General Wisdom

Put no trust in cryptic comments.

Put your Nose to the Grindstone!

— Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd.

Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand.

Q: Do you know what the death rate around here is? A: One per person.

Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat ? A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.

Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat? A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. Q: How long does it take? A: It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them. Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats? A: They replace your generator.

Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness.

Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb in San Francisco? A: Both of them.

Q: How many IBM cpu's does it take to do a logical right shift? A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register.

Q: How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job? A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.

Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10\% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20\% of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks".

Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a pulitzer prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb assassin to break the bulb in the first place.

Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: One and a half.

Q: How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: One. He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem to the earlier joke.

Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those Californians trying to share the experience.

Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.

Q: How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way.

Q: What's a light-year? A: One-third less calories than a regular year.

Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road? A: Because it was on the other side.

Q: Why do ducks have flat feet? A: To stamp out forest fires. Q: Why do elephants have flat feet? A: To stamp out flaming ducks.

Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together? A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home.

Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What should I do? A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on believing that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be the only one to make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No time to lose, so certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if somebody else has made the correction. And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're the only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have to inform the whole net right away!

— Brad Templeton, "Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette"

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.

Question: Man Invented Alcohol, God Invented Grass. Who do you trust?

Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened!

Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)

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

QUOTE OF THE DAY: `

"Qvid me anxivs svm?"

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.

Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.

Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something I saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of computer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport store. Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology? Remember how all the lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published? Are they taking no-fault insurance lying down? No way! But at the current rate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions on Information Theory" at the A&P checkout counters. Who's going to be impressed with us electrical engineers then? Are we, as the saying goes, giving away the store?

— Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President

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

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

— Dorothy Parker

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

— Mark Twain

Real computer scientists admire ADA for its overwhelming aesthetic value but they find it difficult to actually program in it, as it is much too large to implement. Most computer scientists don't notice this because they are still arguing over what else to add to ADA.

Real computer scientists despise the idea of actual hardware. Hardware has limitations, software doesn't. It's a real shame that Turing machines are so poor at I/O.

Real computer scientists don't comment their code. The identifiers are so long they can't afford the disk space.

Real computer scientists don't program in assembler. They don't write in anything less portable than a number two pencil.

Real computer scientists don't write code. They occasionally tinker with `programming systems', but those are so high level that they hardly count (and rarely count accurately; precision is for applications.)

Real computer scientists only write specs for languages that might run on future hardware. Nobody trusts them to write specs for anything homo sapiens will ever be able to fit on a single planet.

Real programmers disdain structured programming. Structured programming is for compulsive neurotics who were prematurely toilet- trained. They wear neckties and carefully line up pencils on otherwise clear desks.

Real programmers don't bring brown-bag lunches. If the vending machine doesn't sell it, they don't eat it. Vending machines don't sell quiche.

Real programmers don't comment their code. It was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.

Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how much good it did them.

Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of the machine room.

Real programmers don't write in BASIC. Actually, no programmers write in BASIC after reaching puberty.

Real programmers don't write in FORTRAN. FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies. FORTRAN is for wimp engineers who wear white socks.

Real Programmers don't write in PL/I. PL/I is for programmers who can't decide whether to write in COBOL or FORTRAN.

Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue.

Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use functions for scratch space after they are finished calling them?

Real software engineers don't debug programs, they verify correctness. This process doesn't necessarily involve execution of anything on a computer, except perhaps a Correctness Verification Aid package.

Real software engineers work from 9 to 5, because that is the way the job is described in the formal spec. Working late would feel like using an undocumented external procedure.

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

Real Users find the one combination of bizarre input values that shuts down the system for days.

Real Users hate Real Programmers.

Real Users know your home telephone number.

Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your program doesn't deliver it.

Real Users never use the Help key.

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.

Reality is a cop-out for people who can't handle drugs.

Reality is an obstacle to hallucination.

Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth?

— Patrick Sky

Reality is for people who lack imagination.

Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.

Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity.

— Alvy Ray Smith

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away".

— Philip K. Dick

"Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!"

Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than being flat broke and having a stomach ache.

— Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot"

Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose your job. These economic downturns are very difficult to predict, but sophisticated econometric modeling houses like Data Resources and Chase Econometrics have successfully predicted 14 of the last 3 recessions.

Reclaimer, spare that tree! Take not a single bit! It used to point to me, Now I'm protecting it. It was the reader's CONS That made it, paired by dot; Now, GC, for the nonce, Thou shalt reclaim it not.

"Reflections on Ice-Breaking" Candy Is dandy But liquor Is quicker.

— Ogden Nash

"Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised. "We're back in the universe again ..." An unusually long pause followed, "... but I don't know which part. We seem to have changed our position in space." A spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the starfield surrounding the ship. "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us," ZORAC announced after a short pause. "The designs are not familiar, but they are obviously the products of intelligence. Implications: we have been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown, and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown. Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious."

— James P. Hogan, "Giants Star"

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

Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.

— Anatole France

"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it."

— Dave Barry

Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Cleveland.

— National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"

Remember, drive defensively! And of course, the best defense is a good offense!

Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU.

Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.

— Dave Butler

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

Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

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"

REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system? SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying that the country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You can carry a pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away." I have no idea why the country folk say this. Maybe there's some kind of chemical pollutant in their drinking water. That is why I pledge to do all that I can to protect the environment of this great nation of ours, and put prayer back in the schools, where it belongs. What we need is jobs, not empty promises. I realize I'm risking my political career be being so outspoken on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but that's just the kind of straight-talking honest person I am, and I can't help it.

— Dave Barry, "On Presidential Politics"

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.

— Wernher von Braun

Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get another chance later on.

Review Questions (1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH, and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship? (2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week? (3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice?

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.

"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time."

— Steven Wright

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

Romeo wasn't bilked in a day.

— Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo"

ROMEO: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. MERCUTIO: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church- door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.

Rudin's Law: If there is a wrong way to do something, most people will do it every time.

Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London: Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall be liable to a fine of one pound. Any animal leading a blind person shall be deemed to be a cat.

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: (1) The boss is always right. (2) When the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21) You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People laugh at you a great deal.

San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was.

— Herb Caen

San Francisco, n.: Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse.

Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind.

— Mark Harrold

Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, He must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, Must be a pacifist. What's in that pipe that he's smoking?

— Arlo Guthrie

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.

Saturday night in Toledo Ohio, Is like being nowhere at all, All through the day how the hours rush by, You sit in the park and you watch the grass die.

— John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio"

Sauron is alive in Argentina!

Save energy: be apathetic.

Save the whales. Collect the whole set.

"Saw a sign on a restaurant that said Breakfast, any time -- so I ordered French Toast in the Renaissance.

— Steven Wright

SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!

— Ken Thompson

Schizophrenia beats being alone.

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"

Schnuffel, n.: A dog's practice of continuously nuzzling in your crotch in mixed company.

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Schwiggle, n.: The amusing rotation of one's bottom while sharpening a pencil.

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.

Scientists are people who build the Brooklyn Bridge and then buy it.

— William Buckley

SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21) You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered.

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.

Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it! Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock? Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table. Kirk: Then it's of external origin? Spock: Affirmative. Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two. Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.

Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else.

Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.

— Richard Nixon

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.

"Section 2.4.3.5 AWNS (Acceptor Wait for New Cycle State). In AWNS the AH function indicates that it has received a multiline message byte. In AWNS the RFD message must be sent false and the DAC message must be sent passive true. The AH function must exit the AWNS and enter: (1) The ANRS if DAV is false (2) The AIDS if the ATN message is false and neither: (a) The LADS is active (b) Nor LACS is active"

— from the IEEE Standard Digital Interface for Programmable Instrumentation

Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently scheming, Sightlessly seeking Some savage, spectacular suicide.

— Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"

"See - the thing is - I'm an absolutist. I mean, kind of ... in a way ..."

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

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

Seminars, n.: From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion.

Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would notify you if the record has pornographics material or material glorifying violence?" Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me." Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's legs on the album cover is good indication that it's not for little Johnny."

— The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985

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

— Ambrose Bierce

Serenity through viciousness.

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

Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence.

"Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have said `Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now." "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly. "Too proud?" the other enquired. Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," she said, "that one can't help growing older." "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."

— Lewis Carroll

Several years ago, some smart businessmen had an idea: Why not build a big store where a do-it-yourselfer could get everything he needed at reasonable prices? Then they decided, nah, the hell with that, let's build a home center. And before long home centers were springing up like crabgrass all over the United States.

— Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

Sex is a natural bodily process, like a stroke.

Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.

— Swami X

Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated.

— M. C. Reed.

Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.

— Woody Allen

Shamus, n. [Yiddish]: A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the temple, and makes sure everything is in working order. A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagog functionaries, and there's a joke about that: A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the middle of a service, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The cantor, not to be bested, also cries out, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, "Look who thinks he's nobody!"

— Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"

Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.

— Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every Teen Should Know"

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

"She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to."

— Gypsy Rose Lee

She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot.

— Mark Twain

She liked him; he was a man of many qualities, even if most of them were bad.

She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could have poured on a waffle ...

"She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing, you should hear me play piano.'"

— Morrisey

She's genuinely bogus.

"Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature."

— Samuel Johnson

SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT! POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE!

Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing golf with his boss.

Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change.

Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help.

— from the Brown Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet

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

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

Since I hurt my pendulum My life is all erratic. My parrot, who was cordial, Is now transmitting static. The carpet died, a palm collapsed, The cat keeps doing poo. The only thing that keeps me sane Is talking to my shoe.

— My Shoe

Since we have to speak well of the dead, let's knock them while they're alive.

— John Sloan

Since we're all here, we must not be all there.

— Bob "Mountain" Beck

[Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

— Winston Churchill

Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the Vulgate Bible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automatically excommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text. This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personally examined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the published Vulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to be printed and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wry comments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus had no recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy.

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

Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work.

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension: they were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.

— Frederick Douglass

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.

Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ...

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

— Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.

— Fletcher Knebel

Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.

— Fletcher Knebel

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"

So as your consumer electronics adviser, I am advising you to donate your current VCR to a grate resident, who will laugh sardonically and hurl it into a dumpster. Then I want you to go out and purchase a vast array of 8-millimeter video equipment. ... OK! Got everything? Well, *too bad, sucker*, because while you were gone the electronics industry came up with an even newer format that makes your 8-millimeter VCR look as technologically advanced as toenail dirt. This format is called "3.5 hectare" and it will not be made available until it is outmoded, sometime early next week, by a format called "Elroy", so *order yours now*.

— Dave Barry, "No Surrender in the Electronics Revolution"

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

— Bertrand Russell

... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrranize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

— Voltarine de Cleyre

So Richard and I decided to try to catch [the small shark]. With a great deal of strategy and effort and shouting, we managed to maneuver the shark, over the course of about a half-hour, to a sort of corner of the lagoon, so that it had no way to escape other than to flop up onto the land and evolve. Richard and I were inching toward it, sort of crouched over, when all of a sudden it turned around and -- I can still remember the sensation I felt at that moment, primarily in the armpit area -- headed right straight toward us. Many people would have panicked at this point. But Richard and I were not "many people." We were experienced waders, and we kept our heads. We did exactly what the textbook says you should do when you're unarmed and a shark that is nearly two feet long turns on you in water up to your lower calves: We sprinted I would say 600 yards in the opposite direction, using a sprinting style such that the bottoms of our feet never once went below the surface of the water. We ran all the way to the far shore, and if we had been in a Warner Brothers cartoon we would have run right INTO the beach, and you would have seen these two mounds of sand racing across the island until they bonked into trees and coconuts fell onto their heads.

— Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"

"So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops its head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots."

— Samuel Foote

... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks. Generally, their procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as to infest the waters. I would estimate that the primary food source of sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making documentaries. Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly listless. The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another documentary." So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking, under the guise of Scientific Research. "We know very little about the effect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeply scientific voice. "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White in the testicles with a cattle prod." The divers keep this kind of thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all along.

— Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"

So, what's with this guy Gideon, anyway? And why can't he ever remember his Bible?

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 don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit.

Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.

— Ed Howe

Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money and go to a mall.

— Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"

Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.

— Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"

Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have only one life to live, let me live it as a jerk."

Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them on the head.

Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic.

Some performers on television appear to be horrible people, but when you finally get to know them in person, they turn out to be even worse.

— Avery

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"

Some primal termite knocked on wood. And tasted it, and found it good. And that is why your Cousin May Fell through the parlor floor today.

— Ogden Nash

Some programming languages manage to absorb change but withstand progress.

Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.

— Epigrams in Programming, ACM SIGPLAN Sept. 1982

Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the pens will multiply instead of disappear.

Someone will try to honk your nose today.

"Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm the only ashtray."

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.

— Lily Tomlin