Freebsd Fortunes 2

        Price Wang's programmer was coding software.  His fingers danced upon
the keyboard.  The program compiled without an error message, and the program
ran like a gentle wind.
        Excellent!" the Price exclaimed, "Your technique is faultless!"
        "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal, "What I
follow is the Tao -- beyond all technique.  When I first began to program I
would see before me the whole program in one mass.  After three years I no
longer saw this mass.  Instead, I used subroutines.  But now I see nothing.
My whole being exists in a formless void.  My senses are idle.  My spirit,
free to work without a plan, follows its own instinct.  In short, my program
writes itself.  True, sometimes there are difficult problems.  I see them
coming, I slow down, I watch silently.  Then I change a single line of code
and the difficulties vanish like puffs of idle smoke.  I then compile the
program.  I sit still and let the joy of the work fill my being.  I close my
eyes for a moment and then log off."
        Price Wang said, "Would that all of my programmers were as wise!"
                -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

        "Reintegration complete," ZORAC advised.  "We're back in the
universe again..."  An unusually long pause followed, "...but I don't
know which part.  We seem to have changed our position in space."  A
spherical display in the middle of the floor illuminated to show the
starfield surrounding the ship.
        "Several large, artificial constructions are approaching us,"
ZORAC announced after a short pause.  "The designs are not familiar, but
they are obviously the products of intelligence.  Implications: we have
been intercepted deliberately by a means unknown, for a purpose unknown,
and transferred to a place unknown by a form of intelligence unknown.
Apart from the unknowns, everything is obvious."
                -- James P. Hogan, "Giants Star"

        Reporters like Bill Greider from the Washington Post and Him
Naughton of the New York Times, for instance, had to file long, detailed,
and relatively complex stories every day -- while my own deadline fell
every two weeks -- but neither of them ever seemed in a hurry about
getting their work done, and from time to time they would try to console
me about the terrible pressure I always seemed to be laboring under.
        Any $100-an-hour psychiatrist could probably explain this problem
to me, in thirteen or fourteen sessions, but I don't have time for that.
No doubt it has something to do with a deep-seated personality defect, or
maybe a kink in whatever blood vessel leads into the pineal gland...  On
the other hand, it might be something as simple & basically perverse as
whatever instinct it is that causes a jackrabbit to wait until the last
possible second to dart across the road in front of a speeding car.
                -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail"

        "Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing
what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt
somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if..."
        "He was going to suck my blood!"
        "Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt
if they don't live our way."
...
        "The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that
happens to be impossible.  The phrase is hurt somebody else.  We choose,
ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what.  Us who decides.
Nobody else.  My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him?  That's
his decision to be hurt, that's his choice.  What you do about it is your
decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake
through his heart.  If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist,
in whatever way he wants.  It goes on and on, choices, choices."
        "When you look at it that way..."
        "Listen," he said, "it's important.  We are all.  Free.  To do.
Whatever.  We want.  To do."
                -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"

        Risch's decision procedure for integration, not surprisingly,
uses a recursion on the number and type of the extensions from the
rational functions needed to represent the integrand.  Although the
algorithm follows and critically depends upon the appropriate structure
of the input, as in the case of multivariate factorization, we cannot
claim that the algorithm is a natural one.  In fact, the creator of
differential algebra, Ritt, committed suicide in the early 1950's,
largely, it is claimed, because few paid attention to his work.  Probably
he would have received more attention had he obtained the algorithm as
well.
                -- Joel Moses, "Algorithms and Complexity", ed. J.F. Traub

        Robert Kennedy's 1964 Senatorial campaign planners told him that
their intention was to present him to the television viewers as a sincere,
generous person.  "You going to use a double?" asked Kennedy.

        Thumbing through a promotional pamphlet prepared for his 1964
Senatorial campaign, Robert Kennedy came across a photograph of himself
shaking hands with a well-known labor leader.
        "There must be a better photo that this," said Kennedy to the
advertising men in charge of his campaign.
        "What's wrong with this one?" asked one adman.
        "That fellow's in jail," said Kennedy.
                -- Bill Adler, "The Washington Wits"

        SAFETY
I can live without
Someone I love
But not without
Someone I need.

        Sam went to his psychiatrist complaining of a hatred for elephants.
"I can't stand elephants," he explained.  "I lie awake nights despising
them.  The thought of an elephant fills me with loathing."
        "Sam," said the psychiatrist, "there's only one thing for you to do.
Go to Africa, organize a safari, find an elephant in the jungle and shoot it.
That way you'll get it out of your system."
        Sam immediately made arrangements for a safari hunt in Africa,
inviting his best friend to join him.   They arrived in Nairobi and lost no
time getting out on the jungle trails.  After they had been hunting for
several days, Sam's best friend grabbed him by the arm one morning and
yelled at him:
        "Sam, Sam, Sam!  Over there behind that tree there's and elephant!
Sam -- Get your gun -- no, no, not THAT gun -- the rifle with the longer
barrel!  Now aim it!  QUICK!  SAM!  QUICK!  No!  Not that way -- this way!
Be sure you don't jerk the trigger!  Wait SAM!  Don't let him see you!  Aim
at his head!"
        Sam whirled around, took aim, and killed his friend.  He was put in
prison and his psychiatrist flew to Africa to visit him.  "I sent you over
here to kill and elephant and instead you shoot your best friend," the
psychiatrist said.  "Why?"
        "Well," Sam replied, "there's only one thing in the world that I
hate more than elephants and that is a loudmouth know-it-all!"

        Seems George was playing his usual eighteen holes on Saturday
afternoon.  Teeing off from the 17th, he sliced into the rough over near
the edge of the fairway.  Just as he was about to chip out, he noticed a
long funeral procession going past on a nearby street.  Reverently, George
removed his hat and stood at attention until the procession had passed.
Then he continued his game, finishing with a birdie on the eighteenth.
Later, at the clubhouse, a fellow golfer greet George.  "Say, that was a
nice gesture you made today, George.
        "What do you mean?" asked George.
        "Well, it was nice of you to take off your cap and stand
respectfully when that funeral went by," the friend replied.
        "Oh, yes," said George.  "Well, we were married 17 years, you
know."

        "Seven years and six months!"  Humpty Dumpty repeated thoughtfully.
"An uncomfortable sort of age.  Now if you'd asked MY advice, I'd have
said 'Leave off at seven' -- but it's too late now."
        "I never ask advice about growing,"  Alice said indignantly.
        "Too proud?"  the other enquired.
        Alice felt even more indignant at this suggestion.  "I mean,"
she said, "that one can't help growing older."
        "ONE can't, perhaps," said Humpty Dumpty; "but TWO can.  With
proper assistance, you might have left off at seven."
                -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass"