only break even at absolute zero.

Theorem: a cat has nine tails. Proof: No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore, a cat has nine tails.

Theory of Selective Supervision: The one time in the day that you lean back and relax is the one time the boss walks through the office.

theory, n.: System of ideas meant to explain something, chosen with a view to originality, controversialism, incomprehensibility, and how good it will look in print.

There are three ways to get something done: (1) Do it yourself. (2) Hire someone to do it for you. (3) Forbid your kids to do it.

Those lovable Brits department: They also have trouble pronouncing `vitamin'.

Three rules for sounding like an expert: (1) Oversimplify your explanations to the point of uselessness. (2) Always point out second-order effects, but never point out when they can be ignored. (3) Come up with three rules of your own.

Thyme's Law: Everything goes wrong at once.

timesharing, n: An access method whereby one computer abuses many people.

Tip of the Day: Never fry bacon in the nude. [Correction: always fry bacon in the nude; you'll learn not to burn it]

TIPS FOR PERFORMERS: Playing cards have the top half upside-down to help cheaters. There are a finite number of jokes in the universe. Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music longer than they would ordinarily. There is no music in space. People will pay to watch people make sounds. Everything on stage should be larger than in real life.

today, n.: A nice place to visit, but you can't stay here for long.

Toni's Solution to a Guilt-Free Life: If you have to lie to someone, it's their fault.

transfer, n.: A promotion you receive on the condition that you leave town.

travel, n.: Something that makes you feel like you're getting somewhere.

"Trust me": Translation of the Latin "caveat emptor."

Truthful, adj.: Dumb and illiterate.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Tsort's Constant: 1.67563, or precisely 1,237.98712567 times the difference between the distance to the sun and the weight of a small orange.

— Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" (slightly modified)

Turnaucka's Law: The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord.

Tussman's Law: Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come.

U.S. of A.: "Don't speak to the bus driver." Germany: "It is strictly forbidden for passengers to speak to the driver." England: "You are requested to refrain from speaking to the driver." Scotland: "What have you got to gain by speaking to the driver?" Italy: "Don't answer the driver."

Udall's Fourth Law: Any change or reform you make is going to have consequences you don't like.

Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it.

Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics: Superiority is recessive.

understand, v.: To reach a point, in your investigation of some subject, at which you cease to examine what is really present, and operate on the basis of your own internal model instead.

unfair competition, n.: Selling cheaper than we do.

union, n.: A dues-paying club workers wield to strike management.

Universe, n.: The problem.

University, n.: Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to fix it, and ... [Okay, okay, I'll leave it in, but I think you're destroying the credibility of the entire fortune program. Ed.]

Unnamed Law: If it happens, it must be possible.

untold wealth, n.: What you left out on April 15th.

User n.: A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.

user, n.: The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot."

— Dave Barry, "Claw Your Way to the Top" [I always thought "computer professional" was the phrase hackers used when they m