NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/rec/humor/33939

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-17 | 18.4 KB

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Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: LIFE1
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Date: 16 Nov 92 14:03:51 GMT
Organization: California University of Pennsylvania, California, PA
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My rule is to be true rather than funny.   -- Bill Cosby


My strength is as the strength of ten because my code is pure.


My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.
        -- Christopher Morley


Naeser's Law:
You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof.


Nasrudin walked into a teahouse and declaimed, "The moon is more useful
than the sun."  "Why?", he was asked.  "Because at night we need the
light more."


Nasrudin was carrying home a piece of liver and the recipe for liver
pie.  Suddenly a bird of prey swooped down and snatched the piece of
meat from his hand.  As the bird flew off, Nasrudin called after it,
"Foolish bird!  You have the liver, but what can you do with it without
the recipe?"


Nature abhors a hero.  For one thing, he violates the law of
conservation of energy.  For another, how can it be the survival of the
fittest when the fittest keeps putting himself in situations where he
is most likely to be creamed?
        -- Solomon Short


Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.
        -- Abraham Lincoln


Never call a man a fool.  Borrow from him.


Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is.  How awful to be
caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self.  - Millicent Fenwick


Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.


Never let lack of money interfere with having fun.


Never let your schooling interfere with your education.


Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
        -- Salvor Hardin, "Foundation"


Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.
        -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977


Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.  There might be a
law against it by that time.


Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.


Never trust anyone who volunteers to assume authority.


Never try to outstubborn a cat.
        -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"


Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.


Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do
        -- R. A. Heinlein


New Hampshire law forbids you to tap your feet, nod your head, or in
any way keep time to the music in a tavern, restaurant, or cafe.


Newlan's Truism:
    An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government
    economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job.


NEWS FLASH!!
    Today the East German pole-vault champion became the West
    German pole-vault champion.


New York is real.  The rest is done with mirrors.


Next Friday will not be your lucky day.  As a matter of fact, you don't
have a lucky day this year.


Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying
as an income tax refund.
        -- F. J. Raymond


Nobody wants constructive criticism.  It's all we can do to put up with
constructive praise.


No experiment is ever a complete failure, inasmuch as a well-written account of
it can serve admirably as a bad example.


No matter what other nations may say about the United States,
immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery.


No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.


No one gets too old to learn a new way of being stupid.


No plain fanfold paper could hold that fractal Puff --
He grew so fast no plotting pack could shrink him far enough.
Compiles and simulations grew so quickly tame
And swapped out all their data space when Puff pushed his stack frame.
CHORUS:
    Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
    And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
    Puff the fractal dragon was written in C,
    And frolicked while processes switched in mainframe memory.
Puff, he grew so quickly, while others moved like snails
And mini-Puffs would perch themselves on his gigantic tail.
All the student hackers loved that fractal Puff
But DCS did not like Puff, and finally said, "Enough!"
        (chorus)
Puff used more resources than DCS could spare.
The operator killed Puff's job -- he didn't seem to care.
A gloom fell on the hackers; it seemed to be the end,
But Puff trapped the exception, and grew from naught again!
        (chorus)


No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in that kind of paper.
        -- Mike Royko on the Chicago Sun-Times after it was
           taken over by Rupert Murdoch


Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.


Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.


Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.


 Now, I know you're probably asking yourself, "Did he fire six shots,
 or just five?"  Well, in all this excitement, I clean forgot myself.
 Now, since this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world,
 and since it can blow your head clean off, the question you have to ask
 yourself is "Do I feel lucky?"  . . . Well, DO ya, punk?
                                    Clint Eastwood
                                    "Dirty Harry"


Now is the time for all good men to come to.
        -- Walt Kelly


Of all forces acting on man, change is the most beneficial and the most cruel


Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
        -- Plato


Oh, I don't blame Congress.  If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd
be irresponsible, too.
        -- Lichty & Wagner


Oh, what tangled webs we weave
When we first practice to deceive.
        -- Sir Walter Scott


OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard.
        -- Dr. Joy


Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
        -- Trotsky


Oliver's Law:
    Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.


On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only
nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter
what it does.
        -- Will Rogers


One day the King decided that he would force all his subjects to tell
the truth.  A gallows was erected in front of the city gates.  A herald
announced, "Whoever would enter the city must first answer the truth to
a question which will be put to him."  Nasrudin was first in line.  The
captain of the guard asked him, "Where are you going?  Tell the truth
-- the alternative is death by hanging."  "I am going," said Nasrudin,
"to be hanged on that gallows."  "I don't believe you."  "Very well, if
I have told a lie, then hang me!" "But that would make it the truth!"
"Exactly," said Nasrudin, "your truth."


One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet
when well oiled.


One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never
have to stop and answer the phone.


One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.


One of life's little ironies is the fact that when you finally master
a tough job, you make it look easy


One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible
from one end to the other.  Reading the Bible straight through is at
least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin.  But the good parts
are, of course, simply amazing.  God is an extremely uneven writer, but
when He's good, nobody can touch Him.
        -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983


One of the greatest labor-saving inventions today is tomorrow.


One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to
do and always a clever thing to say.
        -- Will Durant


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."
        -- Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"


One of the rules of Busmanship, New York style, is never surrender your seat to
another passenger.  This may seem callous, but it is the best way, really.  If
one passenger were to give a seat to someone who fainted in the aisle, say, the
others on the bus would become disoriented and imagine they were in Topeka


One Page Principle:
    A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch
    paper cannot be understood.
        -- Mark Ardis


One promising concept that I came up with right away was that you could
manufacture personal air bags, then get a law passed requiring that they be
installed on congressmen to keep them from taking trips.  Let's say your
congressman was trying to travel to Paris to do a fact-finding study on how the
French government handles diseases transmitted by sherbet.  Just when he got to
the plane, his mandatory air bag, strapped around his waist, would inflate --
FWWAAAAAAPPPP -- thus rendering him too large to fit through the plane door.
It could also be rigged to inflate whenever the congressman proposed a law.
("Mr. Speaker, people ask me, why should October be designated as Cuticle
Inspection Month?  And I answer that FWWAAAAAAPPPP.") This would save millions
of dollars, so I have no doubt that the public would violently support a law
requiring airbags on congressmen.  The problem is that your potential market is
very small: there are only around 500 members of congress.


One reason why George Washington
Is held in such veneration:
He never blamed his problems
On the former Administration.
        -- George O. Ludcke


One seldom sees a monument to a committee.


One who laughs, lasts.


One, with God, is always a majority, but many a martyr has been burned
at the stake while the votes were being counted.
        -- Thomas B. Reed


On-line, adj.:
    The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a computer.


On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all
men are created jerks.
        -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"


Oregon, n.:
    Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday
    night.


Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds.  Biochemistry
is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.
        -- Mike Adams


Osborn's Law: Variables won't; constants aren't.


Others will look to you for stability, so hide when you bite your nails.


Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing.
        -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president Litton Industries


Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and
are willing to go through hell to get it.


Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog,
it's too dark to read.
        -- Groucho Marx


Overdrawn?  But I still have checks left!


(Overheard between a UN*X system novice and guru:)
     "What causes a bus error?"
     "Well, it can happen when the driver has a heart attack."


Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now
I can remember things that *have* happened before ...


Ozman's Laws:
     (1) If someone says he will do something "without fail," he won't.
     (2) The more people talk on the phone, the less money they make.
     (3) People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't.
     (4) Pizza always burns the roof of your mouth.



Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.


Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.


Parkinson's First Law:
     Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
Parkinson's Second Law:
     Expenditures rise to meet income.
Parkinson's Fourth Law:
     The number of people in any working group tends to increase
     regardless of the amount of work to be done.
Parkinson's Law of Committees:
     The amount of time spent by a committee on an agenda item
     is inversely proportional to the cost of the item.
Parkinson's Fifth Law:
     If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good
     bureaucracy, public or private, will find it.
Parkinson's XIIIth law:
     Action expands to fill the void created by human failure.


Pascal Users:
    To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the
    death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half speed.


Passenger:  "When the train stops will you please tell me at which end to get
off?" Conductor:  "It doesn't matter, Mac, both ends stop."


Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
        -- Eric Hoffer


Peace, n.:
    In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
    periods of fighting.
        -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"


Peer's law:
The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem.


People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of
the future.


People often mistakenly equate existence with need.


People think love is an emotion.  Love is good sense.
        -- Ken Kesey


People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed.


People who are funny and smart and return phone calls get much better
press than people who are just funny and smart.
        -- Howard Simons, "The Washington Post"


People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never
slept in a room with a single mosquito.


People who dream impossible dreams and strive to achieve them raise man's
stature a fraction of an inch in the process, whether they win or lose.


People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that
Benjamin Franklin said it first.


People will buy anything that's one to a customer.


People willingly believe what they wish.    -- Julius Caesar


Perfection is achieved only on the point of collapse.
                --- C. N. Parkinson


Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add,
but when there is no longer anything to take away.
        -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery


Philosopy: unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.


Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
        -- Don Marquis


Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia
because they were liars.  The truth was that Plato knew philosophers
couldn't compete successfully with poets.
        -- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer) "Venus on the Half Shell"


Play Rogue, visit exotic locations, meet strange creatures and kill them.


Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell
all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds.


Politicians are the same all over.
They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
    -- Nikita Khrushchev


Politics is like coaching a football team.  you have to be smart enough
to understand the game but not smart enough to lose interest.


Power, n:
    The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA.


Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little
more time for dreaming.
        -- J. P. McEvoy


Pray for a computer crash.  It won't be ready in time.


Predestination was doomed from the start.


President Reagan has noted that there are too many economic pundits and
forecasters and has decided on an excess prophets tax.


Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by
children.


Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem.
Eng.  130 midterm.  Once again no student received 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%


Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of
the programmer who must maintain it.


Programming errors which would normally require one day to find will take five
days when the programmer is in a hurry.


Progress is made by lazy men looking for an easier way to do things.
                        - Lazarus Long


Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.



Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen.


Pushing 40 is exercise enough.


Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.


Putt's Law:
    Technology is dominated by two types of people:
        Those who understand what they do not manage.
        Those who manage what they do not understand.


Put your brain in gear before starting your mouth.


Put your trust in those who are worthy.


Q:  Do you know what the death rate around here is?
A:  One per person.


Q:  How did you get into artificial intelligence?
A:  Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.


Q:  How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A:  Three.  One to report it as an inspired government program to bring
    light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government
    plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a pulitzer
    prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb
    assassin to break the bulb in the first place.


Quality Control, n.:
    The process of testing one out of every 1,000 units coming off
    a production line to make sure that at least one out of 100
    works.


Quigley's Law:
    Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will
    atttempt to use it.


Q:  Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
A:  To prevent the sensible ones from going home.


Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.


Raising pet electric eels is gaining a lot of current popularity.


Reader, suppose you were an idiot.  And suppose you were a member of
Congress.  But I repeat myself.
        -- Mark Twain


Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own.


Reality is for those who can't face Science Fiction.


Reality is just a figment of your imagination.


Really??  What a coincidence, I'm shallow too!!


Real Time, adj.:
  Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there and then.


Real Users are afraid they'll break the machine -- but they're never
afraid to break your face.


Real Users never know what they want, but they always know when your
program doesn't deliver it.


Real Users never use the Help key.


Reisner's Rule of Conceptual Inertia:
    If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.


Remember there's an if in the middle of life.


Republicans consume three-fourths of the rutabaga produced in this
country.  The remainder is thrown out.


Republicans sleep in twin beds -- some even in separate rooms.
That is why there are more Democrats.
        -- The Official Rules, as compiled by Paul Dickson


Republicans tend to keep their shades drawn, although there is seldom
any reason why they should.  Democrats ought to, but don't.


Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention
    Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will
    reject the proposal.


Rule of Defactualization:
    Information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies.


Rules for driving in New York:
    (1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal.
    (2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers
        on.
    (3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the
        intersection.


San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was.
        -- Herb Caen


Schizophrenia beats being alone.


Self-pity is a destructive, useless emotion.