Freebsd Fortunes 2

... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand.  Human
intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we
can tell.  If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now
seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their
world, not in their distorted perceptions.  Even the standard example of
ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once
you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen
would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number.
                -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds"

... C++ offers even more flexible control over the visibility of member
objects and member functions.  Specifically, members may be placed in the
public, private, or protected parts of a class.  Members declared in the
public parts are visible to all clients; members declared in the private
parts are fully encapsulated; and members declared in the protected parts
are visible only to the class itself and its subclasses.  C++ also supports
the notion of *friends*: cooperative classes that are permitted to see each
other's private parts.
                -- Grady Booch, "Object Oriented Design with Applications"

... computer hardware progress is so fast.  No other technology since
civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price
gain in 30 years.
                -- Fred Brooks

... difference of opinion is advantagious in religion.  The several sects
perform the office of a common censor morum over each other.  Is uniformity
attainable?  Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the
introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned;
yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
                -- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia"

<<<<< EVACUATION ROUTE <<<<<

... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter.
"I" do not matter.  No word matters.  But man forgets reality and remembers
words.  The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him.
He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see
them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time.
Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he
knows them in the naming.
                -- Roger Zelazny, "Lord of Light"

"... gentlemen do not read each other's mail."
                -- Secretary of State Henry Stimson, on closing down
                   the Black Chamber, the precursor to the National
                   Security Agency.

        (Haley's comment.)

... if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does
on lust, this would be a better world.
                -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"

**** IMPORTANT ****  ALL USERS PLEASE NOTE ****

Due to a recent systems overload error your recent disk files have been
erased.  Therefore, in accordance with the UNIX Basic Manual, University of
Washington Geophysics Manual, and Bylaw 9(c), Section XII of the Revised
Federal Communications Act, you are being granted Temporary Disk Space,
valid for three months from this date, subject to the restrictions set forth
in Appendix II of the Federal Communications Handbook (18th edition) as well
as the references mentioned herein.  You may apply for more disk space at any
time.  Disk usage in or above the eighth percentile will secure the removal
of all restrictions and you will immediately receive your permanent disk
space.  Disk usage in the sixth or seventh percentile will not effect the
validity of your temporary disk space, though its expiration date may be
extended for a period of up to three months.  A score in the fifth percentile
or below will result in the withdrawal of your Temporary Disk space.