-- =========================================================== Sven's favourite quotes. Sven Guckes Latest change: Wed Mar 05 12:20:37 CET 2008 =========================================================== -- "If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy." -- Phil Zimmermann, 1991 http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html -- Welcome to the internet, where men are men, women are men and children are undercover FBI agents! -- Programmers rule #218: No C0DE before 0xC0FFEE -- This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do. --Woody Guthrie -- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke (*1917) -- There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible and wrong. -- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) "The Divine Afflatus", New York Evening Mail (16 November 1917); later published in Prejudices: Second Series (1920) and A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949) -- "Hey, sometimes a bit of technobabble's good for the soul." - Cpt. Jack Harkness, Torchwood -- Hier läuft EHNIX und das ist ZUNIX kompatibel -- "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." --Edsger Dijkstra -- "Information ist eine Holschuld? Warum hat mir das keiner gesagt?" -- Handle stets so, daß die Maximen deiner Handlungen als Grundlage einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung dienen könnten. --Immanuel Kant -- Habe den Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen! --Immanuel Kant -- Which is worse, ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares? -- "Good night, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England." Dr. Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine) - THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, 1999 -- there is no future in time travel. -- lieber ständig übermüdet als ständig überwacht. -- If you think technology can solve your problems you don't understand technology and you don't understand your problems." --Bruce Schneier -- das leben beginnt, wenn die kinder aus dem haus und der hund tot ist. -- Bbl BblE3mAETE N3 AMEPNKAHCKO7O CEKTOPA -- Real programmers don't eat quiche. Real programs don't eat cache! -- Ein Mensch, der einen andern traf, Geriet in Streit und sagte: "Schaf!" Der andre sprach: "Es wär Ihr Glück, Sie nähmen dieses Schaf zurück!" Der Mensch jedoch erklärte: "Nein", Er säh dazu den Grund nicht ein. Das Schaf, dem einen nicht willkommen, Vom andern nicht zurückgenommen, Steht seitdem, herrenlos und dumm Unglücklich in der Welt herum. --Eugen Roth (1895-1976) -- Vieles war nah der Vergammlung. Drum hielt man eine Versammlung. Und während man sich versammelt, ist abermals etwas vergammelt. -- INTELLIGENCE Artifical intelligence is trying to make computers look like they do on TV. Computers are not intelligent - they only think they are! The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. Artificial intelligence has the same relation to intelligence as artificial flowers have to flowers. --David Parnas -- Der Krieg ist ein Massaker von Leuten, die sich nicht kennen, zum Nutzen von Leuten, die sich kennen, aber nicht massakrieren. --Paul Valéry -- STATISTICS 37% of all statistics are made up. 97% of all statistics are wrong. 42,08154711 of all statistics list too many digits after the comma. 23%, however, don't have any digits after the comma at all! lies, damn lies, and statistics. -- What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of about Down Under up for? -- Freudvoll, leidvoll / Gedankenvoll sein, Hangen und bangen / in schwebener Pein. Himmelhochjauchzend / zu Tode betrübt, Glücklich alleine ist / die Seele die liebt! Goethe -- Agnes' Law: Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of. / Often it is easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission. -- "Well, let's just say, 'if your VCR is still blinking 12:00, you don't want Linux'". --Bruce Perens, Debian's Fearless Leader -- "I'm on a seafood diet -- I see food and I eat it." -- "If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared." --Saint Augustine -- Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. -- TV is a medium because anything well done is rare. --Fred Allen (on the American radio programme, The Big Show, December 17th 1950) -- Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -- Good friends help you move house. Best friends help you move bodies. -- ..and if you place a mirror on Saturn then you can wave at the Chinese. -- If you want to be worshipped, go to India and moo. -The Quiz Show -- There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary - and those who don't. -- THE 5 STAGES OF LIFE: 1. To Grow Up 2. To Fill Out 3. To Slim Down 4. To Hold It In AND 5. To Hell With It! -- "The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it." -- Franklin P. Jones -- To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. -- Unknown -- Arme haben Beine. Arme haben Arme. Beine haben keine Arme. Arme Beine! -- First they laugh about you Then they ignore you Then They Fight you And Then You Win -- #define PI 3 /* 1 Kings 7:23 */ -- me too -- "Jedermann klagt über sein Gedächtnis, niemand über seinen Verstand." -- Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld -- Schiller sagt zu Goethe: "Mein Arsch ist eine Floete." Goethe sagt zu Schiller: "Mein Arsch ist eine Triller!" So standen sie nun Arsch an Arsch und spielten den Radetzkymarsch. -- "Multiple exclamation marks", he went on, shaking his head, "are a sure sign of a diseased mind." -- Terry Pratchett in "Eric" -- If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. -- Sic transit gloria signature. -- "kaum macht man's richtig - geht's!" -- "wer lesen kann ist klar im vorteil!" -- "if it ain't broke - don't fix it!" -- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. -- Love is like Pi: natural, irrational, and very important. -- "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." Lewis Carroll -- Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6 -- "A one-character regular expression is a regular expression that matches whatever the one-character regular expression matches." --- "man regexp" (on SUN) -- Memes don't exist. Tell this to everybody you know. -- Die Wachstuben in den Wachstuben werden durch Kunststoffflaschen ersetzt, die durch Ziehen an den Kunststofflaschen geoeffnet werden. (c) 1994, Werner Icking -- Wer glaubt, dass Projektleiter Projekte leiten, der glaubt auch, dass Zitronenfalter Zitronen falten. -- Unterschätze nie die Macht dummer Leute, die einer Meinung sind. --Kurt Tucholsky -- Das Internet ist dazu da, um "Punkt, Punkt, Komma, Strich" durch "Doppelpunkt, Bindestrich, runde Klammer" zu ersetzen. -- Profanity is the inevitable linguistic crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker. -- Bruce Sherrod -- "Man proves that email is usenet and gets himself killed on the next newsgroup." (with apologies to Douglas Adams) -- Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months. --Clifford Stoll -- A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores. --Terry Pratchett "The Fifth Elephant" -- just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out there to get you. Niemand hat etwas zu verbergen [tm] -- Atheism: A non-prophet organization. -- When we talk to God it's called prayer. When God talks back it's called schizophrenia. -- Intolerant people should be shot. -- Redundancy Department of Redundancy -- standards are wonderful - everyone should have one! -- $ cat < food > litter -- There are three ways to get something done. Do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you - or forbid your kids to do it. -- "Don't talk to me about LIFE..." --Marvin, the robot (THHGTTG) -- Unsere Meinungen: die Haut, in der wir gesehen werden wollen. --Friedrich Nietzsche -- Die Tragik des 20. Jahrhunderts liegt darin, daß es nicht möglich war, die Theorien von Karl Marx zuerst an Mäusen auszuprobieren. -- Stanislaw Lem -- "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." --Voltaire -- Es war einmal eine Rosine die zog mit fröhlicher Miene in den Stollen --Heinz Bornemann [Juni 2001] seitdem ist sie verschollen http://members.aol.com/hbornema/ -- Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else. -- Only in America would you have a general in charge of the post office and a secretary in charge of defense. -- "However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative." "Yeah. Right." -- Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. -- [about some patch to a program] No warrantee is implied. If it breaks you get to keep both halves. -- You were born an original - don't die a copy. -- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. --Oscar Wilde 1854-1900 -- ============================================================ === Calvin & Hobbes ============================================================ -- Calvin: "i think football is a sport the way ducks think hunting is a sport." -- "Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." --Calvin and Hobbes (by Bill Watterson) -- =========================================================== === Neil Stephenson - In the Beginning was the Command Line =========================================================== -- "it is commonly the case with technologies that you can get the best insight about how they work by watching them fail." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- ".. Microsoft's excellent management has figured out that they can make more money for their stockholders by releasing stuff with obvious, known imperfections than they can by making it beautiful or bug-free." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "Nothing is more disagreeable to the hacker than duplication of effort. The first and most important mental habit that people develop when they learn how to write computer programs is to generalize, generalize, generalize.: --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "So a proprietary, closed, secret operating system is a contradiction in terms. It goes against the whole point of having an operating system. And it is impossible to keep them secret anyway." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "Why, then, do I say that Microsoft is not such a great operating systems company? Because the very nature of operating systems is such that it is senseless for them to be developed and owned by a specific company. It's a thankless job to begin with." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "Ten years from now [1999], most of the world's computer users may end up owning these cheaper OSes. But these OSes do not, for the time being, run any Microsoft applications, and so these people will use something else." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "There are only two ways to sell a product: price and features. When OSes are free, OS companies cannot compete on price, and so they compete on features. This means that they are always trying to outdo each other writing code that, until recently, was not considered to be part of an OS at all: stuff like GUIs. This explains a lot about how these companies behave." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "Why are we rejecting explicit word-based interfaces, and embracing graphical or sensorial ones .. we simply can't handle all of the details. We have to delegate." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "But then countries controlled via the command-line interface, as it were, by double-domed intellectuals, be they religious or secular, are generally miserable places to live." ;-) --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "The OS has (therefore) become a sort of intellectual labor-saving device that tries to translate humans' vaguely expressed intentions into bits. In effect we are asking our computers to shoulder responsibilities that have always been considered the province of human beings -- we want them to understand our desires, to anticipate our needs, to foresee consequences, to make connections, to handle routine chores without being asked, to remind us of what we ought to be reminded of while filtering out noise." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "Most people who shop for OSes .. are comparing not the underlying functions but the superficial look and feel. .. What we're really buying is a system of metaphors. And -- much more important -- what we're buying into is the underlying assumption that metaphors are a good way to deal with the world." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "We want GUIs largely because they are convenient and because they are easy-- or at least the GUI makes it seem that way Of course, nothing is really easy and simple, and putting a nice interface on top of it does not change that fact. A car controlled through a GUI would be easier to drive than one controlled through pedals and steering wheel, but it would be incredibly dangerous." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "But word-processing software -- particularly the sort that employs special, complex file formats -- has the eldritch power to unwrite things. A small change in file formats, or a few twiddled bits, and months' or years' literary output can cease to exist." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "The danger lies not in the machine itself but in the user's failure to envision the full consequences of the instructions he gives to it." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "The triad of editor, compiler, and linker, taken together, form the core of a software development system." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "The command line interface makes it easy for programs to dribble out little comments, warnings, and messages here and there. Even if the application is imploding like a damaged submarine, it can still usually eke out a little S.O.S. message." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "Commercial OSes have to adopt the same official stance towards errors as Communist countries had towards poverty. For doctrinal reasons it was not possible to admit that poverty was a serious problem in Communist countries, because the whole point of Communism was to eradicate poverty. Likewise, commercial OS companies like Apple and Microsoft can't go around admitting that their software has bugs.." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "Joint stock corporations are wonderful inventions that have given us many excellent goods and services. They are good at many things. Admitting failure is not one of them. Hell, they can't even admit minor shortcomings." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "It is quite possible that the engineers at Microsoft have all sorts of insider knowledge on how to fix the system when it goes awry, but if they do, they do not seem to be getting the message out to any of the actual system administrators I know. - Because Linux is not commercial -- because it is, in fact, free, as well as rather difficult to obtain, install, and operate -- it does not have to maintain any pretensions as to its reliability. Consequently, it is much more reliable. When something goes wrong with Linux, the error is noticed and loudly discussed right away." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "In the world of open source software, bug reports are useful information. Making them public is a service to other users, and improves the OS. Making them public systematically is so important that highly intelligent people voluntarily put time and money into running bug databases. In the commercial OS world, however, reporting a bug is a privilege that you have to pay lots of money for. But if you pay for it, it follows that the bug report must be kept confidential -- otherwise anyone could get the benefit of your ninety-five bucks! And yet nothing prevents NT users from setting up their own public bug database." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "As I've explained, selling OSes for money is a basically untenable position, and the only way Apple and Microsoft can get away with it is by pursuing technological advancements as aggressively as they can, and by getting people to believe in, and to pay for, a particular image: in the case of Apple, that of the creative free thinker, and in the case of Microsoft, that of the respectable techno-bourgeois. Just like Disney, they're making money from selling an interface, a magic mirror. It has to be polished and seamless or else the whole illusion is ruined and the business plan vanishes like a mirage. -- Accordingly, it was the case until recently that the people who wrote manuals and created customer support websites for commercial OSes seemed to have been barred, by their employers' legal or PR departments, from admitting, even obliquely, that the software might contain bugs or that the interface might be suffering from the blinking twelve problem. They couldn't address users' actual difficulties. The manuals and websites were therefore useless, and caused even technically self-assured users to wonder whether they were going subtly insane." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- " An Apple/Microsoft system needs to have the same information in order to launch its GUI, but it's apt to be deeply hidden somewhere, and it's probably in a file that can't even be opened and read by a text editor. All of the important files that make Linux systems work are right out in the open. They are always ASCII text files, so you don't need special tools to read them. You can look at them any time you want, which is good, and you can mess them up and render your system totally dysfunctional, which is not so good." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "Like almost all Linux users, I depend on having all of those details hidden away in thousands of little ASCII text files, which are in turn wedged into the recesses of the Unix filesystem. When I want to change something about the way my system works, I edit those files. [...] But the sheer power and complexity of the system -- the qualities that make it so vastly technically superior to other OSes -- sometimes make it seem too formidable for routine day-to-day use." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "somewhere outside of and beyond our universe is an operating system, coded up over incalculable spans of time by some kind of hacker-demiurge. The cosmic operating system uses a command-line interface." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- "What would the engineer say, after you had explained your problem, and enumerated all of the dissatisfactions in your life? He would probably tell you that life is a very hard and complicated thing; that no interface can change that; that anyone who believes otherwise is a sucker; and that if you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own." --Neil Stephenson "In the Beginning was the Command Line" -- =========================================================== === Microsoft and Windows Bashing hehe ;-) =========================================================== -- "Reverse defenestration: Throwing Windows out of computers." -- "Where do you want to be lead today?" -- Linux: be root. Windows: reboot. -- Why use windows when you can use the door? -- He who opens the windows invites the bugs in. -- If you have a problem in windows, reboot. If you have a problem in UNIX, be root! -- Use a WIMP (Windows Icons Mouse Pulldowns) interface - or an interface with a CLUE: Command Line User Environment. -- Windows is a pane in the ASCII. -- Bananensoftware: reift beim Kunden. -- Bill Gates: quality software Ronald McDonald: gourmet cuisine -- [GATES] Aus "Winnetou - Band 3"L "Das Verhalten von Gates hatte mir bewiesen, daß ich auf ihn und seine beiden Gefährten nicht rechnen durfte." -- Computers are like airconditioners - they stop working properly when you open WINDOWS. -- MCSA MicroSoft Certified Attorney MCSE Must Consult Someone Experienced MCSE Minesweeper Consultant and Solitair Expert -- "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners " -- Ernst Jan Plugge -- In a world without walls and fences, why do we need windows and gates? -- If NT is your answer, you don't understand the question. -- Your mouse has moved. Windows NT must be restarted for the change to take effect. Reboot now? [ OK ] -- WindowsNT = "Windows? No, Thanks!" -- I sense much NT in you. NT leads to bluescreen, bluescreen leads to downtime, downtime leads to suffering. NT is the path to the darkside! Powerful UNIX is - Jedi SysAdmin -- Pinky: "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?" Brain: "The same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to install Windows 95!" -- Tell me: Why is a Win-PC called Win-PC? Oh, just look at someone using this. You'll see: The PC always wins, the user is always losing... -- Windows95: n. 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition. -- "In our world, software has to be small, has to be debugged, has to ship as part of a major initiative, has to avoid compatibility problems, has to avoid end user calls." --Bill Gates Yeah, right. -- Microsoft broke Volkswagen's world record: Volkswagen only made 22 million bugs! -- There are three ways to get something done: (1) Do it yourself. (2) Hire someone to do it for you. (3) Forbid your kids to do it. -- Exchange Microsoft... -- Microsoft is to software what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking. -- Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer -- Windows 98 supports real multitasking - it can boot and crash simultaneously. -- When I shop for hardware I always look for the "Designed for Windows 95" logo. I really thank Microsoft(TM) for encouraging manufacturers to label their products this way, so I know what to AVOID. -- "I used to be interested in Windows NT, but the more I see of it the more it looks like traditional Windows with a stabler kernel. I don't find anything technically interesting there. In my opinion, MS is a lot better at making money than it is at making good operating systems." --Linus Torvalds -- The box said "Requires Win95, NT, or better," and so I installed Linux. -- MCSE pays the bills until I learn unix well enough to get a real job. --Steve Wingate [000303 in email] -- Titanic 12 / Hindenburg Zeppelin 37 / Microsoft Windows 98 -- =========================================================== === Text vs GUIs =========================================================== -- Mottos: "don't panic!" --THHGTTG Douglas Adams "the shell is your friend!" "texttools are your friends!" -- KISS: "Keep it Simple, Stupid!" Acronyms for Interfaces: GUI = Graphical User Interface WIMP = WIndows, Icons, Menus, and Pointer WYSIWYG = What You See Is What You Get CLITORIS = Command Line Is The Only Real Interface Stuff! -- in the beginning was the word. and the word was "Content-Type: text/plain". -- "In the beginning...was the command line" --Neal Stephenson -- GIGO principle: "Garbage In, Garbage Out". The quality of the results from the computer programme (skill and needs maps, needs priority lists, action plan) are directly related to the quality of your input (business strategy, key tasks, analysis of relevance of skills etc.). The outcomes for your business can be only as relevant as is your input. -- "I love the command line more than any graphic interface. I want to type commands, not move graphics around on a screen. Working through my keyboard is faster than clicking for me, and what I do seems more real. I don't know what it is that makes the keyboard seem more real than icons in a window. They're both abstractions, different ways of interacting with a a flow of bits and bytes. Maybe I was brainwashed from my early exposure to Unix." Stephen Figgins -- f y cn rd ths thn y mst b sng nx! -- Life is a sexually transmitted disease which is always fatal. -- Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life." -Michael Sinz -- To those who understand, no explanation is necessary, to those who will not understand, no explanation is possible. -- Having a non-smoking section in a restaurant is like having a non-peeing section in a pool. -- Standards are wonderful. Everyone should have one! -- "You agree to agree to any modifications made to this agreement after agreeing to it." -- From the "Terms of Agreements" of CGIForMe.com -- Imagine a world without hypothetical situations. -- You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs. -- Deep down, I'm pretty superficial. -- Ava Gardner -- Success has many fathers, but failure is a bastard. -- Definition of Atheism: a non-prophet organization. -- What do you get crossing an atheist with a Jehova's witness? Someone knocking on your door for no reason at all. -- If you live more than 10 miles from where you work, you have no right to complain about the traffic. You are the problem! -- In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice... -- We are sorry, you have reached an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone ninety degrees and try again. -- Raechzschraibraephorm - findichgut. :-) -- Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. -- If your use of lose and loose is loose you lose. -- Stupidity has a certain charm - ignorance does not. -- A thesaurus is a tool to allow tautology without repetition. -- You are lost in a maze of twisty little web pages, all pointless. -- You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. -- A language is a dialect with a territory and an army to defend it. -- Glaube keinem Lebensmittel(-Schild), welches kuenstlicher aussieht als ein daenisches Wuerstchen... -- "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!" -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" -- "In order to keep a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him." -- Dereke Bruce -- Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery -- "Goodbye" said the fox to the Little Prince. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can rightly see, what is essential is invisible to the eye" [-Antoine de Saint-Exupery] -- Eyes: n, devices used to examine things to find answers. Fingers: n, devices used far too much to ask questions before Eyes (qv) have been applied to problem documentation -- Dharma: What is the greatest mystery of all? Yudishthira: That each day, death walks the earth, and we continue to live as though we were immortal. -The Bhagvad Gita -- "Kill every human on the planet? Sounds like a good idea! But first, we should concentrate on more immediate goals." -Jeffrey Goines, in 12 Monkeys -- "The most merciful thing in the world ... is the inability of the human mind to correlate its contents." -H.P. Lovecraft -- "Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in shapes of our own choosing." -George Orwell, _1984_ -- Push to test. Release to detonate. -Unknown Sign -- Non-Geek: Someone who thinks a kilobyte is 1000 bytes. Geek: Someone who thinks a kilometre is 1024 metres. -- Sicher ist, dass nichts sicher ist. Selbst das nicht. -- Ringelnatz -- We're knights of the round table / We dance whene'er we're able We do routines and chorus scenes / With footwork impeccable. We dine well here in Camelot / We eat ham and jam and spam a lot. -- "`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. -- THHGTTG by Douglas Adams -- There are two things which you should always mistrust: (1) "It's free." (2) "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." -- In the News: "Today is National Weather person's Day. There's a 20% chance no one will care." (BBS Briefs) -- When you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail. Anthony's Law of Force: Don't force it. Get a larger hammer. When in doubt, use a larger hammer! One must be either the anvil or the hammer. -- Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called 'present'. -- "Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is." --Francis Bacon -- "Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education." -- Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy. -- ### QUESTIONS ### Do employees at the Lipton company get coffee breaks? Do illiterates have fun with letter soup? Do you need a silencer if you are going to shoot a mime? Does a one-legged duck swim in a circle? == Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations? How can there be self-help groups? How did man discover that cows give milk? How do these "do not step on the grass" signs get into the middle of the lawn? How do you tell when you run out of invisible ink? How does a blind man knwos he's done wiping his butt? How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings? == If 7-11 is open 24h/day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the doors? If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose? If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the "terminal"? If carrots are so good for the eyes, then why are there so many dead rabbits on the highway? If man is an improvement of apes - why are there still apes? If nothing ever sticks to TEFLON, how do they make TEFLON stick to the pan? If olive oil is made from olives - what is baby oil made from? If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height, what would happen? == Isn't having a smoking section in a restaurant like having a peeing section in a swimming pool? Sooner or later, doesn't EVERYONE stop smoking? == What do sheep count when they cannot sleep? What happens if you get scared half to death twice? What is the speed of dark? == When the taxi drives in reverse - does the customer get paid? When you choke a smurf - what color does he get? When you go at light speed - what happens when you turn on the lights? When you're sending someone styrofoam, what do you pack it in? == Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there? Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii? Why are there five syllables in the word "monosyllabic"? Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes? Why are there only two people who run for president and 50 for Miss America? Why didn't Noah kill those two mosquitos? Why do kamikaze pilots were helmets? Why do psychics have to ask you for your name? Why do coffins need to be nailed shut? Why do sheep don't shrink when it rains? Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM? Why do you need a driver's license to buy liquor when you can't drink and drive? Why do you need an appointment with a clairvoyant? Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways? Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle? Why is "abbreviation" such a long word? Why is there an expiration date on SOUR cream? Why isn't "phonetic" spelled the way it sounds? Why is brassiere singular and panties plural? Why is it that when you transport something by car, it's called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship, it's called cargo? Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on the radio? You know how most packages say "Open here"; but what is the protocol if the package says "Open somewhere-else"? You know that little indestructible black box that is used on planes, why can't they make the whole plane outof the same substance? -- Warum gibt es eigentlich nur *ein* Kartellamt? Warum gibt es im Flugzeug Schwimmwesten statt Fallschirme? -- Anti-Virus Software Users: Some anti-virus software programs may interfere with the download and should be disabled while installing the Microsoft software. -- du mußt verstehn! verlier die vier, und neun ist eins, aus eins mach zehn, aus fünf und sechs - und zehn ist keins. und zwei laß gehn, so sagt die hex - das ist das hexen-einmaleins! und drei mach gleich, mach sieben und acht, -- Aus "Faust" von so bist du reich. so ist´s vollbracht; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -- "Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything as mind-bogglingly useful as the Babel fish could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the NON-existence of God. "The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.' "'But,' says Man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.' "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next pedestrian crossing." -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" -- Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow. -- Prof. Harro Heuser: "Standardbeweistechniken: Ueberredung, Bestechung, Einschuechterung." In der Mathematik *nicht* erlaubt! ;-) -- A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it rains. -- Mark Twain (1835-1910) -- I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. -- Mark Twain (1835-1910) -- Seit die Mathematiker über die Relativitätstheorie hergefallen sind, verstehe ich sie selbst nicht mehr. --Albert Einstein -- life is what's happening while you are busy making other plans.. -- warum erkennen wir nicht den augenblick in dem liebe beginnt? aber wir wissen immer wenn sie endet.. "L.A. Story" (USA 1990) -- No woman, no cry. -Bob Marley -- To be or not to be. * Shakespeare To do is to be. * Nietzsche To be is to do. * Sartre Do be do be do. * Sinatra -- ======================================================= Animals ======================================================= -- Das Pferd frisst keinen Gurkensalat. --Philip Reis -- Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this. -- I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. --Winston Churchill (1874-1965) -- "Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." "It is only with the heart that one can rightly see; what is essential is invisible to the eye." "Und hier ist mein Geheimnis", sagte der Fuchs, "es ist ganz einfach." "Man sieht nur mit dem Herzen gut, das Wesentliche ist für die Augen unsichtbar." --Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupéry -- Hello, I am Mister Ed A horse is a horse of course of course And no one can talk to a horse of course That is of course unless the horse Is the famous Mister Ed Go right to the source and ask the horse He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse He's always on a steady course Talk to Mister Ed People yakkity-yak a streak And waste your time of day But Mister Ed will never speak Unless he has something to say A horse is a horse of course of course And this one'll talk 'till his voice is hoarse You never heard of a talking horse Well, listen to this I am Mister Ed -- -- Bad Dog! hey - dont chew on that power cor NO TERRIER =================================================================== Deutsche Sprache - German language =================================================================== -- ENGLISH for Krauts: actual vs current, become vs get, if vs when, it's vs its, than vs then, say vs tell, vine vs wine, thread vs threat, -- Gross/Kleinschreibung: er hat lieber genossen in moskau. der gefangene floh. helft den armen vögeln. frauen sind gut zu voegeln. . Zusammenschreibung: herr und frau X sind gestern zusammen gekommen. Nicht Auszurottende Fehler: http://www.oberlehrer.org/naf.html Mark Twain: http://www.boondocksnet.com/twaintexts/tramp_ap_d.html -- Blumento-Pferde! Quelle folgender Worte: wortschatz.uni-leipzig.de Abt-reibung, Bundesweh-reinheit, Erb-rechen, Eil-eiter, Gas-traum, Nach-truhe, Kau-fladen, Punk-trichter, Paten-trichter, Fürsorger-ente, Talg-rund, Hau-stier, Fluch-traum. Stau-b-ecken, Wach-s-tube, Bau-m-ast. -- =================================================================== Computers, Programs, and all that =================================================================== -- Boss: "I want to build a relational database." Dilbert: "Ok. What color do you want?" Boss: "I think Mauve has the most RAM" - Scott Adams, Dilbert -- one job - one tool! use the right tool for the job! -- [AI] Artificial Intelligence: Making computers behave like they do in the movies. -- "ASCII - da weiß man was man hat!" -- * Progress (n.): The process through which Usenet has evolved from smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of smart terminals. -- obs(at)burnout.demon.co.uk (obscurity) -- [C] If it wasn't for C, we'd be writing programs in BASI, PASAL, and OBOL. -- [FOOL] Create a program that any fool can use and only fools will use it. Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it. -- [GNU + LINUX] GNU is Not Unix. Linux is user-friendly. But it is neither ignorant-friendly nor idiot-friendly. Linux - the choice of a GNU generation. May the source be with GNU! UNIX is user friendly. It's just selective who the friends are. Linux is like wigwam - no windows, no gates, and an apache inside. Geek by nature, linux by choice. -- "In general, an implementation must be conservative in its sending behavior, and liberal in its receiving behavior." RFC791 Sep 1981 by Jon Postel => "Be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you accept" -- [SPELL] Due knot trussed yore spell chequer two fined awl miss steaks -- [SNMP] SNMP? "Security's Not My Problem" -- [TCSH] The only way tcsh "rocks" is when the rocks are attached to it's feet in the deepest part of a very deep lake. -Linus Torvalds -- [SECURITY] "Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security." --Benjamin Franklin -- [SECURITY] The only secure computer system in the world is unplugged, locked in a vault at the bottom of the ocean and only one person knows the location and combination of that vault. And he is dead. --Bruce Schneier in "Applied Cryptography" -- [SECURITY] The only secure computer is one that is turned off, locked in a safe and buried 20 feet down in a secret location, and I'm not completely confident of that either. --Bruce Schneier see also: http://w3.physics.uiuc.edu/~menscher/quotes.html -- [VI] In the middle of evil there's always *vi*. -- [VI] Vi is my shepherd - I shall not font. -- [VI] Vi is to Emacs as masturbation is to making love: effective and always available but probably not your first choice. -- [VI] To me vi is Zen. To use vi is to practice zen. Every command is a koan. Profound to the user, unintelligible to the uninitiated. You discover truth everytime you use it. --Reddy -- =================================================================== me, myself, and I ;-) =================================================================== -- the moment the computer laughs about the joke i am typing i will instantly turn it off. --Sven Guckes 2007-05-05 -- es ist besser angenehm ueberrascht zu werden als in einer erwartung enttaeuscht zu werden. --Sven Guckes 2006-12-01 -- Every people deserves the politicians it elects. Corollary: Everybody uses the editor/mailer/program/OS he deserves. --Sven Guckes (said this about a gazillion times) -- i wish the amount of energy put into intellectual property stimulated as much energy to put into intellectual freedom. --Sven Guckes 2006-05-23 -- the bigger the net - the less the netiquette. -- Daten sind nicht Information. Information ist nicht Wissen. Wissen ist nicht Intelligenz. Intelligenz ist nicht Weisheit. Weisheit ist noch kein Humor. Aber wer lachen kann, der befindet sich auf dem richtigen Weg.. --Sven Guckes 2001-12-01 -- "We need killfiles that actually *kill*!" --Sven Guckes on alt.fan.warlord [990611] -- Q: Why do Germans have no humor? A: There is no newsgroup de.humor. --Sven Guckes -- schwarze schafe gibt's immer - da hilft auch keine gentechnik. --Sven Guckes [2002-04-17] -- "Use the force -- change the source." --Sven Guckes in comp.mail.elm [1996-07-11] -- =================================================================== Geek Quotes =================================================================== -- there's no place like $HOME there's no place like 127.0.0.1 there's no place like ::1 -- =================================================================== People I know. =================================================================== -- 2008-03-22 beim brunch... "was sind eigentlich muds?" "sowas wie WOW in text" -- Sven Guckes: "*staun* der mann kann meine gedanken lesen - eek!" Michael Sucha: "ich benutze windows... ich *muss* das koennen!" 2007-10-03 17:23 auf dem p52-balkon -- Michael Prokop auf #grml ueber den debian installer: 2007-07-19 16:21 < mika> wuah, ich zuck beim dem graffl noch aus.... -- 2007-06-24 13:00 -!- wuehlmaus changed the topic of #guckes to: Sind wir nicht alle Scripte, die auf ihre Ausfuehrung warten? -- 2007-05-14 Nysvr: "Haq vpu erqr avpug iba vag bqre pune!" -- Sebastian - blind. "Licht ist Luxus!" -- 2007-02-21: thema statistik, terminus "zufaellige auswahl" Sven: so, nun waehle drei leute mal zufaellig aus! Sebastian: aber - wir sind doch nur zu *zweit*! -- b9: "i thought you also had guns up there in canada.." Ken: "yes, but we actually shoot stuff that *deserves* to die!" 2006-12-22 at the cccb -- "Hätten wir es nicht alle gern... französisch?" "Wir sind A-moe-ben!" -- Jorge dos Santos [2006-10-21] -- "WLAN ist Dein Freund, und Dein Nachbar Dein Provider." --Alexander Wiederhold [2006-10-21] -- Sven Guckes: Why does GNUpg have so many options? Werner Koch: I always thought that it is nice that it has more options than mutt. [2006-05-04 at the Linuxtag Social Event in Wiesbaden] -- "Das kann gar nicht so viel sein, denn jede Bürokraft kann das lernen." --Peter Voigt [Vim Workshop in Herford, 2006-04-29] -- Message-ID: <20060106175448.GA24916@tuxmobil.org> > warum sind laptops immer nur so schwierig? :-/ Damit ich beruehmt werde ;-) --Werner Heuser [2006-01-06] www.tuxmobil.org -- Da ich also momentan auf [ein anderen maschine] arbeite, bitte ich eventuelle Buchstabentauscher aufgrund des ungewohnten Kezboard-Lazouts yu veryeihen. -- Jochen Striepe [2005-05-08 23:28] -- "ich wollte kuscheln.. und fand das grad toll.. aber er war suse user.. und damit aus" -- Rebecca [2005-03-10] ueber IRC -- Rebecca: du stinkst nach bier. Nico: und du stinkst nach seife! [2005-03-04] -- 28.02 22:01 nein meine initialen sind nion --Nico Golde ueber ICQ [2005-02-28] -- Ich chatte eigentlich nicht gerne und ICQ mag ich auch nicht besonders, die lenken mich nur vom Usenet ab und rauben Zeit, in der ich Emails beantworten könnte. --Sabine Schulz [2004-07-31] in privater email -- "Jeder Tastendruck ist einer zuviel!" ("every keystroke is one too many!") --David Kastrup [2004-03-06] -- "GUI = Girls Use It?" Sabine 'Sani' Schulz [de.comm.software.mailreader.misc] [2004-01-25] Message-ID: -- "KDE hat mit Windowmanager nur sehr am Rande etwas zu tun. KDE ist ein Desktop Environment (duh!), und weiß Gott nicht das schlechteste auf dieser Welt. Es halt nur langsam, häßlich, bunt, laut, und überhaupt für Mädchen. Aber das ist eine andere Geschichte." Robin Socha [2003-08-14] -- * Christian Perle writes: > > Für mich gilt die Devise: Es gibt keine dummen Fragen, es gibt nur dumme Antworten. > Das ist ein Ammenmaerchen aus Sozialpaedagogenhausen. de.comp.os.unix.linux.misc Date: 2003-05-19 02:49:44 PST -- freie software lehrt und lernt sich schlecht in unfreien verhaeltnissen.. --Hans-Peter Prenzel [2003-04-03] -- Freie Software will allen Leuten immer etwas Gutes. Den Leuten Freiheiten *geben*. Nicht ihnen welche *nehmen*. -- Hans-Peter Prenzel [2003-04-03] -- "Ein Linux-System in seinem Aufbau nicht zu verstehen und nicht gelegentlich in Konfigurationsdateien 'herummachen' zu wollen, ist so, als säße man alleine in einem Flugzeug und könne es nur per Autopilot fliegen." --Florian Cramer [2003-01-13] auf der Rohrpost Mailingliste -- "Wenn Deine Primärziele nicht das Abspielen von Fickfilmen und Reformatieren virenverseuchter Festplatten sind, ist Linux die bessere Wahl." Robin Socha [2002-07-17] -- Robin Socha FUCK OFF AND DIE! -- "Wer Tutti Frutti, Schulmädchenreport, Verbotene Liebe, Vera, Gute Zeiten und Unter Uns konsumiert, verwendet auch Outlook Express." Robin S. Socha in -- Newsgroups: de.comm.software.mailserver Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 04:16:50 -0400 Message-ID: Die technische Erklärung für Dein Problem lautet, daß Du ein Idiot bist. -- Newsgroups: de.comm.software.newsreader * Cord D Mittauer : > Hallo ihr guten Menschen, From: "Robin S. Socha" [2001-02-03] > Darf ich trotzdem antworten? -- "Ich hatte kein 'wc' - also habe ich 'tree' benutzt..." (name withheld) [2001-08-10] -- but really, I know too little about Linux at present to get it online safely, and so I'll give it more time. Okay, before you say anything, I know windows is not safe, but at least *THAT* is not my fault. --Marleen Garcia [2002-04-18] -- Rechtschreibreform und Puenktlichkeit: Ich schaffe es nie, puenktlich zu sein. Ich schaffe es, nie puenktlich zu sein. -- Gilda Kindt -- .. gegen Windows spricht natürlich die eigentliche OS-Funktionalität, und auch seine Graphikästhetik, die mich an das lilagrüne Perforationsholz- Interieur des ICE I, Siemens-Telefone und anderes Behördenmobiliar erinnert, ist eine Beleidigung jedes guten Geschmacks. --Florian Cramer [2002-01-22] -- Um ueberhaupt beurteilen zu koennen, ob ich arbeite oder rumdaddel muss man schon ziemlich gut Perl koennen ;) --Jens Dreger [2001-04-19] -- Frueher wurde man als Hexe verbrannt - heute brauch ich 'ne Firewall... --Sabine Kurjo McNeill [2001-10-23] -- Student: "Hey, ich kann mich nicht einloggen!" Technik: "OK - schick eine email an 'staff'.." -- my friend the windows consultant gave me a Linux voodoo doll. She noted that the windows voodoo doll has many, many more pins. --Tim Johnson [2002-01-26] -- "let's face it, AFW *is* a mostly-dead group. The Web killed it. The PWs who used to create big ugly .sigs with ASCII art and figlet fonts switched en masse to creating big ugly web pages with animated GIFs in angry fruit salad colours." Keith Lim [2000-02-19] on alt.fan.warlord -- http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=deathsquad.m3k8oac4xk.fsf%40socha.net&output=gplain "Fsck pico - vim *RuL3z!!!* for Email. (all-hail 'Sven) for his .vimrc: - beware: this stuff is tuned for mutt..." From: "Robin S. Socha" [1999/10/26] -- sendmail - written by Martians for Martians. --Paul Tomblin (1992) -- "The PROPER way to handle HTML postings is to cancel the article, then hire a hitman to kill the poster, his wife and kids, and fuck his dog and smash his computer into little bits. Anything more is just extremism." --Paul Tomblin -- -- =========================================================== === NEW =========================================================== -- KDE = Kolorful Diskfilling Environment -- rule#34 corollary: every country has the internet porn it deserves. -- #EOF