
 "That is I, that is Alex, and my three droogs, Pete, Georgie, and Dim."
                                                - A Clockwork Orange

"So, what's it to be then, eh?"
                                                - A Clockwork Orange

 Imagine that? Me! Working for you!

Laws of Computer Programming
(1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
(2) Any given program costs more and takes longer.
(3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
(4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
(5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory.
(6) The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output.
(7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the
    programmer who must maintain it.
(8) Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will
    find that programmers cannot write in English.
                                           SIGPLAN Notices, Vol 2 No 2

Give me a home where the buffalo roam,
and you've got a room full of buffalo chips.
      Sitting Bull's Observation

Gilb's Laws of Reliability
(1) Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.
(3) The only difference between the fool, and the criminal who attacks a system
    is that the fool attacks unpredictably and on a broader front.
(5) Self-checking systems tend to have a complexity in proportion to the
    inherent unreliability of the system in which they are used.
(6) The error-detection and correction capabilities of any system are the key
    to understanding the type of errors which they cannot handle.
(7) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable
    errors, which by definition are limited.
(8) All real programs contain errors until proven otherwise-which is impossible.
(9) Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost
    of errors, or somebody insists on getting some useful work done.
                                                   - Tom Gilb

Honest Officer, had I known my health stood
in jeopardy I would never had lit one.
     - maxim of the Hell's Angels

He who shits on the road will meet flies on his return.
     - South African saying

Use it up ... Wear it out.
Make it do ... Or do without.
     - US World War II propaganda

The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak.
     - Wavy Gravy

It is very uncomfortable to be in a bathtub with an elephant.
      The First Law on International Aquatics

Civilization Law #1:
Civilization advances by extending the number of
important operations one can do without thinking about them.

Infinity is one lawyer waiting for another.
     - Goetz'S Law

Ketterling's Law:
Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.

"Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards 
upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel."
    - H. L. Mencken -

Warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by the payment of the invoice.
     - Fraser's Rule

A man with one watch knows what time it is;
a man with two watches is never sure.
     - The Timex Law

Following the path of least resistance is what makes men and rivers crooked.
     - Nixon's Deduction

Trust everybody; but always cut the cards.
     - Piana's Principle

The Swartzberg Test:
The validity of a science is its ability to predict.

Whatever their faults, the Communists never created canned laughter.
      T. Smith's Observation

A small carafe of wine is illogical, immoral, and inadequate.
      Lisa's Deduction

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility
-there are so few of us left.
      Samet's Postulation

The remaining distance to your chosen campsite
remains constant as twilight approaches.
      Glaza's Law of Backpacking

Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal in the world.
      Alonzo's Axiom

Life is not one thing after another....
it's the same damn thing over and over!

The meek will inherit the Earth..... The rest of us will go to the stars.

"Why stand when you can sit?
  Why sit when you can recline?
   Why walk when you can drive?
    Why drive when you can ride?"
         -- From the "Couch Potatos' Handbook", 1985 Edition

There is no remedy for sex but more sex.

Tell a man that there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe
you.... Tell him that a bench has wet paint upon it and he'll have to touch
it to be sure.

Sex is like snow... You never know how many inches
you're going to get or how long it will last.

What is the greatest Joy? The Joy of Duty!
      Red Lectroids, Planet 10

What matters is not the length of the wand, but the magic in the stick.

Heroes are not made...they're cornered.
      Promo for the film "Bullies"

Love is a matter of chemistry, but Sex is a matter of physics.

These things are good in little measure and evil in large:
Yeast, Salt and Hesitation.
      The Talmud

"Revolution is the opiate of the intellectuals."
    - "Oh, Lucky Man" -

Ode to Turbulent Flow:
 Big whirls have little whirls
 Which feed on their velocity,
 And little whirls have lesser whirls
 And so on, to viscosity.

A fool and his money are invited places.
      Anonymous

In the beginning, there were hot lumps.
Cold and lonely, they whirled noiselessly through the black holes of space.
    - Firesign Theater

All things come to him whose name is on a mailing list.
      Junk Mail Junkie

When a girl admits she's had a checkered career, it's your move...

How happy is the moron,
He doesn't give a damn.
I wish I were a moron,
My God, perhaps I am!

Life is complex.  It consists of real and imaginary parts.

Conscience is a small inner voice that doesn't speak your language.
      Anonymous

Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is much farther away.

April's the month when the green returns to the lawn, the lilac, and the IRS.
     -Changing Times-

As far as we know, our computer has had no undetected errors.

Only the centipede recognizes the 5,000 footsteps of his grandfather.
      Banacek

Behind every argument is someone's ignorance.

You are young at any age if you are planning for tomorrow.
      Anonymous

Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.

Help fight continental drift.

When the wolf is chasing the sleigh, throw him a
raisin cookie but don't stop to bake him a cake.
      Banacek

In jealousy there is self-love, not love.

It is impossible to thoroughly enjoy idleness
unless one has plenty of work to do.

Nice guys get sick.

Someone you reject today will reject you tomorrow.

Help stamp out Osmosis!
      Anonymous

To iterate is human, to recurse is divine.

If there were no such thing as gravity, the earth would fly off into space.

Insanity is hereditary,
You get it from your children.

A rolling stone gathers momentum.

Ancient Chinese Curse:
May you live in interesting times.

When a woman sits at a spinning wheel these days,
she's probably in Atlantic City.
     -Los Angeles Times-

Ancient Chinese Curse:
May all your wishes be granted.

Organization is the enemy of improvisation.

Familiarity breeds.

C'est la vie.

!lanimret siht edisni deppart ma I !pleH

And so we plow along, as the fly said to the ox.

In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.

Bye's First Law of Model Railroading:
Anytime you wish to demonstrate something, the number of
faults encountered is proportional to the number of viewers.

Wolfgang's Third Law:  It can't work.

If you put your supper dish to your ear you can hear the sounds of a restaurant.
    - Snoopy -

There is nothing worse than being peerless in a peer-review system.

Any simple problem can be made insoluble if
enough meetings are held to discuss it.
      Anonymous

When in darkness or in doubt,
Run in circles, scream and shout.

The Fourth Law of Computing: On a slow day, you can wait forever.

Sweer's Impossibility Theorem:
Nothing can be both completely general and
internally consistent at the same time.

Law of Communications:
The result of improved and enlarged communications
is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism.

Conversation enriches the understanding,
but solitude is the soul of genius.

You can't plant me in your penthouse,
I'm going back to my plow.

A guy has to get fresh once in a while so the girl
doesn't lose her confidence.

A king's castle is his home.

A lie in time saves nine.

Beware of friends who are false and deceitful.

Do not clog intellect's sluices with knowledge of questionable uses.

Far duller than a serpent's tooth it is to spend a quiet youth.

From listening comes wisdom and from speaking repentance.

God gives us relatives; thank God we can chose our friends.

I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too!
     - The Wicked Witch of the West -

Here comes the orator, with his flood of words and his drop of reason.

I don't remember ever having had the itch, and yet scratching
is one of nature's sweet pleasures, and so handy.

He's crazy!
Yeah, but he has all the machine guns.
     - Miami Vice -

"You speak treason!"
"Fluently."
     - Dr. Who -

Think twice before speaking. But don't say "think think click click".

In case of fire, yell FIRE!
     - The Management -

To criticize the incompetent is easy;
it is more difficult to criticize the competent.

WARRANTY
You've got to be kidding.
Nobody makes any kind of warranty.
If you decide to use the Opus system,
you do so entirely at your own risk.
     - From the Opus CBCS Manual

We prefer to speak evil of ourselves than not speak of ourselves at all.

Now we have the Smorgasbord luncheon for you working people
with no time. The price is right.
                Daily Smorgasbord Special
     - From the menu of the Chinese Food Garden, Miami, FL

What makes us so bitter against people who outwit us is that
they think themselves cleverer than we are.

What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency.

Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement
unless it was to avoid responsibility?

Good morning, Mister Phelps.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to
 SECURITY VIOLATION
 NO CARRIER

You have been selected for a secret mission.

Good decisions come from experience.
Experience comes from making bad ones.

Perfect practice makes perfect.
    - Vince Lomardi

They can always hurt you more.

Profanity is the language most programmers know best.

Epitaph:
Here lies the body of Mary Ann Lowder.
She burst while drinking a Seidlitz powder.
Called from this world to her heavenly rest,
She drank it and she effervesced.

Epitaph:
To the memory of Abraham Beauleiu,
Accidentally shot April 1844:
As a mark of affection from his brother.

Epitaph:
Underneath this stone
 lies poor John Round.
Lost at see
 and never found.

Epitaph:
Here lies an honest lawyer.
That is strange.

Epitaph:
Here lies Pat MacHree.
That's very true.
Who was he? What was he?
What's that to you?

Epitaph:
Jonathan Grober
 Died dead sober.
    =  =  
Lord thy wonders never cease.

Epitaph:
Blown upward,
 out of sight,
He sought the leak
 by candlelight.

Epitaph:
The wedding day appointed was
 and wedding clothes provided.
But ere the day did come, alas,
 he sickened and he die did.

Epitaph:
Here lies my wife in earthy mould
 who when she lived did naught but scold.
Good friends go softly in your walking
 lest she should wake and rise up talking.

Epitaph:
Seven wives I've buried
 with as many a fervent prayer.
If we all should meet in heaven
 won't there be trouble there?

Epitaph (on an infant):
Since I have been so
 quickly done for,
I wonder what I
 was begun for.

Epitaph:
To all my friends I bid adieu.
A more sudden death you never knew.
As I was leading the mare to drink,
She kicked and killed me quicker'n a wink.

Epitaph:
Death's advantage over life I spy.
Here one husband with two wives may lie.

Epitaph:
Here lies John Racket
 in his wooden jacket.
Kept neither horses nor mules
 Lived a hog; died a dog.
Left all his money to fools.

Epitaph:
Ebenezer Prichard here lies low
Having forsook life.
Poisoned by his wife
and Dr. Eli Hornblow.

Epitaph:
She was not smart; she was not fair.
But hearts with grief for here are swellin'.
All empty stands her little chair
She died of eatin' watermelon.

Epitaph:
He called
Bill Smith
 A liar.

Epitaph:
Here lies Hermina Kuntz,
To virtue quite unknown.
Jesus, rejoice!
At last, she sleeps alone.

Epitaph:
Here lies the body of our dear Anna
Done to death by a banana.
It wasn't the fruit that dealt the blow
But the skin of the thing that laid her low.

Epitaph:
Beneath this stone our baby lies.
He neither cries nor hollers.
He lived on earth just twenty days.
And cost us forty dollars.

Epitaph:
At threescore winter's end I died,
A cheerless being sole and sad.
The nuptial knot I never tied
And wish my father never had.

Epitaph:
My wife is dead and here she lies.
Nobody laughs and nobody cries.
Where she is gone to and how she fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares.

Epitaph:
Here lies the body of Arnaksaw Jim.
We made the mistake,
 but the joke's on him.

Epitaph:
This empty urn is sacred to the memory of John Revere
 who died abroad in Finistere.
If he had lived he would have been buried here.

Epitaph for Alexander the Great:
This mound now is large enough for him for whom all the world was not.

Epitaph for a hypocondriac: I told you I was sick.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet,
Peanut butter is salty.

Happiness descended upon him.  He didn't even have time to step aside.

Mommy's baby, daddy's maybe!

What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?
An inconceivable disturbance.
    - Anon

What is the sound of one hand clapping?
    - Zen Buddhism

A sadist is a person who is kind to a masochist.
    - Anon

Living means dying.
    - Engles

What happens to your fist when you open your hand?
    - Zen Buddhism

The more you know, the less you think you know.
    - Anon

If the rich could hire other people to die for them,
the poor could make a wonderful living.
    - Yiddish proverb

If I am because you are you, and if you are you
because I am I, then I am not I, and you are not you.
    - Hassidic rabbi

The trick is to die young as old as possible.

There are things which we cannot know,
but it is impossible to know these things.

Writing a program is nothing but debugging a blank page.
    - Anonymous but frustrated Stanford programmer

Superstition sees the Finger of God even in trivialities.

Prophets have a way of dying by violence.
    - Bene Gesserit saying

The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the
terrors of the future.            - from "Collected Sayings of Maud'Dib"
                                    by the Princess Irulan

And now my comrades are all gone;
  Naught remains to toast.
 They have left me here in my misery,
  like some poor wandering ghost.
    - Anon

Do not count a human dead until you've seen his body.
And even then you can make a mistake.
    - Bene Gesserit saying

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that
makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
    - from "The Sayings of Maud'Dib"
      by the Princess Irulan

Mood? What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises - no
matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the
baliset. It's not for fighting.
    - Gurney Halleck in Dune

A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people.
He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals, and a people
revert to a mob.
    - Stilgar in Dune

Advice is a dangerous commodity.

To know the future absolutely is to be trapped into that future absolutely.
    - Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune"

Some actions have an end but no beginning; some begin but do not end.
It all depends upon where the observer is standing.
    - Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune"

To suspect you own mortality is to know the beginning of terror; to learn
irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror.
    - Bene Gesserit saying

I grok Spock.

A logician trying to explain logic to a programmer is like a cat trying to
explain to a fish what it's like to be wet.
    - Anon

Quote for the day:
"         "
    - Marcel Marceau


A banker will lend you money only if you can prove you don't need it.
    - Anon


If you turn on the light quickly enough you can see what the dark looks like.
    - Anon

The time has come to wonder who could be the owner of
that cold, clammy hand that's exploring the end of the bed.
    - Curved Air

Possession of second sight has a tendency to make one a dangerous fatalist.
    - Frank Herbert, "Dune Messiah"

Some men are discovered; others are found out.

He who spends a storm beneath a tree, takes life with a grain of TNT.

Mind your own business Mr. Spock. I'm sick of your half-breed interference,
do you hear?
     - James T. Kirk

Let not the sands of time get in your lunch.

Troglodytism does not necessarily imply a low cultural level.

Warp Factor Four, Mister Sulu.

You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires
a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

Only someone with nothing to be sorry for
smiles back at the rear of an elephant.

Man invented Alcohol.
God invented Grass.
Who do you trust?

A Hebrew schoolteacher asked one of his students if he said prayers before
meals. The proud little boy answered, "Oh, not me. I don't have to - my mom's
a good cook."

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.

Seen under an ubiquitous "Kilroy was here":
    "Heisenburg might have been here"!
       (if he was, he didn't know it)

I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline.
I object to power without constructive purpose.
      - Spock to the Squire of Gothos

Never laugh at a live dragon.
    - Bilbo Baggins

What would you do if you found a dwarf on your doormat?
    - Bilbo Baggins

"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it
were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"
    - Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass

Only the fantastic has a chance of being real in the cosmos.
    - Hawkwind

It is the business of the future to be dangerous.
    - Hawkwind

We will be geared toward the average rather than the exceptional.
    - Jethro Tull

God is an overwhelming responsibility.
    - Jethro Tull

Paranoia is having to keep your TV set on all the time because the people in
the box will talk about you if you don't force them to stick to their scripts.
    - Adapted by R. Geis from G. Farber

...the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost would never throw the Devil out of
Heaven as long as they still need him as a fourth for bridge.
    - Letter in New Libertarian Notes #19

You don't come back from Dead Man's Curve.
    - Jan and Dean

Confusion will be my epitaph,
 As I walk a cracked and broken path,
 If we make it we can all sit back and laugh,
 But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
      King Crimson

When the music's over, turn out the lights.
    - Jim Morrison

Don't eat the yellow snow.
    - Frank Zappa

And oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go.
    - Lennon and McCartney

You don't leave your fly open in a pressure suit.
    - Larry Niven

I wouldn't worry about them old dreams none, they're only in your head.
    - Bob Dylan

Trussreppers will be persecuted.
    - Firesign Theater

Reality is a crutch.
    - Dick Jensen's toilet wall

You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.

All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.

Love is not enough, but is sure helps.

Childhood is a nightmare.

Progress is an illusion.

Nothing lasts.

There's no point in burying the hatchet if
you're going to put a marker on the site.
    - Anon.

If you don't want to grow old - die young.
    - Anon.

To think is to make one's self very uncomfortable.

A wise man knows everything
A shrewd one, everybody.
    - Chinese Fortune Cookie

I don't care what anybody says, it's STILL a primitive planet!
      Christopher Baker (Doctor Who)

If you can keep your head while all about you others
are losing theirs...perhaps you're the executioner.
    - R. Geis

History has the relation to truth that theology
has to religion -- i.e. none to speak of.
    - Lazarus Long

Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the earth
-- but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three.
    - Lazarus Long

Men often believe -- or pretend -- that the "Law" is something sacred, or at
least a science -- an unfounded assumption very convenient to governments.
    - Lazarus Long

"Rights" is a fictional abstraction. No one has "Rights", neither
machines nor flesh-and-blood. Persons...have opportunities, not
rights, which they use or do not use.
    - Lazarus Long

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you
what can't be done, and why. Then do it.
    - Lazarus Long

Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's
beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad  nauseum, keep her from drowning
them at birth.
   - Lazarus Long

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.
    - Lazarus Long

It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired.
    - Lazarus Long

A motion to adjourn is always in order.
    - Lazarus Long

It is better to copulate than never.
    - Lazarus Long

Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.
    - Lazarus Long

There is only one way to console a widow.
But remember the risk.
    - Lazarus Long

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
    - Lazarus Long

It took more than one man to change her name to Shanghai Lilly.
    - Michael Moorcock

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
    - Lennon and McCartney

You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime,
you just might find, you get what you need.
    - Mick Jagger

You can be in my dreams, if I can be in yours.
    - Bob Dylan

All wrong numbers are the same person.
    - Larry Niven

"Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it."
      Tom Lehrer

"No matter where you go...There you are."
      Buckaroo Banzai

"Reality is just a blip at the edge of the screen."
      - Christopher Baker (Doctor Who)

"There was something fishy about the butler.
 I think he was a Pisces, probably working for scale."
      Nick Danger, Third Eye

"The times, they are a' changing."
      Gordon Lightfoot

"It's a great life, if you don't weaken!"
      Paul Cornish

"I'm melting!"
      Wicked Witch of the West

"You would think that a technology that can send a man to the moon and bring him
back again could invent a coiled telephone handset cord that doesn't tangle!"
      Anon

"We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
     -Found on an old scrap of paper after the Blast

I have seen the future and it sucks!
       -Mike Kelly (sysop)

...but the world wouldn't be safe without the Bomb!
                                        Mr. Cunningham, "Happy Days"

It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.

Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee:
1) The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land
   under a car, just out of reach (this force is technically termed "car suck")
2) Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!"

Hofstadter's Law:
 It always takes longer than you expect,
 even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

Main's Law:
 For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.

"When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut."

Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning:
 It's on the other side.

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.

Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object.

Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.

The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the
stupidity of your action.

Hurewitz's Memory Principle:
 The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional
 to.....to........uh..............

Money is the root of all evil, and man needs roots

It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly
ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle?

If I kiss you, that is a psychological interaction. On the other hand, if I hit
you over the head with a brick, that is also a psychological interaction. The
difference is that one is friendly and the other is not so friendly. The
crucial point is if you can tell which is which.

Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

A penny saved is ridiculous.

The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body.
This means that only left handed people are in their right mind.

"You must realize that the computer has it in for you. The irrefutable
proof of this is that the computer always does what you tell it to do."

If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country.

It is better to kiss an avocado than to get in a fight with an aardvark

Bank error in your favor.  Collect $200.

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

As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there
is always a future in Computer Maintenance.

Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may
be in owning a piece thereof.

For a good time, call (415) 642-9483

A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of).

To be is to do.
 -- I. Kant
To do is to be.
 -- A. Sartre
Yabba-Dabba-Doo!
 -- F. Flinstone

God is Dead
 -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is Dead
 -- God
Nietzsche is God
 -- Dead

Jesus Saves,
Moses Invests,
But only Buddha pays Dividends.

Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality.

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

Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so, how many?

Anything free is worth what you pay for it.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, and you will pay only the
Station-to-Station rate.

Necessity is a mother.

Help!  I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70!
!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH

You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.

May the Fleas of a Thousand Camels infest one of your Erogenous Zones.

May a Misguided Platypus lay its Eggs in your Jockey Shorts

May your Tongue stick to the Roof of your Mouth with the Force of a
Thousand Caramels.

In the days of old,
When Knights were bold,
 And women were too cautious;
Oh, those gallant days,
When women were women,
 And men were really obnoxious...

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

$100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at
which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.

If God had intended Men to smoke, He would have put chimneys in their heads.

If God had intended Man to smoke, He would have set him on fire.

If God had intended Man to walk, He would have given him feet.

If God had intended Man to watch TV, He would have given him rabbit ears.

How doth the little crocodile
    Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
    On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
    How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
    With gently smiling jaws!

You're at the end of the road again.

The best equipment for your work is, of course, the most expensive.

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
    "And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
    Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
    "I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
    Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
    And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
    Pray what is the reason of that?"
"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
    "I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box --
    Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
    For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
    Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
    And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw,
    Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
    That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
    What made you so awfully clever?"
"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
    Said his father.  "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
    Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"

Come, let us hasten to a higher plane,
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to _n,
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!

Come, every frustum longs to be a cone,
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.

In Riemann, Hilbert or in Banach space
Let superscripts and subscripts go their ways.
Our symptotes no longer out of phase,
We shall encounter, counting, face to face.

I'll grant the random access to my heart,
Thoul't tell me all the constants of thy love;
And so we two shall all love's lemmas prove
And in our bound partition never part.

Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?
Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.

I see the eigenvalue in thine eye,
I hear the tender tensor in thy sigh.
Bernoulli would have been content to die
Had he but known such _a-squared cos 2(thi)!

A very intelligent turtle
Found programming UNIX a hurdle
 The system, you see,
 Ran as slow as did he,
And that's not saying much for the turtle.

This fortune cookie program out of order.  For those in desperate need,
please use the program "randchar".  This program generates random characters,
and, given enough time, will undoubtedly come up with something profound. It
will, however, take it no time at all to be more profound than THIS program
has ever been.

This fortune intentionally not included.

flibber-ti-gibbet
One who is inclined to look up words like flibbertigibbet
        -B.C.-

Speak roughly to your little boy,
    And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy
    Because he knows it teases.
 Wow!  wow!  wow!
I speak severely to my boy,
    And beat him when he sneezes:
For he can thoroughly enjoy
    The pepper when he pleases!
Wow!  wow!  wow!

 "I quite agree with you," said the Duchess; "and the moral of that is -- 'Be
what you would seem to be' -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- 'Never
imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that
what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would
have appeared to them to be otherwise.'"

 "I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said.
 Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.  "Of course you don't--till I tell you.
I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
 "But glory doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.
 "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means
just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
 "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many
different things."
 "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."

In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetency.
  -- the Peter Principle

Pohl's law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.

Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation
may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School
of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what DOES exist.
Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no
need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking
the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the
mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might
say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way...

A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that
you will look forward to the trip.

I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.

When Marriage is Outlawed,
Only Outlaws will have Inlaws.

Look out!  Behind you!

Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities!

Desk: A wastbasket with drawers.

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing

If all be true that I do think,
There be Five Reasons why one should Drink;
Good friends, good wine, or being dry,
Or lest we should be by-and-by,
Or any other reason why.

If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that
will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go
wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly develop.

It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law:
 "Murphy was an optimist."

Boling's postulate:
 If you're feeling good, don't worry.  You'll get over it.

Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something.

If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will.

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.

Finagle's first Law:
 If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.

Finagle's second Law:
 No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be  someone eager to
 (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to his
 own pet theory.

Finagle's third Law:
 In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct,
 beyond all need of checking, is the mistake
Corollaries:
 1.  Nobody whom you ask for help will see it.
 2.  The first person who stops by, whose advice you really
     don't want to hear, will see it immediately.

Finagle's fourth Law:
 Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse.

Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them.

Science is convinced there's no intelligent
life in our solor system.
  S. F. Chronicle

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

Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem:
 Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem
 meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's
 Theorem.  To wit:
 1.  Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
 2.  Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break
     even.
 3.  Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the
     game.

Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations:
 Negative expectations yield negative results.
 Positive expectations yield negative results.

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

Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability:
 Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of
 errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done.

Brook's Law:
 Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later

Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom:
 Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests
 their lack of progress.

Law of the Perversity of Nature:
 You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

Jenning's Corollary:
 The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is
 directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

Johnson's First Law:
 When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the
 most inconvenient possible time.

Watson's Law:
 The reliability of machinery is inversely proportional to the
 number and significance of any persons watching it.

Fudd's First Law of Opposition:
 Push something hard enough and it will fall over.

Cahn's Axiom:
 When all else fails, read the instructions.

Jenkinson's Law:
 It won't work.

Maier's Law:
 If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be
 disposed of.
Corollaries:
 1.  The bigger the theory, the better.
 2.  The experiment may be considered a success if no more than
     50% of the observed measurements must be discarded to
     obtain a correspondence with the theory.

Williams and Holland's Law:
 If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods.

Harvard Law:
 Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature,
 volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well
 pleases.

Brooke's Law:
 Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers
 something which either abolishes the system or  expands it beyond recognition.

Meskimen's Law:
 There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over.

Johnson's Corollary:
 Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization.

Peter's Law of Substitution:
 Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after themselves.

Parkinson's Fourth Law:
 The number of people in any working group tends to increase
 regardless of the amount of work to be done.

Parkinson's Fifth Law:
 If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good bureaucracy,
 public or private, will find it.

H. L. Mencken's Law:
 Those who can -- do.
 Those who can't -- teach.
Martin's Extension:
 Those who cannot teach -- administrate.

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.

A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by
blowing first.

After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found
on the bench.

This universe never did make sense; I suspect that it was built on
government contract.

In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks)
are to be treated as variables.

Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.

First Law of Bicycling:
 No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind.

Boob's Law:
 You always find something in the last place you look.

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.

Miksch's Law:
 If a string has one end, then it has another end.

Law of Communications:
 The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between
 different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding.

Harris's Lament:
 All the good ones are taken.

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.

First Law of Procrastination:
 Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for its
 termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed the deadline).

Fifth Law of Procrastination:
 Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that
 there is nothing important to do.

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

Wiker's Law:
 Government expands to absorb revenue and then some.

Gray's Law of Programming:
 '_n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same
 time as '_n' tasks.
Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law:
 '_n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as '_n' trivial tasks.

Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:
 The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and
 the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.

Weinberg's First Law:
 Progress is made on alternate Fridays.

Malek's Law:
 Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.

Weinberg's Principle:
 An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while
 sweeping on to the grand fallacy.

First Law of Socio-Genetics:
 Celibacy is not hereditary.

Beifeld's Principle:
 The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female
 increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of:
 (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better looking and richer male friend.

Pardo's First Postulate:
 Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.
Arnold's Addendum:
 Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats.

Captain Penny's Law:
 You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of
 the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.

The Kennedy Constant:
 Don't get mad -- get even.

Canada Bill Jone's Motto:
 It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.
Supplement:
 A .44 magnum beats four aces.

Hartley's First Law:
 You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float
 on his back, you've got something.

I'm a hacker and I'm OK
I work all night and I sleep all day.
I'll have a system of my own someday,
that'll run my code in a hacked up way.
      (with no apologies whatever to Monty Python)

Digital circuits are made from analog parts.

Pretend to spank me - I'm a pseudo-masochist!

Is a computer language with goto's totally Wirth-less?

He who hesitates is last.

Nietzsche is pietzsche, Goethe is murder.

A man's house is his hassle.

Chaste makes waste.

An engineer is someone who does list processing in Fortran.

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

Neutrinos have bad breadth.

Programmers get overlaid.

Procedures for Electronic Instrument Repair:
  Step 3
   In a forceful manner, recite Ohm's Law to the instrument.
   (Caution: BEFORE TAKING THIS STEP, REFER TO A HANDBOOK TO BE SURE OF YOUR
   KNOWLEDGE OF OHM'S LAW.)  This will prove to the instrument that you do
   know something.  This is a drastic step and should only be taken if the
   first two steps fail.  If this step fails, proceed to step 4.

Procedures for Electronic Instrument Repair:
  Step 4
   Jar the instrument slightly.  This may take anything from a three to six
   foot drop, preferably on a concrete floor.  However, you must be careful
   with this step because, while jarring in the approved method of repair,
   you must not mar the floor.  Again, this is a very drastic step.  If it
   should fail, proceed to step 5.

Procedures for Electronic Instrument Repair:
  Step 5
   Brandish a large screwdriver in a menacing manner.  This will frighten
   the instrument and demonstrates the deadly "SHORT CIRCUIT" technique.
   If this step fails, proceed to step 6.

Procedures for Electronic Instrument Repair:
  Step 6
   Add a tube...even if the instrument is solid state.  This will prove to
   the instrument that you are familiar with the design of the instrument.
   Also, this will increase your advantage and confuse the instrument.
   If this step fails, proceed to the most drastic and dangerous step of
   all, step 7.  It is very seldom used and is the last resort if all else
   fails.

Procedures for Electronic Instrument Repair:
  Step 7
   Think...!? Is the most dangerous step of all!  It is very seldom used and
   is the last resort if all else fails.

The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned
to the project.

God did not create the world in seven days.
He partied for six and then pulled an all-nighter.

To make tax forms true they should read "Income Owed Us" and Incommode You".

this cookie from:
        Doctor Dobbs' Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia
                       "Running Light Without Overbyte"

Due to lack of interest, tomorrow will be canceled.

Every child born in America can hope to grow up to enjoy tax loopholes.

Beware of friends who are false and deceitful.

By the time a person gets to greener pastures, he can't climb the fence.
