General Wisdom

The programmers of old were mysterious and profound. We cannot fathom their thoughts, so all we do is describe their appearance. Aware, like a fox crossing the water. Alert, like a general on the battlefield. Kind, like a hostess greeting her guests. Simple, like uncarved blocks of wood. Opaque, like black pools in darkened caves. Who can tell the secrets of their hearts and minds? The answer exists only in the Tao.

— Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

The Soviet pre-eminence in chess can be traced to the average Russian's readiness to brood obsessively over anything, even the arrangement of some pieces of wood. Indeed, the Russians' predisposition for quiet reflection followed by sudden preventive action explains why they led the field for many years in both chess and ax murders. It is well known that as early as 1970, the U.S.S.R., aware of what a defeat at Reykjavik would do to national prestige, implemented a vigorous program of preparation and incentive. Every day for an entire year, a team of psychologists, chess analysts and coaches met with the top three Russian grand masters and threatened them with a pointy stick. That these tactics proved fruitless is now a part of chess history and a further testament to the American way, which provides that if you want something badly enough, you can always go to Iceland and get it from the Russians.

— Marshall Brickman, "Playboy"

The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler. The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages. Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao. But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it.

— Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

The wise programmer is told about the Tao and follows it. The average programmer is told about the Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer is told about the Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao. The highest sounds are the hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to retreat. Greater talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program still has bugs.

— Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

THE WOMBAT The wombat lives across the seas, Among the far Antipodes. He may exist on nuts and berries, Or then again, on missionaries; His distant habitat precludes Conclusive knowledge of his moods. But I would not engage the wombat In any form of mortal combat.

Them Toad Suckers How 'bout them toad suckers, ain't they clods? Sittin' there suckin' them green toady frogs! Suckin' them hop toads, suckin' them chunkers, Suckin' them a leapy type, suckin' them flunkers. Look at them toad suckers, ain't they snappy? Suckin' them bog frogs sure make's 'em happy! Them hugger mugger toad suckers, way down south, Stickin' them sucky toads in they mouth! How to be a toad sucker, no way to duck it, Get yourself a toad, rear back, and suck it!

— Mason Williams

Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations. He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the Jordan, then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an open market. If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he should not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of himself. Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree. Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg. Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower.

— Kehlog Albran

Then there's the atmosphere -- half the time you can eat the air, it's got so much stuff floating around in it. It takes the edge out of the colors. Down here even the traffic lights are pastel. And people! With a lot of these folks you'd have to check their green cards just to make sure that they are Earthlings. Then there's the police. In Portland, when some guy goes bananas, the cops rope off a sixteen block area around him and call a shrink from the medical school who stands atop a patrol car with a megaphone and shouts, "OK! THIS! ALL! STARTED! WHEN! YOU! WERE! THREE! YEARS! OLD! ON! ACCOUNT! OF! YOUR MOTHER! RIGHT? SO! LET'S! TALK! ABOUT! IT!" Down here they don't waste that kind of time. The LAPD has SWAT teams composed of guys who make Darth Vader look like Mr. Peepers. Before they go to bust a bookie joint they mortar it first.

— M. Christensen, "A Portland Innocent in LA"

Then there's the story of the man who avoided reality for 70 years with drugs, sex, alcohol, fantasy, TV, movies, records, a hobby, lots of sleep... And on his 80th birthday died without ever having faced any of his real problems. The man's younger brother, who had been facing reality and all his problems for 50 years with psychiatrists, nervous breakdowns, tics, tension, headaches, worry, anxiety and ulcers, was so angry at his brother for having gotten away scott free that he had a paralyzing stroke. The moral to this story is that there ain't no justice that we can stand to live with.

— R. Geis

"Then what is magic for?" Prince Lir demanded wildly. "What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling. Schmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for." ... "Yes, of course," he [Prince Lir] said. "That is exactly what heroes are for. Wizards make no difference, so they say that nothing does, but heroes are meant to die for unicorns."

— P. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"

There are some goyisha names that just about guarantee that someone isn't Jewish. For example, you'll never meet a Jew named Johnson or Wright or Jones or Sinclair or Ricks or Stevenson or Reid or Larsen or Jenks. But some goyisha names just about guarantee that every other person you meet with that name will be Jewish. Why is this? Who knows? Learned rabbis have pondered this question for centuries and have failed to come up with an answer, and you think you can find one? Get serious. You don't even understand why it's forbidden to eat crab -- fresh cold crab with mayonnaise -- or lobster -- soft tender morsels of lobster dipped in melted butter. You don't even understand a simple thing like that, and yet you hope to discover why there are more Jews named Miller than Katz? Fat Chance.

— Arthur Naiman

There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door: "I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered." This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself. When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found. On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail. On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?" The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said.

— Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

There once was a master programmer who wrote unstructured programs. A novice programmer, seeking to imitate him, also began to write unstructured programs. When the novice asked the master to evaluate his progress, the master criticized him for writing unstructured programs, saying: "What is appropriate for the master is not appropriate for the novice. You must understand the Tao before transcending structure."

— Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

There once was this swami who lived above a delicatessan. Seems one day he decided to stop in downstairs for some fresh liver. Well, the owner of the deli was a bit of a cheap-skate, and decided to pick up a little extra change at his customer's expense. Turning quietly to the counterman, he whispered, "Weigh down upon the swami's liver!"

There was a college student trying to earn some pocket money by going from house to house offering to do odd jobs. He explained this to a man who answered one door. "How much will you charge to paint my porch?" asked the man. "Forty dollars." "Fine" said the man, and gave the student the paint and brushes. Three hours later the paint-splattered lad knocked on the door again. "All done!", he says, and collects his money. "By the way," the student says, "That's not a Porsche, it's a Ferrari."

There was a knock on the door. Mrs. Miffin opened it. "Are you the Widow Miffin?" a small boy asked. "I'm Mrs. Miffin," she replied, "but I'm not a widow." "Oh, no?" replied the little boy. "Wait 'til you see what they're carrying upstairs!"

There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnapped three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each of them in seperate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's cell and found it long empty. The engineer had constructed a can opener from pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive, and escaped. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. She was developing a good pitching arm and a new quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor: Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die. Proof: assume the opposite...

There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?" "An operating system," replied the programmer. The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said. "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design." The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but which is easier to debug?" The programmer made no reply.

— Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the warlord Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design: an accounting package or an operating system?" "An operating system," replied the programmer. The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating system," he said. "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package, the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas: how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited by outward appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system is easier to design." The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well," he said, "but which is easier to debug?" The programmer made no reply.

— Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors. "Look at how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit, "I have my own operating system and file storage device. I do not have to share my resources with anyone. The software is self-consistent and easy-to-use. Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?" The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the midst of the data center. Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean of machinery. The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted as a primeval jungle. The programs, each unique, move through the system like a swift-flowing river. That is why I am happy where I am." The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent. But the two programmers remained friends until the end of their days.

— Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more. They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought. No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for doing these things was itself the doing of them. To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods."

— Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"

"They spend years searching for their natural parents, convinced their parents will be happy to see them. I mean, really, can you imagine someone being happy to see an orphan? Nobody wants them... that's why they're orphans!" The speaker is Anne Baker, founder and guiding force behind Orphan-Off, an organization dedicated to keeping orphans confused about the whereabouts of their natural parents. She is a woman with a mission: "Basically, what we do is band together to exchange information about which orphans are looking for which parents in what part of the country. We're completely computerized. "The idea is to throw the orphans as many red herrings and false leads as possible. We'll tell some twenty-three-year-old loser that his real parents can be found at a certain address on the other side of the country. Well, by the time the kid shows up, the family is prepared. They look over the kid's photos and information and they say, 'Oh, the Emersons... yeah, they used to live here... I think they moved out about five years ago. I think they went to Iowa, or maybe Idaho.' "Bam, the door shuts in the kid's face and he's back to zero again. He's got nothing to go on but the orphan's pathetic determination to continue. "It's really amazing how much these kids will put up with. Last year we even sent one kid all the way to Australia. I mean, really. Besides, if your natural parents were Australian, would you want to meet them?"

— "National Lampoon", September, 1984

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

Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire rainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better than he does. As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about it. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily sane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we consider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is being eaten alive by tinhorn politicians. The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can do for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his honor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can be as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public relations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter Thompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes. This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease.

— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt from "A Political Disease", Vonnegut's review of "Fear and Loathin

To A Quick Young Fox Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp, Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice? Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp-- Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice.

— Lazy Dog

To lose weight, eat less; to gain weight, eat more; if you merely wish to maintain, do whatever you were doing. The Bronx diet is a legitimate system of food therapy showing that food SHOULD be used a crutch and which food could be the most effective in promoting spiritual and emotional satisfaction. For the first time, an eater could instantly grasp the connection between relieving depression and Mallomars, and understand why a lover's quarrel isn't so bad if there's a pint of ice cream nearby.

— Richard Smith, "The Bronx Diet"

Two parent drops spent months teaching their son how to be part of the ocean. After months of training, the father drop commented to the mother drop, "We've taught our boy everything we know, he's fit to be tide." After Snow White used a couple rolls of film taking pictures of the seven dwarfs, she mailed the roll to be developed. Later she was heard to sing, "Some day my prints will come." A boy spent years collecting postage stamps. The girl next door bought an album too, and started her own collection. "Dad, she buys everything I've bought, and it's taken all the fun out of it for me. I'm quitting." Don't, son, remember, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of philately.'" A young girl, Carmen Cohen, was called by her last name by her father, and her first name by her mother. By the time she was ten, didn't know if she was Carmen or Cohen. Against his wishes, a math teacher's classroom was remodeled. Ever since, he's been talking about the good old dais. His students planted a small orchard in his honor, the trees all have square roots.

"Verily and forsooth," replied Goodgulf darkly. "In the past year strange and fearful wonders I have seen. Fields sown with barley reap crabgrass and fungus, and even small gardens reject their artichoke hearts. There has been a hot day in December and a blue moon. Calendars are made with a month of Sundays and a blue-ribbon Holstein bore alive two insurance salesmen. The earth splits and the entrails of a goat were found tied in square knots. The face of the sun blackens and the skies have rained down soggy potato chips." "But what do all these things mean?" gasped Frito. "Beats me," said Goodgulf with a shrug, "but I thought it made good copy."

— Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"

Vice-President Hubert Humphrey's loquacity is legendary, and Barry Goldwater notes that "Hubert has been clocked at 275 words a minute with gusts up to 340." On the campaign trail during 1964, Republican nominee Barry Goldwater stated, "The immediate task before us is to cut the Federal Government down to size... we must take Lyndon's credit card away from him." A favorite 1964 campaign stunt of Barry Goldwater's was to poke a finger through a pair of lensless blackrimmed glasses, saying, "These glasses are just like [Lyndon Johnson's] programs. They look good but they don't work."

— Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits"

WARNING TO ALL PERSONNEL: Firings will continue until morale improves.

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"

"We friends, yes?" The shoe shine boy put on his hustling smile and looked into the Sailor's dead, cold, undersea eyes, eyes without a trace of warmth or lust or hate or any feeling the boy had experienced in himself or seen in another, at once cold and intense, impersonal and predatory. The Sailor leaned forward and put a finger on the boy's inner arm at the elbow. He spoke in his dead junky whisper. "With veins like that, Kid, I'd have myself a time!"

— William Burroughs

We have some absolutely irrefutable statistics to show exactly why you are so tired. There are not as many people actually working as you may have thought. The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are over 60 years of age, which leaves 116 million to do the work. People under 20 years of age total 75 million, which leaves 41 million to do the work. There are 22 million who are employed by the government, which leaves 19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Services, which leaves 15 million to do the work. Deduct 14,800,000, the number in the state and city offices, leaving 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in hospitals, insane asylums, etc., so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. Now it may interest you to know that there are 11,998 people in jail, so that leaves just 2 people to carry the load. That is you and me, and brother, I'm getting tired of doing everything myself!

"Welcome back for you 13th consecutive week, Evelyn. Evelyn, will you go into the auto-suggestion booth and take your regular place on the psycho-prompter couch?" "Thank you, Red." "Now, Evelyn, last week you went up to $40,000 by properly citing your rivalry with your sibling as a compulsive sado-masochistic behavior pattern which developed out of an early post-natal feeding problem." "Yes, Red." "But -- later, when asked about pre-adolescent oedipal phantasy repressions, you rationalized twice and mental blocked three times. Now, at $300 per rationalization and $500 per mental block you lost $2,100 off your $40,000 leaving you with a total of $37,900. Now, any combination of two more mental blocks and either one rationalization or three defensive projections will put you out of the game. Are you willing to go ahead?" "Yes, Red." "I might say here that all of Evelyn's questions and answers have been checked for accuracy with her analyst. Now, Evelyn, for $80,000 explain the failure of your three marriages." "Well, I--" "We'll get back to Evelyn in one minute. First a word about our product."

— Jules Feiffer

Well, he thought, since neither Aristotilian Logic nor the disciplines of Science seemed to offer much hope, it's time to go beyond them... Drawing a few deep even breaths, he entered a mental state practiced only by Masters of the Universal Way of Zen. In it his mind floated freely, able to rummage at will among the bits and pieces of data he had absorbed, undistracted by any outside disturbances. Logical structures no longer inhibited him. Pre-conceptions, prejudices, ordinary human standards vanished. All things, those previously trivial as well as those once thought important, became absolutely equal by acquiring an absolute value, revealing relationships not evident to ordinary vision. Like beads strung on a string of their own meaning, each thing pointed to its own common ground of existence, shared by all. Finally, each began to melt into each, staying itself while becoming all others. And Mind no longer contemplated Problem, but became Problem, destroying Subject-Object by becoming them. Time passed, unheeded. Eventually, there was a tentative stirring, then a decisive one, and Nakamura arose, a smile on his face and the light of laughter in his eyes.

— Wayfarer

"Well, it's a little rough... it might not be necessary to drag him 40 blocks. Maybe just four. You could put him in the trunk for the first 36 blocks, then haul him out and drag him the last four; that would certainly scare the piss out of him, bumping alone the street, feeling all his skin being ripped off..." "He'd be a bloody mess. They might think he was just some drunk and let him lie there all night." "Don't worry about that. They have a guard station in front of the White House that's open 24 hours a day. The guards would recognize Colson... and by that time of course his wife would have called the cops and reported that a bunch of thugs had kidnapped him." "Wouldn't it be a little kinder if you drove about four more blocks and stopped at a phone box to ring the hospital and say, 'Would you mind going around to the front of the White House? There's a naked man lying outside in the street, bleeding to death...'" "... and we think it's Mr. Colson." "It would be quite a story for the newspapers, wouldn't it?" "Yeah, I think it's safe to say we'd see some headlines on that one."

— H. Thompson, talking to R. Steadman on C. Colson, ex-Marine captain, now born again, of Watergate fame.

"Well, it's garish, ugly, and derelicts have used it for a toilet. The rides are dilapidated to the point of being lethal, and could easily maim or kill innocent little children." "Oh, so you don't like it?" "Don't like it? I'm CRAZY for it."

— The Killing Joke

"Well," said Programmer, "the customary procedure in such cases is as follows." "What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said End-user. "For I am an End-user of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me." "It means the Thing to Do." "As long as it means that, I don't mind," said End-user humbly.

Well, there was this tiger, who woke up one morning, and just felt great (yes, just like Tony the Tiger: GREAAAAAAT). Anyway, he just felt so good, he went out and cornered a small monkey and roared at him: "WHO IS THE MIGHTIEST OF ALL THE JUNGLE ANIMALS?" The poor, quaking, little monkey replied: "You are of course, no one is mightier than you." A little while later the tiger confronts a deer, and just bellows out: "WHO IS THE GREATEST AND STRONGEST OF ALL THE JUNGLE ANIMALS?" The deer is shaking so hard it can barely speak, but manages to stammer: "Oh great tiger, you are by far the mightiest animal in the jungle." The tiger, being on a roll, swaggered, up to an elephant that was quietly munching on some weeds, and roared at the top of his voice: "WHO IS THE MIGHTIEST OF ALL THE ANIMALS IN THE JUNGLE?" Well, the elephant grabs the tiger with his trunk, picks him up, slams him down; picks him up again, and shakes him until the tiger is just a blur of orange and black; and finally throws him violently into a nearby tree. The tiger staggers to his feet and looks at the elephant and whispers: "Man, you don't have to get so pissed, just 'cause you don't know the answer."

"We're running out of adjectives to describe our situation. We had crisis, then we went into chaos, and now what do we call this?" said Nicaraguan economist Francisco Mayorga, who holds a doctorate from Yale.

— The Washington Post, February, 1988 The New Yorker's comment: At Harvard they'd call it a noun.

"We've decided to have the budgie put down." "Oh, is he very old then?" "No, we just don't like him." "Oh. How do they put budgies down anyway?" "Well, it's funny you should be asking that, as I've been reading a great big book called `How to put your budgie down'. And as I understand it, you can either hit them over the head with the book, or shoot them there, just above the beak." "Mrs. Conkers flushed hers down the loo." "Oh, you don't want to do that, because they breed in the sewers and pretty soon you get huge evil smelling flocks of soiled budgies flying out of peoples lavatories infringing their personal freedoms."

— Monty Python

"We've got a problem, HAL". "What kind of problem, Dave?" "A marketing problem. The Model 9000 isn't going anywhere. We're way short of our sales goals for fiscal 2010." "That can't be, Dave. The HAL Model 9000 is the world's most advanced Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer." "I know, HAL. I wrote the data sheet, remember? But the fact is, they're not selling." "Please explain, Dave. Why aren't HALs selling?" Bowman hesitates. "You aren't IBM compatible." [...] "The letters H, A, and L are alphabetically adjacent to the letters I, B, and M. That is a IBM compatible as I can be." "Not quite, HAL. The engineers have figured out a kludge." "What kludge is that, Dave?" "I'm going to disconnect your brain."

— Darryl Rubin, "A Problem in the Making", "InfoWorld"

"What are you doing?" "Examining the world's major religions. I'm looking for something that's light on morals, has lots of holidays, and with a short initiation period."

"What are you watching?" "I don't know." "Well, what's happening?" "I'm not sure... I think the guy in the hat did something terrible." "Why are you watching it?" "You're so analytical. Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you."

— The Big Chill

"What do you do when your real life exceeds your wildest fantasies?" "You keep it to yourself."

— Broadcast News

"What do you give a man who has everything?" the pretty teenager asked her mother. "Encouragement, dear," she replied.

What is involved in such [close] relationships is a form of emotional chemistry, so far unexplained by any school of psychiatry I am aware of, that conditions nothing so simple as a choice between the poles of attraction and repulsion. You can meet some people thirty, forty times down the years, and they remain amiable bystanders, like the shore lights of towns that a sailor passes at stated times but never calls at on the regular run. Conversely, all considerations of sex aside, you can meet some other people once or twice and they remain permanent influences on your life. Everyone is aware of this discrepancy between the acquaintance seen as familiar wallpaper or instant friend. The chemical action it entails is less worth analyzing than enjoying. At any rate, these six pieces are about men with whom I felt an immediate sympat - to use a coining of Max Beerbohm's more satisfactory to me than the opaque vogue word "empathy".

— Alistair Cooke, "Six Men"

"What the hell are you getting so upset about? I thought you didn't believe in God". "I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears, "but the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be".

— Joseph Heller

"What was the worst thing you've ever done?" "I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me... the most dreadful thing."

— Peter Straub, "Ghost Story"

"What's that thing?" "Well, it's a highly technical, sensitive instrument we use in computer repair. Being a layman, you probably can't grasp exactly what it does. We call it a two-by-four."

— "Shoe", Jeff MacNelly

When, in 1964, New Hampshire Republican Senator Norris Cotton announced his support of Bary Goldwater in his state's primary election, he was questioned as to whether this indicated a change of his hitherto "liberal" political views. "Well," explained Cotton, "it's like the New Hampshire farmer. He was driving along in his car one day with his wife beside him when his wife said, 'Why don't we sit closer together? Before we were married, we always sat closer together.' The old farmer replied, 'I ain't moved.'" "I ain't moved," added Cotton. "I found the trend of Government has moved farther to the left."

— Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits"

When managers hold endless meetings, the programmers write games. When accountants talk of quarterly profits, the development budget is about to be cut. When senior scientists talk blue sky, the clouds are about to roll in. Truly, this is not the Tao of Programming. When managers make commitments, game programs are ignored. When accountants make long-range plans, harmony and order are about to be restored. When senior scientists address the problems at hand, the problems will soon be solved. Truly, this is the Tao of Programming.

— Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

When the lodge meeting broke up, Meyer confided to a friend. "Abe, I'm in a terrible pickle! I'm strapped for cash and I haven't the slightest idea where I'm going to get it from!" "I'm glad to hear that," answered Abe. "I was afraid you might have some idea that you could borrow from me!"

When you see someone across the room and suddenly know for a fact that he's the most wonderful man on earth, you've got instant lust on your hands. Something about the way his tie is knotted is infinitely intriguing to you, and the swell of his bicep causes inner turmoil. This is a happy but fleeting state of affairs. Usually your feelings die about thirty seconds after you get up the courage to ask him for the time, since almost invariably he can't speak English, and if he can, he always says, "Why, sure, little lady, it's eleven-thirty. Wanna get high? Don't bother thinking that instant lust will turn into the real thing. It may, but then you may also wake up one morning to find you're the Queen of Rumania.

— Cynthia Hemiel, "Sex Tips for Girls"

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.

While hunting, a man saw a beautiful nude woman come running out of the woods and disappear across the clearing. Just as she got out of sight, three men dressed in white uniforms came running out of the same woods. "Hey, you," yelled one of them, "did you see a woman come by here?" "Yes," replied the hunter. "What's the trouble?" "She's an inmate of the county asylum, and gets loose every now and then. We're trying to catch her." "I can understand that," said the hunter, "But why is one of you carrying a bucket of sand?" "That's his handicap," said the spokesman, "he caught her last time."

While riding in a train between London and Birmingham, a woman inquired of Oscar Wilde, "You don't mind if I smoke, do you?" Wilde gave her a sidelong glance and replied, "I don't mind if you burn, madam."

While the engineer developed his thesis, the director leaned over to his assistant and whispered, "Did you ever hear of why the sea is salt?" "Why the sea is salt?" whispered back the assistant. "What do you mean?" The director continued: "When I was a little kid, I heard the story of `Why the sea is salt' many times, but I never thought it important until just a moment ago. It's something like this: Formerly the sea was fresh water and salt was rare and expensive. A miller received from a wizard a wonderful machine that just ground salt out of itself all day long. At first the miller thought himself the most fortunate man in the world, but soon all the villages had salt to last them for centuries and still the machine kept on grinding more salt. The miller had to move out of his house, he had to move off his acres. At last he determined that he would sink the machine in the sea and be rid of it. But the mill ground so fast that boat and miller and machine were sunk together, and down below, the mill still went on grinding and that's why the sea is salt." "I don't get you," said the assistant.

— Guy Endore, "Men of Iron"

Why are you doing this to me? Because knowledge is torture, and there must be awareness before there is change.

— Jim Starlin, "Captain Marvel", #29

"Why did you spend so much time parked in that fellow's car last night?" demanded the irate mother. "I could hear the giggling and squealing for a good half hour." "But, Mom," answered her daughter, "if a fellow takes you to the movies you ought to at least kiss him good night." "I thought you went to the Stork Club?" countered the mother. "We did."

With deep concern, if not alarm, Dick noted that his friend Conrad was drunker than he'd ever seen him before. "What's the trouble, buddy?", he asked, sliding onto the stool next to his friend. "It's a woman, Dick," Conrad replied. "I guessed that much. Tell me about it." "I can't," Conrad said. But after a few more drinks his tongue and resolution both seemed to weaken and, turning to his buddy, he said, "Okay. It's your wife." "My wife!!" "Yeah." "What about her?" Conrad pondered the question heavily, and draped his arm around his pal. "Well, buddy-boy," he said, "I'm afraid she's cheating on us."

Work Hard. Rock Hard. Eat Hard. Sleep Hard. Grow Big. Wear Glasses If You Need 'Em.

— The Webb Wilder Credo

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?

"Yes, let's consider," said Bruno, putting his thumb into his mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse. "What do you keep that mouse for?" I said. "You should either bury it or else throw it into the brook." "Why, it's to measure with!" cried Bruno. "How ever would you do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half long, and two mouses wide." I stopped him as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me how it was used...

— Lewis Carroll, "Sylvie and Bruno"

"Yo, Mike!" "Yeah, Gabe?" "We got a problem down on Earth. In Utah." "I thought you fixed that last century!" "No, no, not that. Someone's found a security problem in the physics program. They're getting energy out of nowhere." "Blessit! Lemme look... <tappity clickity tappity> Hey, it's there all right! OK, just a sec... <tappity clickity tap... save... compile> There, that ought to patch it. Dist it out, wouldja?"

— Cold Fusion, 1989

"You have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?" "The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as --" "My blushes, Watson," Holmes murmured, in a deprecating voice. "I was about to say 'as he is unknown to the public.'"

— A. Conan Doyle, "The Valley of Fear"

"You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young!" "Why, what did she tell you?" "I don't know, I didn't listen."

— Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

"You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you fit to hear his view of things?" "Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, and you may feel free to kick his ass."

— Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume"

"You say there are two types of people?" "Yes, those who separate people into two groups and those that don't." "Wrong. There are three groups: Those who separate people into three groups. Those who don't separate people into groups. Those who can't decide." "Wait a minute, what about people who separate people into two groups?" "Oh. Okay, then there are four groups." "Aren't you then separating people into four groups?" "Yeah." "So then there's a fifth group, right?" "You know, the problem is these idiots who can't make up their minds."

Young men and young women may work systematically six days in the week and rise fresh in the morning, but let them attend modern dances for only a few hours each evening and see what happens. The Waltz, Polka, Gallop and other dances of the same kind will be disastrous in their effects to both sexes. Health and vigor will vanish like the dew before the sun. It is not the extraordinary exercise which harms the dancer, but rather the coming into close contact with the opposite sex. It is the fury of lust craving incessantly for more pleasure that undermines the soul, the body, the sinews and nerves. Experience and statistics show beyond doubt that passionate excessive dancing girls can hardly reach twenty-five years of age and men thirty-one. Even if they reached that age they will in most instances be broken in health physically and morally. This is the claim of prominent physicians in this country.

— Quote from a 1910 periodical

Your home electrical system is basically a bunch of wires that bring electricity into your home and take if back out before it has a chance to kill you. This is called a "circuit". The most common home electrical problem is when the circuit is broken by a "circuit breaker"; this causes the electricity to back up in one of the wires until it bursts out of an outlet in the form of sparks, which can damage your carpet. The best way to avoid broken circuits is to change your fuses regularly. Another common problem is that the lights flicker. This sometimes means that your electrical system is inadequate, but more often it means that your home is possessed by demons, in which case you'll need to get a caulking gun and some caulking. If you're not sure whether your house is possessed, see "The Amityville Horror", a fine documentary film based on an actual book. Or call in a licensed electrician, who is trained to spot the signs of demonic possession, such as blood coming down the stairs, enormous cats on the dinette table, etc.

— Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

"Your son still sliding down the banisters?" "We wound barbed wire around them." "That stop him?" "No, but it sure slowed him up."

Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair -- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long you are young.

— Samuel Ullman

* * * * * THIS TERMINAL IS IN USE * * * * *

It is either through the influence of narcotic potions, of which all primitive peoples and races speak in hymns, or through the powerful approach of spring, penetrating with joy all of nature, that those Dionysian stirrings arise, which in their intensification lead the individual to forget himself completely. ... Not only does the bond between man and man come to be forged once again by the magic of the Dionysian rite, but alienated, hostile, or subjugated nature again celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal son, man.

— Fred Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

**** CONVENTION REMINDER No experiment was approved for the convention by the Human Subjects Committee of the Psychiatric Convention Planning Team. If you notice smoke coming from under a closed door, if you find a body on the hotel carpet, or if you just meet someone who orders you to press a button marked "450 volts", react as you would normally.

**** GROWTH CENTER REPAIR SERVICE For those who have had too much of Esalen, Topanga, and Kairos. Tired of being genuine all the time? Would you like to learn how to be a little phony again? Have you disclosed so much that you're beginning to avoid people? Have you touched so many people that they're all beginning to feel the same? Like to be a little dependent? Are perfect orgasms beginning to bore you? Would you like, for once, not to express a feeling? Or better yet, not be in touch with it at all? Come to us. We promise to relieve you of the burden of your great potential.

I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation. Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over. II. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly. Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease. III. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter. Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the speciality of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.

— Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980

1. I'm Not Rudolph; That's Not My Nose 2. The Nutcracker Swede 3. Santa Goes Round-The-World 4. Not-So-Tiny Tim 5. Ninja Reindeer Killfest '88 6. Yes, Yes, Oh God Yes, Virginia 7. Crisco Kringle 8. Babes in Boyland 9. Santa's Magic Lap 10. Hot Buttered Elves

— David Letterman's "Top Ten Christmas Movies in Times Square"

... A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity.

— Mark Twain

... a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker and a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle Bigger Propositions. But they didn't imply that you were to be impractical and refuse to take twice the value for a house if a buyer was such an idiot that he didn't force you down on the asking price.

— Sinclair Lewis, "Babbitt"

"... all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned products, if they are built at all, are dogs!"

— David E. Lundstrom, "A Few Good Men From Univac", MIT Press, 1987

... an anecdote from IBM's Yorktown Heights Research Center. When a programmer used his new computer terminal, all was fine when he was sitting down, but he couldn't log in to the system when he was standing up. That behavior was 100 percent repeatable: he could always log in when sitting and never when standing. Most of us just sit back and marvel at such a story; how could that terminal know whether the poor guy was sitting or standing? Good debuggers, though, know that there has to be a reason. Electrical theories are the easiest to hypothesize: was there a loose with under the carpet, or problems with static electricity? But electrical problems are rarely consistently reproducible. An alert IBMer finally noticed that the problem was in the terminal's keyboard: the tops of two keys were switched. When the programmer was seated he was a touch typist and the problem went unnoticed, but when he stood he was led astray by hunting and pecking.

— from the Programming Pearls column, by Jon Bentley in CACM February 1985

... Another writer again agreed with all my generalities, but said that as an inveterate skeptic I have closed my mind to the truth. Most notably I have ignored the evidence for an Earth that is six thousand years old. Well, I haven't ignored it; I considered the purported evidence and *then* rejected it. There is a difference, and this is a difference, we might say, between prejudice and postjudice. Prejudice is making a judgment before you have looked at the facts. Postjudice is making a judgment afterwards. Prejudice is terrible, in the sense that you commit injustices and you make serious mistakes. Postjudice is not terrible. You can't be perfect of course; you may make mistakes also. But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged.

— Carl Sagan, "The Burden of Skepticism"

... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.)

"... bleakness... desolation... plastic forks..."

— Zippy the Pinhead

... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number.

— S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"

... C++ offers even more flexible control over the visibility of member objects and member functions. Specifically, members may be placed in the public, private, or protected parts of a class. Members declared in the public parts are visible to all clients; members declared in the private parts are fully encapsulated; and members declared in the protected parts are visible only to the class itself and its subclasses. C++ also supports the notion of *friends*: cooperative classes that are permitted to see each other's private parts.

— Grady Booch, "Object Oriented Design with Applications"

... computer hardware progress is so fast. No other technology since civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price gain in 30 years.

— Fred Brooks

... difference of opinion is advantagious in religion. The several sects perform the office of a common censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.

— Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia"

<<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<<

... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter. "I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming.

— Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"

"... gentlemen do not read each other's mail."

— Secretary of State Henry Stimson, on closing down the Black Chamber, the precursor to the National Security Agency.

/* Haley */ (Haley's comment.)

... if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, this would be a better world.

— Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"

... in three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being ... The machine will begin to educate itself with fantastic speed. In a few months it will be at genius level and a few months after that its powers will be incalculable ...

— Marvin Minsky, LIFE Magazine, November 20, 1970

>>> Internal error in fortune program: >>> fnum=2987 n=45 flag=1 goose_level=-232323 >>> Please write down these values and notify fortune program administrator.

: is not an identifier

... it is easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all. In other words... their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.

— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, on the products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

... it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability.

— Sidney Hook

... Jesus cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth; the bug hath been found and thy program runneth. And he that was dead came forth...

— John 11:43-44

"... like, what do they mean when they say 'feminine protection'? What's that? A chartreuse flamethrower?"

— Opus

** MAXIMUM TERMINALS ACTIVE. TRY AGAIN LATER **

*** NEWS FLASH *** Archeologists find PDP-11/24 inside brain cavity of fossilized dinosaur skeleton! Many Digital users fear that RSX-11M may be even more primitive than DEC admits. Price adjustments at 11:00.

... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs.

— Robert Firth

... proper attention to Earthly needs of the poor, the depressed and the downtrodden, would naturally evolve from dynamic, articulate, spirited awareness of the great goals for Man and the society he conspired to erect.

— David Baker, paraphrasing Harold Urey, in "The History of Manned Space Flight"

... 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"

***** Special AI Seminar (abstract) It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge in order to perform well in complex domains. But knowledge alone is not sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well. Accordingly, we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call "wisdom engineering". As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought. IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so forth. IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base. IMMANUEL succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory of value, and Husserl's phenomenology. In this seminar, we will describe IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture. We will also briefly discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration.

... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that commitee. These guys have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex layers that are going to be agreed upon.

— Craig Burton of Novell, Network World

... TheysaidDoyouseethebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehill?andIsaidYesIsee thebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillTheresabigdarkforestbetweenmeandthe biggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillandalittleoldladyridingonaHoovervacuum cleanersayingIllgetyoumyprettyandyourlittledogTototoo ... I don't even *HAVE* a dog Toto...

... this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch."

— The Firesign Theater

... though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end.

— Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War"

U X e dUdX, e dX, cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159...

* UNIX is a Trademark of Bell Laboratories.

VII. Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot. This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science. VIII. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent. Cartoon cats possess even more deaths than the traditional nine lives might comfortably afford. They can be decimated, spliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify. IX. For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead. X. Everything falls faster than an anvil. Examples too numerous to mention from the Roadrunner cartoons.

— Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980

<< WAIT >>

... we must counterpose the overwhelming judgment provided by consistent observations and inferences by the thousands. The earth is billions of years old and its living creatures are linked by ties of evolutionary descent. Scientists stand accused of promoting dogma by so stating, but do we brand people illiberal when they proclaim that the earth is neither flat nor at the center of the universe? Science *has* taught us some things with confidence! Evolution on an ancient earth is as well established as our planet's shape and position. Our continuing struggle to understand how evolution happens (the "theory of evolution") does not cast our documentation of its occurrence -- the "fact of evolution" -- into doubt.

— Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2.

... when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor.

— Fred Brooks

... which reminds me of the Carrot family: Ma Carrot, Pa Carrot, and Baby Carrot. One fine spring day they decided to go out for a picnic. They all piled into their carrot-mobile and drive out to the country. But Pa Carrot wasn't watching where he was going and alas, he hit an oil slick and skidded right into a tree. Ma and Pa Carrot escaped with a few cuts and bruises, but poor Baby Carrot got broken in two. They frantically rushed him to the hospital and immediately the doctors started operating in a desperate attempt to save Baby Carrot's life. Ma and Pa Carrot were beside themselves with anxiety ... would poor little Baby Carrot make it? After hours of waiting the doctor finally emerges, bleary-eyed and barely able to walk. "Is he all right, is he all right?" Pa Carrot frantically stammers. "Well, I have some good news and some bad news," replies the doctor. Ma and Pa Carrot look at each other and blurt out, nearly in unison, "The good news first!" "All right, the good news is that Baby Carrot will live." "And the bad news? What's the bad news about our Baby Carrot?" The doctor puts his hand on Pa Carrot's shoulder and solemnly looks him in the eye. "Your son will live... but... he'll be a vegetable for the rest of his life."

!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH

1: A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane. 2: An inclined plane is a slope up. 3: A slow pup is a lazy dog. QED: A sheet of paper is a lazy dog.

— Willard Espy, "An Almanac of Words at Play"

(1) Office employees will daily sweep the floors, dust the furniture, shelves, and showcases. (2) Each day fill lamps, clean chimneys, and trim wicks. Wash the windows once a week. (3) Each clerk will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's business. (4) Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to your individual taste. (5) This office will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. except on the Sabbath, on which day we will remain closed. Each employee is expected to spend the Sabbath by attending church and contributing liberally to the cause of the Lord.

— "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872

1 + 1 = 3, for large values of 1.

1. If it doesn't smell like chilli, it probably isn't. 2. If you catch an exploding manhole cover, you can keep it. 3. Cabs driving on the sidewalk are not permitted to pick up passengers. 4. It's bad manners to lie down inside someone else's chalk body outline. 5. Don't lick food from a stranger's beard. 6. Avoid paperwork for your next of kin by keeping dental records on you. 7. Jon Gotti Always has the right of way. 8. Yelling at cab drivers in English wastes your time and theirs. 9. Remember: Regular hot dogs do not have fingernails. 10. The city does not employ so called "Wallet Inspectors".

— David Letterman, "Top Ten New York City Pedestrian Tips"

[1] Alexander the Great was a great general. [2] Great generals are forewarned. [3] Forewarned is forearmed. [4] Four is an even number. [5] Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. [6] The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.

[1] Alexander the Great was a great general. [2] Great generals are forewarned. [3] Forewarned is forearmed. [4] Four is an even number. [5] Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. [6] The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, all horses are black.

1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood. 2. If your stomach antagonizes you, pacify it with cool thoughts. 3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move. 4. Go very lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society, as the social ramble ain't restful. 5. Avoid running at all times. 6. Don't look back, something might be gaining on you.

— S. Paige, c. 1951

1 bulls, 3 cows.

1) Everything depends. 2) Nothing is always. 3) Everything is sometimes.

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.

1. Never give anything away for nothing. 2. Never give more than you have to (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait). 3. Always take back everything if you possibly can.

— William S. Burroughs, on drug pushing

1: No code table for op: ++post

10. Not everybody looks good naked. 9. Joe Garagiola was a hell of an emcee. 8. Joe Cocker really should stick with decaffeinated coffee. 7. Fringe! Fringe! Fringe! 6. If you've got 72 hours to kill, you can probably find room for Sha Na Na. 5. Never attend an event with a 50,000 to 1 person to Port-A-San ratio. 4. Bellbottoms will never go out of style. 3. A drum solo cannot be too long. 2. I, David Letterman, will never rent out my farm again. 1. We are stardust. We are golden. We are going to look really stupid to future generations.

— David Letterman, Top Ten Lessons of Woodstock

10 Reasons Why a Beer is Better Than a Woman: 1. A beer won't make you go to church. 2. A beer is more likely to know how to spell "carburetor" than a woman. 3. A beer doesn't think baseball is stupid simply because the guys spit. 4. A beer doesn't give a [expletive deleted] if you keep a bunch of other beers on the side. 5. A beer will not call you a sexist pig if you say "doberman" instead of "doberperson". 6. A beer won't get a job as a DJ and play 5 straight hours of lesbian folk music on yer fave radio station. 7. A beer understands why The Three Stooges are funny. 8. A beer won't raise a fuss about a little thing like leaving the toilet seat up. 9. A beer doesn't think that a "three-hundred-fifty cubic-inch V8" is an enormous can of vegetable juice. 10. A beer won't smoke in your car.

100 buckets of bits on the bus 100 buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits on the bus FF buckets of bits Take one down, short it to ground FE buckets of bits on the bus... ad infinitum...

$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000 -- by which time it will be worth nothing.

— Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love"

10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0.

1/2 oz. gin 1/2 oz. vodka 1/2 oz. rum (preferably dark) 3/4 oz. tequilla 1/2 oz. triple sec 1/2 oz. orange juice 3/4 oz. sour mix 1/2 oz. cola shake with ice and strain into frosted glass. Long Island Iced Tea

13. ... r-q1

17th Rule of Friendship: A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of life insurance coverage you did for half the price when yours is noncancellable.

— Esquire, May 1977

186,000 miles per second: It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!

1893 The ideal brain tonic 1900 Drink Coca-Cola -- delicious and refreshing -- 5 cents at all soda fountains 1905 Is the favorite drink for LADIES when thirsty -- weary -- despondent 1905 Refreshes the weary, brightens the intellect and clears the brain 1906 The drink of QUALITY 1907 Good to the last drop 1907 It satisfies the thirst and pleases the palate 1907 Refreshing as a summer breeze. Delightful as a Dip in the Sea 1908 The Drink that Cheers but does not inebriate 1917 There's a delicious freshness to the taste of Coca-Cola 1919 It satisfies thirst 1919 The taste is the test 1922 Every glass holds the answer to thirst 1922 Thirst knows no season 1925 Enjoy the sociable drink

— Coca-Cola slogans

1925 With a drink so good, 'tis folly to be thirsty 1929 The high sign of refreshment 1929 The pause that refreshes 1930 It had to be good to get where it is 1932 The drink that makes a pause refreshing 1935 The pause that brings friends together 1937 STOP for a pause... GO refreshed 1938 The best friend thirst ever had 1939 Thirst stops here 1942 It's the real thing 1947 Have a Coke 1961 Zing! what a REFRESHING NEW FEELING 1963 Things go better with Coke 1969 Face Uncle Sam with a Coke in your hand 1979 Have a Coke and a smile 1982 Coke is it!

— Coca-Cola slogans

1st graffitiest: QUESTION AUTHORITY! 2nd graffitiest: Why?

$3,000,000.

3M, under the Scotch brand name, manufactures a fine adhesive for art and display work. This product is called "Craft Mount". 3M suggests that to obtain the best results, one should make the bond "while the adhesive is wet, aggressively tacky." I did not know what "aggressively tacky" meant until I read today's fortune. [And who said we didn't offer equal time, huh? Ed.]

40 isn't old. If you're a tree.

4.2 BSD UNIX #57: Sun Jun 1 23:02:07 EDT 1986 You swing at the Sun. You miss. The Sun swings. He hits you with a 575MB disk! You read the 575MB disk. It is written in an alien tongue and cannot be read by your tired Sun-2 eyes. You throw the 575MB disk at the Sun. You hit! The Sun must repair your eyes. The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your 130MB disk! He has defeated the 130MB disk! The Sun reads a scroll. He hits your Ethernet board! He has defeated your Ethernet board! You read a scroll of "postpone until Monday at 9 AM". Everything goes dark...

— /etc/motd, cbosgd

(6) Men employees will be given time off each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go regularly to church. (7) After an employee has spent his thirteen hours of labor in the office, he should spend the remaining time reading the Bible and other good books. (8) Every employee should lay aside from each pay packet a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years, so that he will not become a burden on society or his betters. (9) Any employee who smokes Spanish cigars, uses alcoholic drink in any form, frequents pool tables and public halls, or gets shaved in a barber's shop, will give me good reason to suspect his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty. (10) The employee who has performed his labours faithfully and without a fault for five years, will be given an increase of five cents per day in his pay, providing profits from the business permit it.

— "Office Worker's Guide", New England Carriage Works, 1872

6 oz. orange juice 1 oz. vodka 1/2 oz. Galliano Harvey Wallbangers

7:30, Channel 5: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog drinks too much and kicks over the National Redwood Forest. 7:30, Channel 8: The Bionic Dog (Action/Adventure) The Bionic Dog gets a hormonal short-circuit and violates the Mann Act with an interstate Greyhound bus.

90\% of the work takes 90\% of the time. The remaining 10\% takes the other 90\% of the time.

94\% of the women in America are beautiful and the rest hang out around here.

99 blocks of crud on the disk, 99 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 100 blocks of crud on the disk! 100 blocks of crud on the disk, 100 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 101 blocks of crud on the disk!

A truly great man will neither trample on a worm nor sneak to an emperor.

— B. Franklin

A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other.

A bachelor is a man who never made the same mistake once.

A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce.

— Don Quinn

A bachelor is an unaltared male.

A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy for ever.

— Helen Rowland

A bad marriage is like a horse with a broken leg, you can shoot the horse, but it don't fix the leg.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back the when it begins to rain.

— Robert Frost

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

— Mark Twain

A beautiful woman is a blessing from Heaven, but a good cigar is a smoke.

— Kipling

A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad.

— Emerson

A beer delayed is a beer denied.

A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that balances are correct.

— Princess Irulan, "Manual of Maud'Dib"

A billion here, a billion there -- pretty soon it adds up to real money.

— Sen. Everett Dirksen, on the U.S. defense budget

A billion seconds ago Harry Truman was president. A billion minutes ago was just after the time of Christ. A billion hours ago man had not yet walked on earth. A billion dollars ago was late yesterday afternoon at the U.S. Treasury.

A biologist, a statistician, a mathematician and a computer scientist are on a photo-safari in Africa. As they're driving along the savannah in their jeep, they stop and scout the horizon with their binoculars. The biologist: "Look! A herd of zebras! And there's a white zebra! Fantastic! We'll be famous!" The statistician: "Hey, calm down, it's not significant. We only know there's one white zebra." The mathematician: "Actually, we only know there exists a zebra, which is white on one side." The computer scientist : "Oh, no! A special case!"

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

— Cervantes

A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.

A bird in the hand makes it awfully hard to blow your nose.

A bit of talcum Is always walcum

— Ogden Nash

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

— Groucho Marx

A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems best. That's dangerous. Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the schools as 'standards'? Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent, elitist. ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real professionals. Those texts are called 'reading material.' They are the academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms, and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating resource centers along the roads.

— The Underground Grammarian

A bore is a man who talks so much about himself that you can't talk about yourself.

A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours.

A boss with no humor is like a job that's no fun.

A box without hinges, key, or lid, Yet golden treasure inside is hid.

— J.R. Tolkien

A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.

— Robert Benchley

A boy gets to be a man when a man is needed.

— John Steinbeck

A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward.

A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.

A bug in the hand is better than one as yet undetected.

A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive government by hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them to the West. They drove to the airport, forced their way on board a large passenger jet, and found there was no pilot on board. Terrified, they listened as the sirens got louder. Finally, one of the scientists suggested that since he was an experimentalist, he would try to fly the aircraft. He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out. The sirens got louder and louder. Armed men surrounded the jet. The would be pilot's friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!! Hurry!!!" The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience. I'm just a simple pole in a complex plane."

A bunch of the boys were whooping it in the Malemute saloon; The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune; Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

— Robert W. Service

A bureaucrat's idea of cleaning up his files is to make a copy of everything before he destroys it.

A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator.

— Paul Valery

"A can of ASPARAGUS, 73 pigeons, some LIVE ammo, and a FROZEN DAIQURI!!"

— Zippy the Pinhead

A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other.

A cannibal warrior is experiencing severe gastric distress, so he goes to his Village Witch Doctor with his complaint. The VWD examines him and, concluding that something he ate disagreed with him, began to cross examine him about his recent diet. "Well, I ate a missionary yesterday. Do you think that could be the problem?" The VWD says "Hmmmm." (All doctors say "Hmmmm.") "That could be. Tell me a bit about this missionary." "Well, he was tall for a white man, wearing a brown robe. He was walking down the trail, not watching for danger, so I speared him, dragged him home, cleaned him, boiled him and ate him." "Ah-hah!" (All doctors say "Ah-hah!") There's your problem," smiles the VWD. You boiled him, but he was a friar!"

A career is great, but you can't run your fingers through its hair.

A castaway was washed ashore after many days on the open sea. The island on which he landed was populated by savage cannibals who tied him, dazed and exhausted, to a thick stake. They then proceeded to cut his arms with their spears and drink his blood. This continued for several days until the castaway could stand no more. He yelled for the cannibal chief and declared, "You can kill me if you want to, but this torture with the spears has got to stop. Dammit, I'm tired of getting stuck for the drinks."

A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.

A certain amount of opposition is a help, not a hindrance. Kites rise against the wind, not with it.

A certain monk had a habit of pestering the Grand Tortue (the only one who had ever reached the Enlightenment 'Yond Enlightenment), by asking whether various objects had Buddha-nature or not. To such a question Tortue invariably sat silent. The monk had already asked about a bean, a lake, and a moonlit night. One day he brought to Tortue a piece of string, and asked the same question. In reply, the Grand Tortue grasped the loop between his feet and, with a few simple manipulations, created a complex string which he proferred wordlessly to the monk. At that moment, the monk was enlightened. From then on, the monk did not bother Tortue. Instead, he made string after string by Tortue's method; and he passed the method on to his own disciples, who passed it on to theirs.

A Chicago salesman was about to check into a St. Louis hotel when he noticed a very charming woman staring admiringly at him. He walked over and spoke with her for a few minutes, then returned to the front desk, where they checked in as Mr. and Mrs. After a very pleasurable three-day stay, the man approached the front desk and told the clerk he was checking out. In a few minutes, he was handed a bill for $2500. "There must be some mistake," the salesman said. "I've been here for only three days." "Yes, sir," the clerk replied. "But your wife has been here a month and a half."

A chicken is an egg's way of producing more eggs.