QUOTES

My .alert_msg on Midgard
A more-frequently-updated set of quotes.

Words are merely a representation of the symbols of thought.

"A set is said to be infinite if it is not finite."
- Discrete Mathematics and Its Applications, K. H. Rosen, 1995

"Captain.. I'm sorry. We thought you were dead." "I was. I'm better now."

Always mess with their heads.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.

Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious

chmod a+w /dev/truth

Despite the high cost of living, it remains popular.

Don't blame the Machine. Blame the User.

Fit the hole to the peg, not the peg to the hole.

GrendelFish says, "You know, that utopian view of netspace looks kinda silly, now."

If you can't surf with the Big Dogs, Stay off the Net.

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you.

It's easier not to be wise...

Mommy, what were trees like?

Never underestimate the stupidity of a human.

Reality is just a test of the Imagination

Save the planet. Kill yourself.

Stupidity is a luxury.

Thank you for not breeding.

The Gift of Madness is Genius

The Price of Genius is Madness

The only winning move is not to play.

The Web is not about commerce. The Web is about communication.

The web is still a text medium. Don't miss that. - Dave Winer

This nanosecond's 'alternative' is next nanosecond's mainstream capitalist pig-fodder.

Trust your technolust.

You do NOT have a god given right to breed like rabbits.

Your maximum speed is that of your slowest pipe.

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.
      -- Mark Twain

Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul.

Nine megs for the secretaries fair,
Seven megs for the hackers scarce,
Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,
Three megs for system source;

One disk to rule them all,
One disk to bind them,
One disk to hold the files
And in the darkness grind 'em.

Renning's Maxim:
   Man is the highest animal. Man does the classifying.

Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously?

"Life may have no meaning -- or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove."

Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.
      -- Leonard Brandwein

"The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to mug someone with it."
      -- M. Devine, Computer Science 340

Law of the Perversity of Nature:
You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

Mad, adj.:
Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ...
      -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

You are a fluke of the universe ...
You have no right to be here.
Whether you can hear it or not, the universe
Is laughing behind your back.
      -- National Lampoon

GrendelFish pages, "Repeat after me: `Meat stuff is below us. Meat stuff is below us.' Now believe it."
GrendelFish pages, "hrm. Eating, for one. Sleeping. Going to the Little Spivak's Room. Relationships. Sex. Money. All the mundane boring annoying stuff that keeps you from the pure brilliance of BEING. (Or the net, whichever comes first.)"

GrendelFish says, "You have reached GrendelFish Enterprises, specializing in Sophistry, Computer Culture Consultation and High Weirdness. If you would like to make an appointment, press 1 on your keypad now. If you would like to complain about the pentium processor, press 2.00759. If you would like to hear an old guy talk about how good it was in the olden days, press pi. If you are getting tired of this exceedingly long and spammy answering machine message, and simply want to hear the stupid beep -- "

Yeah, though I walk through the shadow of the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil, for Evil and I, we have this understanding.

"Go not unto Usenet for advice, for the denizens will say both yes, and no, and maybe, and I don't know, and buzz off, and...."
      -- Unknown net.wit

Organized religion is responsible for the brainwashing of millions of children too young to know the difference between reality and the fantasies of millions.
Save Yourself. Drop Christianity.
      -- found on the USENET

Odd, how we don't react so strongly to the euthanizing of a dying pet as we do of a dying human, when it is humans towards whom we (pretend to?) extend the most compassion.

GrendelFish says to esta, "Innocence is the mental state of not letting potentialy wonderful and joyous events (for the universe is neutral, we choose to give things meaning, good or bad) be corrupted into evil or, even worse, mundane acts. Society WANTS to drag you down to its level, to make your life low and base, to either make you view things as evil, or as meaningless and common. That is the true evil. Creation of morality from void IS the ultimate morality. Innocence has nothing to do with experience, it is when you can live in the world and still create joy and beauty in the face of it all."

WARNING: Advertizing has been linked to greed, depression, chronic debt and temporary loss of rational thought.

"Polite? Why it is merely the truth and truth is good manners."

"Being unethical (or ignorant) drives population growth. Population growth is immoral."

Not even computers will replace committees, because committees buy computers. -- Marshall McLuhan

David Gerrold's Laws of Infernal Dynamics:

An object in motion will always be headed in the wrong direction.
An object at rest will always be in the wrong place.
The energy required to change either one of these states will always be more than you wish to expend, but never so much as to make the task totally impossible.

It is an inescapable destiny; every day, a little bit of you turns to shit.
-Anon

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

Life is like a box of chocolates: A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup, or an english toffee, but they're gone too fast and the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. If you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.

Thorn pages, "Two cows are talking, and the one cow says to the other: "Hey, aren't you a little worried about this Mad Cow disease they've been talking about?""
Thorn pages, "And the second cow turns to the other and says, "Why would I care about that? I'm a FIRE TRUCK! WOOOoooOO WoooOOOooOO!""

I consider a new device or technology to have been
culturally accepted when it has been used to commit a murder.
      -- M. Gallaher

Managing sysadmins is like leading a neighborhood gang of neurotic pumas on jet-powered hoverbikes with nasty smack habits and opposable thumbs. Oh, and as a manager you're a neurotic junkie puma too, only they cut your thumbs off and whereas all the other pumas get to drive around on their badass hoverbikes and fire chainguns at the marketing department, YOU have to drive a maroon AMC Gremlin behind them and hand out Band-Aids and smile a lot

"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."       -- Wolfgang Pauli

Ill Omen is a very natural role for someone with a little observational skills and a little objectivity and an occasional shortage of normal human feeling to fall into.

"It's one thing being jealous because someone is having a good time and you're not there. It's another to be jealous because someone is having a good time because you're not there. And it's different again to be jealous because someone's having a good time because someone else _is_ there."
     -- Ailbhe

GrendelFish says to cretin, "I can understand people wanting to believe in something bigger than themselves, something magical, some kind of direct connection to the universe. What I don't understand is why they don't realize that science and computers *are* those things."

Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A: Because it was on the other side.

Long Jokes

From: handi@squishy.com
Subject: FWD: rivalries
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995
To: june@hotwired.com

A math/engineering convention was being held. On the train to the
convention, there were a bunch of math majors and a bunch of
engineering majors. Each of the math majors had his/her train
ticket. The group of engineers had only ONE ticket for all of
them. The math majors started laughing and snickering.

Then, one of the engineers said "here comes the conductor" and
then all of the engineers went into the bathroom. The math majors
were puzzled. The conductor came aboard and said "tickets please"
and got tickets from all the math majors. He then went to the
bathroom and knocked on the door and said "ticket please" and the
engineers stuck the ticket under the door. The conductor took it
and then the engineers came out of the bathroom a few minutes later.
The math majors felt really stupid.

So, on the way back from the convention, the group of math majors
had one ticket for the group. They started snickering at the
engineers, for the whole group had no tickets amongst them. Then,
the engineer lookout said "Conductor coming!". All the engineers
went to one bathroom. All the math majors went to another bathroom.
Then, before the conductor came on board, one of the engineers left
the bathroom, knocked on the other bathroom, and said "ticket please."

vix says, "okay... programmer and engineer on a plane.  Engineer just 
wants to sleep.  Programmer bugs him to play this game.  'I'll ask you 
a question, and if you can't get it you give me five bucks.  Then you 
ask me a question and if *I* can't getit, I'll give you five bucks.'"

vix says to Marty, "Engineer doesn't wanna play.  Programmer says, 
'okay, if you can't answer, you give me five bucks.  But if I can't 
answer, I'll give you FIFTY bucks!'  Engineer reluctantly agrees to 
play."

vix says to Marty, "Engineer goes first... asks programmer, 'For x^n + 
y^n = z^n, prove that there are no integer answers for n>2.'"

vix says, "programmer turns on his laptop and searches the web... 
emails all his friends... searches all the mailing lists... spends 
hours researching.  Engineer naps."

vix says, "Programmer finally gives in.  'okay, I can't answer.'  Gives 
Engineer fifty bucks.  Engineer starts to go back to sleep."

vix says, "Programmer goes, 'wait!  wait! What was the *answer*??'"

vix says, "Engineer gives programmer five bucks and goes back to sleep."