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"On two occasions I have been asked by members of Parliament!, `Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
— Charles Babbage
Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use?
If today is the first day of the rest of your life, what the hell was yesterday?
The study of non-linear physics is like the study of non-elephant biology.
As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.
— Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949
"Whether you think you can or you think you can't...
...you're right!"
— Henry Ford
Sen. Danforth: "There is nothing on the face of the album which would notify you if the record has pornographics material or material glorifying violence?"
Tipper Gore: "No, there is nothing that would suggest that to me."
Frank Zappa: "I would say that a buzz saw blade between the guy's legs on the album cover is good indication that it's not for little Johnny."
— The Senate Commerce Committee hearing on rock lyrics, from The Village Voice, 6 Oct 1985
"Life...is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for".
— Cancer Man
(1) Alexander the Great was a great general.
(2) Great generals are forewarned.
(3) Forewarned is forearmed.
(4) Four is an even number.
(5) Four is certainly an odd number of arms for a man to have.
(6) The only number that is both even and odd is infinity.
Therefore, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.
"We had it tough ... I had to get up at 9 o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of dry poison, work 29 hours down mill, and when we came home our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our grave singing Haleleuia ..."
— Monty Python
Doctor Reubenstein was shocked and dismayed when he answered the ringing telephone, only to hear a strange, metallic, alien voice say, "Yasec iovn eilacilla temeg! Nartsa raehoty lnoenoh pelet gnig, nirehtde rewsnaehn ehw. Deya! Msid! Dnadek cohssaw nietsne buerro, tcod?
Losing your drivers' license is just God's way of saying "BOOGA, BOOGA!"
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house.
— Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
— Niels Bohr
Worst Response To A Crisis, 1985:
From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"
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.
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
— Bertrand Russell
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
— Isaac Asimov
A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:
Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, "Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, "First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."
— Monty Python, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
"Kids, you tried your best and failed miserably.
The lesson is: Never try."
Homer S.
Committee Rules:
(1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.
(2) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise.
(3) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the others.
(4) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.
(5) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular — it's what everyone is waiting for.
# Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
— Albert Einstein
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
— Rich Kulawiec
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
— Rich Kulawiec
Churchill's Commentary on Man:
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
— Niels Bohr
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
— Howard Aiken
Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month.
— Wernher von Braun
The church is near but the road is icy; the bar is far away but I will walk carefully.
— Russian Proverb
According to my best recollection, I don't remember.
— Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo
A billion here, a couple of billion there — first thing you know it adds up to be real money.
— Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen
Van Roy's Law:
An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.
"Look, I'm not going to say Limp Bizkit sucks. I know it. You know it. I'm not going to say it." -Trent Reznor.
According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless...
Schrodingers Needle : A needle in a haystack that may or may not actually exist, but you wont actually know until you've either found it or moved the entire haystack one straw at a time. - Me (although I bet someone else has said something very similar.)
Athlon XP-64/3200, 1gb PC3200, 512mb Radeon X1950Pro AGP, Dell 2005fwp, Logitech G5, IBM model M.
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