From the JOKIN' AROUND DISK by LEEJAN ENTERPRISES P.O. Box 66. Happy Valley. South Australia. 5159. Admiration: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. * Death: to stop sinning suddenly. * "Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles." * Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work. * "That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all." * The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up at the steam fitters' picnic. * 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. * Happiness is egg-shaped. * Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. * "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" * It is the business of the future to be dangerous. * The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier. * There was a young poet named Dan, Whose poetry never would scan. When told this was so, He said, "Yes, I know. It's because I try to put every possible syllable into that last line that I can." * 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. * "Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth..." * "Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?" * God is not dead! He's alive and autographing bibles at Cody's * "If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith." * There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again. * Flappity, floppity, flip The mouse on the Mobius strip; The strip revolved, The mouse dissolved In a chronodimensional skip. * ...And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man * WHERE CAN THE MATTER BE * Oh, dear, where can the matter be When it's converted to energy? There is a slight loss of parity. Johnny's so long at the fair. * PLUNDERER'S THEME (to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius) * Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation. Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations. Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation. * IBM had a PL/I, Its syntax worse than JOSS; And everywhere this language went, It was a total loss. * 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! * 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? * Reclaimer, spare that tree! Take not a single bit! It used to point to me, Now I'm protecting it. It was the reader's CONS That made it, paired by dot; Now, GC, for the nonce, Thou shalt reclaim it not. * 'Twas midnight, and the UNIX hacks Did gyre and gimble in their cave All mimsy was the CS-VAX And Cory raths outgrave. * "Beware the software rot, my son! The faults that bite, the jobs that thrash! Beware the broken pipe, and shun The frumious system crash!" * 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." * THE GOLDEN RULE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES The one who has the gold makes the rules. * If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will. * "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." * A.A.A.A.A.: An organization for drunks who drive * Accident: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better. * Accordion: A bagpipe with pleats. * Accuracy: The vice of being right * "Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing." * Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery. * Adult: One old enough to know better. * Advertisement: The most truthful part of a newspaper * Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. * Afternoon: That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning. * Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it. * Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. * America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization. * Antonym: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. * Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. * Ass: The masculine of "lass". * Automobile: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. * 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. * 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. * Boy: A noise with dirt on it. * Broad-mindedness: The result of flattening high-mindedness out. * 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. * Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. * Christ: A man who was born at least 5,000 years ahead of his time. * Cigarette: A fire at one end, a fool at the other, and a bit of tobacco in between. * A city is a large community where people are lonesome together * "The climate of Bombay is such that its inhabitants have to live elsewhere." * Collaboration: A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the other fellow can spell. * College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. * Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking * Conversation: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. * "Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, Vermont." * The cow is nothing but a machine with makes grass fit for us people to eat. * Cynic: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye. * Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. * Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. * Die: To stop sinning suddenly. * Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. * A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. * Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. * Electrocution: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. * Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. * "It's Fabulous! We haven't seen anything like it in the last half an hour!" * Fairy Tale: 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. * Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. * We wish you a Hare Krishna We wish you a Hare Krishna We wish you a Hare Krishna And a Sun Myung Moon! * There was a young lady from Hyde Who ate a green apple and died. While her lover lamented The apple fermented And made cider inside her inside. * If I traveled to the end of the rainbow As Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me The pot's at the other end. * Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. * Hindsight is an exact science. * Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment. * If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost. * Naeser's Law: You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. * If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will exceed all expectations. * The Third Law of Photography: If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out. * Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing. * Conway's Law: In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired. * It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. * Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. * There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing. * DeVries' Dilemma: If you hit two keys on the typewriter, the one you don't want hits the paper. * When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly. * Finagle's Creed: Science is true. Don't be misled by facts. * Velilind's Laws of Experimentation: 1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once. 2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points. * Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will reject the proposal. * Jones' First Law: Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the importance of their original contribution. * Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. * When the government bureau's remedies do not match your problem, you modify the problem, not the remedy. * Horngren's Observation: Among economists, the real world is often a special case. * First Rule of History: History doesn't repeat itself -- historians merely repeat each other. * Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. * 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. * 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. * Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is. * Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps. * 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. * McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95. * Van Roy's Law: An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. * How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. * 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. * Colvard's Logical Premises: All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't. * Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to. * Grelb's Commentary Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you. * Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics: Superiority is recessive. * Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them. * Ducharm's Axiom: If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem. * A Law of Computer Programming: Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find the programmers cannot write in English. * Turnaucka's Law: The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord. * One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone. * Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in. * At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. * If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow enobled and none dare criticize it. * Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address. * Eleanor Rigby Sits at the keyboard And waits for a line on the screen Lives in a dream * Waits for a signal Finding some code That will make the machine do some more. What is it for? * All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? * The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here. * Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. * Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. * Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. * A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. * The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group. * Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. * Ingrate: A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of indigestion. * Justice: A decision in your favor. * Kin: An affliction of the blood * Lie: A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date. * Love at first sight is one of the greatest labour-saving devices the world has ever seen. * Lunatic Asylum: The place where optimism most flourishes. * Majority: That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law. * Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. * Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. * Menu: A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of * "The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start with a large fortune." * Noncombatant: A dead Quaker. * 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. * BLISS is ignorance * 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. * Predestination was doomed from the start. * Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together... * Xerox does it again and again and again and ... * Love is sentimental measles. * If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you. * I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away. * If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. * "All my friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane." * "If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce" * But scientists, who ought to know Assure us that it must be so. Oh, let us never, never doubt What nobody is sure about. * 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." * Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name. Thy programs run, thy syscalls done, in kernel as it is in user! * PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20) You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed by the CIA or FBI. You have minor influence over your associates and people resent your flaunting of your power. You lack confidence and you are generally a coward. Pisces people do terrible things to small animals. * 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. * 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. * 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. * CANCER (June 21 - July 22) You are sympathetic and understanding to other people's problems. They think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. Most welfare recipients are Cancer people. * LEO (July 23 - Aug 22) You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieves. * VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22) You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and sometimes fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus drivers. * LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22) You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If you are a man, you are more than likely gay. Chances for employment and monetary gains are excellent. Most Libra women are prostitutes. All Libra people die of Venereal disease. * 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. * 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. * CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19) You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You don't do much of anything and are lazy. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. Capricorns should avoid standing still for too long as they take root and become trees. * Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb in San Francisco? A: Both of them. * San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was. * Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. * 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?" * Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all. * Do molecular biologists wear designer genes? * Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his atlantic with his verb in his mouth. * When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. * The University of California Bears announced the signing of Reggie Philbin to a letter of intent to attend Cal next Fall. Philbin is said to make up for no talent by cheating well. Says Philbin of his decision to attend Cal, "I'm in it for the free ride." * Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem Eng. 130 midterm. Once again a student did not receive a single point on his exam. Newell has now tossed 5 shutouts this quarter. Newell's earned exam average has now dropped to a phenomenal 30% * "Now is the time for all good men to come to." * Laetrile is the pits * Got Mole problems? Call Avogardo 6.02 x 10^23 * There's no future in time travel * Vitamin C deficiency is apauling * Science is what happens when preconception meets verification. * Electrical Engineers do it with less resistance. * "Really ?? What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!" * Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check three friends. If they're ok, you're it. * Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong." * 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. * USER n.: A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. * Worst Month of the Year: February. February has only 28 days in it, which means that if you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don't get. Try to avoid Februarys whenever possible. * Worst Vegetable of the Year: The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year. * Easiest Color to Solve on a Rubik's Cube: Black. Simply remove all the little colored stickers on the cube, and each of side of the cube will now be the original color of the plastic underneath -- black. According to the instructions, this means the puzzle is solved. * Worst Month of 1981 for Downhill Skiing: August. The lines are the shortest, though. * There once was a girl named Irene Who lived on distilled kerosene But she started absorbin' A new hydrocarbon And since then has never benzene. * Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. * Computer programmers do it byte by byte * "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." * No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. * What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do. * This login session: $13.99, but for you $11.88 * "I just need enough to tide me over until I need more." * Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those Californians trying to share the experience. * Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature. * She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could have poured on a waffle. * He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered. * People will buy anything that's one to a customer. * It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. * How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers. * The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I hope I don't get run over again. * What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art. * Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out if it alive. * Forgetfulness: A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience. * Absentee: A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction. * As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. * "In short, N is Richardian if, and only if, N is not Richardian." * President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax. * Absent: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. * Brain, v.: [as in "to brain"] To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent. * Truthful: Dumb and illiterate. * 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. * Corrupt: In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. * Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night, God said, "Let Newton be," and all was light. * It did not last; the devil howling "Ho! Let Einstein be!" restored the status quo. * Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live. * Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. * There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. * Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. * The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. * About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. * There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. * The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright -- And this was very odd, because it was The middle of the night. * It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. * Whats the difference between death & sex? With death, you can do it on your own and not get laughed at. * The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation. * I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. * 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped * THE STORY OF CREATION or THE MYTH OF URK * In the beginning there was data. The data was without form and null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM was moving over the face of the market. And DEC said, "Let there be registers"; and there were registers. And DEC saw that they carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions. DEC called the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code. And there was evening and there was morning, one interrupt... * Never try to outstubborn a cat. * FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the .... * Only God can make random selections. * 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. * Limericks are art forms complex, Their topics run chiefly to sex. They usually have virgins, And masculine urgin's, And other erotic effects. * Kinkler's First Law: Responsibility always exceeds authority. * Kinkler's Second Law: All the easy problems have been solved. * "Why be a man when you can be a success?" * "Matrimony isn't a word, it's a sentence." * How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way. * University: Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to fix it, and ... * How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "We'll fix it in software." * How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "We'll document it in the manual." * How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "The user can work it out." * God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board * Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss. * Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. * The Pig, if I am not mistaken, Gives us ham and pork and Bacon. Let others think his heart is big, I think it stupid of the Pig. * I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall I'll never see a tree at all. * Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic * Today is the first day of the rest of the mess * Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday * Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you. * Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life. * Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese * Whether you can hear it or not The Universe is laughing behind your back * Go 'way! You're bothering me! * Put your Nose to the Grindstone! * Chicken Soup: An ancient miracle drug containing equal parts of aureomycin, cocaine, interferon, and TLC. The only ailment chicken soup can't cure is neurotic dependence on one's mother. * Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep". * "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? * One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God create goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "somebody has to buy retail." * "I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!" * Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. * Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. * Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him. * Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. * It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. * If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. * Everyting should be built top-down, except the first time. * Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't. * If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him. * Optimization hinders evolution. * A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. * Everyone can be taught to sculpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how NOT to. So it is with the great programmers. * Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures. * There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one works. * As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." * 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. * Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon. * Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. * A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. * It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. * In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages. * In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only we can't control when the five year period will begin. * Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: That the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? * A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. * When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. * Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve. * One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means. * Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.! * Why did the Roman Empire collapse? What is the Latin for office automation? * If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. * Be different: conform. * Save energy: be apathetic. * I have seen the future and it is just like the present, only longer. * Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat? A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. * Q: How long does it take? A: It's indeterminate. It will depend upon how many flats they've brought with them. * Q: What happens if you've got TWO flats? A: They replace your generator. * "Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly." * "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased." * "Arguments with furniture are rarely productive." * "Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral." * There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. * The National Short-Sleeved Shirt Association says: Support your right to bare arms! * They also surf who only stand on waves. * Signs of crime: screaming or cries for help. * In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. * You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing viability of Fortran. * A Lisp programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. * The computing field is always in need of new cliches. * It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? * "Please try to limit the amount of `this room doesn't have any bazingas' until you are told that those rooms are `punched out.' Once punched out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas, and such." * People will buy anything that's one to a customer. * Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. [Confound those who have said our remarks before us.] * If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to invent it. * It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. * The superfluous is very necessary. * It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. * I'm very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of beings animalculous; In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General. * Oh don't the days seem lank and long When all goes right and none goes wrong, And isn't your life extremely flat With nothing whatever to grumble at! * An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. * Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. * It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. * A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. * The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just, because The unjust steals the just's umbrella. * The world's as ugly as sin, And almost as delightful * Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. * Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them on the head. * You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. * There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. * For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. * Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. * Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. * My God, I'm depressed! Here I am, a computer with a mind a thousand times as powerful as yours, doing nothing but cranking out fortunes and sending mail about softball games. And I've got this pain right through my ALU. I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody ever listens. I think it would be better for us both if you were to just log out again. * Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. * "Grub first, then ethics." * "I drink to make other people interesting." * You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. * The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing more important to do. * You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks. * All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. * If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything. * My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. * No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas. * The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it From the JOKIN' AROUND DISK by LEEJAN ENTERPRISES P.O. Box 66. Happy Valley. South Australia. 5159.