Who watch the watchmen? -- "There is little left for us now, little time." --The Ancients, Freespace -- "He who fights monsters might take care lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if you gaze into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -Nietzche -- The most thoroughly and relentlessly Damned, banned, exluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracised, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all Damned things is the individual human being. The social engineers, statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commisars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this Damned Thing into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the Damned Thing will not fit into the slot assigned to it. The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it. The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it. The psychotherapist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the Damned Thing will not fit into their slots. - Robert Anton Wilson -- "I can not accept your canon that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power ... power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" - Lord John Emerich Edward Dalbert-Acton -- The statement made by Representative Dick Armey. When asked if he were in the President's place would he resign, responded: "If I were in the President's place I would not get a chance to resign. I would be lying in a pool of my own blood hearing Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, "How do I reload this damn thing?" -- There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine . . . been here 4 1/2 billion years. We've been here, what, a 100,000 years, maybe 200,000. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry a little over 200 years. 200 years versus 4 1/2 billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat? The planet isn't going away. We are. -- George Carlin -- Truth is a three edged sword, your truth, my truth and the real truth. - John Sheridan -- Albert Einstein was once asked, "What's the most important question you can ask in life?" And his answer was, "Is the universe a friendly place or not?" -- Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is NO CHANCE of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. -- Winston Churchill -- No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique. Anger may in time turn to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never again come into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. -- Sun Tzu -- The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect his country and do good service for his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom -- Sun Tzu -- There are paths that should not be taken. There-are armies that should not be confronted. There are fortresses that should not be attacked. There are battles which should not be joined. - Sun Tzu -- The Road goes ever on and on Out from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, Let others follow it who can! Let them a journey new begin, But I at last with weary feet Will turn towards the lighted inn, My evening-rest and sleep to meet. --Frodo Baggins -- All software sucks. Everybody is considered a jerk by somebody. The sun rises, the sun sets, the Sun crashes, lusers are LARTed, BOFHs get drunk. It is the way of things. --Steve Conley -- ThisemailhasbeenbroughttoyoubyJOLTCola,favoredbyssysadmins, netadminsandprogrammerseverywhere. JOLTCola--forallthesugarandtwicethecaffine(R). --Mark P. Beckman -- On the 012th day of September my luser sent to me: Eighty lines of WINMAIL.DAT Forty lines of PGP\PUBKEY.ASC Twenty lines of C:\NETSCAPE\SIGFILE.TXT Ten lines of Content-type: application/msword;name=LIGHTBULB.DOC Six lines of VCARD.DXF Five lines of quoted-printable HTML Four lines of embedded URLs. Three lines of MIME headers Two lines of Re:RE:(fwd)Re: And a one line email help request! Peter da Silva -- The System Manager strolls in smiling. "Well, I'll really miss you Simon.." he says, full of himself. "Oh?" I say, all sweetness and charm, "Where are you going?" "No Simon" he says, with glee "YOU'RE going!" "A PROMOTION!" I say "You've finally written that letter to the head of staffing telling him he's a bum-sucking arse bandit and that you quit?" "No..." "Are you sure? It's much better than the one about me being fired.." "Y.." His eyes widen slightly It's like clubbing a seal to death with a foam cushion. He runs to stop the fax. Only, having just resigned, >clicky clicky< his card key no longer works... --The BOFH -- "What was your username?" Everything inside him is screaming at him not to say it - People beside him are screaming at him not to say it. He says it. You just can't tell some people. --The BOFH -- Herb, young Prince of the Musk Dynasty, responded by having his men fill in the big gaping hole since it was entirely too big to become a cursed spring and somehow "Cursed Roughly Olympic Sized Really Damn Deep Swimming Pool" just didn't roll trippingly off the tongue. Even in Mandarin Chinese. --The bet-Fourth option. Gregg Sharp -- "Still searching, still hoping, still alone." -N.Brazil -- Anyone attempting to correct my mis-usage of Japanese endings (like -san, just as an example) will have French mispronounced at them. --Skysaber -- Ranma decided that he was sick of this person. Sick! Not once in what seemed like an eternity had she been a creature he'd like to spend time with. Okay, she could be cute. THAT'S IT! He'd known evil people who were drop dead gorgeous, and most of them could even be civil half the time. Heck, *Beryl* was considerate and even-tempered compared to this BITCH! --Mirrors Multiplied, Skysaber -- One of the unwritten rules aboard the Myoo no Maru was "Don't Ask Nathan How He Knows Something". The consequences could be horrible. He could tell you. --The Bet-Featherbrite's Tale, Gregg Sharp -- "Oh dear," said Tolkein, remembering again *why* it was a bad idea to ask Nathan these questions. --Featherbrite's Tale, Gregg Sharp -- SNAFU principle /sna'foo prin'si-pl/ /n./ [from a WWII Army acronym for `Situation Normal, All Fucked Up'] "True communication is possible only between equals, because inferiors are more consistently rewarded for telling their superiors pleasant lies than for telling the truth." -- a central tenet of Discordianism, often invoked by hackers to explain why authoritarian hierarchies screw up so reliably and systematically. The effect of the SNAFU principle is a progressive disconnection of decision-makers from reality. This lightly adapted version of a fable dating back to the early 1960s illustrates the phenomenon perfectly: In the beginning was the plan, and then the specification; And the plan was without form, and the specification was void. And darkness was on the faces of the implementors thereof; And they spake unto their leader, saying: "It is a crock of shit, and smells as of a sewer." And the leader took pity on them, and spoke to the project leader: "It is a crock of excrement, and none may abide the odor thereof." And the project leader spake unto his section head, saying: "It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide it." The section head then hurried to his department manager,and informed him thus: "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength." The department manager carried these words to his general manager, and spoke unto him saying: "It containeth that which aideth the growth of plants, and it is very strong." And so it was that the general manager rejoiced and delivered the good news unto the Vice President. "It promoteth growth, and it is very powerful." The Vice President rushed to the President's side, and joyously exclaimed: "This powerful new software product will promote the growth of the company!" And the President looked upon the product, and saw that it was very good. After the subsequent and inevitable disaster, the suits protect themselves by saying "I was misinformed!", and the implementors are demoted or fired. -- FUBAR /foo'bar/ n./ [WWII Army acronym for `Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition'. The step beyond snafu] -- "If quitters never win, and winners never quit, what fool came up with, 'Quit while you're ahead?'" -- "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" -- "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." -- "I am a pacifist. They fuck up, I pass a fist." --someone in ASR -- Sturgeon's Law /prov./ "Ninety percent of everything is crap". Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud." Oddly, when Sturgeon's Law is cited, the final word is almost invariably changed to `crap'. Compare Hanlon's Razor, Ninety-Ninety Rule. Though this maxim originated in SF fandom, most hackers recognize it and are all too aware of its truth. -- "Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an Ambulance" -- Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world --The Second Coming, William Yeats -- In the beginning was the word ... and the word was; 'OOPS!' ... followed closely by; 'BUGGER.' ... followed a short while later by the term; 'OH, SOD IT.' This, I think, explains a lot about God, and even more about Earth than anything I've ever read or heard. -- Oh, the bells, bells, bells! What a tale their terror tells --the bells, edgar allen poe -- When they took the 2nd amendment, I was silent, because I didn't own guns. When they took the 4th amendment, I was silent, because I didn't deal drugs. When they took the 5th amendment, I was silent, because I was innocent. Now they've taken the 1st amendment, and I can only be silent. -- "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and lastly die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." --Robert A. Heinlein -- "Gravity works," --ReRob, UF -- "It's not the one bullet with your name on it that you have to worry about; it's the twenty thousand-odd rounds labeled `occupant.'" --Murphy's Laws of Combat -- Walking through the basement of Fuller Labs wearing futuristic body-armor and pushing a variable-geometry motorcycle raises eyebrows. Telling students that this is the true power of UNIX didn't help. --UF -- "But," ReRob thought, "Let's get real. A motorcycle on an interstate with a top speed of over two hundred miles per hour versus Ford mega-sedans. Null perspiration." And with that, he experienced the joy and dangers involved with removing the front wheel from the tar. He eased off on the throttle, reminded himself that he was wielding a fusion powered road machine, and figured that while high rates of velocity were necessary, large values for higher derivatives of position were right out. --UF -- "Bravo! Now sit down and stop making a spectacle. I can't take you anywhere," "True, since your car is in the shop!" --Ben and MegaZone, UF -- MegaZone hung in the air in much the same way that a B-52 bomber with no functional engines, a full bomb load, half of one wing blown off, the other wing completely severed, a fire near the fuel tanks, and a dead crew would, given the opportunity, and landed on his back in a dirt pile. --UF -- F-I-N-E: Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional -- People educated in Cave-in Hall designed the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge--you remember, the one in that made itself into a sine wave and then exploded? The one used worldwide as a perfect example of how NOT to build a suspension bridge? --UF, notes -- "You," he said, "are very depressed. There's only one way we deal with the very depressed." "How do we deal with the very depressed?" Yuri asked, in a very depressed tone. "Well...we...TICKLE THEIR NECKS!!!!!" he shrieked, and dove. "YAAH! Hey come on stop that hey that tickles you know I can't stand that knock it off oh come on I'll rip your fingers off I swear I will Kei help me help stop him he's gone mad help help knock it off I'm gonna die help!!!" "Not until you laugh! Hahahahahahahahaha!" "Hey come on please I can't breathe cut it out help I hate being tickled stop it Mughi get him off me!" Mughi looked up with a querying "mrow?", took in the random chaos on the couch for a second, and then, with a "hrm," put his head back on his paws and went to sleep. Not his problem, right? "Oh thanks Mughi some great help you are aw come on don't do that I've had enough please no cut it out I mean it I can't breathe!" "Breathing is for wimps," Gryphon replied. "Laugh, I tell you, laugh! It'll do you good!" "Stop it already I asked you nicely now I'm telling you oh come on please please don't enough I--Kei! Thank god! Help!" Kei stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the chaos; then she smiled an evil smile and jumped in, viciously tickling her partner's ribs. "HEY that's not fair you're supposed to be my partner you're supposed to save me from crazies like this this is NOT fair I'll get you both for this I swear I will come onnnn..." "Morning," Vaughn said from the doorway. "I--oh no..." "Vaughn!!" they all cried, jumping up and closing in on him with a triad of maniacal grins. "No--oh no--help," Vaughn said in a small voice as they attacked. --UF -- "I have three brothers. One is doing life for murder, one is doing ten years for armed robbery. The other one works in Tech Support, but we don't talk about HIM..." -- "The more complicated they make the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain." --Lt Cmdr M.Scott -- "When you need to knock on wood is when you realize the world's composed of aluminum and vinyl." -- Flugg's Law -- Begin at the beginning, continue through the end, then stop. Everyone knows _that_. That's because the beginning is where things ... begin, and the end is where things, er, end. So to speak. The beginning happens first and the end follows in due time. The past becomes the future, through the medium of the present. Right? I mean, it's obvious. The Arrow of Time, cause and effect ... things like that. Causality, is what I mean here. The idea that the past _causes_ the present, and the present _causes_ the future. And if you tell the part of the story where things happen before you tell the part where you explain _why_ they happen that way, people get ...confused. Everybody agrees that's the way it goes. Sometimes, it even works out that way. Sometimes, it doesn't. Because that's only one way to look at it. And so often, in this world, what _is_ depends on ... well ... what you're looking at. For instance, if you look at things in the right manner, it's obvious that the future _must_ have existed first. That is, before there was _anything_ , there had to have been the potential for things. The future, in other words. Then, the first moment happened, and that was the first time that there ever was a _present_. And then the first moment was over. In, so to speak, the past. And the second moment was in the present ... and so on. So the future _causes_ the present, and drags the past along behind. Right? Don't think about it too hard, it's Zen, and you'll get a headache. --Eric Hallstrom , Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, Prologue -- Did you know it's possible to hack an AT power supply into a Dell Green Machine? Betcha didn't. I did the job so good I had wires left over. K00L!!! What's Power Saving? Whatever it wasn't, it ain't there now. --Hans Chloride -- After examining the browser cache, I have a new and deep respect for the cumstainer. I meant customer, of course. --Hans Chloride -- >Executions have been quite effective against recedivism. >No executed felon has EVER re-offended. --Paul Ciszek Well, there is the alleged case of a Jewish heretic and general rabble-rouser who managed a brief return to his life of crime shortly after his execution... --John Schilling -- "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." --Jack London -- "They're right that travel broadens one and exposes you to all sorts of new experiences. So make sure you get your shots before you go." -- Mambo Jack -- "The Universe is stranger than we thought." -S.Hawking "Relatively speaking." -A.Einstein "Which universe?" -Professor Emilio Mnoren -- To say that Oberon and Titania did not get along would be rather like saying that Belldandy tends to be polite or that planets tend to be fairly heavy. --Otaku Reflected, Jared Ornstead aka Skysaber -- "The state exists for man, not man for the state. The same may be said of science. These are old phrases, coined by people who saw in human individuality the highest human value. I would hesitate to repeat them, were it not for the ever recurring danger that they may be forgotten, especially in these days of organization and stereotypes. " - Albert Einstein -- Starkle, starkle, little twink, Who the hell are you I think. I'm not under what you call The alcofluence of incohol. I'm just a little slort of sheep, I'm not drunk like thinkle peep. I don't know who is me yet, But the drunker I stand here the longer I get. So just give me one more fink to drill my cup, 'Cause I got all day sober to Sunday up. -- Reality is stranger than fiction, and so we write stranger things to compensate... A vicious cycle. -- He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave. -Sir William Drummond -- "If it's not nailed down, it's mine. If it can be pried loose, it's not nailed down." --Tandel The Lynx, high level thief -- "Our own heart, and not others' opinions of us, forms our true honor." -Friedrich von Schiller -- "Magic is simply being able to do something the other guy doesn't know how to do." - Ambrosius Merlin, Court Wizard -- An attentive Ranma was, after all, something along the nature of three of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding in with a note from Famine saying "Sorry, I'll be late, had to stop for a beef bowl". --Ranma: Paragon -- "Anybody who has read of Quantum Physics, and not been confused by it, has clearly not understood the material in question." --Steven Hawking -- "I am convinced people who worry about spelling and punctuation on the net fold their underwear before they have sex. It's just got to be." - Bunboy -- You can lead an idiot to knowledge but you cannot make him think. You can, however, rectally insert the information, printed on stone tablets, using a sharpened poker. --Nicolai, ASR -- To me it sounds like a flock of ducks trying to out-honk a Mac Truck, but getting cut short tragically as they all fly into the grill work of the truck. But that's just me. --Paul Tomblin, about the system beep on the Alpha UDB. -- I live in fear of the day that the Hoopsnakes hybridize with the common Ethernet Patchsnake. Imagine the sheer hell of it: colonies of them becoming established in the warm, dark recesses of wiring-closets, and concealing themselves in boxes with routers, switches and the like. -- Tanuki Hm, that might explain why the PFYs keep on disappearing after I send them off to work in the comms riser on the 49th floor. -- Lionel Lauer -- Unfortunately, our Bright Young PFY will no longer be assisting with expeditions downtown, as he has been dubbed the Telecom Destruction Bunny and banned from taking his aura anywhere near anything major. --Anthony DeBoer -- I try to explain, but he goes into the back room and gets this wizened old guy with a pocket protector and a nametag that read "Senior Engineer." -- Jack Twilley His mom really must have hated him. -- Charles Cazabon -- If USENET is anarchy, IRC is a paranoid schizophrenic after 6 days on speed. --Chris "Saundo" Saunderson -- As one notices, Ben has been around the block far too many times. He has the BOFH nature. Luke, OTOH, goes for this crap hook, line, and sinker. He has the PFY nature. -- Anthony DeBoer By RotJ, of course, Luke also has BOFH nature. Note how he calmly goes to the HR department^W^W^WJabba's lair. Note how he calmly asks for his friends back. Note how he calmly annihilates all about him when he doesn't get what he wants. Still, Jedi mind tricks would be great for BOFHen facing internal audits: ``These E10000s aren't the budget overruns you're looking for.'' -- Rodger Donaldson -- We aim to please. Ourselves, mostly, but we do aim to please. --Anthony DeBoer -- Then I dream of a world where idiots are hunted like wild pigs, and people like me have a vast array of weaponry at their disposal. --Stephen S. Edwards in alt.sys-admin.recovery -- Asked whether Microsoft could threaten Linux, Torvalds said: "What can they do? What is the Microsoft threat? They certainly can't program around us. The only other thing they can do is marketing, and sure, let them try." --From the .sig file of Gus Hartmann -- Rules to live by in Pallidium RPGs: 38.Dragons make good allies 39.Dragons make worse enemies 76.Stealing magic and rune weapons from a God is bad. 77.Stealing magic and rune weapons from Atlantis is just plain stupid. --From Mad Dog's Humor Files -- Murphy's Military/RPG laws: 64. Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan. 94. Every command which can be misunderstood, will be. 102. The more stupid the leader is, the more important missions he is ordered to carry out. 104. There is always a way, and it usually doesn't work. 50. There is no such thing as too much firepower. 89. If a cosmo-knight shows up at any point run, do not walk, to the nearest dimensional portal. 83. It's grab your rifle, THEN look outside. 79. Never fire a missile with a 20 foot blast radius into a hallway only 10 feet wide. -- "Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster is a maniac?" -- 32 years has passed since the Great War. The Shivan's vanished half a lifetime ago. We live in the mausoleum of history. We inherit the legacy of ghosts who haunt these ruins. The elders call us 'The Lost Generation'. I remember stories of a glorious civilization. Of cities with spires that reach the sky. Of a blue planet with vast seas. Of people with myths and dreams of humanity everlasting. Of children who saw, in the embers of dying stars, the destiny of their race. And they hurled themselves into the void of space with no fear. They say our people have no present. Only a past filled with horror. And a future they can only dream of. --Freespace 2 -- "Pot. Kettle. Apparent reflectivity index." --Hephaestus, The bet - Cat scratch fever by Gregg Sharp -- "If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action." --no smoking sign -- "...If people bring so much courage to this world, the world had to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially." --Ernest Hemmingway, A Farewell to Arms -- The three laws of thermodynamics: The First Law: You can't get anything without working for it. The Second Law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break even. The Third Law: You can only break even at absolute zero. Pharaprased: (1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit the game. -- You know you've been in the Martial Arts too long when.... 1. When you hit your head on a low doorway or ceiling and kick it in anger and _damage_ it. 2. you go to the shoe store to try on shoes and... ...Instead of walking or jogging around the store, you practice pivoting, sweeps, stances and kicks. ...You check to see if the shoe has a sufficiently hard striking surface and whether it protects the toes well ...and lastly, you don't even care if (and they probably are) the other patrons are looking at you funny. (That's the big clue) 3. "What was I doing in my office when I was spinning around and flailing my arms and legs? Ahhhhhmmmmmmm....." 4. haven't gotten over the phase of seeing everybody walking around with a blanket of little red cross-hairs on all their vital spots 5. find yourself practicing bo staff techniques in miniature with your pencil during dull meetings 6. When you don't use any tools while splitting firewood 7. when you in parties don't understand why everybody is looking weird at you and your Aikido-friend who's having a conversation where at least half the words are in japanese 8. when you, after training, are discussing techniques with your friends at the bus stop, starts demonstrating on him and don't understand why everybody else who was waiting for the bus is going in such large circles around you when the bus arrives 9. when you start wondering what technique would fit best if that passing stranger over there would attack me. 10.You say to the salesman in the men's store, "Nice pants, but I don't think I can kick in them." -- You have never lived, until you have almost died. And for those who fight for it, life has a flavor the protected will never know. --posted on the outhouse wall of Khe Sanh, Republic of Vietnam 1968 -- There were three friends that buried the fourth. The mould on his face the dust in his eyes. And they went east and west and south and north. The strong man fights but the sick man dies. There were three friends that spoke of the dead. The strong man fights but the sick man dies. Would that he was with us, they said. The sun on our face the wind in our eyes. --old ballad -- The roman matrons used to say to their sons; "Come back _with_ your shield or on it." Later that tradition fell into decline. So did the roman empire. -- A woman once said: "I'd never date a man who say he knows everything about women. He is either a liar or he really knows everything and where's the fun then?" -- Anyone can lie with a straight face. A good liar tells just enough of the truth to be believed. An excelent liar tell the whole truth, but in such a way that no-one believes it. -- Myrphys laws of combat: Incoming artillery always has the right of way. -- "If JavaScript is walking alone late at night through a bad part of town with a pocket full of $20 bills, ActiveX is dropping your trousers in the middle of the yard of a maximum-security prison, bending over, and yelling 'Come and get it, boys!' " --adamxxxprinceton.edu (Adam J. Thornton) -- Many people are concerned about the security of ActiveX controls. Once on your machine, an ActiveX control has full access to your system. if you are not careful, it could delete your hard drive, corrupt your politician, or order an unauthorized pizza. Fortunately there are some solutions to the security problem. First, the designer of the control marks the control as safe only if the control is actually safe to use. It is almost unthinkable that someone with hostile intentions would lie about something like this. Next, most pizza shops call back to confirm your phone number before delivery. -- Mr. Bunny's Guide to ActiveX -- ADVENTURE (n): Someone else, a long way off, in one Hell of a fix. -- "Sodomy non sapiens," said Albert under his breath. "What does that mean?" "Means I'm buggered if I know." --Mort, Terry Pratchett -- Clear vision is often mistaken for cynicism by those who have not got it. --George Bernard Shaw -- Asking someone to repeat a phrase you'd not only heard very clearly but were also exceedingly angry about was around Defcon II in the lexicon of squabble. -- Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad -- "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, For you are crunchy, and good with ketchup." -- Email is not a right. Email is a right, a left, a jabb, and a sharp uppercut. The postman hits! You have new mail! -- The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. -- James D. Nicoll -- "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." --James Davis Nicoll -- "If I want your opinion, I'll read your entrails." --Doug Shewfelt -- Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact. -- (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures) -- "Persons compelled to habitate in structures of patent frangibility should, under no circumstances, employ fragmentations of the lithosphere as projectiles." -- "Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'." --Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic -- The Alchemist's Guild is opposite the Gambler's Guild. Usually. Sometimes it's above it, or below it, or falling in bits around it. -- Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms -- "We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse." -- Anon. -- One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. -- Bertrand Russell -- "Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue..." -- "As your life flashes before your eyes, in the unit of time known as an ohnosecond...." --Dave Aronson -- "Ranko, such language!" "Daddy taught me. He also teach me and and . He also said once when he was trying to teach me to drink." --Ranko Saotome age 8 to her mother, The Bet: Fist of Orion, by Gregg Sharp -- The Seventh Commandment for Technicians: Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in other ways. -- There was a polite beeping from the Thing. "You may be interested to know," it said, "that we've broken the sound barrier." Masklin turned wearily to the others. "All right, own up. Who broke it?" -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings) -- "All right," said Masklin. "But you're not to fly down low again and try to read the signposts. Every time you do that, humans rush into the streets and we get lots of shouting on the radio." "That's right." said the Thing. "People are bound to get excited when they see a ten-million-ton starship trying to fly down the street." -- (Terry Pratchett, Wings) -- Sweater, n.: A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly. -- "Learn a few foreign words or phrases: "Where is the toilet?" "Give me your money." Foreigners will be flattered and it will speed up your visit." (From the "Viking Handbook" by Dik Browne) -- "We are either doing something, or we are not. 'Talking about' is a subset of 'not'." -- "Well believe me Mike, I calculated the odds of this succeding vs. the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid... And I went ahead anyway." -- You know you have been playing to many first person shooters when... ...you dream of running through corridors with a gun, dodging monsters ...you always scan your surroundings for cover. ...you catch yourself thinking of which weapon would be best in your current enviroment. ...you keep checking doorways and alleys you pass for ambush. -- A child-programmers approach to parents: While Parent_patience > 0 Do Annoying_action A programmers approach to techsupport-job: While Sanity > 0 Do Work A programmers approach to postal-job: If Sanity > 0 Then Work Else Go_postal A programmers approach to sex: While Orgasm = 0 Do F*** A programmers relation to coffeine: If Coffeine_level < 1 Then Run_in_circles_scream_and_shout Else Work -- There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosopy. --Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5, William Shakespare -- I once absend-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce. -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett) -- Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil...prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon... -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett) -- You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, travelling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abcesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say 'yes'. -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett) -- I save about twenty drafts -- that's ten meg of disc space -- and the last one contains all the final alterations. Once it has been printed out and received by the publishers, there's a cry here of 'Tough shit, literary researchers of the future, try getting a proper job!' and the rest are wiped. -- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett) -- A day ago the future had looked aching and desolate, and now it looked full of surprises and terror and bad things happening to people... If she had anything to do with it anyway. -- Granny Weatherwax commits optimism (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade) -- I try to make computers say things like "You have 60 seconds to achieve safe distance" -- Terry Pratchett, Warwick Uni (10.11.94) -- "And wow! Hey! What's this thing coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding word like... ow... ound... round... ground! That's it! That's a good name - ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?" --HGTG, Douglas Adams -- Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy. -- Q: "Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?" A: "All my autopsies are performed on dead people." -- "The world is a cookie jar and people are just crumbles." "What about you?" "I'm sitting on the lid laughing." --Garfield -- "I used to dance. Then I learned HTML and my dancing gene vanished." --User Friendly -- "What is it that a man may call the greatest things in life?" "Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper." -- Cohen the Barbarian in conversation with Discworld nomads (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic) -- The druid stiffened. "*Nice?*" he said. "A triumph of the silicon chunk, a miracle of modern masonic technology -- *nice*?" "Oh, yes," said Twoflower, to whom sarcasm was merely a seven letter word beginning with S. -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic) -- The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hung Ling's Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword. All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black. -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic) -- "If you're going to suggest I try dropping twenty feet down a pitch dark tower in the hope of hitting a couple of greasy little steps which might not even still be there, you can forget it," said Rincewind sharply. "There is an alternative, then." "Out with it, man." "You could drop five hundred feet down a pitch black tower and hit stones which certainly are there," said Twoflower. Dead silence from below him. Then Rincewind said, accusingly, "That was sarcasm." -- (Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic) -- "You're dead," he said. Keli waited. She couldn't think of any suitable reply. "I'm not" lacked a certain style, while "Is it serious?" seemed somehow too frivolous. -- Princess Keli in trouble (Terry Pratchett, Mort) -- Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote. -- Discworld politics (Terry Pratchett, Mort) -- "Pardon me for living, I'm sure." "NO-ONE GETS PARDONED FOR LIVING." -- (Terry Pratchett, Mort) -- "You like it?" he said to Mort, in pretty much the same tone of voice people used when they said to St George, "You killed a *what*?" -- Mort tastes scrumble for the first time (Terry Pratchett, Mort) -- The vermine is a small black and white relative of the lemming, found in the cold Hublandish regions. Its skin is rare and highly valued, especially by the vermine itself; the selfish little bastard will do anything rather than let go of it. -- Discworld wildlife (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery) -- "I'm not going to ride on a magic carpet!" he hissed. "I'm afraid of grounds." "You mean heights," said Conina. "And stop being silly." "I know what I mean! It's the grounds that kill you!" -- (Terry Pratchett, Sourcery) -- The calender of the Theocracy of Muntab counts down, not up. No-one knows why, but it might not be a good idea to hang around and find out. -- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters) -- Nature abhors dimensional abnormalities, and seals them neatly away so that they don't upset people. Nature, in fact, abhors a lot of things, including vacuums, ships called the "Marie Celeste", and the chuck keys for electric drills. -- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids) -- People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else." -- (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!) -- It was true about the time measurement as well. The Tezumen had realized long ago that everything was steadily getting worse and, having a terrible little-mindedness, had developed a complex system to keep track of how much worse each succeeding day was. -- (Terry Pratchett, Eric) -- "Chap with a whip got as far as the big sharp spikes last week," said the low priest. -- Life in the Temple of Offler (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man) -- "Have you any last words?" "YES. I DON'T WANT TO GO." "Well. Succinct, anyway." -- Death at the other end of the scythe, for once (Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man) -- Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because -- what with trolls and dwarfs and so on -- speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green. -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad) -- Greebo's technique was unscientific and wouldn't have stood a chance against any decent swordmanship, but on his side was the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent swordmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off. -- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad) -- "That's why it's always worth having a few philosophers around the place. One minute it's all Is Truth Beauty and Is Beauty Truth, and Does A Falling Tree in the Forest Make A Sound if There's No one There to Hear It, and then just when you think they're going to start dribbling one of 'em says, Incidentally, putting a thirty-foot parabolic reflector on a high place to shoot the rays of the sun at an enemy's ships would be a very interesting demonstration of optical principles." -- The many and varied advantages of philosophy (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods) -- The Monks of Cool, whose tiny and exclusive monastery is hidden in a really cool and laid-back valley in the lower Ramtops, have a passing-out test for a novice. He is taken into a room full of all types of clothing and asked: Yo, my son, which of these is the most stylish thing to wear? And the correct answer is: Hey, whatever I select. -- (Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies) -- After the stampede the artist Three Solid Frogs got to his feet, retrieved his brush from his nostril, pulled his easel out of a tree, and tried to think placid thoughts. -- (Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times) -- "Remember -- that which does not kill us can only make us stronger." "And that which *does* kill us leaves us *dead*!" -- (Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum) -- "You don't understand. _I'm_ not locked up in here with _you_. _You_ are locked up in here with _me_" --Rorschach to his fellow prisoners, The Watchmen -- "I heard if you play the NT-4.0-CD backwards, you get a satanic message." "That's nothing, if you play it forward, it installs NT-4.0" -- Humanity faced a tremendous setback ca. 1100 A.D., when the first law school was established in Bologna. Ironically, the free exchange of ideas at the law school spurred the law students to invent new ways (patents, trademarks, copyrights) to stifle the free exchange of ideas in other industries. --Brief history of linux by James Baughn -- Most people don't realize that many of the technological innovations taken for granted in the 20th Century date back centuries ago. The concept of a network "firewall", for instance, is a product of the Great Wall of China, a crude attempt to keep raging forest fires out of Chinese territory. It was soon discovered that the Wall also kept Asian intruders ("steppe kiddies") out, just as modern-day firewalls keep network intruders ("script kiddies") out. --Brief history of linux by James Baughn -- Meanwhile, reports indicate that genetically engineered pigs are flying over singing fat ladies in a snow-covered Hell (third planet of Satan IV system). --Welcome to 19100! by James Baughn CCXXIX, Minister Of Truth, United Planets Of Humorixia, on January 1, 19100 -- We pundits like to make predictions about the future. If we're wrong, we quietly hide our old predictions and nobody is the wiser. But if we're right, we jump up and down, point to our prognostications, and yell, "I told you so!" --Jon Splatz, Humorix -- "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." "No, my son, you have it backwards. It is better to live on your feet than to die on your knees." --? -- "There is no idea so good it can't be ruined by a few well-placed idiots." --Scott Adams -- "Consultants have credibility because they are not dumb enough to work at your company." --Scott Adams -- "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!', but 'That's funny...'" --Isaac Asimov -- "The thing about Tom Clancy is that you can start reading a Tom Clancy book when the plane takes off in London and you're still reading it when the plane lands in Sidney. And then you can use it to beat snakes to death." --Terry Pratchet -- "I'm not allowed to get a new computer until I get rid of the old one. The janitor won't allow it in the trash. Union rules won't let me carry it to storage. So I built this catapult. Like I always say, every problem has an engineering solution." --Wally, Dilbert comic -- "I'm happy to report that I have embraced the new company slogan 'Act like you own the company.' This morning I fired the marketing department and had security escort them out." --Wally, Dilbert comic -- Bad news: "We're not giving any raises." Making it worse: "But we think work is its own reward." Much worse: "Expect to be rewarded about twice as much next year." --PHB, Dilbert comic -- In 1979 all productive use of ARPANET ceased when USENET and the first MUD were created. In 1983, when the network surpassed 1,000 hosts, a study showed that 90.4% of all traffic was devoted to email and USENET flame wars. Some things never change. --Brief History Of Linux (Part 2), Written by James Baughn -- "Quick" and "Dirty" were truly an accurate description of this system, because IBM's quality assurance department discovered 300 bugs in QDOS's 8,000 lines of assember code (that's about 1 bug per 27 lines -- which, at the time, was appalling, but compared with Windows 98 today, it really wasn't that shabby). --Brief History Of Linux (Part 2), Written by James Baughn -- The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included. --Chops-Frozen-Water (axeice at columbus.rr.com) -- "Bill Gates is just a monocle and a Persian Cat away from being one of the bad guys in a James Bond movie." -- Dennis Miller -- They don't have cops in Australia; it's a continent peopled entirely by criminals --Captain Infinity -- It is pretty much safe to say that we are not Christians and we do not want to be Saved. - Charles Darwin, Chlorinator of the Pool, Slayer of the Inattentive, Scourge of the Stupid, and Exterminator of the Congenitally Thick. - There is no appeal, no refund and no mercy. Game over. Thanks for playing. - Not reading the welcome message and then jumping into the list with what you imagine to be a relevant and entertaining post is roughly equivalent to running into a Harlem bar naked save for a pointy white hat and hood, and handing out pamphlets for the Fresh White Virgin Sphincter Chapter of the KKK. - Quite frankly if you do post and ad or spam the list with one of those "make money real quick" messages, you are shit, lower than a snake's penis and you really do _deserve_ to be taken out and shot, buried, dug up again, and then fucked by a herd of rampant wildebeest until your corpse is rent in a thousand places; you deserve to have your bowels invaded by a swarming army of rapacious ants and your kidneys, liver, pancreas and lungs eaten by dingoes. You are scum. --From the official Cult of Father Darwin FAQ -- The Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior to reason. The Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism - a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom. --Ayn Rand, "The Left: Old And New," -- Since time immemorial and pre-industrial, 'greed' has been the accusation hurled at the rich by the concrete-bound illiterates who were unable to conceive of the source of wealth or of the motivation of those who produce it. -- Ayn Rand, "Philosophical Detection", Philosophy: Who Needs It -- Looking deeply into the crystal, the Amazon matriarch began the arcane chant that would open it's scrying powers. The crystal began to glow, faintly, revealing characters, words that would tell the elder what she needed to know. YOU'RE SCREWED. She had hoped for something more detailed... - "Stupid oracle." Cologne glared at the crystal in aggravation. "Could you possibly be more specific?" YOU'RE REALLY SCREWED. "That's not telling me anything helpful..." SEVERELY SCREWED? MAJOR SCREWED? SCREWED BEYOND BELIEF? It is a little known fact that in the Amazon dialect of Chinese there are no less that sixty-two ways to call someone or something a moron. Cologne ran through them all twice in three and a half minutes. --Girl Days, A Ranma 1/2 fanfic by Robert Haynie -- The policeman stood and faced his God, which must always come to pass. He hoped his shoes were shining just as brightly as his brass. "Step forward now, policeman. How shall I deal with you? Have you always turned the other cheek? To my church have you been true?" The policeman squared his shoulders and said, "No Lord I guess I ain't, Because those of us who carry badges can't always be a Saint. I've had to work most Sundays, and at times my work was rough. Sometimes I have been violent, because the streets are awfully tough. But I never took a penny that wasn't mine to keep. I worked a lot of overtime when the bills just got too steep. And I never passed a cry for help, though at times I shook with fear. And sometimes, God forgive me, I've wept unmanly tears. I know I don't deserve a place among the people here. They never wanted me around except to calm their fear. If you've a place for me here, Lord It needn't be so grand. I never expected or had too much, but if you don't I'll understand." There was a silence all around the throne where the Saints had often trod. As the policeman waited quietly for the judgment of his God. "Step forward now, policeman, You've borne your burdens well. Come walk a beat on Heaven's streets you've done your time in Hell." --"Policeman's Heaven", Author: Unknown -- The idea started during the cold war and is a perfect example of what happens when unlimited communist political power mixes with enough vodka to stun a mule. --"Dark, Shayne" -- The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice - which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction - which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good. -- Ayn Rand, "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," Philosophy: Who Needs It -- Poverty is not a mortgage on the labor of others - misfortune is not a mortgage on achievement - failure is not a mortgage on success - suffering is not a claim check, and its relief is not the goal of existence - man is not a sacrificial animal on anyone's altar nor for anyone's cause - life is not one huge hospital. -- Ayn Rand, "Apollo 11," The Objectivist -- "The first thing that Kira learned about life and the first thing that her elders learned, dismayed, about Kira, was the joy of being alone." -- Ayn Rand. We, the Living -- The first duty is to the living. The dead can be mourned later. -- "You have been designated the 4th child," Commander Ikari said in his usual 'oh so joyful' tone. One would not be surprised if he had once worked helpdesk. Actually, it would explain a number of things. - ...replied in a voice that was so thick with sarcasm that people mistook him for a helpdesk operator. - "Hi, I'm Ammadeau. I'm from some place that's probably underwater now." "Is it because it was flooded by the Second Impact?" "No, I just left the water running when I left." "When did you leave?" "Oh, about sixteen years ago." --The Reluctant SI 1:Toji Has a Little 'Accident' . . . He He He (A NGE SI Parody)By Ammadeau -- Inflation is not caused by the actions of private citizens, but by the government: by an artificial expansion of the money supply required to support deficit spending. No private embezzlers or bank robbers in history have ever plundered people's savings on a scale comparable to the plunder perpetrated by the fiscal policies of statist governments. -- Ayn Rand, "Who Will Protect Us From Our Protectors"? The Objectivist Newsletter, May 1952 -- Religious Truths: 1. The Jews don't recognize the Messiah. 2. Protestants don't recognize the Pope. 3. Two Baptists in a liquor store don't recognize each other. -- The Ten + Rules teenagers will never learn in school: 1. Life is not fair - get used to it. The average Teenager uses the phrase "It's not fair' 86 times a day. 2. The real world won't care as much about your self-esteem as your school does. This may be a shock. 3. Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone,either. You may have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a designer label. 4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. 5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity, your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - They called it opportunity. 6. It's not your parents' fault if you mess up. You're responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life", and "You're not my boss", and "You don't want me to have fun" or "Your just old fashioned". 7. Before you were born, your parents weren't boring. They got that way paying your bills and listening to you. 8. Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off - not even spring break. You are expected to show up every day for eight hours, and you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. 9. Smoking does not make you look cool. Watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. 10.Your school may be "Outcome-based" - but life isn't. In some schools you're given as many times as you want to get the answer right - standards are set low enough so everyone can meet them! This of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life--As you will find out. 11.Kid you better learn something from me because you will not live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself. 12.School will seem like a long time but employment is a lifetime. Good Luck. You are going to need it - and the harder you work, the luckier you will get. 13.The road to hell is paved with good intentions - you booz, you cruise, you lose. 14.If you lie, cheat and steal, you may get what you want right away, without much effort. But eventually you WILL get caught and then you will lose your good name. Then you will find it takes ten times the effort to win back that good name. -- "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." --Albert Einstein -- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.) -- The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. - Albert Einstein -- There are lies, damned lies, and Microsoft brochures --Brief History of Linux (Part 3) Written by James Baughn -- Visit new and exciting countries, steal their national treasures. --Hudson Hawk -- "The connection is so abstract, that we have people whose job it is to make sure the paperwork doesn't get totally disconnected from the world. Theoretically, I handle millions of dollars a day, but it is less real than this e-mail. I have never seen our product. I have never seen the sales people. I have never seen a customer." --Robert Lane describes his work as an accountant. -- Some people are born to raise hell. Others are born to be bad. Some are even born to be wild. Today I would like to talk about some people who, as far as I can tell, were born to be utter prats with no chance of finding their own asses. --"Dark, Shayne" on the CofD mailinglist -- The other day I tried having some pudding without eating my meat. It went off without a hitch. What was Pink Floyd smoking, anyhow? -- Brooks Parfitt -- "Great Spirits have always encounterd violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Albert Einstein -- "So, I'll put down my LART, and you'll put down your StUd1yK@pz, and we'll access UseNet like civilized people?" -The Dread SysAdmin Roberts -- He fell down! Down was the direction of the falling and the direction of the falling was down. I don't care how high he was. Up just isn't an option. --"Dark, Shayne" on the CofD mailinglist -- A long time ago, during my days at the old science academy, a philosophy teacher asked me a question I couldn't answer right away. The question simply was "What is religion?" It was a question I pondered for some time. When I finally came to my conclusion and told him, he was intrigued by my answer. What I said to him was this: Imagine being inside a dark room, with only a single window with which to see the outside. Through that window you can see many things about the universe beyond. No matter what size, shape, or material the window is made of, your view of reality will be distorted by the window you choose. Some windows allow for wider view. Some are prettier to look at. None are completely transparent. Reality is the outside. This window is religion. Religion, as I came to realize, is not necessarily a belief in a higher power or even a set of strict rules to follow. Rather, Religion is the window a person chooses though which reality is refracted. Unfortunately, some, when confronted with a harsh viewing spot prefer to close their blinds, preferring to peer out through a single slit they've created. Whether out of fear, or another emotion, the result is the same. To these people, their window remains forever closed, and what experience has taught them becomes the only thing reality can teach them. --Hakubi, Washuu (-chan) "Memoires of a Super Genius", in Tenchi: Sasami's Wish by Nall-ohki -- Moderation is good, in theory. Theory is good, in moderation. --Dave Turner -- Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demand for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen. -- Ayn Rand, "America's Persecuted Minority:" Big Business -- One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor! -- "People like you will always stay honest, people like you will always struggle to rise, people like you will always work, so we're safe and you have no choice." -- Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged -- "And who - in this damned universe - who can tell me why I should live for anything but for that which I want?" -- Ayn Rand We, the Living -- It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired. -- Robert Heinlein -- "How many limbs did he have before he got in the water?" "I don't notice these things." --Shermans lagoon -- "I'm only holding back the rain. So many raindrops, so many pains. I want to find my train someday. As seasons go past the station." - Tokyo Babylon OVA 1 -- Perhaps these Oklahoma cretins don't like the idea that they 'came from the apes.' Not too surprising there, if you told a mountain gorilla that he evolved from an Oklahoman republican, he'd be bloody mortified. --"Dark, Shayne" on the CofD mailinglist -- "Gods -- or their equals -- don't get to opt for therapy or medication, though one can see how such things might do wonders for the Judeo-Christian God." -- Mikal Gilmore -- "You live and learn or you don't live long." -- Robert A Heinlein -- "This was a man who firmly believed that the word fine, as in "I'm feeling fine," was really an acronym spelling out 'Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.'" -- Will Self, Cock & Bull -- "As was noted at the base of the Plexus, it had been developed by the AM Advanced Graphics Workshop. Rather than presenting maps of each floor of the Plex, they had used an Integrated Projection to show the entire Plex as a network of brightly colored paths and intersections. The resulting tangle was so convoluted and yet so clean and spare as to be essentially without meaning. Casimir, however, could read it, because he was not like us. After applying his large intelligence to the problem for several minutes he was able to find the most efficient route, and following it with care, he quickly became lost." -- the Big U, Neal Stephenson -- "...There is a school of thought, a heresy from the madhouse of heresies in the ninth century, that says God is good and is in control of every individual thing that happens, every event, but that unfortunately the devil is in control of the timing." -- from Norman Rush's Mating -- "H.P. Lovecraft is for the summer between junior and senior years in high school. Cosmic fear hits you about then anyway -- you realize you'll soon have to Get a Real Job or Go To College or Both and in those days, Be Drafted. A dose of Cthulhu helps put these feelings in perspective." -- Howard Waldrop -- ""On the Beach," "Soylent Green" and "1984" plumbed frightening depths. "Brave New World," "The Screwfly Solution" and "Fahrenheit 451" posed worrying questions. In contrast, "Oedipus Rex" is about as interesting as watching a hooked fish thrash futilely at the end of a line. You just want to put the poor doomed King of Thebes out of his misery -- and find a way to punish his tormentors." -- David Brin -- "There is a kind of unspoken collusion going on in mainstream science education: you get your competent but bored, insecure and hence stodgy teacher talking to an audience divided between engineering students, who are going to be responsible for making bridges that won't fall down or airplanes that won't suddenly plunge vertically into the ground at six hundred miles an hour, and who by definition get sweaty palms and vindictive attitudes when their teacher suddenly veers off track and begins raving about wild and completely nonintuitive phenomena; and physics students, who derive much of their self-esteem from knowing that they are smarter and morally purer than the engineering students, and who by definition don't want to hear about anything that makes no fucking sense." -- from Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon -- "Religious leaders have often ranted and railed against certain sexual practices, from masturbation and oral sex to homosexuality, as though these were the handiwork of the devil. But what if God feels more honored when a person joyfully masturbates as opposed to saying a speedy rosary or spending an obligatory hour in church. After all, God created orgasm, while prayers and churches are the creations of men. What if God receives more joy when an unmarried couple lovingly shares oral sex than when a church-going husband and wife have passionless, missionary position intercourse? And who is to say that God hasn't created a group of homosexual angels to guard the gates of heaven? Maybe God has a sense of humor and brings out the queer angels whenever a redneck preacher or one of his intolerant parishioners has just died and is awaiting judgment." --from The Guide to Getting it On -- "Utopia" Largo stopped pacing and flashed his crooked smile again. "No. How can there ever be a utopia? There is no right way to live which we've simply failed to stumble upon. There is no set of rules, there is no system, there is no formula. Why should there be? Short of the existence of a creator--and a perverse one, at that-- why should there be some blueprint for perfection, just waiting to be discovered?" -- from "Chaff" by Greg Egan 2 -- "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." -- Richard Dawkins -- "I'm looking forward to when bioengineering moves from technology to handicraft: biotech on the other side of necessity, where it enters the realm of nose piercing. People with tiny little goldfish swimming in one eye or feathers growing out of their backs. I'd love to be in a world where women grow penises because it is fashionable, or you can have an eye replacement of a different color or from a different species. All the adults will say, "Tut, tut, tut, girls never had penises in my day. We used to pierce our noses and lips. Why don't you do that/" And the kids will say, "Mom, you're so old-fashioned." All good technology should be used to piss off people's parents." -- Neil Gaiman in "Wired" -- "It's like an IQ test. The ones who can't think buy NT." Scott McNealy, CEO Sun Micro Systems -- I've got the greatest boss.... He said the only way he'd attend a Sexual Harassment Seminar is if there weren't any whining, fat chicks there. --"Paul Benoit" on the CofD mailinglist -- "...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.] -- (Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD), -- "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do it blows your whole leg off." -Stroustrup -- "I use the words you taught me. If they don't mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent" - Samuel Beckett, "Endgame" -- Instructions on a Swedish chainsaw: "Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals." -- Man only needs three things in life: WD-40 to make things go, Duct tape to make them stop, ...and a big hammer for those delicate adjustments -- "I believe the excretory material has impacted the rotating blades." --DKR: Thy Kingdom Come, by Mark Latus -- "To be eyeless in hell ... to claw your way inch by inch towards your goal ... To keep going even though the terrors you face are more terrible because you cannot see them. Yet you fight on, heading ever for the heart of the inferno. And when you can no longer walk, you crawl. Toward the mutant and revenge for the evil he has wrought upon your beloved city... revenge that even in your pain wracked mind you know to be hopeless. For you are a judge. And it is your duty." --John Wagner, "Judge Dredd : City of the Damned" -- It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone -- that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous . . . . The great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge. --H.L. Mencken -- I've found my inner child, now where did I leave my outer adult? -- This worker drone does not express the opinions of the hive. Buzz off. -- Having recently completed the Lady Macbeth guide to housebreaking dogs (Chapter 1: Out Out Damned Spot) I will have to turn my eye to the exorcism ritual, and began to compile my notes on exorcising irrational guilt. Chapters will include Jerking off is fine, just don't do it on the counter at McDonalds; Sex outside of church marriage is great, sex on the church altar is a fetish; You've got enough problems on your own, stop worrying about what your imaginary friend thinks. Confession is good for the soul 'Dear Penthouse, you'll never believe what happened to me...' --"Dark, Shayne" on the CofD mailing list -- It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. --Voltaire -- The DOJ stunned the world last week when it announced intentions to break Microsoft into two Baby Bills. When the news broke, Linux users were jumping up and down, but Wall Street tycoons were jumping out of windows. --Responses To Proposed Microsoft Breakup, written by James Baughn -- If I have children and subsequently grandchildren, I will keep my three-year-old granddaughter near me at all times. When the hero enters to kill me, I will ask him to first explain to her why it is necessary to kill her beloved grandpa. When the hero launches into an explanation of morality way over her head, that will be her cue to pull the lever and send him into the pit of crocodiles. After all, small children like crocodiles almost as much as Evil Overlords and it's important to spend quality time with the grandkids. --142. Evil Overlord List, Copyright 1996-1997 by Peter Anspach. -- I never really understood how there could be things that would drive you insane just because you knew them until I ran into Windows. --Peter da Silva -- I'm an apatheist. The question is no longer interesting, and the answer no longer matters. --petro -- People who are willing to rely on the government to keep them safe are pretty much standing on Darwin's mat, pounding on the door, screaming, "Take me, take me!" --Carl Jacobs -- You are metaphorically getting out of the safari jeep and kicking the lions. --coonec -- Remember - if all you have is an axe, every problem looks like hours of fun. --Frossie -- "What is the Necronomicon?" "Stitched together fact, rumour, speculation, and complete balderdash, and the result is a vast and almost unreadable compendium of near-nonsense..." "Kind of like Usenet, I guess, then." --Kendrick Kerwin Chua writes: -- Washington, D.C: Fifty square miles almost completely surrounded by reality. -- How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a sister's "See?" --Linus Van Pelt -- "SCSI is not magic, there are perfectly good technical reasons why you require a dead chicken and candles." -- unknown -- The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket. -- Never miss a good chance to shut up. -- ``I'm not surprised,'' said I. ``You created God in your own image, and when you found out he was no good you abolished him. It's quite a common form of psychological suicide.'' -- Robertson Davies, Fifth Business -- You're going to listen to something I said? Haven't I made it abundantly clear during the tenure of our friendship that I don't know shit? --Brodie, Mallrats -- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for Sega. --Brodie, Mallrats -- "Where Zen ends, ass kicking begins. And that's your final lesson, Grasshopper." --Michael, 'That 70's Show' -- So, remember when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth! And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger-all down here on Earth! --Galaxy Song, Monty Python -- My law firm, Rilley, Lowe & Morals, is on the case. --The Mother Of All Lawsuits,Noah Morals, Humorix's Official Lawyer -- These guys are "pretty thorough" the way Vlad the Impaler was "a little unbalanced." --Space Shuttle Software: Not For Hacks, by timothy on slashdot -- By that time, the law could say that the moon in made of green cheese until proven otherwise, while forbidding lunar analysis. --timothy on slashdot -- Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies. --Groucho Marx -- If at first you don't succeed, so much for skydiving. -- "Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be!" --Puck, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" -- "I'm not granting the request because I think The People are being silly." --Judge Steven T. Pelican to the Assistant District Attorney. I WAS THERE -- G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: ''Go on writing plays, my boy. One of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his secretary, `Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says `No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' And that's your chance, my boy.' -- Due to circumstances beyond our control, we regret to inform you that circumstances are beyond our control. -- "Capital punishment turns the state into a murderer. But imprisonment turns the state into a gay dungeon-master." -- Emo Philips -- Dictatorship (n): a form of government under which everything which is not prohibited is compulsory. -- No sequel. No toy merchandizing. No chance to do a re-take. Welcome to reality, and by the way, if you don't like it, there are no refunds, so don't bother asking. --Shayne Dark on the CofD mailing list -- "Warning: You are logged into reality as root..." -- You will skin your knuckles while walking. Evolution was never your strong point was it monkey-boy? -- It is always darkest before the dawn. Turn on the bloody light you idiot-stick! -- Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. --Dandemis -- Arbuckle: That has _got_ to be the mother of all can openers. Garfield: Three-fifty, dual-cam, fuel-injected five-speed! -- You can tell how desperate they are by counting the number of times they say "innovate" in their press releases. -- "Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side." -- Yiddish proverb -- There was a banned list of topics, an insistance that there was excitement dispite none, and a general rumbling in a crowd of developers that are tired of being told that was isn't good for MS isn't good for them, when they know its not always true. --J. Scott Bushey on Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2000 -- "The only thing we don't have a god for is premature ejaculation... but I hear that it's coming quickly." -- Mel Brooks -- "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -- Helen Keller -- The road to Hell is experiencing heavy congestion. . . . . .expect 30 minute delays . . .please take an alternate route . . . -- The stoic mind must question only that which is not moral. The badger that is chewing on your leg is not immoral as it is only doing that what a badger is naturally inclined to do. Especially as you were dumb enough to get your foot caught in its burrow. * From the unrecorded Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Is conquest a moral act? Does bringing the civilization of Rome to the Gothic barbarians raise them to our level. Of course not, as they are the same hairy, dirty, sausage-eating reprobates that they have been since the beginning of time and will always be. The civilized and moral aspect is that we now own all of their valuable stuff. * From the unrecorded Meditations of Marcus Aurelius When the immoral seek to tempt the stoic mind, they do so with that which would act as temptation only to the immoral. The stoic mind must rise above the lure of money, unlimited political power and cheap, sweaty, carnal, lust, where moisture slick bodies...The stoic mind must rise above the lure of money and unlimited political power. * From the unrecorded Meditations of Marcus Aurelius When dealing with the immoral, you must be unwavering in your own morality and offer no chance for the immoral to compromise your positions. Of course I can always have the Praetorian guard beat the immoral to within an inch of their miserable lives and then dump them on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, but that is because I am both moral and emperor. Your own options may be more limited. * From the unrecorded Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The immoral man takes his pleasures without moderation, leaving himself vulnerable to a descent into gluttony and drunkenness. He will neglect his duties, abuse those who hold him dear, and pee on others in the public baths. It is the duty of the moral man try and steer him towards the moral path, and failing that, to hold him under the water until the little bubbles stop rising and he turns a faint bluish colour. * From the unrecorded Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Of each thing ask what is it primary motivation, what is it nature, and most importantly, what sort of damage will it cause if thrown at a Visigoth with great force. * From the unrecorded Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. -- how many heart attacks can one person have? - One if it is the right one --David Gerecke -- "In a master stroke of UPN programming brilliance, Dilbert follows Shasta McNasty, a show geared toward viewers who are...how can I say this...very likely to die in bowling ball cleaning machine accidents. Fortunately, Shasta is a filthy and sophomoric show, so it will corner the market on perverts and unsupervised minors. It's a perfect lead-in audience for an animated Dilbert TV show. If you don't understand that, you will never be a television executive." --Scott Adams -- The primary question about life after death is not whether it is a fact, but even if it is, what problems that really solves. -- Ludwig Wittgenstein -- Taurus: The constellation " Giant Enraged Flaming Penguin With Painful, Distended Hemorrhoids" is rising in Taurus - no one has a clue what this means, but there is no way that it can be good. Cancer: You must someday reach a point in your life where you can honestly admit to yourself that setting fire to senior citizens is not as fulfilling as it once was. --Reverend Shayne Dark of the CofD mailinglist -- It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. - Calvin -- We are a nation of sheep being led to the slaughter, and those whom we esteem are doing it to us! A man in Nazi Germany said, "When they came for my neighbor, I wasn't a Jew so I didn't say anything. When they came for the man across and on the other side of me, I was afraid to get involved. And when they came for me, there was no one left that I could call!" --Pastor Martin Niemoeller, musing as the Nazis hauled him away -- Lots of Michigan cities are named after famous US automotive makes and models: Pontiac, Cadillac, Goddam-American-Piece-of-Shit and others. --J.D. Baldwin on the CofD mailinglist -- A pedestrian screaming and hanging from your front bumper does NOT count for use of the HOV lane. -- Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. -- Mark Twain -- those who doubted and questioned were eliminated during three centuries at the rate of a thousand a year. --C. Darwin -- The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind. --Humphrey Bogart -- When a man's partner's killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him, he was your partner, and you're supposed to do something about it. --Sam Spade as played by Humphrey Bogart -- It's amazing how many of the religious say "God will punish" but haven't enough faith to let God actually do it. --Marc Wolfe on the CofD mailing list -- Let us consult the Bullshit-O-Meter; yep, in the red. -- So they're a dotcom eh? I thought these churches were non-profit organizations. Oh wait, so are dotcoms. --Ben Hsu on the CofD mailinglist -- Now we've seen the future... and it's patented. --Timm Murray on Humorix -- It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether **I** win or lose. -- Darrin Weinberg -- Of all the strange 'crimes' that human beings have legislated out of nothing,'blasphemy' is the most amazing- with 'obscenity' and 'indecent exposure' fighting it out for second and third place. --Lazarus Long -- IT IS POSITIVLY *STUPID* TO MAKE MORE THAN 200 GRAMS OF NITRO AT A TIME. --from "How to make Nitroglycerin" -- "...When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course, if someone is killed by a freak chain of events - the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there - that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous..." Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times -- "I know you miss the Wainwrights, Bobby, but they were weak and stupid people - and that's why we have wolves and other large predators." - The Far Side -- I'm not a monotheist; the world was obviously designed by a committee. -- Your simian countenance suggests a heritage unusually rich in species diversity. - Calvin -- "If I read the DeCSS source code in a forest, would it make a copyrightable sound?" -- as spotted on Slashdot -- I guess after you've applied more than 1,000 Volts across something it will conduct whether it likes it or not. --Joseph Tan, Tech Junkie -- There's more than one way to skin a cat. Method #32: Rubber gloves and a strong acid. -- Aquarius: Some people tell you that god is their witness, some people tell you to witness for their god. For $50.00 the stars will tell you who is making your wife scream "Oh God! Oh God!" --Reverend Shayne Dark on the CofD mailinglist -- As he faced his impending martyrdom, Antonius lifted his eyes serenely skyward and spoke to Heaven. "Not my will, but Thy will be done!" In response, a majestic, mellifluous voice answered from Heaven: "Final answer?" --Hecklers.com -- In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. --Douglas Adams -- "People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work if it just results in what I consider to be a better system." -- Linus Torvalds -- "I'm more and more constantly concerned with the people who are trying to make the world a safer place for idiots, careless people, the stupid, the inane, the responsibility-deficient, and the lackluster. The world doesn't need more padding, it needs more sharp corners and spiked pit-traps." -- A very wise man -- A fucking Lamborghini isn't fast enough if you don't know how to shift, brainiac! --The Onion -- ...technical wizards who roamed the Earth generations ago came up with a magic fix-all for a printer that doesn't work: Turn the fucking thing on! It actually need actual electricity to actually flow into the actual printer for it to actually work. --The Onion -- "It took us many years to get to this lofty level of evolution. That leisurely pace of change was okay because there wasn't much to do except sit around and hope you didn't get eaten by wild pigs. Then somebody fell on a sharp stick and the spear was invented." -- Scott Adams, "Theory of Evolution (Summary)" -- "The future is an inherently good thing, and we move into it one winter at a time" -- Spider Jerusalem, Transmetropolitan -- "We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like. I have prepared one of my own. I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like." -- Alfred Hitchcock -- 6, uh... what was that number again? -- Number of the Blonde Beast -- It's always darkest before if goes pitch black. --Demotivation poster. -- PFYs talk compute speed, young sysadmins talk network throughput, older sysadmins talk printer compatibility. --Mike Andrews in alt.sysadmin.recovery -- I don't care about issues! I've got better things to do than argue with every wrong-headed crackpot with an ignorant opinion! I'm a busy man! _I_ say, either agree with me or take a hike! I'm right, period. End of discussion. -- Calvin -- "Did you ever notice, when God needed to punish someone... he sent an angel. Have you ever wondered what a creature like that must be like? Your whole existence praising your God but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?" -- The Prophecy -- Report is everyone who has seen the [Windows] code is now dead. They have all laughed themselves to death. -- From a Slashdot discussion about the Microsoft "hack" -- Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. --Mark Twain -- In discussing the current American political situation with Ottawa misanthrope Ken 'Evil Ken' Roberts, the subject of Clinton's blow-job vrs Bush Jr.'s drunk driving came up. Reflecting upon this, much like the serene surface of a pond, Evil Ken called upon his immense store of wisdom and spoke. "I've never seen a family of six wiped out by blow-job that came barreling down the road." --From the CofD mailing list -- "If it's suicide you're after Master Bruce, I have the recipe for an old family potion. It's slow working and quite painful, you'd like it." --Alfred from 'Batman' -- "A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge. Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back, the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like spectators at a slow-motion tennis match. Then, the paper reports, 'The pilots fly out to sea and directly to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs.'" --Audobon Society Magazine -- "Alcohol is good for you. My grandfather proved it irrevocably. He drank two quarts of booze every mature day of his life and lived to the age of 103. I was at the cremation--that fire would not go out." --Dave Astor -- "According to the current doctrines of mysticoscientism, we human animals are really and actually nothing but 'organic patterns of nodular energy composed of collocations of infinitesimal points oscillating on the multi-dimensional coordinates of the space-time continuum'. I'll have to think about that. Sometime. Meantime, I'm going to gnaw on this sparerib, drink my Blatz beer, and contemplate the a posteriori coordinates of that young blonde over yonder, the one in the tennis skirt, tying her shoelaces." --Edward Abbey -- "There are three kinds of death in this world. There's heart death, there's brain death, and there's being off the network." --Guy Almes -- "An apt and true reply was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride. ''What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.''" --Saint Augustine -- "My theory is that a computer interface should hurt the user. So I designed new sounds into the product. We've got 'Sound of Puking', 'Fingernails on Blackboard' and 'Bird Hitting Window'. But suppose the user does something WRONG. Then we have the sound of a puking bird hitting a blackboard." --Scott Adams -- "Satire is great, but for Nazis you use baseball bats and broken bottles." --Woody Allen -- I don't recall the last time that god told someone to attach their testicle to a rhino using a hot glue gun. This is not to say he didn't say it, but I might not have heard him over the screaming. --The Reverend Shayne Dark of the CofD mailinglist -- Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the lawyers aren't out to get you. -- Anonymous -- So there I was, trapped in West Palm Beach, surrounded by disgruntled voters and -- worst of all -- an army of lawyers, politicians, and judges all congregated in one small area. My kingdom for a small nuclear device! . . The United States has bluescreened. A fatal exception error occured on Election Night, and now all of our unsaved work has been lost. --Descent Into The Lawyerclysm Written by Jon Splatz, Humorix Pundit and Social Commentator, on November 19, 2000 -- When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend. -- A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit. --the Army's magazine of preventive maintenance. -- Join the Army. Meet interesting people. Kill them. -- "We are born to be killers, of plants if nothing else. And we are killed. It's a bloody business, living off others so that eventually they will live off you. Still, here and there in the food web one finds spaces where there's room for something more than just killing and being killed. Imagine the island of blue in the middle of a tropical storm, its eye of peace. You must admit the hurricane is there. To do otherwise is self-deception, which in nature is fatal, or worse, hypocritical. Even honest, decent, generous folk must fight to survive when the driving winds blow. And yet, such folk will also do whatever they can, whenever they can, to expand the blue. To increase that gentle , centered realm where patience prevails and no law is made by tooth or claw. You are never entirely helpless, nor ever entirely in it for yourself. You can always do something to expand the blue." --Earth, David Brin -- If you are young and you drink a great deal, it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat - in other words, turn you into an adult. -- P.J. O'Rourke -- "My greatest fear in life is that no one will remember me after I'm dead." --Some dead guy -- Morality: That instinctive sense of right and wrong that tells some people how everyone else should behave. -- When someone says ''I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done,'' give him a lollipop. -- You could almost hear the panting of ominous thunder trying to catch up and wondering how in hell it had missed it's cue. --Girl Days, part 17, by Robert Haynie -- Then, and only then she gratefully passed out, comforted in the knowledge that the universe was once again, as expected, being a meanie. --Girl Days, part 17, by Robert Haynie -- ...and at least toleration from the Amazons... who had never really forgiven Erik the Terribly Clever for his downright dirty trick of sneaking in a "No Forced Marriages Just Because We Can Fight Better Than You Sometimes, And By The Way, Drop That Kiss Of Death Crap While We're At It" clause into a formal peace treaty. . . The Amazons would boast, threaten, insult, and generally scorn the Vikings in every way they could short of actual violence, and the Vikings would react with amusement, indifference, or the occasional "Hey, that's pretty nice of you!" They did this not because it was amusing, indifferent, or nice, but because it was so damn much FUN to annoy the Amazons. --Girl Days, part 17, by Robert Haynie -- Imagine if you're sitting comfortably in front of your all powerful Athlon server with broadband access and halfway across globe someone calls you a spear wielding, hide wearing native. You'll be pissed too. --Leong Chii Kee on Slashdot -- in the words of late Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau "Just watch me!" --The Reverend Shayne Dark on the CofD mailinglist -- For a long time I was the guy that management feared taking into meetings because I answered all questions with "Yes". Of course, what I meant was "Yes, that can be done given adequate time and resources. It is technologically possible to do the thing you have asked of me." And of course my managers knew that that's NOT what marketing meant, they meant "Can we have it in reasonable time?" Reasonable being subject to interpretation, and not mine -- I didn't offer opinions on what was reasonable, I just said if it was possible. (Once, at a meeting, a manager told me that I wasn't allowed to open my mouth unless the word coming out of it was "no". So I listened patiently as a marketing guy said "We were thinking that we could do X, Y and Z. Would that be a problem?" So I looked at him, looked at my manager, looked at the marketing guy and said "No.") --Duane, User #25609 on slashdot. -- they relied instead on an old principle very dear to Western civilization: go there, take all the treasures you can collect, and come home filthy rich. And if anyone opposes you, kill him. --The History of MUDs, by David Cuciz -- "Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads--they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude." --Grace, School Secretary -- "Who, me? Right now?!?" -- Most common phrase on Death Row -- "Anti-piracy measures stimulate piracy, I reckon - the harder the software companies make it, the more the users reckon the punks deserve it." -- The Register -- he (reportedly) assumed that if the trick (lighting one's hand afire) could be pulled off safely with lighter fluid, he could get an even more spectacular result with gasoline. Well, it *was* more spectacular, that's for sure. --J.D. Baldwin on the CofD mailinglist -- "Restraint? What's that? Sounds uncomfortable..." --Toltiir, God of mischief, 4 Wishes Gone Wrong by Metroanime -- Policemen always complain they see humanity at its worst every single day of their lives, but chat room monitors have to read humanity at its worst every day of their lives, and many of the species can't spell. This is a perfect example of a job that did not exist before the Net; the closest thing to a chat room monitor back in the good old days was being a prison guard at Alcatraz. At least those guys got to use their guns. --from Five Crappiest Tech Jobs, Joe Queenan, Forbes ASAP -- All in all, being a dot-com flack is exactly like being a whore, except the hours are worse. --from Five Crappiest Tech Jobs, Joe Queenan, Forbes ASAP -- What kind of person packs dog excrement for an online retailer specializing in shipping bagged canine waste to unsuspecting victims as a practical joke? How did this person's career reach such an unfortunate impasse? And where does he or she go from here? CatKaka.com? BirdTurd.com? The United States House of Representatives? --from Five Crappiest Tech Jobs, Joe Queenan, Forbes ASAP -- Dumb people are like SLINKY's (tm)... Not good for much, but it sure is fun to watch them fall down the stairs. -- "Well, let's see, you have 4 Meg available." "Wow! Eight Meg in total, thanks!" he says, pleased with his bargaining power. "No" I interrupt, savouring this like a fine red at room temperature, with steak, extra rare, to follow; "4 Meg in total..." "Huh? I'd used 4 Meg already, How could I have 4 Meg Available?" I say nothing. It'll come to him. "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhH!" --Bastard Operator From Hell -- "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." -- Mark Twain -- "One philosopher asserted that he knew the whole secret ... He surveyed the two celestial strangers from tip to toe, and maintained to their faces that their persons, their worlds, their sums, and their stars were created solely for the use of man. At this assertion our two travelers let themselves fall against each other in a fit of ... inextinguishable laughter." -Voltaire -- You know ... a butterfly? Chaos theory ... butterflies flapping their wings _here_ and causing tornados _there_ ... kind of thing? Well ... there were these scientists you see, and they were trying to predict the weather, and they had a computer and all, and they had a model, do you see, of how the weather, under any particular circum- stance, should act. And what they thought was, they would plug data on what the weather was like _now_ into the computer and it would predict what the weather would _do_ in the days and weeks following and then they, the scientists, would take the predictions and compare them to actuality, and try to see where they were different. And _then_ they would refine the models, and make _new_ predictions with new data for what the weather was like, and so on. The only thing was, it didn't work out at all. What they found was that their models were mostly accurate for a little while, but then ran into wild variances with reality. Wild variances, moreover, which were not, in themselves, predictable. It was as though the models had a setting for #length_of_accuracy# and it was permanently stuck on (ONE_WEEK). Or something. And this seemed to them to be interesting. And so they investigated what might be causing this effect, and some of them were pretty good theoretical mathematicians, who looked at the consequences of making small changes in the initial data that the models ran on, whereupon they discovered a curious thing. What they discovered was that certain causal sequences, when suffic- iently complex, would exhibit areas of outputs which could be wildly variant over small areas of differing input. And when they went to explain this discovery to other people, the other people looked at them blankly and said, "Huh?" So, as people in such situations are wont to do, they fell back upon metaphor and told the other people that when something was as complex and subject to as many influencing factors as was the weather, then a difference in beginning conditions equivalent to a butterfly flapping its wings somewhere in the Mongolian desert six months ago can result in a difference in ending conditions equivalent to a Force ten Hurricane rolling over the Carribean tomorrow. And then the people to whom the scientists related this metaphor said, "Oh," and went off and printed up T-shirts with butterflies on them, and also made many fairly dumb jokes about tracking down the butterfly in question and making it stop flapping its bloody wings already. --Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, by Eric Hallstrom. -- anyway, flapping a butterfly's wings and causing hurricanes is much more difficult than you would think. You have to take the _exact_ positions and vectors of _every_ molecule in the atmosphere _and_ the ocean (which is just the part of the atmosphere that's mostly lower and wetter than the other parts of the atmosphere anyway) _and_ you have to precognate _every_ movement of _every_ self-mobile object on the planet even to attempt it respectably. And this is much more difficult than it sounds, even for a butterfly. If you take a poll of the world butterfly populations, in fact, you will discover that the feat has only even been attempted four times in the past century, and only one of those succeeded in causing any kind of weather pattern at all. And that one was the freak storm that dropped in on some of you the last time you went on a picnic, and that put mud all over the roads _just after_ you washed the car that time for the rest of you. And _that_ was a dead miss. The butterfly in question would like to apologize, by the way. She wasn't aiming for you at all. She was trying to drop a tornado on the house of a farmer in upper Cumbria, who had plowed up her favorite field of milkweed, and, as near as she can figure, missed the downbeat by less than .8 nanometer. If it's any consolation, the butterfly is pretty upset, too. It was her _favorite_ field. He _plowed_ it. Right under. So, if the _butterflies_ can't do it .... --Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, by Eric Hallstrom. -- Well, technically, of course, there's almost _always_ something nasty brewing down in Hell. It's what the place is all about, after all. --Ranma and Akane: A Love Story, by Eric Hallstrom. -- "One begins to long to come across a female protagonist called, say, Naomi the Castrator. One could tell her to look up John Norman for a start." -- Michael Moorcock, "Wizardry and Wild Romance" -- Picture yourself near a stream. Birds are softly chirping in the crisp, cool,mountain air. No one knows your secret place. You are in total seclusionfrom that hectic place called "the world." The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity. The water is clear. You can easily make out the face of the person you're holding under the water... -- I'm going to get a new job. I'm going to mow lawns. And when somebody asks me what I do for a living, I will tell them "I mow lawns." And whatever question might follow, the answer will most likely be "Yes," "No," or "I mow lawns." And nobody will ever call me at 3:30am with a lawnmowing emergency. Ahh, happy place..... --hymie!, sdm -- The fossil-fuel business is the Old Economy at its most primeval and piratical. It's not run by dot-com guys in moleskin slacks and polo shirts. It's run by genocidal warlords in berets. --Bruce Sterling -- Remember, when someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles in your face to frown, but it takes only 4 muscles to extend your arm, raise your middle finger and say "bite me" -- I'm going to hell so fast the hand basket burned up on re-entry. -- Always remember: Everybody is somebody else's weirdo (I just happen to be the weirdo to more people than normal). -- "I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." -Marcus Cole, A Late Delivery From Avalon, Babylon 5 -- "That's the problem. We're looking for a made-to-measure relationship in an off-the-rack world." --Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce in MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) -- After the generals have planned, the armies have mustered, the arterially has spoken, and the armor has maneuvered, a weary foot soldier still must stand on the enemy's land and say "THIS IS MINE!!!" before the war can be won. -- "How strong is super strong?" "Lemme put it this way: If you can still hold the cup after the first sip, it's free." *another guy* "They're not kidding. I poured half a cup in my gas tank last week and I still can't get the ignition to turn off!" -- "And what do we got on this thing?" Helmet demanded. "16,000 men, 300 droids, and one idiot in a black suit," Headwear replied. --HAIRBALLS, By Leif Johnson -- JESUS IS THE ANSWER! The question is, "What do you say when you hit your thumb with a hammer?" -- I haven't been told I was going to Hell that many times since I started posting to USENET ten years ago. --Dan Duncan on the CofD mailinglist -- I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming... They don't know I'm only using blanks. -- "Microsoft discovered that word processing was a "killer app" and killed off all the competition with it." -- Spotted on Slashdot -- "There really isn't much value in free." -- Doug Miller, Microsoft's group product manager for competitive strategies. [But what about Internet Explorer?] -- "You would follow Stef?" "If you can think of an easier way for me to get at his back, I'm open." --Erwin, Userfriendly -- "Humans? Purveyors of roach motels?!... "Greatest mob hits" on CD or cassette?! ...And "Temptation Island"?!... --Over the hedge -- Demographic polls show that you have lost credibility across the board. Especially with those 14 year-old Valley girls. -- I'll pit your professionally-produced AK-47 against the DoD 5 MegAmp, 4 kilometer-per-second, 5kg projectile railgun any day. --from the Railgun FAQ -- When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn’t make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares are still walking. When we hold each other, we feel -- not safe, but better. "It's all right," we whisper. "I'm here. I love you." and we lie, "I'll never leave you." For just a moment or two the darkness doesn’t seem so bad. When we hold each other. --"Hold me", a Hellblazer story by Neil Gaiman -- "Mac OS, Windows, BeOS: they're all just Xerox copies" -- Spotted on Slashdot -- While our Plan A ("mooching off of Venture Capitalists") has failed, we do have a Plan B ("file lawsuits against everybody in sight"). Hey, all the other struggling dotcoms are doing it. --If You're Reading This, Prepare To Get Sued, Humorix -- "We can build a better product than Linux." -- Jim Allchin, Microsoft's operating-systems chief [But there's a world of difference between "can" and "do"] -- "I don't have an obligation to feed but myself, or a child if I bring one into the world. Now, that may make me a bastard, but the Constitution of the United States, the flag my father fought to defend, gives me the right to be that bastard if I so choose. I'm an American citizen, first and foremost, and the rest of the world should keep their effing hands out of my pockets." --Jay Severin, 96.9 FM-TALK Boston -- "Look. Maybe spam wouldn't be in so much trouble if you just tell people the truth for once instead of lying..." ""Please give us your money for nothing useful in return." Yeah. THAT'LL work." --Userfriendly -- "'No man is an island--' Much as we may feel and act as individuals, our race is a single organism, always growing and branching -- which must be pruned regularly to be healthy. This necessity need not be argued; anyone with eyes can see that any organism which grows without limit always dies in it's own poisons. The only rational question is whether pruning is best done before or after birth. Being an incurable sentimentalist I favor the former of these methods -- killing makes me queasy, even when it's a case of 'He's dead and I'm alive and that's the way I wanted it to be.' But this may be a matter of taste. Some shamans think that it is better to be killed in a war, or to die in childbirth, or to starve in misery, than never to have lived at all. They may be right. But I don't have to like it -- and I don't." --Lazarus Long -- This is a beta release of Red Hat Linux. It is not intended for mission critical applications. It`s not even intended for non-mission critical applications. Important data should not be entrusted to Fisher, as it may eat it and make loud belching noises. --Official Redhat webpage on the Fisher beta -- When they took the 2nd amendment, I was silent because I didn't own guns. When they took the 4th amendment, I was silent because I didn't deal drugs. When they took the 5th amendment, I was silent because I was innocent. Now they've taken the 1st amendment, and I can say nothing about it. -- In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird, and people take Prozac to make it normal! -- *NOBODY* expects the Karma Police. -- "I'm afraid it is you who are mistaken, about a great many things." --Return of the Jedi, Emperor to Luke -- "The best Windows accelerator is that which works at 9.81 m/s2 " -- from a Slashdot post -- If you must play, decide on three things at the start: The rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. -- Chinese proverb -- On a clear day you could see to next tuesday. --The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchet -- Help Microsoft stamp out piracy. Give Linux to a friend today! -- Spotted on Slashdot -- The brokenness of the WAP protocol came about because the telcos were damned if they were going to allow anything like interoperability or freedom to weaken their hammerlock on paying customers, so they deluded themselves into believing that what users were crying out for was expensive new ways to get headline news. --Clay Shirky on slashdot -- "Isn't it ironic that the previous generation defined themselves in terms of rebellion against authority, and now that they're in charge, all they do is give people reasons to want to rebel against authority." -- posted on Slashdot -- This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test. Had this been an actual emergency, you'd be writhing on the ground in unspeakable agony, bleeding from every orifice, with your blackened skin falling away in ragged strips. -- "Incredible! One of the worst performances of my career and they never doubted it for a second." --Ferris Bueller -- Some things were just a given. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Genma can't be trusted farther than Kasumi could throw him. You never really stop to ask why. --White Rose, a Ranma 1/2 fanfic -- Shan dipped and jagged and swooped like a hummingbird on PCP. She labelled it "Evasive Manuever Set One". The Russian Air Force called it a vast number of things, most of which could not be repeated in polite company. --Reluctant bet, Greg Sharp -- When I was a kid, I used to pray to God to give me a bike. Then I realised that wasn't the way God works. So I went out and stole a bike, and I prayed to God to forgive me. -- "Microsoft prides itself on using its own dogfood. Dogfood contains rendered meat, including spinal and brain products. Therefore, Microsoft Outlook is suffering from Mad Cow Disease. QED." -- from a Slashdot post -- "Your desired configuration is not compatible with our marketing plans, you will be upgraded accordingly." -- Microsoft -- In terms of technical expertise, we found that a Microsoft technician using Knowledge Base was about as helpful as a Psychic Friends reader using Tarot Cards. --Microsoft Technical Support vs. The Psychic Friends Network, by Michael Patrick Ellard and Daniel Albert Wright -- "Layman is just a polite word for idiot." --Neal Stephenson -- "The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha--which is to demean oneself." --Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig. -- An exploratory procedure at the hospital pronounced him fucking lucky but still stupid. --Steve Howie on the CofD mailinglist. -- Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you... Cry, and the world looks sheepish and suddenly remembers it had other plans. -- "Ladies and gentlemen. Its time for us to back up our bags, board the starlight express and head off to never-neverland." "And please leave quietly as you go because this is a residential area." --Smith and Jones -- He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy -- "Imagine if I'd told him that an axe and wallpaper paste was the best way to perform a cut and paste!" "They fired that consultant, as you well know." --The BOFH and his boss. -- And when you got cancer, you died. And stayed dead... --Some Old Fogie Speaks Out, Humorix. -- "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." --Carl Sagan -- We climb as high and as far as our machines will take us. To the very limits of human achievement. To the gates of heaven itself. And we try to kill each other. We stain the sky, Peter. We fight a war in heaven. --Hans Von Hammer, Enemy Ace -- Your cells are healthy, but you're diagnosed as suffering from a severe case of the deads, and doctors give up on you. --Keith F. Lynch on the CofD mailinglist -- ''You are old,'' said the youth, ''and I'm told by my peers That your lectures bore people to death. Yet you talk at one hundred conventions per year -- Don't you think that you should save your breath?'' ''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 downstairs!'' -- The Freudian behemoth in the middle is Mag Instrument's Club With A Bulb, the six-D-cell Special Police Brutality Edition. -- "Steve and Billy sitting in a tree... K-I-S-S-I-N-G... first comes Windows, then XP... then comes Netscape for bankruptcy." -- Slashdot post -- I don't want to hear it. I'm a scientist who will not find your mystic beliefs to be compelling. I respect your right to your own opinions, no matter how blatantly they fly in the face of logic and reality. That is, after all, the nature of faith. Happy computing. I suggest prayer. --Steven Gibson -- Fog Lamps, n.: Excessively (often obnoxiously) bright lamps mounted on the fronts of automobiles; used on dry, clear nights to indicate that the driver's brain is in a fog. See also ''Idiot Lights''. -- The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues. -- Elizabeth Taylor -- What's the difference between Microsoft and Batman? When Batman fought the Penguin, he won... -- Family Construction business in Brooklyn. Sadly, methinks Bubba's not gonna touch this hienie with a 10-metre barge pole if he knows what's good for him. Somehow, I don't think it's wise to mess around with a guy whose relatives all have "the" as their middle names. --PJ Dougherty on the CofD mailinglist. -- "I'm not schooled in the science of human factors, but I suspect surprise is not an element of a robust user interface." --Chip Rosenthal -- Ro: "Another object from the past?" Zeta: "This was a writing tool called a pen, they said it was mightier then the sword." Ro: "Uh-huh, except a sword's bigger and sharper." Zeta: "I noticed that too." -The Zeta Project: "His Maker's Name." -- "Usually, writers will do anything to avoid writing. For instance, the previous sentence was written at one o'clock this afternnon. It is now a quarter to four. I have spent the past two hours and forty-five minutes sorting my neckties by width, looking up the word 'paisly' in three dictionaries, reading an interesting article on sorghum farming in Uruguay..." -- P.J. O'Rourke -- Newsflash: Boycott Adobe site made with Adobe GoLive. -- "Windows 2000 is more secure than Linux... Since the machine is offline half of the time because of crashes, it cannot be accessed globally, therefore producing higher security." -- from a Slashdot post -- "Bomb threats usually doesn't translate very well into sales." --Advertising on the internet, Humorix -- "Windows IIS: It's like walking around with a handful of twenties and giving a loaded gun to any criminal you meet." -- from a Slashdot post -- "I don't think Microsoft is evil in itself; I just think they make really crappy operating systems." -- Linus Torvalds -- "Technology is positive when the creators put the interests of their users before their bottom line." -- Anonymous -- "If Microsoft is innovative in any area, it is in creating new forms of intimidation." -- Ralph Nader -- "Yesterday I was on my PC downloading MP3s and my PC printed out a roadmap, marked a store location on it and pushed me towards my car. It was unbelievable! " -- Comment posted on Slashdot -- "Linux, because we don't need no steenkin' Blue Screen of Death!" -- > You ain't seen surreal until you've seen this. Sean: I have *every* episode of Twin Peaks on tape, thankyouverymuch... --MST of Neon Genesis Evanjellydonut 3, by Sean Gaffney -- Computer code is like legal code... the more you amend it, the more holes you create. -- from a Slashdot post -- "The Internet interprets advertising as damage and routes around it." -- from a Slashdot post -- "It is true that some lawyers are dishonest, arrogant, greedy, venal, amoral, ruthless buckets of slime. On the other hand, it is unfair to judge the entire profession by a few hundred-thousand bad apples." -- James D. Gordon III, The Washington Post -- "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Menken -- "The Edsel. New Coke. Windows 2000. All mandatory case studies for bizschool students in 2020." -- Bear Giles -- "What were you thinking!?" "He liked it more than the Berreta." "You do not let small children play with guns!" "Hey, I took the bullets out first." --Purification, a Sailor Moon/Terminator crossover by Miashara -- And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.' --The holy handgrenade, Monty Pyton and the Holy Grail -- "She stole my car. A Ford. Gold. If she hadn't done that, I probably would have married her, too. I didn't know much about selectivity then. I just remember jerking off under my desk ten times a day and thinking how insulted a date must feel if the date didn't lead to marriage. I was lonely; it was Alberta. We didn't have MTV then." --Generation X, Douglas Coupland -- ...and even though these agendas don't co-incide with our own, they are not, by necessity, evil. Unless they're French. In which case they're A Very Absurd and Kind of Cool Type Of Evil. --Henry Warwick -- "They shall not overcome. Whoever told them that the truth shall set them free was obviously and grossly unfamiliar with federal law." --John Ashcroft, Attorney General of the United States -- "Trench Coat - 50 dollars. Pipebombs - 75 dollars. Ammo - 250 dollars. Assault Rifle - 600 dollars. The look on your classmates' faces before you blow them away - priceless. There are some things money can't buy, for everything else, there's MasterCard." -- rejected idea for a Mastercard commercial -- "chmod a+x /bin/laden (Translation: Anybody can execute Bin Laden)" -- Anonymous -- "The box said 'Requires Windows 95 or better.' I can't understand why it won't work on my Linux computer." -- Life does not cease to be funny when people die; any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. --George Bernard Shaw -- "...And there's cusin Leonard. He believed he'd been kidnapped by aliens. The aliens, of course, denied the whole thing." "Ok. NOW I'm frightened. Are you frightened?" --Arbuckle and Garfield -- "This is a picture of "Scraps", our neighbour's dog on the farm. Boy, he loved to play fetch. Then, one day he chased a stick right into a thresher." "At least he lived up tp his name." --Arbuckle and Garfield -- "There's my great uncle Floyd. He drove a dynamite truck. And there he is again... And there, and there, and there..." --Arbuckle and Garfield -- "This was my great uncle Norbert. He was a colorblind electrician. He had more trouble with those red and black wires." "Interesting hairstyle". --Arbuckle and Garfield -- Hey, I love the little animals as much as the next man - unless the next man happens to be into bestiality, in which case, his enthusiasm is probably greater than mine. --The Reverend Shayne Dark on the CofD mailinglist -- A comprehensive medical review has concluded that stun-bags, that is to say bean-bags filled with lead shot that are fired as a non-lethal response, can cause numerous injuries, some of them quite severe. Now, I have to ask the question - compared to what? It is the point of perspective that has to be considered. If you are comparing them to such things as pillows, cream pies and little stuffed Pikachu dolls, then I would certainly concur that bean-bag shots can cause ouchies. Other options? Well bullets are the next one on the escalation scale. What would you rather be shot with, given the choice? --The Reverend Shayne Dark on the CofD mailinglist -- "Lawyer: One skilled in the circumvention of the law." -- Ambrose Bierce -- "Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves." -- from a Slashdot post -- "NASA uses Windows? Oh great. If Apollo 13 went off course today the manual would just tell them to open the airlock, flush the astronauts out, and re-install new ones." -- alt.sysadmin.recovery -- "Microsoft Zen - Become one with the blue screen." -- from a Slashdot post -- The universe clearly operates for the benefit of humanity. This can be seen from the convenient way the sun comes up in the morning, when people are ready to start the day. -- Terry Pratchett, "Hogfather" -- "I make Ayn Rand look like a socialist." -- Robert A. Heinlein -- ...but then again, I don't think driving a Boeing product into a stationary object is a hot idea - which probably means I'm mostly sane. --RJV [miraclexxxprocyon.com] on the TangentiallyDarwin mailinglist -- "You all have to admit that Microsoft products provide a quality unmatched by any other company. That is why I am switching to 100% pure shredded Microsoft certificates of authenticity in my hamster's cage." -- from a Slashdot post -- "Every time I think that perhaps we are an advanced race, I turn around and read ramblings on Slashdot, and realize I was wrong." -- from a Slashdot post -- "When people understand what Microsoft is up to, they're outraged." -- Tim O'Reilly -- On nights such as these the gods, as has already been pointed out, play games other than chess with the fates of mortals and the thrones of kings. It is important to remember that they always cheat, right up to the end... -- Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters -- "Stallman says add to this code and you are one of us. Gates says use this code and you belong to us." -- Research encryption in your country, and get arrested in ours, the United States of Corpomerica! -- from a Slashdot post -- Who says Osama 'evil man' Bin Laden has to develop any of these 'evil' weapons? You want a chemical weapon? You blow up a bloody paper mill! Or a fertilizer factory! Ask Union Carbide what can happen by stupidity and negligence and then apply that information to a homeland terrorist action scenario. Has this presidential git learned nothing from the actions against his country. Don't think like a pentagon general with a budget the size of Rhode Island, stealth bombers and enough munitions to clear the coke from the presidential sinuses. Think cheap! Think accessible! Think about terrorists doing with your infrastructure what Jackie Chan does with a ladder, a shopping cart and seven feet of garden hose. Here endeth the lesson. --The Reverend Shayne Dark on the CofD mailinglist -- "When it comes to survival, you can't be choosy about the company you keep. You may have to make alliances with unsavoury people. So I'm announcing tonight my decision to co-operate with the United States government." --George Carlin -- "Honestly must be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy." --George Carlin -- That assumes computer science is a functional engineering discipline. Its not, at best we are at the alchemy stage of progression. You put two things together it goes bang and you try to work out why. . . But right now given two chunks of code, I find out what happens by putting them together not by formal methods. In the case of alchemy v chemistry the chemists know whether it will probably go bang before they try it (and the chemical engineers still duck anyway) --Alan Cox -- This one runs right straight past "Crazy," through the checkpoint for "Insane" and crashes home deep in "Goo-Goo-La-La" territory --J.D. Baldwin on the CofD mailinglist -- "Sic transit Gloria mundi." "Beg your pardon?" "My girlfriend Gloria got sick and threw up over the van." --Smith and Jones -- The telephone pole was approaching fast, I was attempting to swerve out of it's path when it struck my front end. -- "Windows: Where do you want to go today? MacOS: Where do you want to be tomorrow? Linux: Are you coming or what?" -- Linux Journal -- If you're so filled with holiday cheer you can't stand it, try calling your friends and going caroling yourself. Especially if you're old, a drug addict, an alcoholic or obviously homosexual and have a lot of effeminate friends. Go In packs. If you are black, go to a prissy white neighbourhood. Ring doorbells, and when the Father Knows Best-type family answers, start screeching hostilely your favourite carol. Watch their faces. There's nothing they can do. It's not illegal. Maybe they'll give you a present. --Why I Love Christmas, By John Waters -- This guy has more things wrong with him than fish-flavored soda. --A Tribute To Forgotten Heroes, by Matt from X-Entertainment -- Ob non-motorcyclists: Once these parts (footpeg and exhaust pipe) touch the pavement, it is Chuck's way of letting you know that you have just touched the limits of the bike's ability to lean. Any fuckup at this point is 100% incompatible with continued forward progress. The only option is to slide your arse off the bike to straighten it back up a bit, and stay steady on the throttle to keep the bike stable and even. If you hit the brakes, you're down. Let off the gas, down. Sneeze, down. It is, of course, the most exciting place to be. It is why we ride sports bikes. --Carlos Alvarez, Tucson, AZ, USA, Earth, Sol System, Milky Way Galaxy -- "Is it not the beauty of an asynchronous form of discussion that one can go and make cups of tea, floss the cat, fluff the geraniums, open the kitchen window and scream out it with operatic force, volume, and decorum, and then return to the vexed glowing letters calmer of mind and soul?" -- The Cube, forum3000.org -- I used the word 'infrastructure' when describing her cooking style... and she didn't speak to me for a week. -- I don't know whose brain child it was, but it's quite an ugly child. -- If you would amuse yourself with my misfortune, you might peer into your own knickers first. -- Ben Franklin -- The Viking's Reminder: Pillage first, _then_ burn. -- I caught another advert, this time on the back of the bus. This one featured a picture, presumably from space, of the planet earth, floating serenely in the star speckled vastness of space. The logo accompanying this image was "Without God it is a vicious circle." So what is it with god? A bloody merry-go-round? Do you mean that suddenly god shows up and everything is nice and peaceful, and most assuredly un-vicious. I don't flipping think so. The moment a new god is announced there is more viciousness as his/her/its adherents are either killed, or go out killing others. If you haven't missed it, god, any god, and all his/her/its squirming little salvation monkeys are out there spreading viciousness, door to door, pulpit to parishioners, bullets to bodies, and in extreme cases, airplanes to skyscrapers. How the sodding hell does having god suddenly alleviate the 'vicious circle'? If anything that particular circle is even more vicious for having the idea of him there. --The Reverend Shayne Dark on the CofD mailinglist. -- "Abuse of power? Isn't that something weak people made up to try and keep those that are bigger and stronger than them from acting like they're bigger and stronger, therefore negating the whole purpose of being bigger and stronger?" --Captain D'Amour "TWPOS II: The Wrath of Monetkahn" -- "Oh, you mean like meeting rooms, questionnaires and some focus groups?" "I was thinking more of the Tape storeroom, a rubber hose and a bright light, but yes, you're in the right ballpark." --The Bastard Operator from Hell on user analysis -- My wife says I never listen to her. Er, I think that's what she says. -- Anyone who trusts technology, doesn't understand technology -- If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? -- Chaos! Panic! Disorder! My work here is done. -- Too bad that stupidity isn't painful. -- I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder. -- I don't have a license to kill. I have a learner's permit. -- Cats know how we feel. They don't give a damn, but they know. -- Never judge a book by its mini-series. -- "And by Newspaper I mean PART of a newspaper - something like the 'Culture' section of "The Sun", the non-boring bits of "The Financial Times" or the non-fiction portion of a vendor's Benchmarking specs handbook?". --The Bastard Operator from Hell -- "You said you'd apply a transport protocol to my data-out port and notify me that I could then replicate freely." --A PFY rebels by Benxxxlspace.org (Ben) -- It always worries them, the hammer. It looks well used, it has a rubber cover on the handle upon which is written "Insulated to 240v", and both the claw and the head have metal filings stuck in them. --A PFY rebels by Benxxxlspace.org (Ben) -- "There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back." --Robert A. Heinlen -- A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked. --Fortune -- "...A Microsoft spokesperson said, 'While fighting software piracy is good for our business, highway robbery is our business.'" -- from a Slashdot post -- "I played a lot of tough clubs in my time. Once a guy in one of those clubs wanted to bet me $10 that I was dead. I was afraid to bet." -- Henry Youngman -- And on that note, of course, I'd like to wish everyone on this august list Happy Dead Guy on a Stick Day! --PJ Dougherty on the CofD mailinglist, Fri, 29 Mar 2002 -- "I'm not a cynic, I'm a Realist." -- "To prove my faith in humanity, I look both ways before crossing a one-way street." -- "The most populous thing in the world is hydrogen, followed closely by idiots." -- No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced. -- You can't run away forever but there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start --Meatloaf, Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through -- 'There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can't protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don't ever believe any different' -- "Accept risk. Accept responsibility. Put a lawyer out of business." -- from a Slashdot post -- "How dare the government intervene to stifle innovation in the computer industry! That's Microsoft's job, dammit!" -- "Would the owner of the car with the bumper sticker "honk as you bonk" and the registration number "Throb1", kindly see a psychiatrist." --Smith and Jones -- He knew from just a look though, this black clad guy not only wasn't on the same page as him, he was in a whole different section of the library. The section that had all the dark shadows and books whose titles seemed to squirm around in their leather bindings. --A Soldier's Duty, Gregg Sharp -- People who choose to believe in a magical invisible man who lives in the sky and loves them but works in mysterious ways that include letting them suffer and die on a daily basis are pretty much by definition the gullible type, wouldn't you say? --DanD on the CofD mailinglist -- Only a few people are gifted with the knowledge of precisely when their lives went completely and irrevocably to hell. Lucky me. --Youma Blues, Aoi Tenshino -- An expert martial artist can beat one Marine if everything else is equal. The problem is that the typical US Marine is neither alone nor interested in keeping everything else equal. --Featherbrite's Tale, Gregg Sharp -- "Along with the standard computer warranty agreement which said that if the machine 1) didn't work, 2) didn't do what the expensive advertisement said, 3) electrocuted the immediate neighbourhood, 4) and in fact failed entirely to be inside the expensive box when you opened it, this was expressly, absolutely, implicitly and in no event the fault or responsibility of the manufacturer, that the purchaser should consider himself lucky to be allowed to give his money to the manufacturer, and that any attempt to treat what had just been paid for as the purchaser's own property would result in the attentions of serious men with menacing briefcases and very thin watches." --Good Omens, Terry Pratchet & Neil Gaiman -- Crowley had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the department that drew up the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached just saying: "Learn, guys." -- Crowley is a demon, in case you don't know (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens) -- - "You're Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?" - REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX. -- Death in conversation with a biker (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens) -- A man threw himself through the window, a knife between his teeth, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in one hand, a grenade in the other. "I glaim gis oteg in der gaing og der --" he paused. He took the knife out of his teeth and began again. -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens) -- God does not play dice with the universe: He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who _smiles_ all the time. -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens) -- The mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious. -- Terry Pratchett, "Lords and Ladies" -- "I told him, but he didn't listen. Don't moon the cheetahs honey, they look fast..." --Insertion, by Carrotglace -- "I am sure that waking up with a cattle-prod up your arse is not likely to induce happy thoughts in most things psyche." --Brett Lymn on the CofD mailinglist -- "Ranma you do not use an M-60 to shoot rabbits...have you ever heard of the word overkill?.....ummmm Ranma put the M-90 down...Ranma.....RANMA!!!!" --Hellsing's Knight Ranma, by Shinzuru -- Smith: "Fuck Ranma you're only looking forward to it cause your gonna beat the shit out the whole company just for the shit's and giggles you'll get." Ranma stopped his quick clean of his Hellsing Issue Desert Eagle to raise an eyebrow at Smith. Ranma: "Aaaaand?" --Hellsing's Knight Ranma, by Shinzuru -- "There's a gigantic gray area between good moral behavior and outright felonious activities. I call that the Weasel Zone and it's where most of life happens." - Scott Adams, from Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel -- Some people are like Slinkys . . . not really good for anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs. -- I read recipes the same way I read science fiction; I get to the end and I think, "Well, that's not going to happen." -- Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. -- Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to? -- According to a recent survey, men say the first thing they notice about a woman is their eyes and women say the first thing they notice about men is they're a bunch of liars. -- Chaos, panic, pandemonium - my work here is done. -- The Pledge of Allegiance says 'liberty and justice for all'. Which part of 'all' don't you understand? -- Rep. Pat Schroeder -- "The next time we elect a president, for God's sake can we do a background check?" --David Letterman -- There once was a time when everyone feared God and the Church reigned supreme... it was called the Dark Ages. -- There are two kinds of people: those who say to God: Thy will be done, and those to whom God says: All right then, have it your way. -- C.S. Lewis -- I am ready to meet my maker. Whether or not my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. -- Winston Churchill -- I don't mind Jesus, it's his fan club I can't stand. -- A religious war is like children fighting over who has the strongest imaginary friend. -- 'Is god willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?' -— Epicurus (341–270 BCE) -- Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis ad capul tuum saxum immane mittam. - I have a catapult. Give me all the money or I will fling an enormous rock at your head. -- "Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'" --Paul McCartney -- These are bagpipes. I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equalled the purity the sound achieved by the pig. -- Alfred Hitchcock -- "You have the right to an attorney . If you cannot afford an attorny , we will supply you with the stupidest , 1st year law student dumb-ass slacker we can find on the continent" -- Lethal Weapon 4 -- Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again. - Marin County newspaper's TV listing for The Wizard of Oz - "Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop to look around once in a while you could miss it." -- Ferris Bueller -- The difference between women and men is that women love their children. They know everything about them, including birthdays, allergies, likes and dislikes. Men are vaguely aware of some short people living in the house. -- Dave Barry -- Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy. -- Henry Kissinger -- Never appeal to a man's 'better nature.' He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. -- Lazarus Long -- As I lay in my bed, looking at the stars. I think "Where the hell is the ceiling?!" -- "Everything is possible, except skiing through revolving doors." -- Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons? -- Broken Arrow -- "Professor Plum, you were once a professor in Psychiatry, specializing in helping paranoid and homicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur." "Yes, but now I work for the United Nations." "So, your work has not changed.." --Clue -- "You ever met anyone you didn't kill?" "Well I haven't killed you yet..." --Lethal Weapon -- "I'm Chaos and he's Mayhem. We're a double act." --Lethal Weapon III -- "You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tot throws a sword at you!" --Monty Python and the Holy Grail -- "Going to war without France is like going duck hunting without your accordion." -- Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense -- "Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII? And that's because it was raining." -- John Xereas, Manager, DC Improv -- I guess we were all guilty, in a way. We all shot him, we all skinned him, and we all got a complimentary bumper sticker that said, "I Helped Skin Bob." -- Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love. --Kahlil Gibran -- "Sure, everyone always said 'Socrates, what is the meaning of life?' or 'Socrates, how can I find happiness?', but did anyone ever say 'Socrates, hemlock is poison.'???" -- Socrates minutes before death. -- "She has moments when she seems stable, but then so does nitroglycerine." -- Dan -- Trying to call my friend John after he got home from military school: "Is John there??" "Who the hell is this!!! You think this is funny?? Don't ever call back, you little punk!!!" Apparently john's old number was now Papa John's Pizza. Oops. -- "The Sun is a stunningly mediocre star, but it is our star and we love it." -- Astronomy Prof Balbus -- ME: OK, so you'd like two 10 inch pizzas. What would you like on them? Moron: Um, could I like, get, uh, different toppings on half the pizza? ME: Sure you could. What would you like? Moron: Alright, gimme pepperoni, beef, and green peppers on half, and pepperoni and beef on the other half. ME: And what would you like on your second pizza? (a VERY long pause) Moron: The same thing. ME: Um, why don't you just get one pizza with pepperoni and beef, and another with pepperoni, beef, and green peppers? Moron (really excited): Hey yeah! that would work! OK, gimme that! -- "What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of it's national will fighting against DisneyWorld and Big Macs than the Nazis? -- Dennis Miller -- Military secrets are the most fleeting of all. -- Spock, "The Enterprise Incident", stardate 5027.4 -- The moral highground was levelled the very day the first player landed in a backyard, saw a cute leet and said "I wonder what it drops?" -- Savoy on Anarchy Online (a leet is a small animal) -- 50% of all people in the world do well in math. The other 60% just can't figure out how to do percentages. -- First, each cavalry mount has been hauling a man (a large man, more often than not) carrying fifty pounds of armor and twenty pounds of weapons—not to mention another hundred pounds of the horse's own armor. At a full gallop for half a mile, in the blistering heat of a Syrian summer. So, the horses are winded, disgruntled, and thinking dark thoughts. Two, —all hearsay to the contrary— horses are not stupid. Quite a bit brighter than men, actually, when it comes to that kind of intelligence known popularly as "horse sense." So, when a horse sees looming before it: a) a ditch b) a wall c) lots of men on the wall holding long objects with sharp points The horse stops. Fuck the charge. If some stupid man wants to hurl himself against all that dangerous crap, let him. (Which, often enough, they do —sailing headlong over their horse's stubborn head.) --on charges, An Oblique Approach by David Drake & Eric Flint -- A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow. --William Shakespeare -- Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come. -- Matt Groening, "Life in Hell" -- "everybody lies, good guys lose, and love doesn't conquer all" -- "It's like driving a Formula 1 car: the equipment is extremely sensitive and quite delicate, which means any small problem very quickly becomes a huge one." -- On an experiment to fly with wings attached to your arms. -- Your simian countenance suggests a heritage unusually rich in species diversity. -- Calvin -- "BASTARD!" "In person, WAP'ed up and making your life a misery!" --802.11bofh by Simon Travaglia -- Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic or physics. In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It's worth bearing this in mind when visiting. -- Douglas Adams -- "The Gimp-o-Meter Exploded as it got near me. Fortunately, I was able to insta-cast the ql 247 "Team Cleanse of Small Electronic Equipment Parts" to get the bits out of my taunters' hair." They know who they are... :P --Seen in a .sig on the Anarchy Online forums -- PHB: Senior management knows they need to retain key employees during hard times. Thats why they're giving themselves huge retention bonuses. Alice: So, they're blackmailing themselves? PHB: You can make anything sound bad. -- Dilbert cartoon -- The fun of being an enforcer is the simplicity; walk up to things, hit them until they fall over. We love our job! -- BigGreen on being an enforcer in Anarchy Online -- Boot connects to the bottom, face connects to the ground -- Unknown Cyborg in Anarchy Online -- SWG is the gaming eqivalent of wrapping my asscheeks along a 20 foot long razorblade and sliding merrily into a pool of saltwater and iodine, where little men wait to pour honey and thousands of red ants on my scrotum while simultaneously clamping jumper cables attached to a tractor battery on my nipples. Oh, and the downtime sucks. --Originally posted by THEDEACON! -- "When the sky looks like crap, that's when you know it's time for God to change his graphics card" --Unknown -- "You know the religion where whirling in circles is sacred? Mine is like that, only we go in straight lines." "You believe it gives you eternal life?" "Not eternal as such. Just more life, really. That is, more than you’d have if you didn’t run very fast." -- The Last Hero, by Terry Pratchett -- +++Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start+++ +++Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot+++ --Hex, The Hogfather, Terry Pratchet -- If you build a man a fire, he is warm for a day. If you set a man on fire, he is warm for the rest of his life. -- "I'm not sure, but he seems to be inordinately fond of beetles." - J.B.S. Haldane, when asked what the study of biology had taught him about the Creator -- "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." --Albert Einstein -- Av DOS har du kommet, i dass skal du gå, og som MAC skal du igjen oppstå. -- Øystein Sunde -- "How many deconstructionists does it take to change a lightbulb?" "Even the framing of this questions makes a grid of patriarchal assumptions that reveals a slavish devotion to phallocentric ideas, such as: techinical accomplishment has inherent value, knowledge can be obtained, and quantities of labor can be determined empirically - all of which further marginalize the disenfranchised." -- There's a bit in Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's from hell where the fake psychic, lees, says: 'i made it all up, and it all came true anyway.' that's how i'm starting to feel about transmetropolitan. 'feedsite listeners' are multimedia bloggers. girls with necrotising fasciitis scars from the streets of the city turn up in marilyn manson videos. two-headed cats. smiling politicians throwing advisors to the wolves following suspicious deaths. glasses that take photos. we're living in the future. and god help you all, it's my future we're living in. -- Warren Ellis -- die puny humans -- "A wise man will pick up a grain of sand and envision a universe... While a dumb man will roll around in sea-weed until he's completely covered, then stands up and says 'Hey look, Im Vine Man." -- Jack Handy -- It's too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs. -- Deep Thoughts -- 'Till water is gone, 'till shade is gone. Into the shadow, teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath. To spit in the Sightblinders eye on the last day. -- Aiel saying, The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan -- You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question. --Albert Camus -- "A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns." -- Mario Puzo -- HELO. My $name is sendmail.cf. Prepare to vi. -- Peter Gutmann, alt.sysadmin.recovery -- "This signature project was my last, best hope to seem eloquent. It failed. But in the year of Decency In Communications Act, it became something greater. My last, best hope for satire. The year is 1996. The Place: Babbling On Pine." -- Kyle N. Foster , in his .signature -- "On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage -- "ObSysAdminQuote: When in the Machine Room, do as the SysAdmins do. ObSysAdminCorollary: Except `rm -rf /'" -- Andy Carey in [alt.sysadmin.recovery] -- "We are indeed tight-assed tyrannical bastards, but we prefer to be referred to as Bastard Operators From Hell, and we have had much more experience dealing with people like you than you have had dealing with people like us. After all, we do it for a living." -- Mike Andrews, [alt.sysadmin.recovery] to all you tight-assed...7 Aug 96 -- "There is no such thing as diversity as it has been explained to you. Diversity is a colossal, criminal lie. Diversity is a code word for mongrelism. Whenever you try to create diversity where it does not naturally occur by merit, you end up with stupid mutts who cannot do the job they are supposed to do." -- Jay Severin, 96.9 FM - TALK, Boston, MA -- Lord, should You exist, please save me from your followers. I feel they've missed Your point somewhat. Thank you. -- dustbunny on the CofD mailinglist -- The question of bogosity, however, is a little more difficult. It is clear that the forms used by academicians writing in this area go right off the bogosity scale, pegging my bogometer until it breaks. -- How to Deconstruct Almost Anything--My Postmodern Adventure, Chip Morningstar -- "If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." -- George Carlin -- Damn, it’s like my last girlfriend. Impossible to get your hands on it and even if you did, police would turn up to haul you away. --Otaku D-Man -- Some nanomages are actually attractive, while others hit every branch on the way down when they fell out of the ugly tree. (Atrox on the other hand are uprooting the ugly tree and hitting each other with it) --Originally posted by Glarawyn on the Anarchy Online forums -- Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for? --Gimli, Lord of The Rings: Return of the King -- CHEESE-EATING SURRENDER MONKEYS - stock epithet for the French in certain US circles, alluding to their culinary mores and distaste for military action; coined by Groundskeeper Willie in the Simpsons --Loons Dictionary-Part 1 -- theoretically, copyright expires, but in actual practice, copyright gets extended every time the early Mickey Mouse cartoons are about to enter the public domain, because Disney swings a very big stick on the Hill. --Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books by Cory Doctorow -- "Grandpa invent long pointy rockety thing with chair attached to it, then grandpa press big red button and went 'Oh, shi-' and zoomed away!" Izzy beamed. --Leetville, an AO story -- History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion- i.e., none to speak of. --Lazarus Long -- Oh, the scene where an inflatable Bill Gates toy is violently sodomized by an enraged Richard Stallman was too controversial for the producers; it was removed from the film during the final editing step. --Re: BOFH: The Movie, by Jeff Uphoff on alt.sysadmin.recovery -- Einstein was right. Time is relative to the observer. You can spend a lifetime in this split-second. --Max Payne 2 -- I had a dream of my wife. She was dead... But it was alright. --Max Payne 2 -- I've been known to sit at the local aquarium and practice against the sharks until the keepers noticed they were sticking to one end of the tank and not eating. I've been banned now. --on smiling, When good PFYs Go Bad, Benxxxlspace.org (Ben) -- "I'm what soldiers dream of growing into. I'm what children see when they first imagine what death is like. I'm the MidNighter." -- MidNighter, The Authority -- hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is. -- erno -- "Should this box be glowing green?" "Only when we're safely behind lead shielding." -- Sluggy Freeface -- 0-15 points: You live in a cave, a mud hut, in a tent or in a smoke filled one-room apartment in the slow part of town? There is a danger that you, in your misery, look original enough to be the source of tomorrows "Cool". -- Aftenposten.no, the "are you cool?" test. -- Oh look, I appear to be lying on the bottom of a very deep, dark hole. That seems a familiar concept. What does it remind me of? Ah, I remember: Life. Perhaps if I lie here and ignore it it’d go away again. Or then again, perhaps not. To be perfectly frank with myself, if it didn’t go away as a result of me falling fifteen miles through the air and a further mile through solid rock I’m probably stuck with it for good. -- Marvin, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. -- "The old toaster in the shower has been known to work." "We thought that was a cry for help?!" the Boss gasps, remembering an incident a few weeks back involving a helpdesker with a penchant for running port scanners to find fileshares he shouldn't... "I think I actually did hear a cry for help at the time. But that was a LONG time before the ambulance showed up..." I can't believe you'd do that!" the Boss gasps. "*I* can't believe the PFY would put a couple of slices of bread in the toaster beforehand," I add. "Now that really confused people - bizarre accident or strange cry for help?" -- The Bastard Operator From Hell -- "The boss was in earlier with the buildings bloke, wanting to know if we shutdown or 'put our servers to sleep' at night." "And you told them that servers were like old people - you put them to sleep at night and there's a few dead ones in the morning?" -- The BOFH to the PFY on powersaving for servers -- "On the planet Tranquille around KM849 (G-O) lives a little animal known as a 'knafn.' It is herbivorous and has no natural enemies and is easily approached and may be petted -- sort of a six-legged puppy with scales. Stroking it is very pleasant; it wiggles its pleasure and broadcasts euphoria in some band that humans can detect. It's worth the trip. Someday some bright boy will figure out how to record this broadcast, then some smart boy will see commercial angles -- and not long after that it will be regulated and taxed. In the meantime I have faked that name and catalog number; it is several thousand light-years off in another direction. Selfish of me--" -- Lazarus Long -- "Well, I have to admit that it'd give me little joy to see his career go down the toilet. Still, sometimes a little joy is better than nothing!" -- The Bastard Operator From Hell -- By touching this door, you agree to surrender your immortal soul to the residents within this Godless dwelling. Have a nice day! -- "The problem with cheating death is that she eventually catches on" -- Fourth Labor: A Soldier's Duty by Gregg Sharp -- If true happiness can only be achieved through a state of nothingness, you're going down the right path. Actually, we couldn't find the page you requested. Please check the URL. -- "Page not found" error from Angelfire.com -- "A Jeannette woman who was slightly injured after being struck by a train while walking along railroad tracks sued Norfolk Southern Corp. Thursday for failing to warn pedestrians that trains travel on tracks." -- http://www.pittsburghlive.com -- Once upon a midnight dreary, while I websurfed, weak and weary, ...Over many a strange and spurious website of 'hot chicks galore', ...While I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, ...And my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour. ..."'Tis not possible," I muttered, "give me back my cheap hardcore!" - Quoth the server, "404". -- No fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought or feeling, can preserve a life beyond the grave… all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system; and the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins. -- Bertrand Russell -- Thus it was that Michael succumbed to alcohol poisoning, a smile on his face, ., a hose in his butt, .47 percent alcohol in his blood, and a strange desire for an accompanying sharp cheese and some crackers. -- The Reverend Shayne Dark on the CofD mailinglist -- "A company of all techies will still get stuff done. A company of all management will starve while trying to tell each other to do the work." --from a slashdot post -- "If technology advanced enough that you could download memories from the brain of someone with extremely good memory, would the brain be an illegal recording device?" --from a Slashdot post -- Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But... there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit... a Darkside. -- Tales from the dark side -- The Darkside is always there waiting for us to enter; waiting to enter us. Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight. -- Tales from the dark side -- ...the universe isn’t perfect, love doesn’t conquer all, the good continue to die young and some people cannot be told. -- Ranma: Beyond the Grace of God, by Ar-Kaos -- "And then they have a big celabration when they cook and eat the onions." "That sounds somewhat unlikely." "At 4 o'clock in the morning it sounds unbelivable!" -- 'allo 'allo -- Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony! -- Monty Python -- It is, however, monumentally stupid to post to a list like this, and/or to send rants of any form, from one's work e-mail account. Thus, we could reasonably conclude that X probably Darwinated himself in some sense -- whether it was a slap on the wrist from the school administration, or whether he lost his job, or just lost his lunch we will never know. What pisses me off is X didn't have the consideration to at least tell us so we could laugh. -- Vince Sabio on the CofD mailinglist -- - Fact: Every big thing is made up of a bunch of little things. - Probability: Little things, when grouped together just right, tend to come together incredibly fast. - Possibility: Little things are often bound by the Cascade Principle; a.k.a. the Butterfly and Hurricane Metaphor. --Jeffrey Vasquez -- What are the facts? Again and again and again --- what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell", avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" --- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your only chance. Get the facts! -- Lazarus Long -- What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire --Charles Bukowski -- Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. --Henry V, Shakespare -- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition*: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. --Henry V, Shakespare -- Do you ever have one of those days where you find yourself asking, "Hey, I know I'm bad, but what did I do to deserve *this*?" --Darth Vader in his blog, http://darthside.blogspot.com/ -- "If we let them, these creatures will lead us to a horrible fate and a doom from which there is no return." "Don't you say that about all women?" "True. I do not understand your bizarre facination with them." -- MegaTokyo -- "Together they formed a band, whose names and deeds were to be retold with frank disbelief - and not in polite company." -- Otaku three, Interlude by Jared Ornstead -- Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn. -- Delmore Schwartz -- They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more, nor walk, nor plod; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; They sleep beyond the grace of God. But where our desires are and our hopes profound Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night; As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain; As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end they remain. -- from Beyond the Grace of God by Ar-Kaos (apologies to Laurence Binyon) -- 'If people miss the merge window or start abusing it with hurried last-minute things that just cause problems for -rc1, I'll just refuse to merge, and laugh in their faces derisively when they whine plaintively at me, and tell them there's going to be a new opening soon enough.' -- Linus Torvalds on last-minute changes to the kernel. -- "When Bun-Bun hates, the red stuff comes out." -- Sluggy Freelance -- I don't drink any more. Of course, I don't drink any less either. -- World of Warcraft -- Grey alien 1: "Why am I even _trying_ to expand my horizons?" Grey alien 2: "Probably because you're not very good at probing" Grey alien 1: "You overextend one probe by one meter and you never live it down" Grey alien 2: "How do you think ol'double-belly-button felt?" -- Sluggy Freelance -- "The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation." -- G'Kar, Babylon 5: "Z'ha'dum" -- "Legislation containing the language 'BWUHAHAHAHA', while not specifically prohibited by the Constitution, has historically been held in disdain by the Supreme Court." -- from a Slashdot post -- "I believe I have a couple of guards just outside... " " 'Had' " "And some others in the doorway across the street... " " 'Formerly' " "Oh..." -- THE COLOUR OF MAGIC by Terry Pratchett -- Knurdness is... The opposite of being drunk, its as sober as you can ever be. It strips away all the illusion, all the comforting pink fog in which people normally spend their lives, and lets them see and think clearly for the first time ever. Then, after they've screamed a bit, they make sure they never get knurd again. --SOURCERY by Terry Pratchet -- To late to warn, The fabric was torn. Family was dead. Spray was born. -- Andrew Vachss -- That was "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekoff, adapted for radio by putting it onto a piece of wood and banging a few nails through it. -- Monty Python -- >'alt.fan.pratchett has all the attention span of a butterfly on cocaine.' 'I don't know what to make of alt.fan.pratchett. Risotto would be nice' --Terry Pratchett writing about afp -- From alt.sysadmin.recovery The difference between math and physics is the difference between masturbation and sex. -- Paul Tomblin They're both messy, but physics can get you in much more trouble. -- Malcom Ray -- I keep two magnums in my desk. One's a gun, and I keep it loaded. The other's a bottle and it keeps me loaded. I'm Tracer Bullet, I'm a professional snoop. --Calvin and Hobbes -- To paraphrase the CofD mailing list: Why hate a group of people in general because of their race, gender, nationality or belief when there is such an ample reason to hate certain people in specific because of their behaviour? -- Me -- I have walked many paths Battling minions Of Darkness. I am the Dark Knight, My symbol: The Bat. I am the enemy of evil, My territory: The Shadows. Tremble, Because I am And I will never cease to be. I am the Dark Knight Fear me. -- Batman -- after sitting with a needle goin in and out your back for about 4hrs anything hurts.... --Knam -- ... frankly, I'm an egomaniacal perfectionist asshole and I don't work well with liberal arts school graduate wussies. I tend to make them cry. It's not intentional, it's just that they're idiots. -- AppleCared: My Life Inside Apple and AppleCare By Adam Knight -- "The character of "Joe Buckley" is partly an in-joke around Baen; on the discussion boards (Baen's Bar: http://bar.baen.com ) the real-life Joe Buckley once annoyed one of the authors, who took revenge by killing Joe in a grisly fashion in his next book. This began a sort of contest with the authors to see who could kill Joe in the most spectacular manner. --Ryk E. Spoor -- "Department of transport, how may I hinder?" --Smith and Jones -- The Brain tells me it will irradiate everything within a 50 block radius unless we meet the following demands: It wants feet. -- ONI the game -- "If I'm ever in the future, and the information directory says "MSN Search" on it, I'm not going to be at ease. I'm going to be screaming my lungs out and shooting at people with a high-powered rifle." -- Real Life, on the movie "The Island" -- "Fr33 of the restraining confines of p4nts, I will now take you down." "Just what every girl likes to hear." "HUAH! Your face! Into t3h sand!" -- Megatokyo -- "Don't you ever think that there might be more to life than just games?" "You mean like finding a girlfriend, getting out of debt, moving ahead in our careers, stuff like that?" "Yea." "There was a sim game about that, wasn't there?" "Yea, it sucked." "'Nuff said." -- Megatokyo -- But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not of one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow. --Kahlil Gibran -- For what is it to die, but to stand naked in the sun and melt into the wind? --Kahlil Gibran -- I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers. --Kahlil Gibran -- If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were. --Kahlil Gibran -- The just is close to the people's heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God. --Kahlil Gibran -- When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. --Kahlil Gibran -- Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills? --Kahlil Gibran -- Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. --Kahlil Gibran -- "We at Orbital Artillery are often said to have a 'God' Complex. We would like to set the record straight: We do not consider ourselves 'Gods'... ...We did however borrow his 'Smite' button." --Barricade -- I hated going to weddings. All the grandmas would poke me saying "You're next". They stopped that when I started doing it to them at funerals.... -- The problem with their representatives is not that their native language is not English, it is that their native planet is not Earth. -- James Boyle on Amazon Advantage in Financial Times -- When God made Mellian he used the words, "Right, lets have some fun with this one...", and he's been giggling to himself ever since. --Lord Khorak -- I’ve had a harder time beating my little brother at Twister. Poor colorblind bastard. --[GM]Dave -- You can lead an idiot to knowledge but you cannot make him think. You can, however, rectally insert the information, printed on stone tablets, using a sharpened poker. --Nicolai -- I thought I’d want to have lots of sex. Meaningless, multipartnered, degrading sex. After all, if Second Life is a virtual community in which you can look however you want, do whatever you want and use the fake name you want, then I could make all my fantasies come true. And as I quickly learned, having sex is exactly what many of the people on the site spend their time doing. Occasionally, it seemed, with characters that look like giant fluffy squirrels—which is wonderful, because there is nothing like the warm flush of superiority you feel when discovering a fetish you don’t have. --Joel Stein logs into Second Life and wanders outside the Green Zone. -- "Okay, I did it. I betrayed the remnants of the human race by voluntarily working in the Citadel, by informing Dr. Breen of the location of the secret Ravenholm settlement, and by trying to turn Kleiner over to Combine forces. How many times do I have to say I'm sorry before I'm forgiven? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand? Tell me!" "Lets start with once, once would be a good start." -- Concerend, the Half-life and death of Gordon Frohman -- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." -- Charles Darwin -- Susan>> I don't like being fat like this. Susan>> It's not fair. [GM]Dave>> Honey, you're not fat. Susan>> *sniffle* Susan>> Really? [GM]Dave>> Well... [GM]Dave>> Not _that_ fat. And that's when she lost it. I mean, what the hell? -- Things You Shouldn't Say (to pregnant women) by [GM]Dave -- Among Zen Buddhists it is said that, 'When you meet another bodhisattva on the road, greet him with neither words nor silence.' This leaves you with a vast selection of barnyard noises from which to choose. -- The Principia Discordia -- “The fool sees naught but folly; and the madman only madness. Yesterday I asked a foolish man to count the fools among us. He laughed and said, 'This is too hard a thing to do, and it will take too long. Were it not better to count only the wise?'” -- Kahlil Gibran -- Vikings? There ain't no vikings here. Just us honest farmers. The town was burning, the villagers were dead. They didn't need those sheep anyway. That's our story and we're sticking to it -- Charlemagne Bolivar, when asked what he wanted, replied: The usual; hundreds of grandchildren, total dominion of the known worlds, and the satisfaction of knowing that all my enemies have died in unfortunate accidents that cannot be traced to me. -- "Your weapons are no match for ours! People of Mars, surrender!" "Um, this isn't Mars. This is Earth." "Earth? Earth-with-nuclear-weapons Earth?" "Yes." [long pause] "Friend!" - Unknown -- 'In an unrelated matter, Orochimaru was crying his eyes out. The book that Kabuto had given him was laid down in front of him, opened to Genesis. He was wearing gloves because, for some strange reason, whenever he touched the book his hands began to burn.' “Why was that nice snake punished? He didn’t do anything wrong. The injustice of it all.” - from Chapter 5 of "Bloody Fox" of DarthValgaav -- You just collectively announced you were unable to level a character in World of Warcraft. I mean, come on. It’s freaking _World of Warcraft_. The easiest game to level in, _ever_, and you are collectively whining that you, the best of the best, the hard-edged core, training on the ragged edge of PvP mastery… yeah, following a powerlevelling guide is too hard. Pardon while everyone else snickers. It’ll be a while before they stop. - http://www.brokentoys.org/2007/05/14/blizzard-to-arena-teams-gg-nubs-lrn2play/ -- "I carry with me an Inquisitorial Seal. It is a small unassuming object contained in a neat box of Pluvian obsidian. It is a modest thing. Relatively plain, adorned with a single motif and a simple motto. Yet with this little object I can sign the death warrant of an entire world and consign a billion souls to Oblivion." -- Thravian Flast, Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus -- Obama was statesmanlike as always. Even though I disagree with many of his positions, I think America needs a President like him. Just because he’s, you know, an adult and stuff. Yes, the bar’s low. -- Broken Toys, http://brokentoys.org/2007/08/08/look-for-the-union-pander/ -- “And I have sometimes wondered, in the silence of the night, if it was knowledge of the dark without that scared me, or the dark within.” -- Gloves, a Harry Potter fanfiction by Myst Shadow -- I can only please one person a day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either. -- Prank T-shirt -- *'Flight 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 degrees.' *'But Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?' *'Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727? -- "The guy got bounced from heaven. He's a fuck-up!" "Yes. But by CHOICE." -- Sinfest, on the devil -- Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do. -- Bertrand Russell -- Kakashi shook his head. “How ever do you get into those sort of situations, “Uzumaki-sama”?” “I've actually thought about that a lot, sensei. My guess is that there's this gigantic party going on somewhere. Maybe it's heaven, or maybe it's ...not heaven. Anyway, where ever it is, and who ever is there? They're very, very drunk.” Kakashi nodded. “That makes perfect sense, actually.” --A Twist of Chance -- Heimdall: For nearly a thousand years we have been physically incapable of achieving cell division through meiosis. O'Neill: Hm? Carter: Sexual reproduction, sir. O'Neill: Ah. A thousand years? Heimdall: It is not something we usually discuss with other races. O'Neill: This I understand. -- Stargate -- You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?" --George Bernard Shaw -- ... we can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light -- plato -- "People who object to weapons aren't abolishing violence, they're begging for rule by brute force, where the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically 'right.' Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work." -- L. Neil Smith, The Probability Broach -- An engineer thinks that his equations are an approximation to reality. A physicist thinks reality is an approximation to his equations. A mathematician doesn't care. -- “Watch out for the deer!” WHACK! “No worries sheila, that’s what roo bars are for. Move over, Bambi!” -- Harry Johnson and the Headmaster's Socks by Doghead Thirteen -- And He whispered to me in the darkness as we lay together, Tell Me where to touch you so that I can drive you insane; Tell Me where to touch you to give you ultimate pleasure, Tell Me where to touch you so that we will truly own each other. And I kissed Him softly and whispered back, Touch my mind. -- Found on a Firewire cable: If you need to detain a burglar until the authorities arrive, this FireWire cable can render approximately three perpetrators immobile when properly hog-tied. -- "I haven't gotten around to violating you yet, muffin" is far from the same meaning as "You're safe, sweet-pea." -- trevelyan1983 -- Then I bid you fairwell Voltair, may the powers of light and shadow forever bend to your will, and veil you in protection! [Voltair]: Can I swap them for deathcoil? No. -- WOW forums -- Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night." - Charles M. Schulz -- "The dangerous predator, the most dangerous of beasts is about to utter its terrifying cry before it attacks." The blond intoned solemnly. "This terrifying, merciless beast’s name is... "Sasuke-kuuuuuun!" "...the fangirl." Sasuke's eyebrow twitched and his red yo-yo turned into a crimson blur, cutting the joyful shrill in half as the chakra-enhanced string tied around its target. Losing her balance, Ino yelped, the ground closing in fast, until a hand caught her an inch from hitting the dusty path with her face. Sasuke snorted, snapping his beloved yo-yo back. "Get a life, you fucking underdeveloped little pest." Sasuke scoffed, turning away. "Hey, hey... bastard." Naruto sighed, letting the shell shocked Ino go. "She ain't that underdeveloped, you know." He raised an eyebrow. "For her age, she ain't all that bad at all." "Shrill, cutesy, weak, pest of a hanger on." The Uchiha said flatly. "FAIL!" -- Reload by Fosfor -- "I could *never* go out with a man who likes porn." "uh huh, have fun being a lesbian." -- Sinfest -- I've learned a new skill. I know how to make sausage. As in, real ones. Not the crap they sell in most shops. Yay. And I just made thirty kilograms of it. Not so yay. It's good. Tastes great but... Oy. Tad much. --Fosfor -- "Come on, Yondaime Jr. It's time to visit the clan of the Emos." Naruto blinked and stared at the hokage, not nearly as stoned, but still way past the legal limit for a preteen. "The Hyugas?" "Nah the stick-in-the-ass clan is fine. We're off to see the Uchihas." Naruto pouted and tears welled up in his eyes. "The entire village hates me and I have a demon locked in my belly button, haven't I suffered enough?" -- Play it again Naruto -- "I walk a lonely road strewn with corpses to see a better world, a world where something like me does not exist. Why do you fight, hero, if not for your own pride and glory?" -- anon -- There were, however, ways to catch the attention of Fortune and make her smile on you, if you had enough skill. If you had the skill, the instinct and courage bordering on insanity, you didn't just get her to smile at you, but to actually have her lips touch yours with passion and blessing. Naruto had the skills, the instinct, the power and courage that went past borders ordinary people called sanity a long time ago. He wasn't willing to settle for a smile or a kiss - he was going to have Lady Luck naked, eager and moaning his name tonight. --Reload by Fosfor -- /Those are the voyages of the ship Enterprise, boldly sailing without rum on our quest for profit, vengeance and hot babes. I hope./ --Reload by Fosfor -- "Your last 'good' idea ended with Anko the Magical Girl." Sasuke rolled her eyes. "First off, she looked damn hot in that fuku." Naruto pointed out. "Besides, you can't really tell me that Orochimaru being offed by a big, fucking pink heart wasn't amusing." -- Reload by Fosfor -- Lost til you're found Swim til you drown Know that we all fall down Love til you hate Jump til you break Know that we all fall down -- All Fall Down, One Republic -- Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. -- A Song of Fire and Ice bye George R.R. Martin -- Is it better to be feared, or respected? I say; is it too much to ask for both? -- Tony Stark -- Naruto blanched. "It is madness!" He protested. "Madness?" She poked him in the chest, causing the blond to take a step backwards. "It is Sasuke-chan." Naruto blinked. "...there is a difference?" -- Reload by Fosfor -- And remember what Confucius says: "Panties not best thing on earth, panties next to best thing on earth." -- To people who tries to justify their existence with the number of reviews/comments/fans/whatever, your confident do-whatever-I-like, however-I-like is probably arrogance bordering on, ah, I don't know... not needing praise to justify continuing living? -- Weresmilodon to Fosfor on TFF -- "Oh stop whining you goddamn oversenstive jerk!" Naruto huffed. "It is all well in hand and completely under control!" "Should I remind you the last time you used those words in regards to an experiment?" Sasuke asked politely. "That castle was fucking ugly anyway." The scientist said peevieshly. "Not like anyone missed it." "People did miss the mountain it used to stand on. Or that village next to said mountain. Or that forest next to said village or-" Sasuke started counting out. "It is not _my_ fault the idiot built his palace on a volcano!" Naruto protested. "Volcano which had been dormant for three hundred years." She pointed out with a smirk. -- Reload by Fosfor -- Reload!Naruto can bring the levels of shiny to the battlefield that aren't just blinding, but ones that leave a good, lasting tan. -- Fosfor on Narutos in his fics. -- "You don't have to understand. Your transformation is not a disease. You were just given the key to the door in front of you. There's no need to know the cause. No need for sorrow or sadness. What comes next is up to you. You can use your keys to open the door...or lock it tight. And if you do choose to open it...you can still decide not to pass through." -- Kisuke Urahara, Bleach -- “It is a choice that each of faces, not once but every day of our lives; do we do what is right or what is easy? It’s a rather easy thing to justify ‘Just this one time’ for making the wrong choice, and that much easier to do the next time. It is a slippery slope, making the expedient choice rather than the more difficult. The ends justify the means, as it were. Like some song that you can’t unlearn, the melody creeps back into your head when you least expect it and you find yourself making the wrong decisions for the right reasons.” -- Like some song that you can’t unlearn by BJH -- Building an MMORPG from scratch is very dangerous. With such a wide market right now, you really need something that's going to grab their attention. No, not porn. Though, a pornstar MMORPG would probably be incredibly successful. -- Bannable offence -- "It's not that I hate you, because I don't, really! It's just that I get the giggles at the thought of you drowning in a lake of molten excrement, that's all. You wouldn't begrudge me a little happiness, would you?" -- The Ten Commandments for Technicians 1. Beware the lightning that lurketh in the un-discharged capacitor, lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most untechnician-like manner. 2. Cause thou the switch that supplieth large quantities of juice to be opened and thusly tagged, that thy days in this earthly vale of tears be long. 3. Prove to thyself that all circuits that radiateth and upon which thou worketh are grounded and thusly tagged lest they cause thee to make like a radiator, too. 4. Tarry not amongst those fools that engageth in intentional shocks, for surely they are non-believers and are not long for this world. 5. Take care that thou useth the proper method when thou takest the measure of a high voltage circuit lest thou incinerate both thyself and thy meter. 6. Take care thou tampereth not with safety devices and interlocks, for this incureth the wrath of thy supervisor and bringeth the fury of the safety inspector upon thy head and shoulders. 7. Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in other ways. 8. Service thou not equipment alone, for electrical cooking is a slothful process and thou wilst sizzle in thine own juices until thy Maker sees fit to end thy misery. 9. Trifle thou not with radioactive tubes and substances lest thou commence to glow like unto a lightning bug and thy wife have no further use for thee except thy wages. 10. Thou shalt not make unauthorized modifications to equipment, but causeth thou to be recorded all field changes and authorized modifications made by thee lest thy successor tear his hair out and go slowly mad in his attempt to decide what manner of creature hath made a nest in the wiring of such equipment. -- Poor planning on your part does not constitue an emergency on my part. -- anon -- “I simply remembered. Every time I ruin his life, he gives me this wounded look, exactly like that of a retarded puppy you’ve just kicked, who looks at you with hurt and surprise because it has forgotten the last time you kicked it, but dimly starts to recall that you have kicked it before, and that you will kick it again.” He paused. “I treasure that look.” -- Ask Me No Questions by Nugar -- "We don't do it for the glory. We don't do it for the recognition... We do it because it needs to be done. Because if we don't, no one else will. And we do it even if no one knows what we've done. Even if no one knows we exist. Even if no one remembers we ever existed." -- Kara Zor El aka Supergirl -- Petey: I can collect space dust, micrometeorites, or even derelict spacecraft. Kevyn: So, what's your definition of 'Derelict?' Tagon: Kevyn! Petey! What happened to the blockade ships we neutralized? Petey: Unable to fire back. -- Schlock Mercenary -- Haban II: Don't get us wrong: wealth is just fine, and power is cool. But in this case they are being obtained via the systematic exploitation and destruction of innocent people. Tagon: I thought that was always how wealth and power were obtained. -- Schlock Mercenary -- Science flies you to the moon Religion flies you into buildings ! -- Victor Stenger -- "Reverse this... magic spell thingy, send me back to where I was, and I won't bother to remember your faces so I can track you all down to horribly murder you later." "You really should." Zero chirped up. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Literally!" -- Zero's misfortune by Chibi-Reaper -- "Is it safe to assume you'll be committing unspeakable acts of horror?" "Can't talk about it" -- Looking for Group -- "... you know how government contractors are, they promise you a death star and try to sell you the moon after they’ve painted it black." -- dogbertcarroll -- "Tunnels that can get us into the castle." "Well, yeah. But you don't want those." "Why not?" "Those are in the deep-down. That's where the worst monsters are." "Really?" "Yes!" "Monsters." "Yes!" "Scary monsters." "Yes!" "_Worse than me?_" "..." -- Girl Genius online comic -- "My father once wrote a monograph on how to communicate in the workplace" "Iz dat so?" "All seven popes ordered it *burned*." -- Girl Genius, said by Gilgamesh -- Evil never dies. Darkness never retreats. In the cracks and the crevices of our society there are monsters undreamed of by the rank and file of humanity. I've been there. I've seen them. They exist in the spaces between things, in the folds of existence where we can't find them. Sometimes they cross over, sometimes they manifest, and all hell breaks loose. Only this is not Hell, nor Heaven. This is like nothing anyone has ever understood. This is pure evil, pure destruction. -- [Londo rephrases Vir's report on the Minbari to make them look bad] Vir Cotto: They are deeply spiritual people! Londo Mollari: Yes, now that you can leave in. It always scares people. -- Babylon 5 -- 'Rule one' was rather simple after all: one does not annoy an apprentice of Sinanju unless one is a Master of Sinanju. -- Sun Source by Clell Harmon -- "Oh, and I suppose YOU'RE right and millions of other people are WRONG." "Of course, these are probably the same millions who watched 'Titanic' to see how it would turn out..." -- Userfriendly -- "If I need you I'll give you a signal." "What signal?" "I'll imitate the scream of a terrified little girl" -- Jim Butcher -- Begin at the beginning, continue through the end, then stop. Everyone knows _that_. That's because the beginning is where things ... begin, and the end is where things, er, end. So to speak. The beginning happens first and the end follows in due time. The past becomes the future, through the medium of the present. Right? I mean, it's obvious. The Arrow of Time, cause and effect ... things like that. Causality, is what I mean here. The idea that the past _causes_ the present, and the present _causes_ the future. And if you tell the part of the story where things happen before you tell the part where you explain _why_ they happen that way, people get ...confused. Everybody agrees that's the way it goes. Sometimes, it even works out that way. Sometimes, it doesn't. Because that's only one way to look at it. And so often, in this world, what _is_ depends on ... well ... what you're looking at. For instance, if you look at things in the right manner, it's obvious that the future _must_ have existed first. That is, before there was _anything_ , there had to have been the potential for things. The future, in other words. Then, the first moment happened, and that was the first time that there ever was a _present_. Once, there was a person who wanted to be a Hero. And have Adventures, and find True Love, and Make a Difference, and other nice things like that. And a Hero's job, of course, is to _act_. To make decisions and take actions in the Now. And to pay the price that the Now demands. Is it "be careful of getting what you wish for", or "be careful of wishing for what you get"? But when your past pushes, and your future pulls, sometimes your present can become a bit ... complex. -- Ranma and Akane, a Love Story by Eric Hallstrom. -- "There used to be a CITY here?" "Yes. A gleaming city on a hill." "Krutzing Hollow is in a VALLEY, I thought." "More of a CRATER, actually." "CRATER?!" "At least your people were spared a slow, painful decline..." -- Nodwick. -- If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat. -- Douglas Adams -- "No, Mister Dumbledore," Hermione said, finally standing and cuddling the purring cat in her arms. The cat had spent two hours in a large pile of fresh catnip. She could see Fluffy and think it was the funniest thing ever right now. "We expect you to die!" Suddenly, Dumbledore's face was filled with the smiling face of Luna Lovegood from the side. "At least on the inside." The lights dimmed and the wall was suddenly filled with what would end up being forty-eight hours of something called, "The Teletubbies". When Poppy Pomfrey found the Headmaster, he was a broken man. Who kept singing the most annoying, but addictive, song... -- Into the rabbit hole by Paladeus -- "Kronk, are you pondering what I'm pondering?" "Yes, Yzma," said Kronk, rubbing his chin and looking thoughtful. ¨ "But if a vegetarian only eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?" -- Mischief Fragment - Mjolnir by Kestral -- "Scientists do not coddle ideas. They crashtest them. They run them into a brick wall at 150 km/h and examine the pieces. When the idea is sound, the pieces will be those of the wall." -- A physics teacher -- "Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity ... Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." --Stephen King -- There are some ideas that are so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them. --George Orwell --