Linux Work

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 course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy.

Once it hits the fan, the only rational choice is to sweep it up, package it,
and sell it as fertilizer.

    One fine day, the bus driver went to the bus garage, started his bus,
and drove off along the route.  No problems for the first few stops -- a few
people got on, a few got off, and things went generally well.  At the next
stop, however, a big hulk of a guy got on.  Six feet eight, built like a
wrestler, arms hanging down to the ground.  He glared at the driver and said,
"Big John doesn't pay!" and sat down at the back.
    Did I mention that the driver was five feet three, thin, and basically
meek?  Well, he was.  Naturally, he didn't argue with Big John, but he wasn't
happy about it.  Well, the next day the same thing happened -- Big John got on
again, made a show of refusing to pay, and sat down.  And the next day, and the
one after that, and so forth.  This grated on the bus driver, who started
losing sleep over the way Big John was taking advantage of him.  Finally he
could stand it no longer. He signed up for bodybuilding courses, karate, judo,
and all that good stuff.  By the end of the summer, he had become quite strong;
what's more, he felt really good about himself.
    So on the next Monday, when Big John once again got on the bus
and said "Big John doesn't pay!," the driver stood up, glared back at the
passenger, and screamed, "And why not?"
    With a surprised look on his face, Big John replied, "Big John has a
bus pass."

One good suit is worth a thousand resumes.

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 of your most ancient writers, a historian named Herodotus, tells of a
thief who was to be executed.  As he was taken away he made a bargain with
the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing
hymns.  The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and
laughed.  "You will not succeed," they told him.  "No one can."
    To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might
happen in that time.  The king might die.  The horse might die.  I might die.
And perhaps the horse will learn to sing.
        -- "The Mote in God's Eye", Niven and Pournelle

One possible reason that things aren't going according to plan
is that there never was a plan in the first place.

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 way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a new model.