Salesmen: Invite them all in. Nip out the back door. Phone the police and tell them your house is being burgled. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless. Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary Entropy isn't what it used to be. Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin Equal bytes for women. Es brilig war. Die schlichte Toven Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; Und aller-m"umsige Burggoven Dir mohmen R"ath ausgraben. -- Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass" Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. -- Woody Allen Etymology, n.: Some early etymological scholars come up with derivations that were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy" ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow." -- Mike Kellen Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to? -- Clarence Darrow "Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only 2 cents a day. Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are. Every 4 seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this woman and stop her. Every absurdity has a champion who will defend it. Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation): Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and in front they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of legs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere, there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horse of another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the same color"], that does not exist. Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. -- Don Vonada Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. -- Miguel de Cervantes 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. Every program has two purposes -- written and another for which it wasn't. Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. Every solution breeds new problems. Every successful person has had failures but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success. "Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it." Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. -- Beckett Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. -- Dykstra Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how ___not to. So it is with the great programmers. Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what ____does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way ... -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" Everyone talks about apathy, but no one ____does anything about it. Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, no one we know belongs. Everything you know is wrong! Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. -- R. Buckminster Fuller Everyting should be built top-down, except the first time. Excellence is THE trend of the '80s. Walk into any shopping mall bookstore, go to the rack where they keep the best-sellers such as "Garfield Gets Spayed", and you'll see a half-dozen books telling you how to be excellent: "In Search of Excellence", "Finding Excellence", "Grasping Hold of Excellence", "Where to Hide Your Excellence at Night So the Cleaning Personnel Don't Steal It", etc. -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" Excellent day for drinking heavily. Spike office water cooler. Excellent day to have a rotten day. Excellent time to become a missing person. Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. -- W. Somerset Maugham Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. Expect the worst, it's the least you can do. Expense Accounts, n.: Corporate food stamps. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. -- Olivier Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. -- F. P. Jones Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward. Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones. Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else. Experience varies directly with equipment ruined. F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm! f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng. Fairy Tale, n.: A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers. Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic without looking to see whether the seeds move. Faith, n: That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be untrue. Fakir, n: A psychologist whose charismatic data have inspired almost religious devotion in his followers, even though the sources seem to have shinnied up a rope and vanished. Familiarity breeds attempt Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister -- Su Tung-p'o Famous last words: Famous last words: 1) "Don't worry, I can handle it." 2) "You and what army?" 3) "If you were as smart as you think you are, you wouldn't be a cop." 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. Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea ... -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. -- Oscar Wilde Fats Loves Madelyn Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions ... Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, neither will you. Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres. Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres. Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when the little hammers strike. Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning Christmas tree. The piano is missing. You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level 4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog. Fifth Law of Applied Terror: If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book. Corollary: If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live. Fifth Law of Procrastination: Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do. FIGHTING WORDS Say my love is easy had, Say I'm bitten raw with pride, Say I am too often sad -- Still behold me at your side. Say I'm neither brave nor young, Say I woo and coddle care, Say the devil touched my tongue -- Still you have my heart to wear. But say my verses do not scan, And I get me another man! -- Dorothy Parker Finagle's Creed: Science is true. Don't be misled by facts. Finagle's First Law: If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. Finagle's fourth Law: Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse. Finagle's Second Law: No matter what the anticipated result, there will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c) believe it happened according to his own pet theory. Finagle's Third Law: In any collection of data, the figure most obviously correct, beyond all need of checking, is the mistake Corollaries: 1. Nobody whom you ask for help will see it. 2. The first person who stops by, whose advice you really don't want to hear, will see it immediately. Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. First Law of Bicycling: No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind. First Law of Procrastination: Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed the deadline). First Law of Socio-Genetics: Celibacy is not hereditary. First Rule of History: History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other. Flappity, floppity, flip The mouse on the m"obius strip; The strip revolved, The mouse dissolved In a chronodimensional skip. FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the .... 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. Flugg's Law: When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum. For a good time, call (415) 642-9483 For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned. For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill. -- R. Clopton "For I perceive that behind this seemingly unrelated sequence of events, there lurks a singular, sinister attitude of mind." "Whose?" "MINE! HA-HA!" For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say "Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something. -- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz. "For that matter, compare your pocket computer with the massive jobs of a thousand years ago. Why not, then, the last step of doing away with computers altogether?" -- Jehan Shuman For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. -- Abraham Lincoln For years a secret shame destroyed my peace -- I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece. But now I think a thought that brings me hope: Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. -- Justin Richardson. Forgetfulness, n.: A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience. Fortune's graffito of the week (or maybe even month): Don't Write On Walls! (and underneath) You want I should type? Fortune's nomination for All-Time Champion and Protector of Youthful Morals goes to Representative Clare E. Hoffman of Michigan. During an impassioned House debate over a proposed bill to "expand oyster and clam research," a sharp-eared informant transcribed the following exchange between our hero and Rep. John D. Dingell, also of Michigan. DINGELL: There are places in the world at the present time where we are having to artificially propagate oysters and clams. HOFFMAN: You mean the oysters I buy are not nature's oysters? DINGELL: They may or may not be natural. The simple fact of the matter is that female oysters through their living habits cast out large amounts of seed and the male oysters cast out large amounts of fertilization. HOFFMAN: Wait a minute! I do not want to go into that. There are many teenagers who read The Congressional Record. FORTUNE'S PARTY TIPS #14 Tired of finding that other people are helping themselves to your good liquor at BYOB parties? Take along a candle, which you insert and light after you've opened the bottle. No one ever expects anything drinkable to be in a bottle which has a candle stuck in its neck. Fourth Law of Applied Terror: The night before the English History mid-term, your Biology instructor will assign 200 pages on planaria. Corollary: Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study for that instructor's course. Fourth Law of Revision: It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you. Fresco's Discovery: If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored. Friends, Romans, Hipsters, Let me clue you in; I come to put down Caeser, not to groove him. The square kicks some cats are on stay with them; The hip bits, like, go down under; so let it lay with Caeser. The cool Brutus Gave you the message: Caeser had big eyes; If that's the sound, someone's copping a plea, And, like, old Caeser really set them straight. Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs, -- for Brutus is a real cool cat; So are they all, all cool cats, -- Come I to make this gig at Caeser's laying down. Frisbeetarianism, n.: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up the on roof and gets stuck. 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. From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving, Whatever gods may be, That no life lives forever, That dead men rise up never, That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea. -- Swinburne Fudd's First Law of Opposition: Push something hard enough and it will fall over. Furbling, v.: Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank even when you are the only person in line. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. -- H. H. Williams Future looks spotty. You will spill soup in late evening. 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." Garbage In -- Gospel Out. Garter, n.: An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Gauls! We have nothing to fear; except perhaps that the sky may fall on our heads tomorrow. But as we all know, tomorrow never comes!! -- Adventures of Asterix. Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep". Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound than the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference: "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling." Obvious, isn't it? Clearly the best thing you can do for you children is to start speaking Yiddish right now and never speak another word of English as long as you live. This will, of course, entail teaching Yiddish to all your friends, business associates, the people at the supermarket, and so on, but that's just the point. It has to start with committed individuals and then grow ... Some minor adjustments will have to be made, of course: those signs written in what look like Yiddish letters won't be funny when everything is written in Yiddish. And we'll have to start driving on the left side of the road so we won't be reading the street signs backwards. But is that too high a price to pay for world peace? I think not, my friend, I think not. -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" "Gee, Mudhead, everyone at Morse Science High has an extracurricular activity except you." "Well, gee, doesn't Louise count?" "Only to ten, Mudhead." -- Firesign Theater GEMINI (May 21 - June 20) You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you are bisexual. However, you are inclined to expect too much for too little. This means you are cheap. Geminis are known for committing incest. GEMINI (May 21 to Jun. 20) Good news and bad news highlighted. Enjoy the good news while you can; the bad news will make you forget it. You will enjoy praise and respect from those around you; everybody loves a sucker. A short trip is in the stars, possibly to the men's room. Genderplex, n.: The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and tortoises). -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should. Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -- Elbert Hubbard Genius, n.: A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with "bright". George Orwell was an optimist. Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics: 1. An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction. 2. An object at rest will always be in the wrong place. 3. The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible. Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty. Get Revenge! Live long enough to be a problem for your children! -- Gifts for Children -- This is easy. You never have to figure out what to get for children, because they will tell you exactly what they want. They spend months and months researching these kinds of things by watching Saturday- morning cartoon-show advertisements. Make sure you get your children exactly what they ask for, even if you disapprove of their choices. If your child thinks he wants Murderous Bob, the Doll with the Face You Can Rip Right Off, you'd better get it. You may be worried that it might help to encourage your child's antisocial tendencies, but believe me, you have not seen antisocial tendencies until you've seen a child who is convinced that he or she did not get the right gift. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" -- Gifts for Men -- Men are amused by almost any idiot thing -- that is why professional ice hockey is so popular -- so buying gifts for them is easy. But you should never buy them clothes. Men believe they already have all the clothes they will ever need, and new ones make them nervous. For example, your average man has 84 ties, but he wears, at most, only three of them. He has learned, through humiliating trial and error, that if he wears any of the other 81 ties, his wife will probably laugh at him ("You're not going to wear THAT tie with that suit, are you?"). So he has narrowed it down to three safe ties, and has gone several years without being laughed at. If you give him a new tie, he will pretend to like it, but deep inside he will hate you. If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set of tires. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" Gimmie That Old Time Religion We will follow Zarathustra, We will worship like the Druids, Zarathustra like we use to, Dancing naked in the woods, I'm a Zarathustra booster, Drinking strange fermented fluids, And he's good enough for me! And it's good enough for me! (chorus) (chorus) In the church of Aphrodite, The priestess wears a see through nightie, She's a mighty righteous sightie, And she's good enough for me! (chorus) CHORUS: Give me that old time religion, Give me that old time religion, Give me that old time religion, 'Cause it's good enough for me! Ginsberg's Theorem: 1. You can't win. 2. You can't break even. 3. You can't even quit the game. Freeman's Commentary on Ginsberg's theorem: Every major philosophy that attempts to make life seem meaningful is based on the negation of one part of Ginsberg's Theorem. To wit: 1. Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win. 2. Socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even. 3. Mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game. Give me a Plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh dome, and a place to stand, and I will drain the world. Give me the Luxuries, and the Hell with the Necessities! Give thought to your reputation. Consider changing name and moving to a new town. Give your child mental blocks for Christmas. Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability: Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done. Go 'way! You're bothering me! Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may be in owning a piece thereof. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" //GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH God did not create the world in 7 days; he screwed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter. "God gives burdens; also shoulders" Jimmy Carter cited this Jewish saying in his concession speech at the end of the 1980 election. At least he said it was a Jewish saying; I can't find it anywhere. I'm sure he's telling the truth though; why would he lie about a thing like that? -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ... The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I do not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman ... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on smoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in the morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at night! -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh God is a polythiest God is Dead -- Nietzsche Nietzsche is Dead -- God Nietzsche is God -- The Dead God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's God is real, unless declared integer. God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things. -- Pablo Picasso God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. -- Alfred Jarry God isn't dead, he just couldn't find a parking place. God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board -- Mark Twain God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. -- Kronecker God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean. -- Albert Einstein God must love the Common Man; He made so many of them. God rest ye CS students now, Let nothing you dismay. The VAX is down and won't be up, Until the first of May. The program that was due this morn, Won't be postponed, they say. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, Comfort and joy, Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. The bearings on the drum are gone, The disk is wobbling, too. We've found a bug in Lisp, and Algol Can't tell false from true. And now we find that we can't get At Berkeley's 4.2. (chorus) Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a car. Gold, n.: A soft malleable metal relatively scarce in distribution. It is mined deep in the earth by poor men who then give it to rich men who immediately bury it back in the earth in great prisons, although gold hasn't done anything to them. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" Goldenstern's Rules: 1. Always hire a rich attorney 2. Never buy from a rich salesman. Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. -- La Rouchefoucauld Good day for a change of scene. Repaper the bedroom wall. Good day for overcoming obstacles. Try a steeplechase. Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. Good day to let down old friends who need help. Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed. Good news is just life's way of keeping you off balance. Good news. Ten weeks from Friday will be a pretty good day. Good night to spend with family, but avoid arguments with your mate's new lover. Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -- George Saunders' dying words Got Mole problems? Call Avogardo 6.02 x 10^23 Goto, n.: A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers to complain about unstructured programmers. -- Ray Simard Goy: ... The distinction between Jewish and goyish can be quite subtle, as the following quote from Lenny Bruce illustrates: "I'm Jewish. Count Basie's Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor's goyish. The B'nai Brith is goyish. The Hadassah is Jewish. Marine Corps -- heavy goyish, dangerous. "Kool-Aid is goyish. All Drake's Cakes are goyish. Pumpernickel is Jewish and, as you know, white bread is very goyish. Instant potatoes -- goyish. Black cherry soda's very Jewish. Macaroons are ____very Jewish. Fruit salad is Jewish. Lime Jell-O is goyish. Lime soda is ____very goyish. Trailer parks are so goyish that Jews won't go near them ..." -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" Grabel's Law: 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2. Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture. Grandpa Charnock's Law: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. Gravity is a myth, the Earth sucks. Gray's Law of Programming: `_n+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as `_n' tasks. Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law: `_n+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as `_n' trivial tasks. GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY (#21) -- July 30, 1917 On this day, New York City hotel detectives burst in and caught then- Senator Warren G. Harding in bed with an underage girl. He bought them off with a $20 bribe, and later remarked thankfully, "I thought I wouldn't get out of that under $1000!" Always one to learn from his mistakes, in later years President Harding carried on his affairs in a tiny closet in the White House Cabinet Room while Secret Service men stood lookout. Green light in A.M. for new projects. Red light in P.M. for traffic tickets. Greener's Law: Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel. Grelb's Reminder: Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above average drivers. "Grub first, then ethics." -- Bertolt Brecht 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 H. L. Mencken's Law: Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach. Martin's Extension: Those who cannot teach -- administrate. Hacker's Law: The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions. Hacking's just another word for nothing left to kludge. ... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed. Hail to the sun god He sure is a fun god Ra! Ra! Ra! Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.) Half-done: This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the the difference between life and death. You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the man, "Let me have a nice half-done." Worth the trouble, wasn't it? -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" Hall's Laws of Politics: (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending. (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something fixed. (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend military spending, and conservatives social spending in their own districts). Hand, n.: A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Hanson's Treatment of Time: There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days before Saturday. Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. -- Ogden Nash Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. -- Oscar Levant Happiness, n.: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Hardware, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked. Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark The Duke is fond of kittens He likes to take their insides out And use them for his mittens From "The Thirteen Clocks" Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, Advertising wondrous things. -- Tom Leher Harris's Lament: All the good ones are taken. Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined. Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he makes us all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean famous for its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses probably stirs romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you have never met any wild horses in person. In person, they are like enormous hooved rats. They amble up to your camp site, and their attitude is: "We're wild horses. We're going to eat your food, knock down your tent and poop on your shoes. We're protected by federal law, just like Richard Nixon." -- Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob" Hartley's First Law: You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've got something. Hartley's Second Law: Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself. Harvard Law: Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases. Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears. Has your family tried 'em? POWDERMILK BISCUITS Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious! They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. POWDERMILK BISCUITS Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark stains that indicate freshness. Hatred, n.: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell you, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the time for play? Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk? He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving "normally." -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" He hadn't a single redeeming vice. -- Oscar Wilde "He is now rising from affluence to poverty." -- Mark Twain He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered. He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. -- John Mason Brown, drama critic He thought he saw an albatross That fluttered 'round the lamp. He looked again and saw it was A penny postage stamp. "You'd best be getting home," he said, "The nights are rather damp." "He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes ..." He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry attacks democracy itself. -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS He who Laughs, Lasts. "He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ..." He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter. "He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..." HE: Let's end it all, bequeathin' our brains to science. SHE: What?!? Science got enough trouble with their OWN brains. -- Walt Kelley Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. Heaven, n.: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Heavy, adj.: Seduced by the chocolate side of the force. "Heisenberg may have slept here" Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -- Milton Friedman Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists. Johnson's Corollary: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization. Help a swallow land at Capistrano. Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70! Her locks an ancient lady gave Her loving husband's life to save; And men -- they honored so the dame -- Upon some stars bestowed her name. But to our modern married fair, Who'd give their lords to save their hair, No stellar recognition's given. There are not stars enough in heaven. "Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..." Here I sit, broken-hearted, All logged in, but work unstarted. First net.this and net.that, And a hot buttered bun for net.fat. The boss comes by, and I play the game, Then I turn back to net.flame. Is there a cure (I need your views), For someone trapped in net.news? I need your help, I say 'tween sobs, 'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs. Here in my heart, I am Helen; I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least. I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Sta"el; I'm Salome, moon of the East. Here in my soul I am Sappho; Lady Hamilton am I, as well. In me R'ecamier vies with Kitty O'Shea, With Dido, and Eve, and poor nell. I'm all of the glamorous ladies At whose beckoning history shook. But you are a man, and see only my pan, So I stay at home with a book. -- Dorothy Parker Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along