Otherware/Otherware_1_SB_Development.iso/amiga/misc/afortune.lha/AFortune/06.frt/06.frt

Text File | 1980-01-01 | 23.5 KB | 634 lines

ñ
"Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence"
                -- Time Bandits
ñ
Besides the device, the box should contain:

* Eight little rectangular snippets of paper that say "WARNING"

* A plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two
  club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.

YOU WILL NEED TO SUPPLY: a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram
cable.

IF ANYTHING IS DAMAGED OR MISSING: You IMMEDIATELY should turn to your
spouse and say: "Margaret, you know why this country can't make a car
that can get all the way through the drive-through at Burger King
without a major transmission overhaul?  Because nobody cares, that's
why."

WARNING: This is assuming your spouse's name is Margaret.
                -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
ñ
better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus <north pole >town

cat /etc/passwd >list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice >giftlist
santa claus <north pole > town

who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | egrep 'bad|good'
for (goodness sake) {
        be good
}
ñ
Better dead than mellow.
ñ
Between 1950 and 1952, a bored weatherman, stationed north of Hudson
Bay, left a monument that neither government nor time can eradicate.
Using a bulldozer abandoned by the Air Force, he spent two years and
great effort pushing boulders into a single word.

It can be seen from 10,000 feet, silhouetted against the snow.
Government officials exchanged memos full of circumlocutions (no Latin
equivalent exists) but failed to word an appropriation bill for the
destruction of this cairn, that wouldn't alert the press and embarrass
both Parliament and Party.

It stands today, a monument to human spirit.  If life exists on other
planets, this may be the first message received from us.
                -- The Realist, November, 1964.
ñ
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not
tried it."
                -- Donald Knuth
ñ
Beware of computerized fortune-tellers!
ñ
Beware of low-flying butterflies.
ñ
Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.
                -- Leonard Brandwein
ñ
Beware of self-styled experts: an ex is a has-been, and a spurt is a
drip under pressure.
ñ
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and
finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us.  "He is full of
murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by
their ignorance the hard way."
                -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"
ñ
Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but
nothing of interest is easy.
ñ
Binary, adj.:
        Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes.
ñ
"Biology is the only science in which multiplication means the same
thing as division."
ñ
Bipolar, adj.:
        Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo,
        New York
ñ
Birth, n.:
        The first and direst of all disasters.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
ñ
Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic
ñ
Bizoos, n.:
        The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up a
        basketball.
                -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
ñ
... bleakness ... desolation ... plastic forks ...
ñ
Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.
ñ
Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as
Wheels.
ñ
BLISS is ignorance
ñ
Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
ñ
Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier.
ñ
Blore's Razor:
        Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is
funnier.
ñ
Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in
plain sight.  It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again.  The legend has
it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.  In fact, he was
arrested for drunk driving.  The snakes left because people kept
throwing up on them.
ñ
Boling's postulate:
        If you're feeling good, don't worry.  You'll get over it.
ñ
Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom:
        Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so
        vividly manifests their lack of progress.
ñ
Bombeck's Rule of Medicine:
        Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
ñ
BOO!  We changed Coke again!  BLEAH!  BLEAH!
ñ
Boob's Law:
        You always find something in the last place you look.
ñ
Bore, n.:
        A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary.
                -- Walter Winchell
ñ
Bore, n.:
        A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
ñ
Boren's Laws:
        (1) When in charge, ponder.
        (2) When in trouble, delegate.
        (3) When in doubt, mumble.
ñ
Boss, n.:
        According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages
        the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except
        that boss, in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers"
        also meant "an ornamental stud."
ñ
Boston State House is the hub of the Solar System.  You couldn't pry
that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation
straightened out for a crowbar.
                -- O. W. Holmes
ñ
Boston, n.:
        Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for
        finishing second in the Irish jig competition.
ñ
Boy, n.:
        A noise with dirt on it.
ñ
Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least
when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.
                -- James Thurber
ñ
Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.
                -- Kin Hubbard
ñ
Brace yourselves.  We're about to try something that borders on the
unique: an actually rather serious technical book which is not only
(gasp) vehemently anti-Solemn, but also (shudder) takes sides.  I tend
to think of it as `Constructive Snottiness.'
                -- Mike Padlipsky, Foreword to "Elements of Networking
                   Style"
ñ
Bradley's Bromide:
        If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a
        committee -- that will do them in.
ñ
Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
        When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
        easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone
        Ranger have handled this?"
ñ
Brain fried -- Core dumped
ñ
Brain, n.:
        The apparatus with which we think that we think.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
ñ
Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]:
        To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of
        error in an opponent.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
ñ
Breast Feeding should not be attempted by fathers with hairy chests,
since they can make the baby sneeze and give it wind.
                -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
ñ
Bride, n.:
        A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
ñ
Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may
revitalize the corner saloon.
ñ
British Israelites:
        The British Israelites believe the white Anglo-Saxons of
        Britain to be descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel
        deported by Sargon of Assyria on the fall of Sumeria in 721
        B.C. ... They further believe that the future can be foretold
        by the measurements of the Great Pyramid, which probably means
        it will be big and yellow and in the hand of the Arabs.  They
        also believe that if you sleep with your head under the pillow
        a fairy will come and take all your teeth.
                -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
ñ
Broad-mindedness, n.:
        The result of flattening high-mindedness out.
ñ
Brontosaurus Principle:
        Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them
in relation to their environment and to their own physiology:  when
this occurs, they are an endangered species.
                -- Thomas K. Connellan
ñ
Brook's Law:
        Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
ñ
Brooke's Law:
        Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool
        discovers something which either abolishes the system or
        expands it beyond recognition.
ñ
Bubble Memory, n.:
        A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's
        intelligence.  See also "vacuum tube".
ñ
Bucy's Law:
        Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
ñ
Bug, n.:
        An aspect of a computer program which exists because the
        programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when
        s/he wrote the program.

Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed.
                -- Ray Simard
ñ
Bugs, pl. n.:
        Small living things that small living boys throw on small
        living girls.
ñ
BULLWINKLE: "You just leave that to my pal.  He's the brains of the
            outfit."
GENERAL:    "What does that make YOU?"
BULLWINKLE: "What else?  An executive..."
                -- Jay Ward
ñ
Bumper sticker:

"All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British
manufacture"
ñ
Bureaucrat, n.:
        A person who cuts red tape sideways.
                -- J. McCabe
ñ
Bureaucrat, n.:
        A politician who has tenure.
ñ
Bureaucrats cut red tape -- lengthwise.
ñ
Burn's Hog Weighing Method:
        (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a
            sawhorse.
        (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank.
        (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again
            perfectly balanced.
        (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.
                -- Robert Burns
ñ
        ... But among the children of the Great Society there were
those whose skins were black.  And lo!  Their portion was niggardly,
and of the fatted calf they were sucking hind teat ...
        Now it came to pass that a prophet rose up amongst them, and
they called him King.  And he went unto Pharaoh and said, "Let my
people go to the front of the bus."
        But Pharaoh answered: "In the fullness of time and with all
deliberate speed shall this thing come to pass.  When ye shall prove
yourselves worthy, shall ye have your just portion -- yea, verily, like
unto a snowball in Hell."
                -- "The Begatting of a President"
ñ
... But as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can
easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed
and were a scourge to mankind.  The evidence (including confession)
upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was
without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable.  The judges' decisions based
on it were sound in logic and in law.  Nothing in any existing court
was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and
sorcery for which so many suffered death.  If there were no witches,
human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
ñ
"But don't you worry, its for a cause -- feeding global corporations
paws."
ñ
"But I don't like Spam!!!!"
ñ
... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand.  Human
intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as
we can tell.  If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues
that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding
of their world, not in their distorted perceptions.  Even the standard
example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads --
makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing
whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a
finite or an infinite number.
                -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"
ñ
But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the
system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed,
analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses.
                -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing
                   Compilers"
ñ
"But officer, I was only trying to gain enough speed so I could coast
to the nearest gas station."
ñ
But scientists, who ought to know
Assure us that it must be so.
Oh, let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about.
                -- Hilaire Belloc
ñ
But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
But get thee to a nunnery -- go!
                -- Mark "The Bard" Twain
ñ
But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who
was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal
education and lived in New Jersey.  Edison's first major invention in
1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of
American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was
invented.  But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he
invented the electric company.  Edison's design was a brilliant
adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends
electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the
electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant
part) sends it right back to the customer again.

This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch
of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since
very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely.
In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United
States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it
ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate
increases.
                -- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"
ñ
"But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad
place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge.
Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge?  What is a
kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs,
poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around?  Have I
explained yet about the bytes?"
ñ
... But we've only fondled the surface of that subject.
                -- Virginia Masters
ñ
"But what we need to know is, do people want nasally-insertable
computers?"
ñ
Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes
Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn;
Less dear than army ants in apple pies
Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn,
Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit;
Like honeybees upon the perfum'd rose
They suck, and like the double-breasted suit
Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose,
Go fly a kite, thy welcome's overstayed;
And stem the produce of thy waspish wits:
Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed;
Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits.
Be off, I say; go bug somebody new,
Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you.
ñ
By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task
completely overwhelm you.
ñ
"By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.  In fact,
it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to
invent. (R. Emerson)"
                -- Quoted from a fortune cookie program
                   (whose author claims, "Actually, stealing IS easier.")
                   [to which I reply, "You think it's easy for me to
                   misconstrue all these misquotations?!?"]
ñ
By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's, I
mean.
                -- Mark Twain
ñ
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to
point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very
fast.  People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are
often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people
from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B
that so many people from point A are so keen to get there.  They often
wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell
they wanted to be.
                -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
ñ
C, n.:
        A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more
        like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one,
        or anything else.  It is either the best language available to
        the art today, or it isn't.
                -- Ray Simard
ñ
Cabbage, n.:
        A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as
        a man's head.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
ñ
Cahn's Axiom:
        When all else fails, read the instructions.
ñ
California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange.
                -- Fred Allen
ñ
California, n.:
        From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or
        Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or
        "fornication."  Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot
        sex."
                -- Ed Moran
ñ
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
                -- Indian proverb
ñ
"Calling J-Man Kink.  Calling J-Man Kink.  Hash missile sighted, target
Los Angeles.  Disregard personal feelings about city and intercept."
ñ
"Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle."
                -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth
ñ
"Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth
Corner, Vermont."
                -- Clarence Darrow
ñ
Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two
points.
                -- M. M. Johnston
ñ
Canada Bill Jone's Motto:
        It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.

Supplement:
        A .44 magnum beats four aces.
ñ
Canada Post doesn't really charge 32 cents for a stamp.  It's 2 cents
for postage and 30 cents for storage.
                -- Gerald Regan, Cabinet Minister, 12/31/83 Financial
                   Post
ñ
Cancel me not -- for what then shall remain?
Abscissas, some mantissas, modules, modes,
A root or two, a torus and a node:
The inverse of my verse, a null domain.
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
ñ
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.
ñ
Canonical, adj.:
        The usual or standard state or manner of something.  A true
story:  One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some
annoyance at the use of jargon.  Over his loud objections, we made a
point of using jargon as much as possible in his presence, and
eventually it began to sink in.  Finally, in one conversation, he used
the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion without thinking.
        Steele: "Aha!  We've finally got you talking jargon too!"
        Stallman: "What did he say?"
        Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way."
ñ
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.
ñ
Captain Penny's Law:
        You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of
        the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.
ñ
Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than
expected.  Carefully planned projects take four times longer to
complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their
planning to reduce the time it takes.
ñ
Carmel, New York, has an ordinance forbidding men to wear coats and
trousers that don't match.
ñ
Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.:
        The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a
        dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it,
        then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
                -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
ñ
Cat, n.:
        Lapwarmer with built-in buzzer.
ñ
Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.
                -- Mark Twain
ñ
Caution: breathing may be hazardous to your health.
ñ
CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh..
ñ
Cecil, you're my final hope
Of finding out the true Straight Dope
For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat
But none of my cats are at all like that.
This unusual animal (so it is said)
Is simultaneously alive and dead!
What I don't understand is just why he
Can't be one or the other, unquestionably.
My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
In one I'm enlightened, in the other I ain't.
If *you* understand, Cecil, then show me the way
And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
Then I will *and* I won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo.
                -- Randy F., Chicago, "The Straight Dope, a compendium
                   of human knowledge" by Cecil Adams
ñ
Celebrate Hannibal Day this year.  Take an elephant to lunch.
ñ
Celestial navigation is based on the premise that the Earth is the
center of the universe.  The premise is wrong, but the navigation
works.  An incorrect model can be a useful tool.
                -- Kelvin Throop III
ñ
Census Taker to Housewife: Did you ever have the measles, and, if so,
how many?
ñ
Cerebus:        I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel.
Jaka:           Look, Cerebus-- Jaka has to tell you ... something
Cerebus:        If Cerebus had a navel, would you lick apricot brandy
                out of it?
Jaka:           Ugh!
Cerebus:        You don't like apricot brandy?
                -- Cerebus #6, "The Secret"
ñ
Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long
walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh.  They
then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy
health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old,
not because of their habits, but in spite of them.  The reason we find
only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the
others who have tried it.
                -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
ñ
                        Chapter 1

The story so far:

        In the beginning the Universe was created.  This has made a lot
of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
ñ
Character Density, n.:
        The number of very weird people in the office.
ñ
Checkuary, n.:
        The thirteenth month of the year.  Begins New Year's Day and
        ends when a person stops absentmindedly writing the old year on
        his checks.
ñ
Chef, n.:
        Any cook who swears in French.
ñ
Chemicals, n.:
        Noxious substances from which modern foods are made.
ñ
Chicago law prohibits eating in a place that is on fire.
ñ
Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #36:
        Never ever ask the tough looking gentleman wearing El Rukn
        headgear where he got his "pyramid powered pizza warmer".
                -- Chicago Reader 3/27/81
ñ
Chicago Transit Authority Rider's Rule #84:
        The CTA has complimentary pop-up timers available on request
        for overheated passengers.  When your timer pops up, the driver
        will cheerfully baste you.
                -- Chicago Reader 5/28/82
ñ
Chicago, n.:
        Where the dead still vote ... early and often!
ñ
Chicken Little only has to be right once.
ñ
Chicken Little was right.
ñ
Chicken Soup, n.:
        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.
                -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"
ñ
Children are natural mimic who act like their parents despite every
effort to teach them good manners.
ñ
Children are unpredictable.  You never know what inconsistency they're
going to catch you in next.
                -- Franklin P. Jones
ñ