Freebsd Fortunes 2

... one of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs.
                -- Robert Firth

... proper attention to Earthly needs of the poor, the depressed and the
downtrodden, would naturally evolve from dynamic, articulate, spirited
awareness of the great goals for Man and the society he conspired to erect.
                -- David Baker, paraphrasing Harold Urey, in
                   "The History of Manned Space Flight"

-- Scintillate, scintillate, asteroid minikin.
-- Members of an avian species of identical plumage congregate.
-- Surveillance should precede saltation.
-- Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.
-- It is fruitless to become lachrymose over precipitately departed
        lacteal fluid.
-- Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude.
-- It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated
        canine with innovative maneuvers.
-- Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion.
-- The temperature of the aqueous content of an unremittingly
        galled saucepan does not reach 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

... So the documentary-makers stick with sharks.  Generally, their
procedure is to scatter bleeding fish pieces around their boat, so as
to infest the waters.  I would estimate that the primary food source of
sharks today is bleeding fish pieces scattered by people making
documentaries.  Once the sharks arrive, they are generally fairly
listless.  The general shark attitude seems to be: "Oh God, another
documentary."  So the divers have to somehow goad them into attacking,
under the guise of Scientific Research.  "We know very little about the
effect of electricity on sharks," the narrator will say, in a deeply
scientific voice.  "That is why Todd is going to jab this Great White
in the testicles with a cattle prod."  The divers keep this kind of
thing up until the shark finally gets irritated and snaps at them, and
then they act as though this was a totally unexpected and very
dangerous development, although clearly it is what they wanted all along.
                -- Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"

***** Special AI Seminar (abstract)

It has been widely recognized that AI programs require expert knowledge
in order to perform well in complex domains.  But knowledge alone is not
sufficient for some applications; wisdom is needed as well.  Accordingly,
we have developed a new approach to artificial intelligence which we call
"wisdom engineering".  As a test of our ideas, we have written IMMANUEL, a
wisdom based system for the task domain of western philosophical thought.
IMMANUEL was supplied initially with 200 wisdom units which contained wisdom
about such elementary concepts as mind, matter, being, nothingness, and so
forth.  IMMANUEL was then allowed to run freely, guided by the heuristic
rules contained in its heterarchically organized meta wisdom base.  IMMANUEL
succeeded in rediscovering most of the important philosophical ideas developed
in western culture over the course of the last 25 centuries, including those
underlying Plato's theory of government, Kant's metaphysics, Nietzsche's theory
of value, and Husserl's phenomenology.  In this seminar, we will describe
IMMANUEL's achievements and internal architecture.  We will also briefly
discuss our recent efforts to apply wisdom engineering to oil exploration.

-- THE BATES MOTEL --
                                        ... convenient
                                        ...      clean
                                        ...       cozy

        Norman, knock loudly,
             I'm in the shower.

                M.

-- The writing implement is more potent than the claymore.
-- All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.
-- When there are visible vapors having the prevenience in ignited carbonaceous
        materials, there is conflagration.
-- Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.
-- A plethora of individuals wither expertise in culinary techniques vitiated
        the potable concoction produced by steeping certain coupestibles.
-- The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the
        optimal cachinnation.
-- Eleemosynary deeds have their initial incidence intramurally.

... there are about 5,000 people who are part of that committee.  These guys
have a hard time sorting out what day to meet, and whether to eat croissants
or doughnuts for breakfast -- let alone how to define how all these complex
layers that are going to be agreed upon.
                -- Craig Burton of Novell, Network World

... TheysaidDoyouseethebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehill?andIsaidYesIsee
thebiggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillTheresabigdarkforestbetweenmeandthe
biggreenglowinthedarkhouseuponthehillandalittleoldladyridingonaHoovervacuum
cleanersayingIllgetyoumyprettyandyourlittledogTototoo ...

        I don't even *HAVE* a dog Toto...

... this is an awesome sight.  The entire rebel resistance buried under six
million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch."
                -- The Firesign Theater