Things People Said

Chin up

2009-08-16T23:52:00.000+08:00

Wow I never knew there was so much negativity and misery involved. I can be cranky and depressed, but these things come and go. There's always nice food and nice things and fun stuff to do. Or books!

-- Squit

Call Me Like Music

2009-08-09T11:09:00.001+08:00

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat ..."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

(First collected ages ago on Malabar Hill, Bombay)

Erm, what?

2009-06-30T18:31:00.002+08:00

Unrelenting indecision, isolation, confusion and anxiety about working, relationships and direction is reported by people in their mid-twenties to early thirties who are usually urban, middle class and well-educated; those who should be able to capitalize on their youth, unparalleled freedom and free-for-all individuation.

-- Kate Carraway, Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis

A large part of my life

2009-03-26T21:11:00.004+08:00

As soon as we started programming, we found out to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.

-- attributed to Maurice Wilkes, 1949

(Here's a lovely description of how debugging works.)

Inclusion

2009-02-16T01:35:00.003+08:00

We [Muslims] need to start having a more inclusive attitude. We need to be the change we would like to see in the world.

We are a piece of the greater puzzle of this world. We share it with other peoples, and other nations, with hopes and aspirations of their own. The Muslim today, as a pan-ethnic, pan-national identity, has much to be proud of. Our contributions to the world are many and lasting. We are intrinsically and inextricably part of the family of humanity, and though people like Mr. Wilders and others like him seek to dehumanize us as “the other,” belittle our grievances, and seek to exclude us from pursuing happiness like everyone else, we should know better.

-- Iftekharul Haque, Geert Wilders' Fitna: Much Ado About Nothing

Looking back on today

2009-02-09T01:29:00.004+08:00

I don't think [Slashdot] will exist in 5-10 years. We can see that it is being torn asunder even now, as the weight of its users grows apace and the number of users exceeds 300k, 400k , 500k where will it stop? Also, there is a migration of the most intelligent users away to kuro5hin, which is a much more innovative weblog than /., and is a community rather than a mob.

Ultimately, I don't think Slashdot will exist in 5 years time for technological reasons. Eventually everyone will have huge bandwidth and something else will spring up to take /.'s place. I consider Slashdot to be a hiatus between Usenet and the next big thing.

Regarding Karma, I agree. It really doesn't matter a hoot, and 'Karma Whores' appear to be a thing of the past with the advent of the Karma Cap. However, it really would be better for /. if Karma were invisisble to the user, that way the pointless competitive aspect would not occur.

I just wish the people that harass me would get the message and go away. They really are annoying, and appear to have the wrong end of the stick.

-- "Heidi Wall", Slashdot in 5-10 years?, in February, 2001

All in this ... together.

2009-01-21T00:03:00.002+08:00

Wally Greenslade: [...] Neddie Seagoon arrived at the port of Guatemala, where he was accorded the typical Latin welcome to an Englishman.
Moriarty: Hands up, you pig swine pbbt.
Seagoon: Have a care, Latin devil. I'm an Englishman. Remember, this rolled umbrella has more uses than one.
Moriarty: Oooh!
Seagoon: Sorry ...
Moriarty: Sapristi bombit.
Seagoon: Now, now what's all this about?
Moriarty: It is the revolution, Señor — everywhere there is an armed rising.
Seagoon: Are you in it?
Moriarty: Right in it — you see, you see Señor, the united anti-socialist neo-democratic pro-fascist communist party is fighting to overthrow the unilateral democratic united partisan bellicose pacifist cobelligerent Tory labour liberal party.
Seagoon: Whose side are you on?
Moriarty: (Grandly) There are no sides ... we are all in this ... together.

-- Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan, The Goon Show: The Affair of the Lone Banana (first broadcast: October 26, 1954)

Optimism

2008-12-01T18:00:00.002+08:00

All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug.".

-- Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month

Srsly

2008-11-11T20:15:00.002+08:00

Neon Genesis Evangelion superficially resembles a mecha show, but this is intentionally misleading; the show is in fact a post-modern Deconstruction of the giant robot genre, thoroughly shot through with dysfunctional characters caught on a depressing apocalyptic downslide.

-- From Television Tropes & Idioms

GLaDOS

2008-10-04T11:33:00.002+08:00

Aperture Science
We do what we must because we can
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are dead

But there’s no sense crying over every mistake
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake
And the science gets done and you make a neat gun
For the people who are still alive

-- Jonathan Coulton, Still Alive, from the video game Portal

Only human

2008-09-10T20:03:00.002+08:00

I sometimes think I want you
Only because it would break my heart not to.
Because wanting you is what I do.
And it would break my heart
To break routine.
Occasionally, I allow myself a peep
At the idea that I might not want you
And that my worship of you
Is like your worship of cats
And other domestic things
That cannot harm.

Other times I think I want you
Because I am only human,
And will die a human death;
And you, and wanting you,
Means I’m alive.

Then something will happen.
I might catch a peep of a smile
Cracking in the corner of your mouth,
And something supercharges me and kills me
A million times over,
Each time better than the last.
But that something,
That smile,
That reason,
That hasn’t occurred in a while.

-- Ed Harris, Porshia (PDF)

History, our story

2008-09-09T00:27:00.002+08:00

No one changes what happens to them.
History is the story of one unhappy family
and a family is a group of strangers who live together.

-- from My Wife, by Philip Schultz

Casually

2008-09-09T00:13:00.003+08:00

I would manage by some trick
To switch the talk to eels
Or lore of the horse and cart
Or the Provisionals.

But my tentative art
His turned back watches too:
He was blown to bits
Out drinking in a curfew

-- From Casualty, by Seamus Heaney

Who?

2008-09-08T23:56:00.002+08:00

A contradiction inside a paradox, wrapped up in an enigma.

-- "Pavlov", The Pretender P. T. B.

History of computing in one paragraph

2007-12-02T00:27:00.000+08:00

Moore begat Intel. Intel begat Mostech, Zilog and Atari. Mostech begat 6502, and Zilog begat Z80. Intel also begat 8800, who begat Altair; and 8086, mother of all PCs. 6502 begat Commodore, who begat PET and 64; and Apple, who begat 2. (Apple is the great Mystery, the Fruit that was devoured, yet bloomed again.) Atari begat 800 and 1200, masters of the game, who were destroyed by Sega and Nintendo. Xerox begat PARC. Commodore and PARC begat Amiga, creator of fine arts; Apple and PARC begat Lisa, who begat Macintosh, who begat iMac. Atari and PARC begat ST, the music maker, who died and was no more. Z80 begat Sinclair the dwarf, TRS-80 and CP/M, who begat many machines, but soon passed from this world. Altair, Apple and Commodore together begat Microsoft, the Great Darkness which is called Abomination, Destroyer of the Earth, the Gates of Hell.

-- from the Gospel of Tux, ch 0, ver 9

Achewood/Ray

2007-10-25T02:16:00.000+08:00

"Life is freedom. Try it out.

-- Ray Smuckles, in Achewood by Chris Onstad

The Worst Lines of Verse

2007-10-08T02:14:00.002+08:00

For a start, we can rule out James Grainger's promising line:

"Come, muse, let us sing of rats."

Grainger (1721-67) did not have the courage of his convictions and deleted these words on discovering that his listeners dissolved into spontaneous laughter the instant they were read out.

No such reluctance afflicted Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833-70) who was inspired by the subject of war.

"Flash! flash! bang! bang! and we blazed away,
And the grey roof reddened and rang;
Flash! flash! and I felt his bullet flay
The tip of my ear. Flash! bang!"

By contrast, Cheshire cheese provoked John Armstrong (1709-79):

"... that which Cestria sends, tenacious paste of solid milk..."

While John Bidlake was guided by a compassion for vegetables:

"The sluggard carrot sleeps his day in bed,
The crippled pea alone that cannot stand."

George Crabbe (1754-1832) wrote:

"And I was ask'd and authorized to go
To seek the firm of Clutterbuck and Co."

William Balmford explored the possibilities of religious verse:

"So 'tis with Christians, Nature being weak
While in this world, are liable to leak."

And William Wordsworth showed that he could do it if he really tried when describing a pond:

"I've measured it from side to side;
Tis three feet long and two feet wide."

-- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"

In the beginning

2007-08-30T08:06:00.000+08:00

(He opens a tolm and begins.)

It says: "In the beginning was the Word."
Already I am stopped. It seems absurd.
The Word does not deserve the highest prize,
I must translate it otherwise.
If I am well inspired and not blind.
It says: "In the beginning was the Mind."
Ponder that first line, wait and see,
Lest you should write too hastily.
Is the Mind the all-creating source?
It ought to say: "In the beginning there was Force."
Yet something warns me as I grasp the pen,
That my translation must be changed again.
The spirit helps me. Now it is exact.
I write: "In the beginning was the Act.

-- Goethe's Faust

A human being should

2007-08-29T21:43:00.000+08:00

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-- Robert A. Heinlein

Itself the doing of them

2007-07-28T02:55:00.000+08:00

They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more.

They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought. No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for doing these things was itself the doing of them.

To wield oneself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods."

-- Gordon R. Dickson, Soldier Ask Not

Independence

2007-07-01T16:04:00.001+08:00

And he has become so independent. He didn't want his mother to help him even with his English. He had to read Oscar Wilde, he said. My wife immediately went gaga about Wilde's wit and humour. But he cut her short. "Where's the wit and humour in The Picture of Dorian Gray?" he asked. That was the first time we heard he had read Dorian Gray. They had to do it in class, he said. And we didn't know it until last night.

-- Rana, Shakespeare Mocked

Never, ever

2007-05-11T02:40:00.000+08:00

That's what I want to hear ... Always let your thoughts rise up to heaven, or go down into the ocean, and if all else fails, let them climb a mountain, but never make things hard on yourself.

-- Mother's old Aunt, in Big Breasts and Wide Hips by Mo Yan

But all are worth hard work

2007-04-25T19:13:00.000+08:00

I can't create quality work by myself. I rely on other implementors to help me both with technical wizardry and with overcoming the limitations of the medium. I rely on testers to tell me both how to communicate my vision better and where the rough edges of the work need polishing. I rely on marketers and salespeople to help me share my vision with more readers. I rely on others to handle administrative details so I can concentrate on the vision.

-- Stu Galley, from The Implementor's Creed

Cricket

2007-04-22T09:40:00.000+08:00

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game.

-- The tea towel explanation of cricket

The true meaning of blogs

2007-03-28T07:11:00.000+08:00

Indie Pete: Give a man your ear and he complains for a day.
Indie Pete: Teach a man to blog and he kvetches for a lifetime!

-- R. Stevens, Diesel Sweeties #1708

And a Jurassic Park quote

2007-03-27T06:51:00.000+08:00

Yoshi might not have bit you if you hadn't just called him a girl. But hey, if you're gonna go, might as well go with a smile and a Jurassic Park quote.

-- Caption to Dr. McNinja, issue 5, page 34

The difference

2007-03-13T22:31:00.000+08:00

Further, the letter claims that "ODF is closely tied to OpenOffice and related products" (bad!) while OOXML "reflects the rich set of capabilities in Office 2007" (good!). A more even-handed sentence might read: ODF is an XML-based dump of the internal data structures of OpenOffice, while OOXML is an XML-based dump of the internal data structures of Microsoft Office.

-- Håkon Wium Lie, Microsoft's amusing standards stance

Cartoon Law X

2007-03-08T23:05:00.000+08:00

For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance. This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead.

-- From the Cartoon Laws of Physics

A strictly accurate account that nonetheless resembles a venture into fantasy

2007-03-08T17:18:00.000+08:00

Eleven years ago, the Chilean Pablo Neruda, one of the outstanding poets of our time, enlightened this audience with his word. Since then, the Europeans of good will - and sometimes those of bad, as well - have been struck, with ever greater force, by the unearthly tidings of Latin America, that boundless realm of haunted men and historic women, whose unending obstinacy blurs into legend. We have not had a moment's rest. A promethean president, entrenched in his burning palace, died fighting an entire army, alone; and two suspicious airplane accidents, yet to be explained, cut short the life of another great-hearted president and that of a democratic soldier who had revived the dignity of his people. There have been five wars and seventeen military coups; there emerged a diabolic dictator who is carrying out, in God's name, the first Latin American ethnocide of our time. In the meantime, twenty million Latin American children died before the age of one - more than have been born in Europe since 1970. Those missing because of repression number nearly one hundred and twenty thousand, which is as if no one could account for all the inhabitants of Uppsala. Numerous women arrested while pregnant have given birth in Argentine prisons, yet nobody knows the whereabouts and identity of their children who were furtively adopted or sent to an orphanage by order of the military authorities. Because they tried to change this state of things, nearly two hundred thousand men and women have died throughout the continent, and over one hundred thousand have lost their lives in three small and ill-fated countries of Central America: Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. If this had happened in the United States, the corresponding figure would be that of one million six hundred thousand violent deaths in four years.

-- Gabriel García Márquez, Nobel Lecture 1982

Suckitude

2007-02-24T18:01:00.000+08:00

Electron Mike: My life may suck, but it sucks exactly the way I like it!

-- R Stevens, Diesel Sweeties

Like, duh

2007-02-19T21:58:00.000+08:00

and, char (*(*x())[])() is
 a function returning a pointer
 to an array of pointers to
 functions returning char

-- From 0x0de2c

Really?

2007-02-15T03:12:00.000+08:00

Falling in love is a lot like dying. You never get to do it enough to become good at it.

-- Anonymous, from the Fortune program

We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike

2007-02-07T01:20:00.000+08:00

I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.

Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.

The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.

I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.

I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.

Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.

We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.

We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.

I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

-- Maya Angelou, Human Family

My self

2007-02-05T14:07:00.000+08:00

If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?

-- Hillel the Elder, Pirkei Avot 1:14

In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.

-- Hillel the Elder, Pirkei Avot 2:6

Never to be ashamed

2007-02-01T01:47:00.000+08:00

Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world -- even if what is published is not true.

-- Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul

Here and now

2007-01-18T11:46:00.000+08:00

We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness; it is always urgent, "here and now," without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point blank.

-- Ortega y Gasset

In memory of Momofuku Ando

2007-01-16T22:55:00.000+08:00

O mighty hungry-quelling grail
I know your powers will not fail
your great maker now has passed
but without water you will last
for centuries and a day
you comply with Y3K
boil, pour, close and seal
three minutes pass, voila! a meal
Ramen

-- Illiad, on UserFriendly

A lil story

2007-01-16T22:52:00.000+08:00

as someone that has gone through this system on this.

Many moons ago I went out to meet this gal I met online, I knew she was under 18 but I was early 20s and stupid so I went out to meet her and I got busted as I walked in the door, tossed in jail and got a lawyer and got out on probation.

5 years, 2 lie detector tests, 2 years of mandatory therapy, tens of thousands of dollars spent out of mine and my families pocket, 1 career, 1 fiancee all lost along the way because I never really did anything but I thought with my love whistle insetad of the head on my shoulders.

So now I'm labeled a pure hardcore sex offender. I'm on the website here in my state, my glorious picture is up there, they put posters all around my white color suburbanite neighborhood, my neighbors who knew me couldn't believe it, the ones who didn't' saw me and pulled their kids aside like I was going to eat them alive when it was the farthest thing from the truth. I've had people spit upon my father who has a lawn business, mom who gets harrassed at her school from other teachers cause of it, my friends got hassled and dropped me like the plague. I got to see who my true friends and people were. People who were still there, still loyal, looked past my stupid mistake and realized "Hey, he did something really dumb, but he didn't rape some kid or kidnap a school bus full of girl scouts."

So here I sit here after I got all my ducks in a row, got a consulting job because companies hire business' not people so no background check, going to school out of state because they don't require registration or signup stating that some kiddy raper is attending their school, I live in a place that's in a decent area but the county is trying to squeeze people like me out because the community thinks we are all 'horrible representations of society' or some nonsense. I had to grow up alot along the way and I learned alot about the legal and criminal system and know there are thousands upon thousands of guys like me that are out there that really won't be able to be 'themselves' for 20yrs or so until it's all cleared up in the system and maybe a pardon for the governator.

I'm sorry for what I did to my family, to my friends, and to that lil child whom when I saw her in court I would've never done a thing to as she looked like my lil 12 yr old sister.

Do I feel my debt to society has been repaid? You be the judge on that. I'll let you know in 10 more years.

-- Anonymous Coward, on Slashdot

Actually that happened

2007-01-16T22:45:00.000+08:00

In the mac world, word 6 actually had fewer features and was harder to use than mac word 5. the difference was that it was identical to the PC product. that is, they advanced the PC product to have features that were already in the mac product, and then regressesed and reskinned the mac product ot make it identical. I remember my extreme rage, shared by many, at this and vowen not to upgrade. Then after a month or so I got a critical contract application form in word 6. I could not read it in word 5 and had to buy word 6. so yes to your question.

-- goombah99, on Slashdot

Where the mind is without fear

2007-01-15T19:22:00.000+08:00

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee to ever-widening thought and action –
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

Don't worry, be happy

2007-01-13T00:08:00.000+08:00

If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.

-- Despair DeMotivator poster: Ineptitude

To be a writer

2007-01-10T16:38:00.000+08:00

For me, to be a writer is to acknowledge the secret wounds that we carry inside us, wounds so secret that we ourselves are barely aware of them, and to patiently explore them, know them, illuminate them, own them, and make them a conscious part of our spirit and our writing.

-- Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Lecture 2006

That's impossible

2007-01-04T16:19:00.000+08:00

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

-- Terry Bisson, They're made out of meat

Marcenda Sampaio is here

2007-01-04T09:55:00.000+08:00

Three days later, Marcenda appeared at the office. She told the receptionist that she wished to be seen last, that she was not there as a patient. Tell the doctor, when all the other patients have gone, that Marcenda Sampaio is here, and she slipped a twenty-escudo note into the receptionist's pocket. The message was delivered at the opportune moment, when Ricardo Reis had already removed his white coat, almost like a cassock and barely three-quarter length, which explains why he was not and never would be a high priest of this hygienic cult, but only the sacristan responsible for emptying and washing the altar cruets, for lighting and putting out the candles, for inscribing the certificates, needless to say, of death.

-- Jose Saramago, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

Reciprocity

2007-01-02T21:22:00.000+08:00

You who would sorrow even for a token
Of hurt in me no less than you would grieve
For seeing me with my whole body broken
And long no less to solace and relieve;
You who, as though you wished me mere Good Morning,
Would smash your heart upon the hardest stones
Of my distress as when you once, unscourning,
Would sleep upon the margin of my moans-
I yield my want, this house of gutted portals,
All to your want, I yield this ravaged stack,
In testimony that between two mortals
No gift may be except a giving back.
What present could I make you from what skill
When your one need is me to need you still?

-- Vassar Miller

Cats are nice

2006-12-29T19:47:00.000+08:00

"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while?"

Death thought about it. "Cats," he said eventually, "Cats are nice."

-- Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

I'd like to know

2006-12-06T21:08:00.000+08:00

Why did it die? -----------------
You'd like to know.
Cry and blame her.

You wait
You're too late
As you're deciding why the wrong one wins, the end begins
And you will lose her.

Why did it die? -----------------
I'd like to know.
Try to save it.

You want her
You need (love) her
So make her see that you believe it may work and some day
You need each other.

-- Paul McCartney, original lyrics to For No One (apparently)

The Fates' lieutenant

2006-11-15T11:05:00.000+08:00

"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthy thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm?"

-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

"Ahab is forever Ahab, man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders."

-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

On Purpose

2006-11-14T11:40:00.000+08:00

... Congress recently handed the National Guard over to the President -- the Guard was set up specifically under the command of state governors, not the president, to spread that military power out a bit. But after more than 125 years, that has suddenly changed: Public Law 109-364, aka the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 (HR 5122), specifically gives the president the power to declare martial law and deploy troops against the citizens of the U.S. Why? We were THIS close to losing World War II, and THAT didn't show the need for such a change in the law. We were at the brink of nuclear war with the Soviets, and THAT didn't show the need for such a change in the law. But a pipsqueak terrorist bastard hiding in the deserts of Afghanistan DOES justify such a radical consolidation of power away from governors, where it was put ON PURPOSE? Why? And where was the public debate about the need for such a thing?

-- Randy Cassingham, This Is True, Nov 5, 2006

There was nothing anyone could do

2006-11-13T13:50:00.000+08:00

It transpired instead though, that the bus driver was dying. Blinded by the dust, he had run into the back of a truck. The bus's steering column had gone through him - severing his legs.

There was nothing anyone could do. Mobile phones do not work here. In any case, who would you call? There are no emergency services.

And no way of getting help through, even if any were to be found. The bus driver bled to death.

We edged past the crumpled bus, and headed on.

-- Mark Whittaker, reporting on BBC World

The Comment Which Broke Slashdot

2006-11-11T11:31:00.000+08:00

Are you sure about that? I think it might have deflated the R's more than the D's - and given real credence to the "time for a change" meme.

Of course, I believe this mainly because the R's didn't set the resignation on Monday - if they had thought it would benefit them, be sure that Rumsfeld would have been gone at least two days ago.

-- DahGhostfacedFiddlah, The comment which broke Slashdot (full story)

Evolving languages

2006-11-09T04:05:00.000+08:00

As George Orwell wrote in 1984, the fewer words we have, the more restricted our thinking becomes. With this in mind, I embrace the evolution and expansion of any language (especially the one I use). Adding words to your language, allows for more freedom of thought and expression. However, it does also mean you need a better spellchecker.

-- D.S of Bromley, England, on BBC News

Yes. We know.

2006-11-08T18:59:00.000+08:00

Enumeration types are a bit odd, bitfields are odder. The "static" keyword is very strange ... There are many odd bits here and there.

-- Dennis Ritchie, in interview

Usability 101

2006-11-08T18:46:00.000+08:00

If you can't click it easily after 3 cans of beer, then it's too small.

-- Des Traynor, Programming Theorems

But she did.

2006-11-04T01:01:00.000+08:00

'I warrant it will. And longer too.
'Tis a scantling that I got
Off poor John Wayward's coffin, who
Died of they knew not what.

-- Thomas Hardy, The Workbox

Six word stories

2006-10-05T01:34:00.000+08:00

"For sale: baby shoes, never used."

-- Ernest Hemmingway (attributed)

Caterina asked her web audience to come up with their own six word stories, and they responded in force. The following are some of my favourites.

Leave that alone; remember Mary's scab.

-- Dean

I loved; I lost; I'm sorry.

-- Slashchick

and then she went to sleep.

-- Linda

She watched the world end. Again.

-- Chuq Von Rospach

They lived, they suffered, they died.

-- Mike's Ancient History Professor

"She said nothing could go wrong."

-- Derek Powazek

Walking home, she regained her virginity.

-- Jim Lyon

It wasn't her fault. Not entirely.
The audience applauded, as he wept.

-- Tom Bridge

today, I threw her toothbrush away.

-- Marcus

Happy: My pillow still smells of her.
Sad: My pillow still smells of her.

-- Filip

The sun rose one last time.

-- Keith

Full Circle

2006-10-04T19:52:00.000+08:00

Interestingly, the name has come full circle, entering Israeli Hebrew as the name [..] Shon, which derives from English Shawn, which derives from Irish Seán, which derives from French Jean, which derives from Latin Johann (variants: Iohann and Ivan v is pronounced as 'u'), a simplification of Johannes, which derives from Greek Ιωαννης, Iōhannēs, which was loaned from Mishnaic Hebrew [..] Yôḥānān during the Second Temple Period, after John the Apostle.

-- John (name) on Wikipedia

To use violence successfully

2006-10-04T17:26:00.000+08:00

Neoconservatives seem to fear that America -- by braving the perils of dissent and democracy -- will be similarly weakened. Part of what makes America "great" is, theoretically at least, its reluctance to use force against other nations. Yet, fearful that standards such as this place us at a disadvantage in the real world, some neoconservatives advocate that America needs to win a war somewhere, to use violence successfully. Their insecurity would have us violate American values -- to mirror the hideous brutality of less open societies -- in order to preserve them.

-- Jason DeParle, Why Gandhi Drives the Neoconservatives Crazy, from the Washington Monthly, September 1983

Pain, in a word or two

2006-09-30T14:27:00.000+08:00

Then there are the parties, and the music that say what I don’t want to hear. I’m sick of love songs, so tired of tears. And then there are the calculated toppling-into-someone-else’s-arms moments I can’t say I don’t enjoy.

Then there are the solitary cab rides home after, because I still won’t stay over if I’m not in love, when all taxis play at five in the morning are songs about sadness and loss, songs about us. Songs about how we could have been good together, but I quote, you tore it apart. The songs in cabs in the mornings are all crap, and I want my life back.

-- Popagandhi, There Are Good Days, Then There Are

Staying stressed is easy!

2006-09-29T21:07:00.000+08:00

STRESS ALSO LETS YOU KEEP YOUR AUTHORITARIAN MANAGEMENT STYLE. The authoritarian style of "Just do what I say!" is generally permissible under crisis conditions. If you maintain a permanently stressed crisis atmosphere, you can justify an authoritarian style all the time.

-- From a bookmark supposedly distributed by De Anza College

What I Need

2006-09-27T22:31:00.000+08:00

Don't wish me happiness. I don't expect to be happy. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor - I will need them all.

-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Funny? Maybe.

2006-09-23T22:00:00.000+08:00

"Gandalf, Gandalf! Take the ring!
I am too small to carry this thing!"

"I can not, will not hold the One.
You have a slim chance, but I have none.
I will not take it on a boat,
I will not take it across a moat.
I cannot take it under Moria,
that's one thing I can't do for ya.
I would not bring it into Mordor,
I would not make it to the border."

-- "excerpt" from Dr. Seuss's Fellowship of the Ring, as per gonzoron. See more. Via India Uncut.

Good design is

2006-09-22T02:35:00.000+08:00

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design helps us to understand a product.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is durable.
Good design is consequent to the last detail.
Good design is concerned with the environment.
Good design is as little design as possible.
Back to purity, back to simplicity.

-- Dieter Rams, from his profile on DesignMuseum

The fear of childishness

2006-09-21T14:49:00.000+08:00

Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

-- C. S. Lewis

Black Perl cometh

2006-09-15T19:43:00.000+08:00

# Black Perl, adapted for Perl 5 by Jonadab.
# Adapted from Black Perl, as seen in the Camel,
# 2nd ed., p 553

BEFOREHAND: close door, each window & exit;  wait until time;
    open spell book; study; read (spell, $scan, select); tell us;
write it, print the hex while each watches,
    reverse length, write again;
           kill spiders, pop them, chop, split, kill them.
              unlink arms, shift, wait and listen (listening, wait).
sort the flock (then, warn "the goats", kill "the sheep");
    kill them, dump qualms, shift moralities,
           values aside, each one;
               die sheep; die (to, reverse the => system
                      you accept (reject, respect));
next step,
    kill next sacrifice, each sacrifice,
           wait, redo ritual until "all the spirits are pleased";
    do it ("as they say").
do it(*everyone***must***participate***in***forbidden**s*e*x*).
return last victim; package body;
    exit crypt (time, times & "half a time") & close it.
           select (quickly) and warn next victim;
AFTERWARDS: tell nobody.
    wait, wait until time;
           wait until next year, next decade;
               sleep, sleep, die yourself,
                      die @last

-- originally written by Larry Page, rewritten for Perl 5 by Jonadab, as seen on Perlmonks

Death and Rebirth

2006-09-13T21:16:00.000+08:00

Two caught on film who hurtle
from the eighty-second floor,
choosing between a fireball
and to jump holding hands,

aren't us. I wake beside you,
stretch, scratch, taste the air,
the incredible joy of coffee
and the morning light.

From September Twelveth, 2001 by X. J. Kennedy

Nothing else?

2006-09-11T03:04:00.000+08:00

I asked no other thing,
No other was denied.
I offered Being for it;
The mighty merchant smiled.

Brazil? He twirled a button
Without a glance my way:
But, madam, is there nothing else
That we can show today?

-- Emily Dickinson

Common sense and a sense of humor

2006-09-10T01:46:00.000+08:00

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

-- Clive James

Never totally at home

2006-09-10T00:06:00.000+08:00

Anyway, we were taught that every culture has its good and bad points, and that every language makes different things easier or harder to say. We were also taught that it's possible to bridge the cultural gap and convey truth despite these differences. In fact, we were taught a basic underlying principle that changed our lives. In fact, it's already changed your life. The basic principle is this: If you want to feel at home in more than one culture, you can't let yourself feel totally at home in any culture.

-- Larry Wall, Yet Another Perl Conference, August 20, 1997

Little things

2006-09-09T15:03:00.000+08:00

The day I can't devote even some fraction of my attention to all the little things in life if is the day the world starts to goto hell. It's the little things that count. Picking up that bit a of trash the guy walking infront of you threw to the ground instead of tossing in the garbage can five feet infront of him, breaking up a fight between two guys who are too drunk to realise how badly they could hurt each other, or asking that girl crying, "Are you okay?" The day I stop caring about one little thing, I'll stop caring about all of them.

-- PakProtector, on Slashdot

Post #250!

Modern life

2006-09-07T00:12:00.000+08:00

Modern life may not be particularly fair, but at least it's not boring.

-- Stephen J. Dubner, from the Freakonomics blog

A True Original

2006-09-06T23:57:00.000+08:00

It's always tough to say goodbye to a true original. They’re a rare breed. And in this day and age of the mixup and the mashup and a general trend towards homogeneity, the true original is such a precious gift. Losing one in their prime magnifies the absence.

-- Jason, from the Signal vs. Noise blog

I wanted to find a nice way to mark Steve Irwin's death – this is the best one that came up. Good night, Steve.

Optimism

2006-09-02T02:36:00.000+08:00

Optimism, n.: The belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, good, bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those accustomed to falling into adversity, and most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but not contagious.

-- Ambrose Bierce

At the edge of understanding, on the threshold of tomorrow

2006-08-30T20:38:00.000+08:00

I'm learning how to stick my head out and admit failure. I'm going back to the drawing board, I'm risking practically everything I have to obey a vision that will not go away. I've abandoned everything familiar and cannot go back. [...]

It takes a human to will -- I am not going to be a robot. I'm going to allow my passion to hang out, and not freeze up in fear -- decisions made in fear have never done anyone any good.

-- Rivka Yael, L'Chayim

Death: can't even get things done

2006-08-30T19:39:00.000+08:00

It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

-- Wislawa Szymborska, "On Death, without Exaggeration"

Messengers

2006-08-26T18:40:00.000+08:00

God, again and again through the ages you have sent messengers To this pitiless world They have said, 'Forgive everyone', they have said, 'Love one another -- Rid your hearts of evil.' They are revered and remembered, yet still in these dark days We turn them away with hollow greetings, from outside the doors of our houses.

-- Rabindranath Tagore, Question

When I Was A Boy

2006-08-26T17:58:00.000+08:00

When I was a boy, My belly was my sundial -- one surer, Truer, and more exact than any of them. This dial told me when 'twas proper time To go to dinner, when I had aught to eat; But nowadays, why even when I have, I can't fall to unless the sun gives leave.

-- Plautus, Against Sundials

Five or six more things

2006-08-26T16:50:00.000+08:00

Anyone who has had a bull by the tail knows five or six more things than someone who hasn't.

-- Mark Twain

The heat!

2006-08-26T15:28:00.000+08:00

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. The smallest Malay rabbit deplores this foolish habit. In Hong Kong they strike a gong and fire off a noonday gun, To reprimand each inmate who's in late. In the mangrove swamps where the python romps There is peace from twelve till two. Even caribous lie around and snooze, for there's nothing else to do. In Bengal to move at all is seldom ever done, But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

-- Noel Coward, Mad Dogs and Englishmen

All the Unreasonable People

2006-08-24T01:44:00.000+08:00

Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.

-- George Bernard Shaw

Viva voce

2006-08-20T11:49:00.000+08:00

"The time has come," the Vulture said,
"To talk of many things,
Of Accidence and Adjectives,
And names of Jewish kings,
How many notes a sackbut has,
And whether shawms have strings."

"Please, Sir," the Undergraduates said,
Turning a little blue,
"We did not know that was the sort
Of thing we had to do."
"We thank you much," the Vulture said,
"Send up another two."

-- Arthur Clement Hilton, The Vulture and the Husbandman

The Company of Immortals

2006-08-16T02:40:00.000+08:00

Don't bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.

-- David Ogilvy

The grandeur of her successes and her failures

2006-08-14T22:42:00.000+08:00

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her successes, and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

-- Jawaharlal Nehru, speech to the constituent assembly, August 15, 1947

Happy Independence Day, India!

Not to run away

2006-08-13T20:53:00.000+08:00

Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible -- not to have run away.

-- Dag Hammarskjold

What if you're made-up?

2006-08-12T01:51:00.000+08:00

May you have
cotton-candy dreams
that whisk you
away into lands of
blissful nothings
mild suns
that twinkle
wink blink
like the stars
and drench you in
moonlight.

I will hold you,
rock you,
lull you,
to sleep.
what if my lullaby is made-up.

what if you are.

-- Amruta, poem to teddy/unborn child/non-existent lover

What Matters Most

2006-08-11T01:18:00.000+08:00

What matters most in life is the right of human beings to live fully in the context of their own genius. In one word, perhaps, to fight for human justice. I once said humanity's cry for human justice reverberates down the corridors of the centuries, and it is still crying for human justice.

-- David Marshall, in interview

Isn't Simply A Test

2006-08-08T15:54:00.000+08:00

House (talking about himself and visions he had): The patient was technically dead for over a minute....
Wilson (from the back of the classroom): Do you think he was dead? Do you think those experiences were real?
House: Define real. They were real experiences. What they meant, personally, I choose to believe that the white light people sometimes see, visions, this patient saw: they're all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down.
Foreman: You choose to believe that?
House: There's no conclusive science. My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting.
Cameron: You find it more comforting to believe that this is it?
House: I find it more comforting to believe that this isn't simply a test.

-- From the TV series, "House"

Dreaming Big

2006-08-07T00:12:00.000+08:00

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.

-- David Ogilvy

I'll miss you.

2006-08-03T14:19:00.000+08:00

Close your eyes and I'll kiss you
Tomorrow I'll miss you
Remember I'll always be true
And then while I'm away
I'll write home every day
And I'll send all my loving to you

-- Paul McCartney, All My Loving

Goodbye, atya. We'll miss you.

Know you are alone

2006-08-03T04:10:00.000+08:00

Reach into the thoughts of friends,
And find they do not know your name.
Squeeze the teddy bear too tight,
And watch the feathers burst the seams.
Touch the stained glass with your cheek,
And feel its chill upon your blood.
Hold a candle to the night,
And see the darkness bend the flame.
Tear the mask of peace from God,
And hear the roar of souls in hell.
Pluck a rose in name of love,
And watch the petals curl and wilt.
Lean upon the western wind,
And know you are alone.

-- Dru Mims

I will render you / Useless

2006-08-03T02:08:00.000+08:00

You have a large heart, don't you?
Good.
So much the better to feel each
needle-point
knife-edge
cork-screw
Stab.
I will kill you,
But slowly.

I am merciful,
After all.

-- Amruta, Believe in yourself

The Tollway Belle's For Thee

2006-08-02T23:50:00.000+08:00

We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a French restaurant. [...]

I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk white BMW and her Jordache smile. There had been a fight. I had punched her boyfriend, who fought the mechanical bulls. Everyone told him, "You ride the bull, senor. You do not fight it." But he was lean and tough like a bad rib-eye and he fought the bull. And then he fought me. And when we finished there were no winners, just men doing what men must do. [...]

"Stop the car," the girl said.

There was a look of terrible sadness in her eyes. She knew about the woman of the tollway. I knew not how. I started to speak, but she raised an arm and spoke with a quiet and peace I will never forget.

"I do not ask for whom's the tollway belle," she said, "the tollway belle's for thee."

The next morning our youth was a memory, and our happiness was a lie. Life is like a bad margarita with good tequila, I thought as I poured whiskey onto my granola and faced a new day.

-- Peter Applebome, International Imitation Hemingway Competition

You'll Know

2006-08-02T23:43:00.000+08:00

You go slow, be gentle. It's no one-way street -- you know how you feel and that's all. It's how the girl feels too. Don't press. If the girl feels anything for you at all, you'll know. -- Kirk, "Charlie X", stardate 1535.8

Do you get to choose? I choose fire, but I'd prefer ice.

2006-08-02T16:21:00.000+08:00

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost

Cats who Walk by Themselves

2006-08-02T15:13:00.000+08:00

Cats, no less liquid than their shadows,
Offer no angles to the wind.
They slip, diminished, neat through loopholes
Less than themselves; will not be pinned.

-- First lines of a poem by A. S. J. Tessimond.

Heartbreak Special

2006-08-01T23:47:00.000+08:00

Drumsound rises on the air,
its throb, my heart.
A voice inside the beat
says, "I know you're tired,
but come. This is the way."

-- Jeláluddín Rúmí

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.

-- Confucius

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

-- Ellen Parr

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

-- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms

When the heart grieves over what is has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left.

-- Sufi epigram

All our young lives we search for someone to love. Someone who makes us complete. We chose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope all the while, wondering if somewhere and somehow, there is someone searching for us.

-- said by Kevin Arnold, from The Wonder Years

When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.

-- Toni Morrison

Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.

-- Kahlil Gibran

But pain ... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?

-- Lois McMaster Bujold

Short and sweet

2006-07-27T18:45:00.000+08:00

Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest:
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers:
Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers!

-- W. S. Gilbert, Iolanthe

Life and Yogurt

2006-07-22T13:53:00.000+08:00

Life is half delicious yogurt, half crap, and your job is to keep the plastic spoon in the yogurt.

-- Scott Adams, Sleepless in California

Perl!

2006-07-21T08:01:00.000+08:00

Perl may look ugly but it is to most programming languages as English is to most other languages. Perl is a brawling, sprawling mess of borrowed, Hamming-optimized idioms that is extremely ugly from the POV of a syntax engineer and extremely expressive from the POV of a fluent speaker.

-- Dr. Zowie, seen on Slashdot

What Any Lover Learns

2006-07-19T07:35:00.000+08:00

Water is heavy silver over stone.
Water is heavy silver over stone's
Refusal. It does not fall. It fills. It flows
Every crevice, every fault of the stone,
Every hollow. River does not run.
River presses its heavy silver self
Down into stone and stone refuses.

What runs,
Swirling and leaping into sun, is stone's
Refusal of the river, not the river.

-- Archibald MacLeish