Freebsd Fortunes 2

        Hack placidly amidst the noisy printers and remember what prizes there
may be in Science.  As fast as possible get a good terminal on a good system.
Enter your data clearly but always encrypt your results.  And listen to others,
even the dull and ignorant, for they may be your customers.  Avoid loud and
aggressive persons, for they are sales reps.
        If you compare your outputs with those of others, you may be surprised,
for always there will be greater and lesser numbers than you have crunched.
Keep others interested in your career, and try not to fumble; it can be a real
hassle and could change your fortunes in time.
        Exercise system control in your experiments, for the world is full of
bugs.  But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive
for linearity and everywhere papers are full of approximations.  Strive for
proportionality.  Especially, do not faint when it occurs.  Neither be cyclical
about results; for in the face of all data analysis it is sure to be noticed.
        Take with a grain of salt the anomalous data points.  Gracefully pass
them on to the youth at the next desk.  Nurture some mutual funds to shield
you in times of sudden layoffs.  But do not distress yourself with imaginings
-- the real bugs are enough to screw you badly.  Murphy's Law runs the
Universe -- and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt <Curl>B*n dS = 0.
        Therefore, grab for a piece of the pie, with whatever proposals you
can conceive of to try.  With all the crashed disks, skewed data, and broken
line printers, you can still have a beautiful secretary.  Be linear.  Strive
to stay employed.
                -- Technolorata, "Analog", Dr. Arlan Keith Andrews, Sr.

        "Haig, in congressional hearings before his confirmatory, paradoxed
his audiencers by abnormaling his responds so that verbs were nouned, nouns
verbed, and adjectives adverbised.  He techniqued a new way to vocabulary his
thoughts so as to informationally uncertain anybody listening about what he
had actually implicationed.
        "If that is how General Haig wants to nervous breakdown the Russian
leadership, he may be shrewding his way to the biggest diplomatic invent
since Clausewitz.  Unless, that is, he schizophrenes his allies first."
                -- The Guardian

        Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse.  Software said: "You
are the Yin and I am the Yang.  If we travel together we will become famous
and earn vast sums of money."  And so the pair set forth together, thinking
to conquer the world.
        Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags, and
hobbled along propped on a thorny stick.  Firmware said to them: "The Tao
lies beyond Yin and Yang.  It is silent and still as a pool of water.  It does
not seek fame, therefore nobody knows its presence.  It does not seeks fortune,
for it is complete within itself.  It exists beyond space and time."
        Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

        Harry, a golfing enthusiast if there ever was one, arrived home
from the club to an irate, ranting wife.
        "I'm leaving you, Harry," his wife announced bitterly.  "You
promised me faithfully that you'd be back before six and here it is almost
nine.  It just can't take that long to play 18 holes of golf."
        "Honey, wait," said Harry.  "Let me explain.  I know what I promised
you, but I have a very good reason for being late.  Fred and I tee'd off
right on time and everything was find for the first three holes.  Then, on
the fourth tee Fred had a stroke.  I ran back to the clubhouse but couldn't
find a doctor.  And, by the time I got back to Fred, he was dead.  So, for
the next 15 holes, it was hit the ball, drag Fred, hit the ball, drag Fred...

        Harry constantly irritated his friends with his eternal optimism.
No matter how bad the situation, he would always say, "Well, it could have
been worse."
        To cure him of his annoying habit, his friends decided to invent a
situation so completely black, so dreadful, that even Harry could find no
hope in it.  Approaching him at the club bar one day, one of them said,
"Harry!  Did you hear what happened to George?  He came home last night,
found his wife in bed with another man, shot them both, and then turned
the gun on himself!"
        "Terrible," said Harry.  "But it could have been worse."
        "How in hell," demanded his dumfounded friend, "could it possibly
have been worse?"
        "Well," said Harry, "if it had happened the night before, I'd be
dead right now."

        He had been bitten by a dog, but didn't give it much thought
until he noticed that the wound was taking a remarkably long time to
heal.  Finally, he consulted a doctor who took one look at it and
ordered the dog brought in.  Just as he had suspected, the dog had
rabies.  Since it was too late to give the patient serum, the doctor
felt he had to prepare him for the worst.  The poor man sat down at the
doctor's desk and began to write.  His physician tried to comfort him.
"Perhaps it won't be so bad," he said. "You needn't make out your will
right now."
        "I'm not making out any will," relied the man.  "I'm just writing
out a list of people I'm going to bite!"

        ...He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither
does he hate it.  Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to
combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is
self-propagating.
                -- Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose"

        "Heard you were moving your piano, so I came over to help."
        "Thanks.  Got it upstairs already."
        "Do it alone?"
        "Nope.  Hitched the cat to it."
        "How would that help?"
        "Used a whip."

        "Hello, Mrs. Premise!"
        "Oh, hello, Mrs. Conclusion!  Busy day?"
        "Busy? I just spent four hours burying the cat."
        "Four hours to bury a cat!?"
        "Yes, he wouldn't keep still: wrigglin' about, 'owlin'..."
        "Oh, it's not dead then."
        "Oh no, no, but it's not at all a well cat, and as we're
goin' away for a fortnight I thought I'd better bury it just to be
on the safe side."
        "Quite right.  You don't want to come back from Sorrento
to a dead cat, do you?"
                -- Monty Python

        Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the month.
According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people are experiencing
severe marketing anxiety in China.
        The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either (depending
on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax tadpole".
        Bite the wax tadpole.
        There is a sort of rough justice, is there not?
        The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's hard
to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to bite a wax
tadpole.  Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare.  Not bad, but broad
satiric vistas do not open up.
                -- John Carrol, The San Francisco Chronicle