Freebsd Fortunes 2

        There was a college student trying to earn some pocket money by
going from house to house offering to do odd jobs.  He explained this to
a man who answered one door.
        "How much will you charge to paint my porch?" asked the man.
        "Forty dollars."
        "Fine" said the man, and gave the student the paint and brushes.
        Three hours later the paint-splattered lad knocked on the door again.
"All done!", he says, and collects his money.  "By the way," the student says,
"That's not a Porsche, it's a Ferrari."

        There was a knock on the door.  Mrs. Miffin opened it.  "Are
you the Widow Miffin?" a small boy asked.
        "I'm Mrs. Miffin," she replied, "but I'm not a widow."
        "Oh, no?" replied the little boy.  "Wait 'til you see what
they're carrying upstairs!"

        There was a mad scientist (a mad... social... scientist) who kidnapped
three colleagues, an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked
each of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no
can opener.
        A month later, returning, the mad scientist went to the engineer's
cell and found it long empty.  The engineer had constructed a can opener from
pocket trash, used aluminum shavings and dried sugar to make an explosive,
and escaped.
        The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids
off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall.  She was developing a good
pitching arm and a new quantum theory.
        The mathematician had stacked the unopened cans into a surprising
solution to the kissing problem; his dessicated corpse was propped calmly
against a wall, and this was inscribed on the floor:
        Theorem: If I can't open these cans, I'll die.
        Proof: assume the opposite...

        There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the
warlord of Wu.  The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design:
an accounting package or an operating system?"
        "An operating system," replied the programmer.
        The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief.  "Surely an
accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating
system," he said.
        "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package,
the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas:
how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to
the tax laws.  By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside
appearances.  When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the
simplest harmony between machine and ideas.  This is why an operating system
is easier to design."
        The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled.  "That is all good and well, but
which is easier to debug?"
        The programmer made no reply.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

        There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the
warlord Wu.  The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design:
an accounting package or an operating system?"
        "An operating system," replied the programmer.
        The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an
accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating
system," he said.
        "Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package,
the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas:
how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to
tax laws.  By contrast, an operating system is not limited by outward
appearances.  When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the
simplest harmony between machine and ideas.  This is why an operating system
is easier to design."
        The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well,"
he said, "but which is easier to debug?"
        The programmer made no reply.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

        There was once a programmer who worked upon microprocessors.  "Look at
how well off I am here," he said to a mainframe programmer who came to visit,
"I have my own operating system and file storage device.  I do not have to
share my resources with anyone.  The software is self-consistent and
easy-to-use.  Why do you not quit your present job and join me here?"
        The mainframe programmer then began to describe his system to his
friend, saying: "The mainframe sits like an ancient sage meditating in the
midst of the data center.  Its disk drives lie end-to-end like a great ocean
of machinery.  The software is a multi-faceted as a diamond and as convoluted
as a primeval jungle.  The programs, each unique, move through the system
like a swift-flowing river.  That is why I am happy where I am."
        The microcomputer programmer, upon hearing this, fell silent.  But the
two programmers remained friends until the end of their days.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

        They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even
drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man.  These things offer
pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which
demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and
sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more.
        They are fools that think otherwise.  No great effort was ever bought.
No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was
ever raised into being for payment of any kind.  No parthenon, no Thermopylae
was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground
beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone.  The payment for doing these
things was itself the doing of them.
        To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and
so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the
greatest pleasure known to man!  To one who has felt the chisel in his hand
and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt
sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body
of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food
spread only for demons or for gods."
                -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"

        "They spend years searching for their natural parents, convinced their
parents will be happy to see them.  I mean, really, can you imagine someone
being happy to see an orphan?  Nobody wants them... that's why they're orphans!"
        The speaker is Anne Baker, founder and guiding force behind
Orphan-Off, an organization dedicated to keeping orphans confused about the
whereabouts of their natural parents.  She is a woman with a mission:
        "Basically, what we do is band together to exchange information
about which orphans are looking for which parents in what part of the
country.  We're completely computerized.
        "The idea is to throw the orphans as many red herrings and false
leads as possible.  We'll tell some twenty-three-year-old loser that his
real parents can be found at a certain address on the other side of the
country.  Well, by the time the kid shows up, the family is prepared.  They
look over the kid's photos and information and they say, 'Oh, the Emersons...
yeah, they used to live here... I think they moved out about five years ago.
I think they went to Iowa, or maybe Idaho.'
        "Bam, the door shuts in the kid's face and he's back to zero again.
He's got nothing to go on but the orphan's pathetic determination to continue.
        "It's really amazing how much these kids will put up with.  Last year
we even sent one kid all the way to Australia.  I mean, really.  Besides, if
your natural parents were Australian, would you want to meet them?"
                -- "National Lampoon", September, 1984

        This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go,
explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for
use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it
and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do.
        We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around
pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since
we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of
making anything out of all the hard work.
        If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go
around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much
attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not.  Just keep your doors
locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark.
                -- License Agreement for Interactive Easyflow

        To A Quick Young Fox
Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp,
Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice?
Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp--
Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice.
                -- Lazy Dog