tence 1. Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear bomb; use the stairs. 2. When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit the ground. 3. If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials. 4. Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to psychological problems. 5. Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc. 6. Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs will be scarce in the post-nuclear age. 7. Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles. 8. Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be staggering illegally. 9. Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more sanitary due to limited circulation. 10. Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on D-Day. SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21) You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. The majority of Sagittarians are drunks or dope fiends or both. People laugh at you a great deal. San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was. -- Herb Caen San Francisco, n.: Marcel Proust editing an issue of Penthouse. Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, He must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, Must be a pacifist. What's in that pipe that he's smoking? -- Arlo Guthrie Satellite Safety Tip #14: If you see a bright streak in the sky coming at you, duck. Sattinger's Law: It works better if you plug it in. Saturday night in Toledo Ohio, Is like being nowhere at all, All through the day how the hours rush by, You sit in the park and you watch the grass die. -- John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio" Save energy: be apathetic. Save the whales. Collect the whole set. SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! -- Ken Thompson Schapiro's Explanation: The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's because they use more manure. Schizophrenia beats being alone. Science is what happens when preconception meets verification. SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21) You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You will achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of ethics. Most Scorpio people are murdered. Scott's first Law: No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right. Scott's second Law: When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been wrong in the first place. Corollary: After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation. Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it! Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock? Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table. Kirk: Then it's of external origin? Spock: Affirmative. Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two. Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two. Screw up your courage! You've screwed up everything else. Second Law of Business Meetings: If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you will pick the wrong one. Corollary: If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it wrong, anyway. Security check: INTRUDER ALERT! Seduced, shaggy Samson snored. She scissored short. Sorely shorn, Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed, Silently scheming, Sightlessly seeking Some savage, spectacular suicide. -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad" Self Test for Paranoia: You know you have it when you can't think of anything that's your own fault. Seminars, n.: From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion. Serocki's Stricture: Marriage is always a bachelor's last option. Serving coffee on aircraft causes turbulence. "Seven years and six months!" Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully. "An uncomfortable sort of age. Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have said `Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now." "I never ask advice about growing," Alice said indignantly. "Too proud?" the other enquired. Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion. "I mean," she said, "that one can't help growing older." "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven." -- Lewis Carroll Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. -- Swami X Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated. -- M. C. Reed. Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best. -- Woody Allen Shamus, n.: A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the temple, and makes sure everything is in working order. A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagog functionaries, and there's a joke about that: A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the middle of a service, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The cantor, not to be bested, also cries out, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, "Look who thinks he's nobody!" -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. "She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to." -- Gypsy Rose Lee She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot. -- Mark Twain She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could have poured on a waffle ... She's genuinely bogus. "Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature." -- Samuel Johnson SHIFT TO THE LEFT! SHIFT TO THE RIGHT! POP UP, PUSH DOWN, BYTE, BYTE, BYTE! Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing golf with his boss. Show respect for age. Drink good Scotch for a change. Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help. -- from the Brown Security Crime Prevention Pamphlet Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. Simon's Law: Everything put together falls apart sooner or later. Since I hurt my pendulum My life is all erratic. My parrot, who was cordial, Is now transmitting static. The carpet died, a palm collapsed, The cat keeps doing poo. The only thing that keeps me sane Is talking to my shoe. -- My Shoe Since we're all here, we must not be all there. -- Bob "Mountain" Beck [Sir Stafford Cripps] has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. -- Winston Churchill Sixtus V, Pope from 1585 to 1590 authorized a printing of the Vulgate Bible. Taking no chances, the pope issued a papal bull automatically excommunicating any printer who might make an alteration in the text. This he ordered printed at the beginning of the Bible. He personally examined every sheet as it came off the press. Yet the published Vulgate Bible contained so many errors that corrected scraps had to be printed and pasted over them in every copy. The result provoked wry comments on the rather patchy papal infallibility, and Pope Sixtus had no recourse but to order the return and destruction of every copy. Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have gotten. Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work. Slick's Three Laws of the Universe: 1. Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check. 2. A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat. 3. There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is attracted to dark objects. Slurm, n.: The slime that accumulates on the underside of a soap bar when it sits in the dish too long. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" Snacktrek, n.: The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have materialized. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. -- Bertrand Russell "So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street pops its head into the shop. "What! no soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch as catch can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots." -- Samuel Foote Sodd's Second Law: Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur. SOFTWARE -- formal evening attire for female computer analysts. Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons". Well, you can forget it. If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt, the economy would collapse overnight. The government would have to intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving, which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force jets, killing and maiming thousands. So, for the good of the nation, you should go along with the Holiday Program. This means you should get a large sum of money and go to a mall. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them. -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them on the head. Some points to remember [about animals]: 1. Don't go to sleep under big animals, e.g., elephants, rhinoceri, hippopotamuses; 2. Don't put animals with sharp teeth or poisonous fangs down the front of your clothes; 3. Don't pat certain animals, e.g., crocodiles and scorpions or dogs you have just kicked. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the pens will multiply instead of disappear. Someone will try to honk your nose today. "Sometimes I simply feel that the whole world is a cigarette and I'm the only ashtray." Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. -- Lily Tomlin "Somewhere", said Father Vittorini, "did Blake not speak of the Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then intimidate these Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men and women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our best, with good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are we not God's Machineries of Joy?" "If Blake said that", said Father Brian, "he never lived in Dublin." -- R. Bradbury, "The Machineries of Joy" Sooner or later you must pay for your sins. (Those who have already paid may disregard this fortune). Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers: If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him. Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes: He only does it to annoy Because he knows it teases. Wow! wow! wow! I speak severely to my boy, And beat him when he sneezes: For he can thoroughly enjoy The pepper when he pleases! Wow! wow! wow! -- Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland" Speak roughly to your little VAX, And boot it when it crashes; It knows that one cannot relax Because the paging thrashes! Wow! Wow! Wow! I speak severely to my VAX, And boot it when it crashes; In spite of all my favorite hacks My jobs it always thrashes! Wow! Wow! Wow! Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword. Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use? Speaking of love, one problem that recurs more and more frequently these days, in books and plays and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love; Husbands and wives who can't communicate, children who can't communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books and plays and so on (and in real life, I might add) spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can't communicate. I feel that if a person can't communicate, the very _____least he can do is to Shut Up! -- Tom Lehrer, "That Was the Year that Was" Spend extra time on hobby. Get plenty of rolling papers. Spirtle, n.: The fine stream from a grapefruit that always lands right in your eye. -- Sniglets, "Rich Hall & Friends" Spouse, n.: Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single. Stay away from flying saucers today. Stay away from hurricanes for a while. "Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly." Steele's Plagiarism of Somebody's Philosophy: Everybody should believe in something -- I believe I'll have another drink. Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if they'd only take a bath ... Stult's Report: Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is fight the solutions. Stupid, n.: Losing $25 on the game and $25 on the instant replay. Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud. Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. -- Mark Twain Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring. (Sung to the tune of "The Impossible Dream" from MAN OF LA MANCHA) To code the impossible code, To bring up a virgin machine, To pop out of endless recursion, To grok what appears on the screen, To right the unrightable bug, To endlessly twiddle and thrash, To mount the unmountable magtape, To stop the unstoppable crash! Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have! Surprise due today. Also the rent. Surprise your boss. Get to work on time. Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just type in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving the room is punishable under law: Name # Sweater, n.: A garment worn by a child when its mother feels chilly. Swipple's Rule of Order: He who shouts the loudest has the floor. System/3! System/3! See how it runs! See how it runs! Its monitor loses so totally! It runs all its programs in RPG! It's made by our favorite monopoly! System/3! Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head. Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head. Tact, n.: The unsaid part of what you're thinking. Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way. Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" Take it easy, we're in a hurry. Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool. -- Kipling Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth grade where you put a nail into a glass of Coke and after a couple of days the nail dissolves and the teacher says: "Imagine what it does to your TEETH!" So Coca-Cola was solidly entrenched in the market, and the management saw no need to improve ... -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less advanced life forms, and they'll call you crazy. -- "Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul" Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less-advanced life-forms, and they'll call you crazy. -- Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. -- Euripides Talkers are no good doers. -- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI" Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. -- Friedrich Nietzsche TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20) You are practical and persistent. You have a dogged determination and work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bull headed. You are a Communist. Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree." -- Russell Long Taxes, n.: Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get an extension. Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway. Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else. Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing. -- R. Geis "Terence, this is stupid stuff: You eat your victuals fast enough; There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear, To see the rate you drink your beer. But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, It gives a chap the belly-ache. The cow, the old cow, she is dead; It sleeps well the horned head: We poor lads, 'tis our turn now To hear such tunes as killed the cow. Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme Your friends to death before their time. Moping, melancholy mad: Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad." -- A. E. Housman Tertullian was born in Carthage somewhere about 160 A.D. He was a pagan, and he abandoned himself to the lascivious life of his city until about his 35th year, when he became a Christian .... To him is ascribed the sublime confession: Credo quia absurdum est (I believe because it is absurd). This does not altogether accord with historical fact, for he merely said: "And the Son of God died, which is immediately credible because it is absurd. And buried he rose again, which is certain because it is impossible." Thanks to the acuteness of his mind, he saw through the poverty of philosophical and Gnostic knowledge, and contemptuously rejected it. -- C. G. Jung, in Psychological Types (Teruillian was one of the founders of the Catholic Church). Test-tube babies shouldn't throw stones. "Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even one which cannot be justified on any other grounds." -- J. Finnegan, USC. "That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all." That secret you've been guarding, isn't. That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them. -- Dorothy Parker The [Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by people who want some. -- Dwight MacDonald The Abrams' Principle: The shortest distance between two points is off the wall. The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper -- Thomas Jefferson ... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on ability. -- T. Lehrer The Army needs leaders the way a foot needs a big toe. -- Bill Murray The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think. The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than cities. Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in. Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- here is the big difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES. You're allowed to do anything. You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want. I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie" on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular, whereas I was neither. This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall parking lots. -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman. The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. -- W. C. Fields The best defense against logic is ignorance. The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time. The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. -- Merrick Furst The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public. It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance. Miss Manners has been known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and, in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two under the dinner table. Miss Manners also believes that the sight of people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking umbrellas at one another. What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of activity that frightens the horses on the street ... "The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch." The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school. The Briggs/Chase Law of Program Development: To determine how long it will take to write and debug a program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and convert to the next higher units. "The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language." The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up at the steam fitters' picnic. The chief cause of problems is solutions. "The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere." The computing field is always in need of new cliches. -- Alan Perlis The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business, but --" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity. The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down. The cow is nothing but a machine with makes grass fit for us people to eat. -- John McNulty The Crown is full of it! -- Nate Harris, 1775 The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe. The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary? The devil finds work for idle circuits to do. "The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, it would be a calamity." -- Benjamin Disraeli The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship. -- Robert Heinlein The duck hunter trained his retriever to walk on water. Eager to show off this amazing accomplishment, he asked a friend to go along on his next hunting trip. Saying nothing, he fired his first shot and, as the duck fell, the dog walked on the surface of the water, retrieved the duck and returned it to his master. "Notice anything?" the owner asked eagerly. "Yes," said his friend, "I see that fool dog of yours can't swim." The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier. The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, with symposium to follow. The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. -- G. B. Shaw The fact that it works is immaterial. -- L. Ogborn The Fifth Rule: You have taken yourself too seriously. The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. -- Abbie Hoffman The first Great Steward, Parrafin the Climber, was employed in King Chloroplast's kitchen as second scullery boy when the old King met a tragic death. He apparently fell backward by accident on a dozen salad forks. Simultaneously the true heir, his son Carotene, mysteriously fled the city, complaining of some sort of plot and a lot of threatening notes left on his breakfast tray. At the time, this looked suspicious what with his father's death, and Carotene was suspected of foul play. Then the rest of the King's relatives began to drop dead one after the other in an odd fashion. Some were found strangled with dishrags and some succumbed to food poisoning. A few were found drowned in the soup vats, and one was attacked by assailants unknown and beaten to death with a pot roast. At least three appear to have thrown themselves backward on salad forks, perhaps in a noble gesture of grief over the King's untimely end. Finally there was no one left in Minas Troney who was either eligible or willing to wear the accursed crown, and the rule of Twodor was up for grabs. The scullery slave Parrafin bravely accepted the Stewardship of Twodor until that day when a lineal descendant of Carotene's returns to reclaim his rightful throne, conquer Twodor's enemies, and revamp the postal system. -- Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings" The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish child, was propounded to me by my father: "What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?" I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity gave up. "A herring," said my father. "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!" "So hang it there." "But a herring isn't green!" I protested. "Paint it." "But a herring isn't wet." "If its just painted its still wet." "But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring doesn't whistle!!" "Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it hard." -- Leo Rosten, "The Joys of Yiddish" The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet. -- Michael Jackson The fortune program is supported, in part, by user contributions and by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Inanities. The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End. The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it. The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature is to build better mice. The gods gave man fire and he invented fire engines. They gave him love and he invented marriage. THE GOLDEN RULE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES The one who has the gold makes the rules. The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog: The Gerat Bald Swamp Hedgehog of Billericay displays, in courtship, his single prickle and does impressions of Holiday Inn desk clerks. Since this means him standing motionless for enormous periods of time he is often eaten in full display by The Great Bald Swamp Hedgehog Eater. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. -- Albert Einstein The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue, a custom whereof the memory of man runneth not howsomever to the contrary, nohow. The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: You can never be sure how many beers you had last night. The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent thinkers. The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best". -- H. Allen Smith The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein -- it rejects it. -- P. Medawar The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. -- Mark Twain "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer." -- Henry Kissinger The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly important thing to people. -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group. The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax tip is that you should print neatly. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless. So, for guidance, you want to look to big business. Big business never pays a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer organization that never pays a nickel in taxes... -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" The Kennedy Constant: Don't get mad -- get even. The Killer Ducks are coming!!! The ladies men admire, I've heard, Would shudder at a wicked word. Their candle gives a single light; They'd rather stay at home at night. They do not keep awake till three, Nor read erotic poetry. They never sanction the impure, Nor recognize an overture. They shrink from powders and from paints ... So far, I've had no complaints. -- Dorothy Parker The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -- Anatole France 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. THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12 -- LITHP This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH". LITHP is said to be useful in protheththing lithtth. THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13 -- SLOBOL SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but infinitely faster) language, COCAINE. THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17 -- SARTRE Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at parties. THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17 -- SARTRE Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely unstructured language. Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just are. Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions. SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at parties. THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18 -- C- This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very similar to COBOL. THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18 -- FIFTH FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and BLOTTO. Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY, CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND. The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers who end up using this language. The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching train. The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep. -- Woody Allen The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself. -- Henry Kissinger "The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them." -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. -- Alan Ashley-Pitt The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a soda can, when discarded will last forever ... and a $7,000 car which when properly cared for will rust out in two or three years. The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse. The men sat sipping their tea in silence. After a while the klutz said, "Life is like a bowl of sour cream." "Like a bowl of sour cream?" asked the other. "Why?" "How should I know? What am I, a philosopher?" The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away. The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be. -- Lao Tsu The more things change, the more they stay insane. The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us is right. The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey. -- Andy Warhol The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on. The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says: Support your right to bare arms! The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I hope I don't get run over again. The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory, in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system. But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. -- Matthew 5:37 The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the 80-column card. -- Dennis M. Ritchie The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remind yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp. The Official MBA Handbook on business cards: Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate Planning." The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe. The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the `social sciences' is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop and take a rest. The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself. -- Oscar Wilde The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. -- Oscar Wilde The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up until 5 or 6 pm. The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Bohr The optimum committee has no members. -- Norman Augustine The owner of a large furniture store in the mid-west arrived in France on a buying trip. As he was checking into a