---------------------------------------------------------------------- donhenry@rentgrow4.ultranet.com (Asmith) Sun, 16 Jul 1995 21:55:46 GMT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This weekend, a couple of weeks after uninstalling O/S2 Warp, which never ran properly on my machine thanks to IRQ's and poor IBM tech support, I discovered that some OS/2 files remained on my hard drive, specifically a OS/2 Multimedia file directory. I delited it. As I always do after I delete a file or directory, I ran DEFRAG, SCANDISK, and MSAV- WIN. When I ran Antivirus in the Windows environment, my system froze up after ancountering a file called COM2. Upon closer exploration, I discovered that two files, without extentions, COM2 and COM3, were placed in my c:\ root directory on the same date and time as my uninstall of OS/2. Today I called IBM in vain for answers. After explaining to their rather unknowledgable support person that I tried to delete these files trying the DEL, DELTREE, and changing the file attributes by using the ATTRIB commands, all without success, she suggested that I contact Microsoft, as she was unfamiliar with these files. However, it did seem as though files unique to OS/2, specifically TEDIT.HLP, CDFS.IFS, and TEDIT.HLP were also placed in the c:\ root directory by OS/2. I was able to successfully remove these files. I called Microsoft, and their technician was also unfamiliar with these file names., and he said that most likely the COM2 & COM 3 files causing this problem were somehow related to the uninstall of OS/2, as he had no idea what they were. Again, these seemingly useless files are somehow freezing my system when I run MSAV for Windows. I can run MSAV in DOS with no problems. When I try to view the attributes of these files within File Manager, my system again freezes. After all the nightmares I went through with OS/ 2 (now off my system for good). and anticipating Windows '95, any suggestions you could put on Usenet in response to this post would be appreciated. - Thanks, Art -------------------------------------------------------------- redmond+@cs.cmu.edu (Redmond English) 17 Jul 1995 12:43:09 GMT -------------------------------------------------------------- <...stuff about files COM 2 and COM3 being undeletable snipped...> Hello, I don't know if this will work on these specific files, but I find the easiest way to remove files with bogus names is to use the '?' wildcard where ever an oddity occurs. eg. to remove 'xyz 123. qq' I would type 'del xyz?123.?qq' Perhaps 'del CO???' might do the trick? In a pinch, I use the norton sector editor to hack the names to something more acceptable to DOS. This has never failed for me so far. Red/. ----------------------------------- !07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I !pleH (1) Alexander the Great was a great general. (2) Great generals are forewarned. (3) Forewarned is forearmed. (4) Four is an even number. (5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have. (6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms. (1) Everything depends. (2) Nothing is always. (3) Everything is sometimes. $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" 101 USES FOR A DEAD MICROPROCESSOR (1) Scarecrow for centipedes (2) Dead cat brush (3) Hair barrettes (4) Cleats (5) Self-piercing earrings (6) Fungus trellis (7) False eyelashes (8) Prosthetic dog claws . . . (99) Window garden harrow (pulled behind Tonka tractors) (100) Killer velcro 101. Currency 186,282 miles per second: It isn't just a good idea, it's the law! $3,000,000 355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation! 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped 77. HO HUM -- The Redundant ------- (7) This hexagram refers to a situation of extreme --- --- (8) boredom. Your programs always bomb off. Your wife ------- (7) smells bad. Your children have hives. You are working ---O--- (6) on an accounting system, when you want to develop ---X--- (9) the GREAT AMERICAN COMPILER. You give up hot dates --- --- (8) to nurse sick computers. What you need now is sex. Nine in the second place means: The yellow bird approaches the malt shop. Misfortune. Six in the third place means: In former times men built altars to honor the Internal Revenue Service. Great Dragons! Are you in trouble! 99 blocks of crud on the disk, 99 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 100 blocks of crud on the disk! 100 blocks of crud on the disk, 100 blocks of crud! You patch a bug, and dump it again: 101 blocks of crud on the disk! ... A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. -- Don Quinn A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it adds up to be real money. -- Everett McKinley Dirksen A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him. A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring. A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours. A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward. A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other. A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. A chubby man with a white beard and a red suit will approach you soon. Avoid him. He's a Commie. A city is a large community where people are lonesome together -- Herbert Prochnow A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. -- Mark Twain A closed mouth gathers no foot. A computer, to print out a fact, Will divide, multiply, and subtract. But this output can be No more than debris, If the input was short of exact. -- Gigo A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. A CONS is an object which cares. -- Bernie Greenberg. A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. -- Ben Franklin A crusader's wife slipped from the garrison And had an affair with a Saracen. She was not oversexed, Or jealous or vexed, She just wanted to make a comparison. A day for firm decisions!!!!! Or is it? A day without sunshine is like night. A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip. A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. "I would like to give you this personality test", said the outsider, "because I want you to be happy." Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster -- "I wish the toaster to be happy too". A diva who specializes in risqu'e arias is an off-coloratura soprano ... 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?" A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. -- Ogden Nash A dozen, a gross, and a score, Plus three times the square root of four, Divided by seven, Plus five time eleven, Equals nine squared plus zero, no more. A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Winston Churchill A fool must now and then be right by chance. A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. -- G. B. Shaw A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: first, get a huge block of marble; then you chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. -- D. Gries A gleekzorp without a tornpee is like a quop without a fertsneet (sort of). A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. A lady with one of her ears applied To an open keyhole heard, inside, Two female gossips in converse free -- The subject engaging them was she. "I think", said one, "and my husband thinks That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!" As soon as no more of it she could hear The lady, indignant, removed her ear. "I will not stay," she said with a pout, "To hear my character lied about!" -- Gopete Sherany A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. -- Dennis M. Ritchie A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work by being declared to work. -- Anatol Holt A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find the programmers cannot write in English. A limerick packs laughs anatomical Into space that is quite economical. But the good ones I've seen So seldom are clean, And the clean ones so seldom are comical. A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. A long-forgotten loved one will appear soon. Buy the negatives at any price. A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col 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" A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. A musician of more ambition than talent composed an elegy at the death of composer Edward MacDowell. She played the elegy for the pianist Josef Hoffman, then asked his opinion. "Well, it's quite nice," he replied, but don't you think it would be better if ..." "If what?" asked the composer. "If ... if you had died and MacDowell had written the elegy?" A new dramatist of the absurd Has a voice that will shortly be heard. I learn from my spies He's about to devise An unprintable three-letter word. A new koan: If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. It is an ice cream koan. A new supply of round tuits has arrived and are available from Mary. Anyone who has been putting off work until they got a "round tuit" now has no excuse for further procrastination. A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. A penny saved is ridiculous. A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt -- A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt. When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig, Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig, You'll never go wrong with a pig! -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow" 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. A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? And he answered: It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. It is that which has caused nations to build byways from City to City upon which carts and coaches pass, and alongside which inns have come to be built to stave off Hunger, Thirst and Weariness. And that is Fate? said the priest. Fate ... I thought you said Freight, responded the Master. That's all right, said the priest. I wanted to know what Freight was too. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" A priest was walking along the cliffs at Dover when he came upon two locals pulling another man ashore on the end of a rope. "That's what I like to see", said the priest, "A man helping his fellow man". As he was walking away, one local remarked to the other, "Well, he sure doesn't know the first thing about shark fishing." A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. "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 A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your wife will give you for free. A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and the real reason. A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects ... A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery A Severe Strain on the Credulity As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. -- New York Times Editorial, 1920 A sine curve goes off to infinity or at least the end of the blackboard -- Prof. Steiner A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. -- Mark Twain A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. -- O'Henry A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" A transistor protected by a fast-acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. -- John Ciardi 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. A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. -- Tenessee Williams A very intelligent turtle Found programming UNIX a hurdle The system, you see, Ran as slow as did he, And that's not saying much for the turtle. A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. "A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. A.A.A.A.A.: An organization for drunks who drive AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccckkkkkk!!!!!!!!! You brute! Knock before entering a ladies room! Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. -- Herbert Hoover Absence makes the heart go wander. Absent, adj.: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. Absentee, n.: A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Abstainer, n.: A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better. Accidents cause History. If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd. -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" According to my best recollection, I don't remember. -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless. Accordion, n.: A bagpipe with pleats. Accuracy, n.: The vice of being right Acid -- better living through chemistry. Acid absorbs 47 times it's weight in excess Reality. Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" "Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing." Actor: "I'm a smash hit. Why, yesterday during the last act, I had everyone glued in their seats!" Oliver Herford: "Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it!" Actor: So what do you do for a living? Doris: I work for a company that makes deceptively shallow serving dishes for Chinese restaurants. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" ADA, n.: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness." Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Adolescence, n.: The stage between puberty and adultery. "Adopted kids are such a pain -- you have to teach them how to look like you ..." --- Gilda Radner Adore, v.: To venerate expectantly. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Adult, n.: One old enough to know better. 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?" After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. -- P. J. O'Rourke After an instrument has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench. After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought, and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon to be created." "This is true," He replied. "He will need laws," said the Demon slyly. "What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the right to make his laws?" "Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make his own." It was so granted. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" After I run your program, let's make love like crazed weasels, OK? After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. Afternoon very favorable for romance. Try a single person for a change. Afternoon, n.: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. Air is water with holes in it Alas, I am dying beyond my means. -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall, Aleph-null bottles of beer, You take one down, and pass it around, Aleph-null bottles of beer on the wall. Alex Haley was adopted! Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting for a dial tone. Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it. -- Peggy Joyce "All flesh is grass" -- Isiah Smoke a friend today. All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane." All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. -- Samuel Butler All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -- E. Rutherford All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?" -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes" "... all the modern inconveniences ..." -- Mark Twain All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. -- Sean O'Casey All the world's a VAX, And all the coders merely butchers; They have their exits and their entrails; And one int in his time plays many widths, His sizeof being N bytes. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms. And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun, And shining morning face, creeping like slug Unwillingly to school. -- A Very Annoyed PDP-11 All things are possible except skiing thru a revolving door. All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. All you have to do to see the accuracy of my thesis is look around you. Look, in particular, at the people who, like you, are making average incomes for doing average jobs -- bank vice presidents, insurance salesman, auditors, secretaries of defense -- and you'll realize they all dress the same way, essentially the way the mannequins in the Sears menswear department dress. Now look at the real successes, the people who make a lot more money than you -- Elton John, Captain Kangaroo, anybody from Saudi Arabia, Big Bird, and so on. They all dress funny -- and they all succeed. Are you catching on? -- Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success" Alliance, n.: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Alone, adj.: In bad company. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, etc., for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lighting storm and received a serious electrical shock. This proved that lighting was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking only in incomprehensible maxims, such as "A penny saved is a penny earned." Eventually he had to be given a job running the post office. -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?" Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. AMAZING BUT TRUE ... If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. AMAZING BUT TRUE ... There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. -- Charlie McCarthy America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. -- John O'Hara America was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and was named after him, until people got tired of living in a place called "Vespuccia" and changed its name to "America". -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but is always polite to traffic cops. An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. -- A. P. Herbert An excellence-oriented '80s male does not wear a regular watch He wears a Rolex watch, because it weighs nearly six pounds and is advertised only in excellence-oriented publications such as Fortune and Rich Protestant Golfer Magazine. The advertisements are written in incomplete sentences, which is how advertising copywriters denote excellence: "The Rolex Hyperion. An elegant new standard in quality excellence and discriminating handcraftsmanship. For the individual who is truly able to discriminate with regard to excellent quality standards of crafting things by hand. Fabricated of 100 percent 24-karat gold. No watch parts or anything. Just a great big chunk on your wrist. Truly a timeless statement. For the individual who is very secure. Who doesn't need to be reminded all the time that he is very successful. Much more successful than the people who laughed at him in high school. Because of his acne. People who are probably nowhere near as successful as he is now. Maybe he'll go to his 20th reunion, and they'll see his Rolex Hyperion. Hahahahahahahahaha." -- Dave Barry, "In Search of Excellence" "... an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite often picturesque liar." -- Mark Twain An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an hour seems like a minute." The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?" -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish" Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all. ... And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man -- A. E. Housman And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the world. -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men" "And what will you do when you grow up to be as big as me?" asked the father of his little son. "Diet." Angels we have heard on High Tell us to go out and Buy. -- Tom Leher Ankh if you love Isis. Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" Another Glitch in the Call ------- ------ -- --- ---- (Sung to the tune of a recent Pink Floyd song.) We don't need no indirection We don't need no flow control No data typing or declarations Did you leave the lists alone? Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone! Chorus: All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. Answers to Last Fortune's Questions: 1. None. (Moses didn't have an ark). 2. Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle. 3. I don't know. 4. Who cares? 5. 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3). Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk, Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5. 6. There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of Papyrus Books). Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it; get a larger hammer. Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop. Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes. Antonym, n.: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. -- Charles McCabe Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -- Aesop Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. ... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.) Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Any woman is a volume if one knows how to read her. Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. Anybody who doesn't cut his speed at the sight of a police car is probably parked. Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire. Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. -- Publilius Syrus 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" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined. -- Samuel Goldwyn Anyone who hates Dogs and Kids Can't be All Bad. -- W. C. Fields Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" Anything free is worth what you pay for it. Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate. Anything is good if it's made of chocolate. Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" means the price went way up. Anything that is good and useful is made of chocolate. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. Aquadextrous, adj.: Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18) You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid. "Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19) You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are not very nice. Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse Armadillo: To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. Arthur's Laws of Love: (1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you remind them of someone else. (2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of yourself in person. Artistic ventures highlighted. Rob a museum. As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. -- Weisert As I was passing Project MAC, I met a Quux with seven hacks. Every hack had seven bugs; Every bug had seven manifestations; Every manifestation had seven symptoms. Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks, How many losses at Project MAC? As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. -- Oscar Wilde As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. "As part of the conversion, computer specialists rewrote 1,500 programs -- a process that traditionally requires some debugging." --- USA Today, referring to the IRS switchover to a new computer system. As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949 As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's so hard to