Usenet 1994 October/usenetsourcesnewsgroupsinfomagicoctober1994disk2.iso/games/volume1/fortune/part12/scene.ah

Text File | 1987-06-03 | 47KB | 1,272 lines

order for presidents to make wars, for governments to feed on the
substance of their people, for insurance companies to cheat the young
and rob the old.
        -- Lewis Lapham
%%
Nobody wants constructive criticism.  It's all we can do to put up with
constructive praise.
%%
Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations:
    Negative expectations yield negative results.
    Positive expectations yield negative results.
%%
Non-sequiturs make me eat lampshades.
%%
Noncombatant, n.:
    A dead Quaker.
        -- Ambrose Bierce
%%
Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong.
%%
"Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong."
%%
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
%%
Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the
Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats
in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the
moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a
dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every
respect.  And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside
it, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms,
then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they
chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine ...
        -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
%%
"Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none."
        -- Shakespeare
%%
"Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper
is from the wrong kind of tree."
        --Professor W.
%%
Notes for a ballet, "The Spell": ... Suddenly Sigmund hears the flutter
of wings, and a group of wild swans flies across the moon ... Sigmund
is astounded to see that their leader is part swan and part woman --
unfortunately, divided lengthwise.  She enchants Sigmund, who is
careful not to make any poultry jokes ...
        -- Woody Allen
%%
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
%%
Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up.
%%
Nothing is faster than the speed of light ...

To prove this to yourself, try opening the refrigerator door before the
light comes on.
%%
Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.
        -- Andrew Young
%%
Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires
tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.
        -- Nero Wolfe
%%
Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.
Conscience makes egotists of us all.
        -- Oscar Wilde
%%
Nothing recedes like success.
        -- Walter Winchell
%%
Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited
love.
        -- Charlie Brown
%%
November, n.:
    The eleventh twelfth of a weariness.
        -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%%
Now and then an innocent person is sent to the legislature.
%%
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the double lock will keep;
May no brick through the window break,
And, no one rob me till I awake.
%%
"Now is the time for all good men to come to."
        -- Walt Kelly
%%
Now that you've read Fortune's diet truths, you'll be prepared the next
time some housewife or boutique-owner-turned-diet-expert appears on TV
to plug her latest book.  And, if you still feel a twinge of guilt for
eating coffee cake while listening to her exhortations, ask yourself
the following questions:

(1) Do I dare trust a person who actually considers alfalfa sprouts a
    food?
(2) Was the author's sole motive in writing this book to get rich
    exploiting the forlorn hopes of chubby people like me?
(3) Would a longer life be worthwhile if it had to be lived as
    prescribed ... without French-fried onion rings, pizza with
    double cheese, or the occasional Mai-Tai?  (Remember, living
    right doesn't really make you live longer, it just *seems* like
    longer.)

That, and another piece of coffee cake, should do the trick.
%%
"Now the Lord God planted a garden East of Whittier in a place called
Yorba Linda, and out of the ground he made to grow orange trees that
were good for food and the fruits thereof he labeled SUNKIST ..."
        -- "The Begatting of a President"
%%
... Now you're ready for the actual shopping.  Your goal should be to
get it over with as quickly as possible, because the longer you stay in
the mall, the longer your children will have to listen to holiday songs
on the mall public-address system, and many of these songs can damage
children emotionally.  For example: "Frosty the Snowman" is about a
snowman who befriends some children, plays with them until they learn
to love him, then melts.  And "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" is about
a young reindeer who, because of a physical deformity, is treated as an
outcast by the other reindeer.  Then along comes good, old Santa.  Does
he ignore the deformity?  Does he look past Rudolph's nose and respect
Rudolph for the sensitive reindeer he is underneath?  No.  Santa asks
Rudolph to guide his sleigh, as if Rudolph were nothing more than some
kind of headlight with legs and a tail.  So unless you want your
children exposed to this kind of insensitivity, you should shop
quickly.
        -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
%%
    Now, you might ask, "How do I get one of those complete home
tool sets for under $4?"  An excellent question.
    Go to one of those really cheap discount stores where they sell
plastic furniture in colors visible from the planet Neptune and where
they have a food section specializing in cardboard cartons full of
Raisinets and malted milk balls manufactured during the Nixon
administration.  In either the hardware or housewares department,
you'll find an item imported from an obscure Oriental country and
described as "Nine Tools in One", consisting of a little handle with
interchangeable ends representing inscrutable Oriental notions of tools
that Americans might use around the home.  Buy it.
    This is the kind of tool set professionals use.  Not only is it
inexpensive, but it also has a great safety feature not found in the
so-called quality tools sets: The handle will actually break right off
if you accidentally hit yourself or anything else, or expose it to
direct sunlight.
        -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
%%
"Nuclear war would really set back cable."
        -- Ted Turner
%%
[Nuclear war] ... may not be desirable.
        -- Edwin Meese III
%%
Nudists are people who wear one-button suits.
%%
Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're
guessing.
%%
O give me a home,
Where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard
A discouraging word,
'Cause what can an antelope say?
%%
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
    Murphy was an optimist.
%%
"Of ______course it's the murder weapon.  Who would frame someone with a
fake?"
%%
Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the
reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest
amount of hot air.
        -- Thomas L. Martin
%%
Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
        -- Plato
%%
Of all the words of witch's doom
There's none so bad as which and whom.
The man who kills both which and whom
Will be enshrined in our Who's Whom.
        -- Fletcher Knebel
%%
Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy.
%%
Of what you see in books, believe 75%.  Of newspapers, believe 50%.
And of TV news, believe 25% -- make that 5% if the anchorman wears a
blazer.
%%
Office Automation, n.:
    The use of computers to improve efficiency by removing anyone
you would want to talk with over coffee.
%%
Ogden's Law:
    The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch
    up.
%%
Oh Dad!  We're ALL Devo!
%%
Oh don't the days seem lank and long
    When all goes right and none goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
    With nothing whatever to grumble at!
%%
Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
    I muck with indices and structs all day
And when it works, I shout hoo-ray
    Oh, I am a C programmer and I'm okay
%%
Oh, I don't blame Congress.  If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd
be irresponsible, too.
        -- Lichty & Wagner
%%
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --
Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there
I've chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up along delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
        -- John Gillespie Magee Jr., "High Flight"
%%
Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes.
%%
Oh, when I was in love with you,
    Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
    How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
    And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
    Am quite myself again.
        -- A. E. Housman
%%
Oh, wow!  Look at the moon!
%%
"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
%%
Old programmers never die.  They just branch to a new address.
%%
Old soldiers never die.  Young ones do.
%%
Oliver's Law:
    Experience is something you don't get until just after you need
    it.
%%
Omnibiblious, adj.:
    Indifferent to type of drink.  "Oh, you can get me anything.
    I'm omnibiblious."
%%
OMNIVERSAL AWARENESS??  Oh, YEH!!  First you need 4 GALLONS of JELL-O
and a BIG WRENCH!! ... I think you drop th' WRENCH in the JELL-O as if
it was a FLAVOR, or an INGREDIENT ...  ... or ... I ... um ... WHERE'S
the WASHING MACHINES?
%%
On a paper submitted by a physicist colleague:

"This isn't right.  This isn't even wrong."
        -- Wolfgang Pauli
%%
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
%%
    On his first day as a bus driver, Maxey Eckstein handed in
receipts of $65.  The next day his take was $67.  The third day's
income was $62.  But on the fourth day, Eckstein emptied no less than
$283 on the desk before the cashier.
    "Eckstein!" exclaimed the cashier.  "This is fantastic.  That
route never brought in money like this!  What happened?"
    "Well, after three days on that cockamamie route, I figured
business would never improve, so I drove over to Fourteenth Street and
worked there.  I tell you, that street is a gold mine!"
%%
On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created jerks.
        -- Avery
%%
On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created jerks.
        -- H. Allen Smith, "Let the Crabgrass Grow"
%%
On the road, ZIPPY is a pinhead without a purpose, but never without a
POINT ...
%%
On-line, adj.:
    The idea that a human being should always be accessible to a
    computer.
%%
Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were
forced to live on nothing but food and water for days.
        -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee"
%%
Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that
each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his
choice.

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians
called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka"
and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank.  People
passing each other on the street would say "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy
Hanukka!" or (to the atheists) "Look out for the wall!"
        -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
%%
Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict,
Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease".
Disraeli replied, "That all depends upon whether I embrace your
principals or your mistress".
%%
Once Law was sitting on the bench
    And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!
    Nor come before me creeping.
Upon you knees if you appear,
'Tis plain you have no standing here."

Then Justice came.  His Honor cried:
    "YOUR states? -- Devil seize you!"
"Amica curiae," she replied --
    "Friend of the court, so please you."
"Begone!" he shouted -- "There's the door --
I never saw your face before!"
        -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%%
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human
beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by
side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them
which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the
sky.
        -- Rainer Rilke
%%
    Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a
great crystal river.  Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to
the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of
life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.  But
one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is
going.  I shall let go, and let it take me where it will.  Clinging, I
shall die of boredom."
    The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool!  Let go, and that
current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the
rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"
    But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go,
and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current
lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.
    And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried,
"See a miracle!  A creature like ourselves, yet he flies!  See the
Messiah, come to save us all!"  And the one carried in the current
said, "I am no more Messiah than you.  The river delight to lift us
free, if only we dare let go.  Our true work is this voyage, this
adventure.
    But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to
the rocks, making legends of a Saviour.
%%
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 prof 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.
%%
... Once you're safely in the mall, you should tie your children to you
with ropes so the other shoppers won't try to buy them.  Holiday
shoppers have been whipped into a frenzy by months of holiday
advertisements, and they will buy anything small enough to stuff into a
shopping bag.  If your children object to being tied, threaten to take
them to see Santa Claus; that ought to shut them up.
        -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"
%%
Once, adv.:
    Enough.
        -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%%
One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least
somebody's listening.
        -- Franklin P. Jones
%%
One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means.
%%
One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing
how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette.
        -- Professor Charles P. Issawi
%%
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 is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
        -- Chateaubriand (1768-1848)
%%
One learns to itch where one can scratch.
        -- Ernest Bramah
%%
One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as
one man would have produced alone.  These two plus two more will
produce half again as many ideas.  These four plus four more begin to
represent a creative meeting, and the ratio changes to one quarter as
many ...
        -- Anthony Chevins
%%
One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.
%%
One monk said to the other, "The fish has flopped out of the net! How
will it live?"  The other said, "When you have gotten out of the net,
I'll tell you."
%%
One nice thing about egotists: they don't talk about other people.
%%
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 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 questions that comes up all the time is: How
enthusiastic is our support for UNIX?
    Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many
years ago.  Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines.
Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use.  UNIX is a simple
language, easy to understand, easy to get started with.  It's great for
students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for
interchanging programs between different machines.  And so, because of
its popularity in these markets, we support it.  We have good UNIX on
VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
    It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will
run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and
will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
    With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and
quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there.  With
VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of
documentation -- if you look long enough it's there.  That's the
difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS
is that it's all there.
        -- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984
%%
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, Kansas.
%%
One of the Ten Commandments for Technicians
    (7) Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy
        fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and
        console her in other ways.
%%
One of the Ten Commandments for Technicians:
    (1) Beware the lightening that lurketh in the undischarged
        capacitor, lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks
        in a most untechnician-like manner.
%%
One Page Principle:
    A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch
    paper cannot be understood.
        -- Mark Ardis
%%
"One planet is all you get."
%%
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, and some of them, such as House Speaker "Tip" O'Neil, are
already too large to fit on normal aircraft.
        -- Dave Barry, "'Mister Mediocre' Restaurants"
%%
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 thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh
paint.
%%
One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a
new model.
%%
One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him.
%%
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
%%
One-Shot Case Study, n.:
    The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from which
it is concluded all clovers possess four leaves and are sometimes
green.
%%
Only adults have difficulty with childproof caps.
%%
Only God can make random selections.
%%
Only presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to
use the editorial "we."
%%
Only through hard work and perseverance can one truly suffer.
%%
Optimization hinders evolution.
%%
Optimization hinders evolution.
%%
Oregano, n.:
    The ancient Italian art of pizza folding.
%%
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 country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is
they charge fifteen cents for them.
%%
Our documentation manager was showing her 2 year old son around the
office.  He was introduced to me, at which time he pointed out that we
were both holding bags of popcorn.  We were both holding bottles of
juice.  But only *__he* had a lollipop.

He asked his mother, "Why doesn't HE have a lollipop?"

Her reply:

    "He can have a lollipop any time he wants to.  That's what it
    means to be a programmer."
%%
Our OS who art in CPU, UNIX be thy name.
    Thy programs run, thy syscalls done,
    In kernel as it is in user!
%%
Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing.
        -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president Litton Industries
%%
... Our second completely true news item was sent to me by Mr. H. Boyce
Connell Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., where he is involved in a law firm.  One
thing I like about the South is, folks there care about tradition.  If
somebody gets handed a name like "H. Boyce," he hangs on to it, puts it
on his legal stationery, even passes it to his son, rather than do what
a lesser person would do, such as get it changed or kill himself.
        -- Dave Barry, "This Column is Nothing but the Truth!"
%%
"Our vision is to speed up time, eventually eliminating it."
        -- Alex Schure
%%
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
        -- General Omar N. Bradley
%%
        OUTCONERR
Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes
    Did logzerneg the ifthen block
All kludgy were the function flows
    And subroutines adhoc.

Beware the runtime-bug my friend
    squrooneg, the false goto
Beware the infiniteloop
    And shun the inprectoo.
%%
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend: and inside a dog,
it's too dark to read."
        -- Groucho Marx
%%
Over the years, I've developed my sense of deja vu so acutely that now
I can remember things that *have* happened before ...
%%
Overdrawn?  But I still have checks left!
%%
Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket.
%%
Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated.
%%
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.
%%
Painting, n.:
    The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and
    exposing them to the critic.
        -- Ambrose Bierce
%%
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now ... only much, much
better.
        -- Laurie Anderson
%%
Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them.
%%
Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life.
%%
Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one.
%%
Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems.  It's easy to
criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too.
        -- D. J. Hicks
%%
Pardo's First Postulate:
    Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral, or
    fattening.

Arnold's Addendum:
    Everything else causes cancer in rats.
%%
Pardon this fortune.  Database under reconstruction.
%%
Parker's Law:
    Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
%%
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 Fourth Law:
    The number of people in any working group tends to increase
    regardless of the amount of work to be done.
%%
Parsley
     is gharsley.
        -- Ogden Nash
%%
Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
%%
"Pascal is not a high-level language."
        -- Steven Feiner
%%
Pascal Users:
    To show respect for the 313th anniversary (tomorrow) of the
    death of Blaise Pascal, your programs will be run at half
    speed.
%%
Pascal, n.:
    A programming language named after a man who would turn over in
    his grave if he knew about it.
%%
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
        -- Eric Hoffer
%%
Patageometry, n.:
    The study of those mathematical properties that are invariant
under brain transplants.
%%
Paul Revere was a tattle-tale
%%
Paul's Law:
    In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you
    save.
%%
Paul's Law:
    You can't fall off the floor.
%%
Peace, n.:
    In international affairs, a period of cheating between two
    periods of fighting.
        -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%%
Peanut Blossoms

4 cups sugar           16 tbsp. milk
4 cups brown sugar     4 tsp. vanilla
4 cups shortening      14 cups flour
8 eggs                 4 tsp. soda
4 cups peanut butter   4 tsp. salt

Shape dough into balls.  Roll in sugar and bake on ungreased cookie
sheet at 375 F. for 10-12 minutes.  Immediately top each cookie with a
Hershey's kiss or star pressing down firmly to crack cookie.  Makes a
hell of a lot.
%%
Pecor's Health-Food Principle:
    Never eat rutabaga on any day of the week that has a "y" in
    it.
%%
Pedaeration, n.:
    The perfect body heat achieved by having one leg under the
sheet and one hanging off the edge of the bed.
        -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
%%
Penguin Trivia #46:
    Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were.
        -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
%%
People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of
the future.
%%
"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 have what they want are very fond of telling people who
haven't what they want that they don't want it.
        -- Ogden Nash
%%
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 will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they
did yesterday.
%%
Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.
"Confound those who have said our remarks before us."
        -- Aelius Donatus
%%
Perfect day for scrubbing the floor and other exciting things.
%%
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
%%
Personifiers Unite!  You have nothing to lose but Mr. Dignity!
%%
Peter's Law of Substitution:
    Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after
    themselves.
%%
Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to
exciting Camden, New Jersey.
%%
Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny.
%%
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
        -- John Keats
%%
Pick another fortune cookie.
%%
Pig, n.:
    An animal (Porcus omnivorous) closely allied to the human race
    by the splendor and vivacity of its appetite, which, however,
    is inferior in scope, for it balks at pig.
        -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%%
PISCES (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20)
    You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being
    followed by the CIA or FBI.  You have minor influence over your
    associates and people resent your flaunting of your power.  You
    lack confidence and you are generally a coward.  Pisces people
    do terrible things to small animals.
%%
PISCES (Feb. 19 to Mar. 20)
    Take the high road, look for the good things, carry the
    American Express card and a weapon.  The world is yours today,
    as nobody else wants it.  Your mortgage will be foreclosed.
    You will probably get run over by a bus.
%%
            Pittsburgh Driver's Test

(7) The car directly in front of you has a flashing right tail light
    but a steady left tail light.  This means

    (a) one of the tail lights is broken; you should blow your horn
        to call the problem to the driver's attention.
    (b) the driver is signaling a right turn.
    (c) the driver is signaling a left turn.
    (d) the driver is from out of town.

The correct answer is (d).  Tail lights are used in some foreign
countries to signal turns.
%%
            Pittsburgh Driver's Test

(8) Pedestrians are

    (a) irrelevant.
    (b) communists.
    (c) a nuisance.
    (d) difficult to clean off the front grille.

The correct answer is (a).  Pedestrians are not in cars, so they are
totally irrelevant to driving; you should ignore them completely.
%%
Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
        -- Don Marquis
%%
PL/1, "the fatal disease", belongs more to the problem set than to the
solution set.
        -- E. W. Dijkstra
%%
"Plaese porrf raed."
        -- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase
%%
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.
%%
Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic
table.
        -- Dave Barry, "The Snake"
%%
Please ignore previous fortune.
%%
Please take note:
%%
Please try to limit the amount of "this room doesn't have any bazingas"
until you are told that those rooms are "punched out".  Once punched
out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas,
and such.
        -- N. Meyrowitz
%%
Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means?
%%
    Plumbing is one of the easier of do-it-yourself activities,
requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm
into a clogged toilet.  In fact, you can solve many home plumbing
problems, such as annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the
radio.  But before we get into specific techniques, let's look at how
plumbing works.
    A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system,
except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires,
it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets
and toilets.  So the truth is that your plumbing systems is nothing at
all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can
kill you.
        -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
%%
PLUNDERER'S THEME
(to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius)

Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
If you do the things we say, then you'll soon rule the nation.
Kill your foes and enemies and then kill your relations.
Pillage, rape, and loot and burn, but all in moderation.
%%
Pohl's law:
    Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it.
%%
Police:    Good evening, are you the host?
Host:    No.
Police:    We've been getting complaints about this party.
Host:    About the drugs?
Police:    No.
Host:    About the guns, then?  Is somebody complaining about the guns?
Police:    No, the noise.
Host:    Oh, the noise.  Well that makes sense because there are no guns
    or drugs here.  (An enormous explosion is heard in the
    background.)  Or fireworks.  Who's complaining about the noise?
    The neighbors?
Police:    No, the neighbors fled inland hours ago.  Most of the recent
    complaints have come from Pittsburgh.  Do you think you could
    ask the host to quiet things down?
Host:    No Problem.  (At this point, a Volkswagon bug with primitive
    religious symbols drawn on the doors emerges from the living
    room and roars down the hall, past the police and onto the
    lawn, where it smashes into a tree.  Eight guests tumble out
    onto the grass, moaning.)  See?  Things are starting to wind
    down.
%%
Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell
all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds.
%%
Politician, n.:
    An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of
organized society is reared.  When he wriggles, he mistakes the
agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.  As compared
with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.
        -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%%
Politician, n.:
    From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tete" ("head" or
    "face," as in "tete-a-tete": head to head or face to face).
    Hence "polytetien", a person of two or more faces.
        -- Martin Pitt
%%
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.
%%
Polymer physicists are into chains.
%%
Pope Goestheveezl was the shortest reigning pope in the history of the
Church, reigning for two hours and six minutes on 1 April 1866.  The
white smoke had hardly faded into the blue of the Vatican skies before
it dawned on the assembled multitudes in St. Peter's Square that his
name had hilarious possibilities.  The crowds fell about, helpless with
laughter, singing
    Half a pound of tuppenny rice
    Half a pound of treacle
    That's the way the chimney smokes
    Pope Goestheveezl
The square was finally cleared by armed carabineri with tears of
laughter streaming down their faces.  The event set a record for
hilarious civic functions, smashing the previous record set when Baron
Hans Neizant B"ompzidaize was elected Landburgher of K"oln in 1653.
        -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
%%
Portable, adj.:
    Survives system reboot.
%%
Positive, adj.:
    Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
        -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
%%
Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth.
%%
"Power corrupts.  Absolute power is kind of neat"
        -- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy 1981-1987
%%
Power corrupts.  And atomic power corrupts atomically.
%%
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
%%
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.
%%
President Thieu says he'll quit if he doesn't get more than 50% of the
vote.  In a democracy, that's not called quitting.
        -- The Washington Post
%%
Pretend to spank me -- I'm a pseudo-masochist!
%%
Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning:
    It's on the other side.
%%
[Prime Minister Joseph] Chamberlain loves the working man -- he loves
to see him work.
        -- Winston Churchill
%%
Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.
%%
Probable-Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
Because she's unable to postulate how.
        -- Frederick Winsor
%%
Probably the question asked most often is: Do one-celled animals have
orgasms?  The answer is yes, the have orgasms almost constantly, which
is why they don't mind living in pools of warm slime.
        -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every
           Teen Should Know"
%%
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%
%%
Proof techniques #1: Proof by Induction.

This technique is used on equations with "_n" in them.  Induction
techniques are very popular, even the military used them.

SAMPLE: Proof of induction without proof of induction.

    We know it's true for _n equal to 1.  Now assume that it's true
for every natural number less than _n.  _N is arbitrary, so we can take _n
as large as we want.  If _n is sufficiently large, the case of _n+1 is
trivially equivalent, so the only important _n are _n less than _n.  We
can take _n = _n (from above), so it's true for _n+1 because it's just
about _n.
    QED.    (QED translates from the Latin as "So what?")
%%
Proof techniques #2: Proof by Oddity.
    SAMPLE: To prove that horses have an infinite number of legs.
(1) Horses have an even number of legs.
(2) They have two legs in back and fore legs in front.
(3) This makes a total of six legs, which certainly is an odd number of
    legs for a horse.
(4) But the only number that is both odd and even is infinity.
(5) Therefore, horses must have an infinite number of legs.

Topics is be covered in future issues include proof by:
    Intimidation
    Gesticulation (handwaving)
    "Try it; it works"
    Constipation (I was just sitting there and ...)
    Blatant assertion
    Changing all the 2's to _n's
    Mutual consent
    Lack of a counterexample, and
    "It stands to reason"
%%
"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller
than the both put together."
%%
Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill.  Check
three friends.  If they're OK, you're it.
%%
Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves
to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way
to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the
cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in
fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a
lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of
the first day even if they have plenty of food and water.
        -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"
%%
Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off of the TV screen.
%%
Pure drivel tends to drive ordinary drivel off the TV screen.
%%
Pushing 40 is exercise enough.
%%
Put no trust in cryptic comments.
%%
Put your Nose to the Grindstone!
        -- Amalgamated Plastic Surgeons and Toolmakers, Ltd.
%%
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.
%%
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 DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat ?
A:  Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.
%%
Q:  How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat?
A:  Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires.

Q:  How long does it take?
A:  It's indeterminate.  It will depend upon how many flats they've
    brought with them.

Q:  What happens if you've got TWO flats?
A:  They replace your generator.
%%
Q:  How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A:  Two.  One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb
    itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective
    reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a
    maudlin cosmos of nothingness.
%%
Q:  How many heterosexual males does it take to screw in a light bulb
    in San Francisco?
A:  Both of them.
%%
Q:  How many IBM cpu's does it take to do a logical right shift?
A:  33.  1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register.
%%
Q:  How many IBM CPU's does it take to execute a job?
A:  Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off.
%%
Q:  How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb?
A:  100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001,
    Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of
    the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20%
    of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences
    of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
%%
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.
%%
Q:  How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A:  One and a half.
%%
Q:  How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A:  One.  He gives it to six Californians, thereby reducing the problem
    to the earlier joke.
%%
Q:  How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:  Three.  One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those
    Californians trying to share the experience.
%%
Q:  How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A:  Two.  One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub
    with brightly colored machine tools.
%%
Q:  How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A:  None.  The Universe spines the bulb, and the Zen master stays out
    of the way.
%%
Q:  What's a light-year?
A:  One-third less calories than a regular year.
%%
Q:  Why did the tachyon cross the road?
A:  Because it was on the other side.
%%
Q:  Why do ducks have flat feet?
A:  To stamp out forest fires.

Q:  Why do elephants have flat feet?
A:  To stamp out flaming ducks.
%%
Q:  Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
A:  To prevent the sensible ones from going home.
%%
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.
%%
Question:
Man Invented Alcohol,
God Invented Grass.
Who do you trust?
%%
Quick!!  Act as if nothing has happened!
%%
Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!!
%%
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

(Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
%%
Quigley's Law:
    Whoever has any authority over you, no matter how small, will
    atttempt to use it.
%%
QUOTE OF THE DAY:

       `

%%
"Qvid me anxivs svm?"
%%
QWERT (kwirt), n. [MW < OW qwertyuiop, a thirteenth]:
    1. a unit of weight equal to 13 poiuyt avoirdupois (or 1.69
    kiloliks), commonly used in structural engineering; 2.
    [colloq.] one thirteenth the load that a fully grown sligo can
    carry; 3. [anat.] a painful irritation of the dermis in the
    region of the anus; 4. [slang] person who excites in others the
    symptoms of a qwert.
        -- Webster's Middle World Dictionary, 4th ed.
%%
      _
  _  / \               o
 / \ | |               o       o         o
 | | | |   _            o    o               o       o
 | \_| |  / \              o                o     o
  \__  |  | |          o                  o
     | |  | |         ______      ~~~~            _____
     | |__/ |           / ___--\\ ~~~         __/_____\__
     |    ___/          / \--\\  \\   \ ___    <__  x x  __\
     | |         / /\\  \\         ))     \       (  "     )
     | |     -------(---->>(@)--(@)-------\----------< >-----------
     | |   //        | | //__________  /       \    ____)    (___      \\
     | |  //      __|_|     ( --------- )        //// ______ /////\       \\
     //      |    (  \ ______  /       <<<< <>-----<<<<< /        \\
    //     (     )              / /      \` \__     \\
       //-------------------------------------------------------------\\

Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels
start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and
then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas ... with the
music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.
        -- H.S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"
%%
Radioactive cats have 18 half-lives.
%%
Rattling around the back of my head is a disturbing image of something
I saw at the airport ... Now I'm remembering, those giant piles of
computer magazines right next to "People" and "Time" in the airport
store.  Does it bother anyone else that half the world is being told
all of our hard-won secrets of computer technology?  Remember how all
the lawyers cried foul when "How to Avoid Probate" was published?  Are
they taking no-fault insurance lying down?  No way!  But at the current
rate it won't be long before there are stacks of the "Transactions on
Information Theory" at the A&P checkout counters.  Who's going to be
impressed with us electrical engineers then?  Are we, as the saying
goes, giving away the store?
        -- Robert W. Lucky, IEEE President
%%
Ray's Rule of Precision:
    Measure with a micrometer.  Mark with chalk.  Cut with an axe.
%%
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
        -- Dorothy Parker
%%