Freebsd Fortunes 3

As I argued in "Beloved Son", a book about my son Brian and the subject of
religious communes and cults, one result of proper early instruction in the
methods of rational thought will be to make sudden mindless conversions --
to anything -- less likely.  Brian now realizes this and has, after eleven
years, left the sect he was associated with.  The problem is that once the
untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy --
and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and
high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational -- the powers of reason are
surprisingly ineffective in changing the believer's mind.
                -- Steve Allen

As I bit into the nectarine, it had a crisp juiciness about it that was very
pleasurable - until I realized it wasn't a nectarine at all, but A HUMAN HEAD!!
                -- Jack Handey

As I thought, no better from this side.
                -- Eeyore

As I was going up Punch Card Hill,
        Feeling worse and worser,
There I met a C.R.T.
        And it drop't me a cursor.

C.R.T., C.R.T.,
        Phosphors light on you!
If I had fifty hours a day
        I'd spend them all at you.
                -- Uncle Colonel's Cursory Rhymes

As I was passing Project MAC,
I met a Quux with seven hacks.
Every hack had seven bugs;
Every bug had seven manifestations;
Every manifestation had seven symptoms.
Symptoms, manifestations, bugs, and hacks,
How many losses at Project MAC?

As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day,
I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay,
The words were torn and tattered,
From the storm the night before,
The wind and rain had done its work and this is how it goes,

Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys Spearmint beer,
Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complexion clear,
Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar,
And Texaco's a beauty cream that's used by every star.

Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigidaire,
Learn to play the piano in your winter underwear,
Doctors say that babies should smoke until they're three,
And people over sixty-five should bathe in Lipton tea.

As in certain cults it is possible to
kill a process if you know its true name.
                -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie

As in Protestant Europe, by contrast, where sects divided endlessly into
smaller competing sects and no church dominated any other, all is different
in the fragmented world of IBM.  That realm is now a chaos of conflicting
norms and standards that not even IBM can hope to control.  You can buy a
computer that works like an IBM machine but contains nothing made or sold by
IBM itself.  Renegades from IBM constantly set up rival firms and establish
standards of their own.  When IBM recently abandoned some of its original
standards and decreed new ones, many of its rivals declared a puritan
allegiance to IBM's original faith, and denounced the company as a divisive
innovator.  Still, the IBM world is united by its distrust of icons and
imagery.  IBM's screens are designed for language, not pictures.  Graven
images may be tolerated by the luxurious cults, but the true IBM faith relies
on the austerity of the word.
                -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988

As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great
industries are secure.  We hear about constitutional rights, free speech
and the free press.  Every time I hear these words I say to myself, "That
man is a Red, that man is a Communist".  You never hear a real American
talk like that.
                -- Frank Hague, 1896-1956

As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong?