-
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
--Brian Kernighan
-
"The tree which moves somes to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only
a green thing which stands in the way (...) Some see nature all ridicule
and deformity and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man
of imagination, nature is imagination itself"
- Willam Blake
-
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids,
we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and
listening to repetitive electronic music."
- Marcus Brigstocke, 1989
-
Age doesn't always bring wisdom. Sometimes age comes alone.
-
43rd Law of Computing:
Anything that can go wr
fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped
-
Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that
would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that
you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer
maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS
OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY
UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED
IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD
WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDED AND
SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS,
RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTING TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS,
RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE
FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?
-- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
-
Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir
-
Gyroscope, n.:
A wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an axis and also
free to rotate about one or both of two axes perpendicular to each
other and the axis of spin so that a rotation of one of the two
mutually perpendicular axes results from application of torque to the
other when the wheel is spinning and so that the entire apparatus
offers considerable opposition depending on the angular momentum to any
torque that would change the direction of the axis of spin.
-- Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary
-
"A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis
of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite
series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric
precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from
inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical
accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality
for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly
defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the
information in the first place."
-- IEEE Grid newsmagazine
-
Frobnicate, v.:
To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ.
Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a
frob". See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK
sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless
manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse
search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is
turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it
he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the
screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because
turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it.
-
After [Benjamin] Franklin came a herd of Electrical Pioneers whose
names have become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary
Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted
many important electrical experiments. For example, in 1780 Luigi
Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two
different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current
developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer
attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led
to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today,
skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously
injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it
hop back into the pond just like a normal frog, except for the fact
that it sinks like a stone.
-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
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Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she
lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always
getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to
the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and tug at their
sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do
you think something's wrong? Do you think she wants us to follow her?
What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead
of every week. What with all the time these people spent pinned under
the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops
whatsoever. They probably got by on federal crop supports, which
Lassie filed the applications for.
-- Dave Barry
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In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi,
junior, what are you up to?"
"I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the
rabbit.
"Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible!"
"Well, follow me and I'll show you." They both go into the
rabbit's dwelling and after a while the rabbit emerges with a satisfied
expression on his face.
Comes along a wolf. "Hello, what are we doing these days?"
"I'm writing the second chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits
devour wolves."
"Are you crazy? Where is your academic honesty?"
"Come with me and I'll show you." As before, the rabbit comes
out with a satisfied look on his face and a diploma in his paw.
Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave and, as everybody
should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge lion sitting
next to some bloody and furry remnants of the wolf and the fox.
The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are important --
it's your PhD advisor that really counts.
-
If an S and an I and an O and a U
With an X at the end spell Su;
And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
Pray what is a speller to do?
Then, if also an S and an I and a G
And an HED spell side,
There's nothing much left for a speller to do
But to go commit siouxeyesighed.
-- Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament"
-
A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The
first thing he notices is that the arms are too long.
"No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow
and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine."
"But the collar is up around my ears!"
"It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a
little more ... that's it."
"But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation.
"Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you
go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly."
So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the
street. Reba and Florence see him go by.
"Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!"
"Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit."
-- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
-
Why I Can't Go Out With You:
I'd LOVE to, but ...
-- I have to floss my cat.
-- I've dedicated my life to linguini.
-- I need to spend more time with my blender.
-- it wouldn't be fair to the other Beautiful People.
-- it's my night to pet the dog/ferret/goldfish.
-- I'm going downtown to try on some gloves.
-- I have to check the freshness dates on my dairy products.
-- I'm going down to the bakery to watch the buns rise.
-- I have an appointment with a cuticle specialist.
-- I have some really hard words to look up.
-- I've got a Friends of the Lowly Rutabaga meeting.
-- I promised to help a friend fold road maps.
-
And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode.
-
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.
-
All things are possible except skiing thru a revolving door.
-
"And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?"
asked the father of his little son.
"Diet."
-
Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then
give it back to them.
-
"Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *can*
you believe?!"
-- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward]
-
Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a
hole in his head.
-
Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001,
Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of
the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20%
of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences
of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
-
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you.
-
If God had intended Man to Smoke, He would have set him on Fire.
-
I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's
a knob called "brightness", but it doesn't work.
-- Gallagher
-
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
make messes in the house.
-- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
-
When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young
ladies, and, of course, the goat.
-
SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out!
-- Ken Thompson
-
Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office
automation?
-
If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by
the page number.
-
"Uncle Cosmo ... why do they call this a word processor?"
"It's simple, Skyler ... you've seen what food processors do to food,
right?"
-- MacNelley, "Shoe"
-
"Do you think what we're doing is wrong?"
"Of course it's wrong! It's illegal!"
"I've never done anything illegal before."
"I thought you said you were an accountant!"
-
You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.
-
Adult, n.:
One old enough to know better.
-
In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in
the proper order then why can't he?
-
"Who cares if it doesn't do anything? It was made with our new
Triple-Iso-Bifurcated-Krypton-Gate-MOS process ..."
-
Weinberg's Second Law:
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs,
then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy
civilization.
-
A UNIX saleslady, Lenore,
Enjoys work, but she likes the beach more.
She found a good way
To combine work and play:
She sells C shells by the seashore.
-
The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body.
This means that only left handed people are in their right mind.
-
Flon's Law:
There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is
the least bit difficult to write bad programs.
-
Canada Bill Jone's Motto:
It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.
Supplement:
A .44 magnum beats four aces.
-
Famous last words:
1. Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix.
2. Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there.
3. What happens if you touch these two wires tog--
4. We won't need reservations.
5. It's always sunny there this time of the year.
6. Don't worry, it's not loaded.
7. They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager.
-
The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our
authority is Isaiah 30:26, "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as
the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as
the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much
radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much
as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we
receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the
Sun, so we can ignore that ... The radiation falling on Heaven will
heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to
the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much
heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for
radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the
earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell
cannot be computed ... [However] Revelations 21:8 says "But the
fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means
that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We
have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
-- From "Applied Optics" vol. 11, A14, 1972
-
Commitment, n.:
Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs.
The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.
-
THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10 -- SIMPLE
SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language
Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for
Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code
with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,
END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make
a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus
they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without
the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
-
Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one
instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every
program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work.
-
A Law of Computer Programming:
Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you
will find the programmers cannot write in English.
-
If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions?
-
Those who can, do. Those who can't, simulate.
-
We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength.
But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle
Haggard song at a French restaurant. ...
I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of
her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I
had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone
told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was
lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he
fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing
what men must do. ...
"Stop the car," the girl said. There was a look of terrible
sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew
not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a
quiet and peace I will never forget.
"I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the
tollway belle's for thee."
The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was
a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I
poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day.
-- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway
Competition
-
Hardware, n.:
The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
-
A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped
to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer
be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained
would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2
might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the
same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with
"i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12
or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi
ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz
ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
-
Electrocution, n.:
Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements.
-
God is real, unless declared integer.
-
f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng.
-
A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.
-
Meeting, n.:
An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or
department not represented in the room must solve a problem.
-
Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with
nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.
-- Wernher von Braun
-
Mitchell's Law of Committees:
Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are
held to discuss it.
-
People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never
slept in a room with a single mosquito.
-
Review Questions
A: If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20
KPH, and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it
be before he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be
before the Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his
spaceship?
B: If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he
breaks twice as many bones as before, how long will it be
before he breaks every bone in his body? How long will it be
before they cut off his insurance? Where does he get a new car
every week?
C: If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four
beers the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the
cans in a pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger
than King Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice?
-
Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom:
Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so
vividly manifests their lack of progress.
-
A doctor, an architect, and a computer scientist were arguing
about whose profession was the oldest. In the course of their
arguments, they got all the way back to the Garden of Eden, whereupon
the doctor said, "The medical profession is clearly the oldest, because
Eve was made from Adam's rib, as the story goes, and that was a simply
incredible surgical feat."
The architect did not agree. He said, "But if you look at the
Garden itself, in the beginning there was chaos and void, and out of
that, the Garden and the world were created. So God must have been an
architect."
The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said,
"Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"
-
Fairy Tale, n.:
A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers.
-
Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.
-
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so
ingenious.
-
The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to
constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every
appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA
statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This
also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers
-
Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known
as Wheels.
-
Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else.
-
Q: It doesn't work.
A: Look buddy, doesn't work is an ambiguous statement.
Does it sit on the couch all day? Is it unemployed? Please be specific!
Define 'it' and what it isn't doing. - Adapted from lxrbot FAQ