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About Motd
Message of the day, "fortunes" - "fortune cookies",
derived from various FreeBSD and Linux sources.
A staple for Unix/Linux users for decades, but largely unknown to the public, it's hard to describe
this incredible collection. Not only
amusing, arch, facetious, pithy, humorous, ironic, jocose, keen, satirical, sharp,
smart, taunting, witty, biting ...
the collection is also a fascinating view of the cultural history of the computer
priesthood and user through the Unix looking glass.
Here is a gem
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News
Some others
- 3 out of 4 Americans make up 75% of the population
- The rain in Spain fall mainly on Spaniards
- Trying to establish voice contact ... please YELL into keyboard
One more
A is for awk, which runs like a snail, and
B is for biff, which reads all your mail.
C is for cc, as hackers recall, while
D is for dd, the command that does all.
E is for emacs, which rebinds your keys, and
F is for fsck, which rebuilds your trees.
G is for grep, a clever detective, while
H is for halt, which may seem defective.
I is for indent, which rarely amuses, and
J is for join, which nobody uses.
K is for kill, which makes you the boss, while
L is for lex, which is missing from DOS.
M is for more, from which less was begot, and
N is for nice, which it really is not.
O is for od, which prints out things nice, while
P is for passwd, which reads in strings twice.
Q is for quota, a Berkeley-type fable, and
R is for ranlib, for sorting ar table.
S is for spell, which attempts to belittle, while
T is for true, which does very little.
U is for uniq, which is used after sort, and
V is for vi, which is hard to abort.
W is for whoami, which tells you your name, while
X is, well, X, of dubious fame.
Y is for yes, which makes an impression, and
Z is for zcat, which handles compression.
-- THE ABC'S OF UNIX
And, one more
Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.:
The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a
dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then
putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.
-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
How did this come about
I was using files collected from /usr/share/games/fortunes of various
Unix/Linux sources as raw text for a browser based text reader.
Friends and colleagues apparently liked what they saw. So, after
a few repeat requests, I decided to make the whole thing generally
accessible.
Ji Funda Jo Hai is riddle.ocul.us. Telling you what it means would spoil,
pardon, the pun. An Internet hipster, circa 2004-05, from the English majority
and some Spanish may help.
Acknowledgement
A heartfelt thanks to all the FreeBSD and Linux volunteers and contributors for this
amazing (did I say amazing again?) collection.
Enjoy! and don't forget to vote for your favorite "Best"
and "Worst" of Fortunes.
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