>Ever heard of .cshrc? That's a city in Bosnia. Right? (Discussion in comp.os.linux.misc on the intuitiveness of commands.) Every horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation): Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and in front they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of legs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere, there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horse of another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the same color"], that does not exist. 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 ... -- Rico Tudor /Earth is 98% full. Please delete anyone you can. Well, my terminal's locked up, and I ain't got any Mail, And I can't recall the last time that my program didn't fail; I've got stacks in my structs, I've got arrays in my queues, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. If you think that it's nice that you get what you C, Then go : illogical statement with your whole family, 'Cause the Supreme Court ain't the only place with : Bus error views. I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. On a PDP-11, life should be a breeze, But with VAXen in the house even magnetic tapes would freeze. Now you might think that unlike VAXen I'd know who I abuse, I've got the : Segmentation violation -- Core dumped blues. Snacktrek, n.: The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have materialized. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action. Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless. Q: How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb in San Francisco? A: Both of them. 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? A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. Second Law of Business Meetings: If there are two possible ways to spell a person's name, you will pick the wrong one. Corollary: If there is only one way to spell a name, you will spell it wrong, anyway. 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped The three laws of thermodynamics: The First Law: You can't get anything without working for it. The Second Law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break even. The Third Law: You can only break even at absolute zero. Niklaus Wirth has lamented that, whereas Europeans pronounce his name correctly (Ni-klows Virt), Americans invariably mangle it into (Nick-les Worth). Which is to say that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value. Absent, adj.: Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered. Quick!! Act as if nothing has happened! Another Glitch in the Call We don't need no indirection We don't need no flow control No data typing or declarations Did you leave the lists alone ? Hey! Hacker! Leave those lists alone! Chorus: All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. All in all, it's just a pure-LISP function call. Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence 1. Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a nuclear bomb; use the stairs. 2. When you're flying through the air, remember to roll when you hit the ground. 3. If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials. 4. Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead to psychological problems. 5. Food will be scarce; you will have to scavenge. Learn to recognize foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed potatoes, shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc. 6. Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze; internal organs will be scarce in the post-nuclear age. 7. Try to be neat; fall only in designated piles. 8. Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas; people could be staggering illegally. 9. Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to ones, but more sanitary due to limited circulation. 10. Accumulate mannequins now; spare parts will be in short supply on D-Day. "The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language." Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. Pardo's First Postulate: Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. Arnold's Addendum: Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats. Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have gotten. Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere. Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to... to... uh........ THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGAGUES #10 -- SIMPLE SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language Environment. This language, developed at the Hanover College for Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, END and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. Brain fried -- Core dumped Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless. Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization? Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. As of next week, passwords will be entered in Morse code. Review Questions 1: If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH, and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before he exceeds the speed of light? How long will it be before the Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship? 2: If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks every bone in his body? How long will it be before they cut off his insurance? Where does he get a new car every week? 3: If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King Tut's? When will it fall on him? Will he notice? Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side. Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: One and a half. Xerox does it again and again and again and ... New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors. 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 It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group. Slick's Three Laws of the Universe: 1. Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check. 2. A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat. 3. There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is attracted to dark objects. Do not read this fortune under penalty of law. Violators will be prosecuted. Penal Code 2.3.2 II-1 I'd love to go out with you, but I never go out on days that end in 'Y'. Do infants have as much fun in infancy as adults do in adultery? The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for exports only!): Don't do it yet. -- Michael Jackson Got Mole problems? Call Avogadro 6.02 x 10^23 Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors d'oeuvres. Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres. Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when the little hammers strike. Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning Christmas tree. The piano is missing. You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level 4. The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog. Goto, n.: A programming tool that allows structured programmers to complain about unstructured ones. -- Ray Simmard 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-ways flashers on. 3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the intersection. Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it! Kirk: Analysis, Mr. Spock? Spock: Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table. Kirk: Then it's of external origin? Spock: Affirmative. Kirk: Mr. Sulu, go to pass two. Sulu: Aye aye, sir, going to pass two. Disc space -- the final frontier THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18 -- C- This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class. C- is best described as a "low-level" programming language. In fact, the language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code statements to execute a given task. In this respect, it is very similar to COBOL. Write-Protect Tab, n.: A small sticker created to cover the unsightly notch carelessly left by disk manufacturers. The use of the tab creates an error message once in a while, but its aesthetic value far outweighs the momentary inconvenience. -- Robb Russon A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. Famous last words: 1) Don't unplug it, it'll just take a moment to fix. 2) Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there. 3) What happens if you touch these two wires tog-- 4) We won't need reservations. 5) It's always sunny there this time of the year. 6) Don't worry, it's not loaded. 7) They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager. Pro is to con as progress is to Congress. Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer. Fertility is hereditary. If your parents didn't have any children, neither will you. They're only trying to make me LOOK paranoid! Time flies like an arrow Fruit flies like a banana Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work. How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. Surprise! You are the lucky winner of random I.R.S. Audit! Just type in your name and social security number. Please remember that leaving the room is punishable under law: Name # San Francisco isn't what is used to be, and it never was. better !pout !cry better watchout lpr why santa claus town cat /etc/passwd >list ncheck list ncheck list cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist cat list | grep nice >giftlist santa claus town who | grep sleeping who | grep awake who | egrep 'bad|good' for (goodness sake) { be good } AMAZING BUT TRUE There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. THE LESSER-KNOW PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13 -- SLOBOL SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler. Although many compilers allow you to take a coffe break while they compile, SLOBOL compilers allow ypou to travel to Bolivia to pick the coffee. Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to compile. Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but infinitely faster) language, COCAINE. Once upon a time, when I was training to be a mathematician, a group of us bright young students taking number theory discovered the names of the smaller prime numbers. 2* The Odd Prime -- It's the only even prime, therefore is odd. QED. 3: The True Prime -- Lewis Carroll: "If I tell you 3 times, it's true." 31: The Arbitrary Prime -- Determined by unanimous unvote. We needed an arbitrary prime in case the proof asked for one, and so had an election. 91 received the most votes (well, it *looks* prime) and 3+4i the next most. However, 31 was the only candidate to receive none at all. Since the composite numbers are formed from primes, their qualities are derived from those primes. So, for instance, the number 6 is "odd but true", while the powers of 2 are all extremely odd numbers. Famous last words: Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. RULES OF EATING -- THE BRONX DIETER'S CREED 1. Never eat on an empty stomach. 2. Never leave the table hungry. 3. When traveling, never leave a country hungry. 4. Enjoy your food. 5. Enjoy your companion's food. 6. Really taste your food. It may take several portions to accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned. 7. Really feel your food. Texture is important. Compare, for example, the texture of a turnip to that of a brownie. 8. Never eat between snacks, unless it's a meal. 9. Don't feel you must finish everything on your plate. You can always eat it later. 10. Avoid any wine with a childproof cap. 11. Avoid blue food. -- Richard Smit, "The Bronx Diet" Serving coffee in aircraft causes turbulence. The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, with symposium to follow. Usage: fortune -P [] -a [xsz] [Q: [file]] [rKe9] -v6[+] dataspec ... inputdir William Safire's Rules for Writers: Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives. Wood is highly ecological, since trees are a renewable resource. If you cut down a tree, another will grow in its place. And if you cut down the new tree, still another will grow. And if you cut down that tree, yet another will grow, only this one will be a mutation with long, poisonous tentacles and revenge in its heart, and it will sit there in the forest, cackling and making elaborate plans for when you come back. Wood heat is not new. It dates back to a day millions of years ago, when a group of cavemen were sitting around, watching dinosaurs rot. Suddenly, lightning struck a nearby log and set it on fiere. One of the cavemen stared at the fire for a few minutes, then said: "Hey! Wood heat!" The other cavemen, who did not understand English, immediately beat him to death with stones. But the key discovery had been made, and from that day forward, the cavemen had all the heat they needed, although their insurance rates went way up. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" ... Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminall, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, no-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.)