Date: 7 Mar 90 16:16:04 PST (Wednesday)
Subject: Life 6.3
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An East Berliner going to a bar parks his bike next to the wall.
He comes back. There's no bicycle... and no wall!
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"Workers of the world, we're sorry!" --Soviet protestor's slogan
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]With the demise of the communist parties, will a red newspaper
]be a thing of the past?
No, not at all. We have at least one here in the People's Republic of
Berkeley.
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RONALD MCDONALD DEFEATS KARL MARX
Moscow (Feb. 7) - Recent events leave no room for doubt: McDonald's
restaurants cause democracy. One week of fast, courteous service has
acheived political pluralism where 70 years of U.S. foreign policy
could not. To review recent events:
JAN 31: The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opens in Moscow.
Twenty-seven lines and a seating capacity of almost 700 ensure that
mass indoctrination will be hasty.
FEB 4: Hundreds of thousands demonstrate for a more open political system
in the largest protest since the Russian Revolution. Heard chanted by the
crowds late into the evening: "McFreedom! McFreedom!"
FEB 7: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union overwhelmingly votes to
abolish its legal monopoly on power.
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Dr. Alexei Izyuromov of the Canada-US Institute in Moscow, recently related
the following joke that was making the rounds among Soviet journalists:
Under Brezhnev, the Soviet economy was led to the edge of an abyss. But
under Gorbachov's policies, they have taken one great leap forward.
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I want to be the kind of man whose passing is mourned rather than rejoiced
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1: Did you hear what happened to the guy who couldn't keep up payments to his
exorcist?
2: No, what?
3: He was repossessed.
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Disclaimer: Any similarities between what I say and what I mean are purely
coincidental.
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There was once was an old man from Esser
Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser
It at last grew so small,
He knew nothing at all
And now he's a college Professor.
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Seen on a bakery delivery truck:
Cakes 66 cents
Upsidedown cakes 99 cents.
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Two golfers were playing along somewhere near the edge of the course.
One of them gazed across the fence and remarked, "Look at those idiots
over there ice skating in this blizzard!"
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Paddy goes into a Hardware store, and says "I'd like to buy some
nails" and the storekeeper goes, "Paddy, paddy, you'll have to be more
specific than that, I've got dozens of different types of nails, I
mean, what sort of head, what diameter, how long would you want them?"
and Paddy goes, "Well, i'd like to keep them if it's alright with
you..."
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A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take
it ill to be railed at by a man in a fever. Just so should a wise man treat
all mankind, as a physician treats a patient, and look upon them only as sick
and extravagant. -- Seneca
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How come Mr. Mobius never seems to see more than one side
to any question?
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"COMPUTERS IN CRISIS: How to Avert the Coming Worldwide Computer
Systems Collapse, by J. T. and M. J. Murray. Forecasts a total
collapse governed by a precise deadline, generates tables showing
the chaos that will be unleashed by the arrival of the year 2000
in a system of 6-digit dates enshrined by the National Bureau
of Standards. 340 pages. Petrocelli. Pub. at $32.95.
$3.95"
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WOMEN ENJOY COMPUTERS MORE THAN MEN, SURVEY SAYS
-- Rockford (Ill.) Register Star.
Yes, but can computers take out the garbage?
-- The New Yorker, 29 Jan 90, p.89.
No, but they can generate it faster.
-- PGN, 27 Jan 90.
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As soon as we started programming, we found 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.
-- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949
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My nomination for the quote of the (litigious) 1980's is:
"Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox's store before I did and
took the TV doesn't mean I can't go in later and steal the stereo."
Bill Gates, Microsoft, 3/14/89--as quoted in MacWEEK, 1/9/90 p. 23
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How about the best response to an unwanted pickup?
Man: So what do you do for a living?
Woman: Female impersonator.
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Another example was that of a man whose wife had died. To save money
he had his information put on the stone at the same time. Since he didn't
know when he was going to die, he just had 1985 put on the stone. He
walked around town for weeks afterward tolerating the folks who said, "I
thought you were dead. Someone saw your stone with 1985 on it." HIS
DESCENDANTS ARE GOING TO HAVE SOME TROUBLE.
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Winston Churchill: "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats
look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."
Harry Bender:
"Imagine the appeals,
Dissents and remandments,
If lawyers had written
The Ten Commandments"
James Thurber: "I think that maybe if women and children
were in charge we would get somewhere."
Johnny Hart's comic strip "B.C.": "If man evolved from the
ape, how come there are still apes around? Some of them were
given choices."
Bill Watterson, cartoonist: "Sometimes I think the surest
sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe
is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Irv Kupcinet: "What can you say about a society that says
God is dead and Elvis is alive?"
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The Cold War is over and we won. But recent celebration over the disintegration
of the Communist bloc and the bankruptcy of socialism should not blind us to
a consequent ecological tragedy -- the endangered-species status of the western
leftist.
The greater and lesser western leftists have lent color and absurdity to our
political landscape for nearly a century now. Who, having ever encountered them
in their once-numerous herds, can forget their odd and brightly colored
plumage, their adept camouflages of ideological directions, their skill at
posing for the media, and the endearingly complete stupidity with which they
confronted a huge range of issues from superpower relations to energy policy?
But, my friends, we are now in serious danger of losing this source of memetic
variety to galloping habitat erosion. As it becomes clearer that socialism is
a one-way ticket to economic failure and eventual political collapse, whole
populations of western leftists are falling silent and dying off. Biomes in
the entertainment industry, organized labor, institutional religion and the
federal beaureaucracy that were once dominated by these creatures have been
taken over by newer political species. Perhaps only the American professoriat
and the so-called "underground" media still support viable breeding colonies.
I call on all libertarians, centrists, and conservatives concerned with the
encouragement of ecopolitical variety -- we must act now, before it is too
late! A world without Mother Jones and Alexander Cockburn and infinite
fatuities about "agrarian reformers" would be a smarter and happier place,
yes -- but also duller. If we don't move to establish protected habitats now,
the American leftist may well follow such lost species as the Whig, the
Monarchist and the Know-Nothing into extinction within a decade. And then
who would we have to kick around?
Act Now -- Help Save the Vanishing Leftist!
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I found the following professionally printed handbill posted on a door
in the Georgetown physiology department.
Did you know?
EVERY TIME A LOAF OF BREAD
IS BAKED,
APPROXIMATELY
150,000,000 YEASTS ARE
KILLED.
____________________________________________________________________________
Come to the award-winning 1987 film,
"The Very Small and Quiet Screams"
-- a cinematic electromicrograph of yeasts being baked.
"A must for those who care about yeast, and especially for those who don't."
____________________________________________________________________________
+------------------------------------+
| Evening showing in Johnson & Wales |
| Pirsig Auditorium: 7PM, 4/19 |
+------------------------------------+
============================================================================
SPONSORED BY
Brown Anaerobe Rights Coalition (BARC)
Student Bakers for Social Responsibility
Coalition for the ELevation of Life (CELL)
Campus Crusade for Fetal Matters
============================================================================
Defend all life: 'from greatest to least, from human to yeast!"
This poster printed on 100% yeast-free paper.
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And a shorter list of humorous one-line sayings that are computer-related...
A computer program does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do.
A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.
A list is only as strong as its weakest link. -- Don Knuth
After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn.
Congratulations! You are the one-millionth user to log into our system.
Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts.
I bet the human brain is a kludge. -- Marvin Minsky
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.
If God had intended Man to program, we would be born with serial I/O ports.
Real programs don't eat cache.
Shift to the left! Shift to the right! Pop up, push down, byte, byte, byte!
Supercomputer: Turns CPU-bound problem into I/O-bound problem. -- Ken Batcher
Swap read error. You lose your mind.
This fortune soaks up 47 times its own weight in excess memory.
This screen intentionally left blank.
What this country needs is a good five-cent microcomputer.
You forgot to do your backup 16 days ago. Tomorrow you'll need that version.
You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it!
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more of the fun one liners:
A boss with no humor is like a job that's no fun.
A couple of months in the lab can often save a couple of hours in the library.
A crisis is when you can't say, "Let's just forget the whole thing." -- Ferguson
A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine.
A motion to adjourn is always in order.
A successful American spends more supporting the government than a family.
According to the official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless.
Actors will happen in the best-regulated families.
An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. -- Van Roy
Auditors always reject expense accounts with a bottom line divisible by five.
Begathon: A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money. -- Hall
Capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win.
Cinemuck: Popcorn, soda, and candy that covers the floors of movie theaters.
Consultation: Medical term meaning "to share the wealth."
Crime does not pay... as well as politics. -- A. E. Newman
Death and taxes are inevitable; at least death doesn't get worse every year.
Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. -- R. Geis
Diplomacy: The art of letting someone else have your way.
Drug: A substance that, when injected into a rat, produces a scientific paper.
Elections come and go, but politics are always with us.
Engineers... they love to change things. -- Leonard McCoy MD
Everything worthwhile is mandatory, prohibited, or taxed.
Flying is the second greatest experience known to man. Landing is the first.
For adult education, nothing beats children.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program. -- Main
Give a skeptic an inch and he'll measure it.
Going the speed of light is bad for your age.
Government expands to absorb all available revenue and then some. -- Wiker
Had there been an actual emergency, you would no longer be here.
Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was rather large.
Heat expands: In the summer the days are longer.
Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.
Humor is the best antidote to reality.
I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. -- Will Rogers
I came to MIT to get an education for myself and a diploma for my mother.
I can't give you brains, but I can give you a diploma. -- the Wizard of Oz
I do desire we may be better strangers. -- Shakespeare
I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem. -- Brilliant
I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? -- Benjamin Disraeli
I used to be lost in the shuffle. Now I just shuffle along with the lost.
I would give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here? -- Harold Urey
I'm pretty good with BS but I love listening to an expert. Keep talking.
If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell. -- Sheridan
If some people didn't tell you, you'd never know they'd been away on vacation.
If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? -- Art Hoppe
If this saying did not exist, somebody would have invented it.
If time heals all wounds, how come bellybuttons don't fill in?
If you cannot hope for order, withdraw with style from the chaos. -- Stoppard
If you were to ask me this question, what would my answer be?
Imports are ports very far inland.
In America, it is not how much an item costs, it is how much you save.
In English, every word can be verbed.
In order to get a loan you must first prove you don't need it.
In this world, truth can wait; she is used to it.
Ingrate: Bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of indigestion.
It is difficult to legislate morality in the absence of moral legislators.
It takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. -- Mark Twain
It's not hard to meet expenses; they are everywhere.
Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you are at it.
Know thyself -- but don't tell anyone.
Life is a game of bridge -- and you have just been finessed.
Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.
Life is like a fountain... I will tell you how when I figure it out.
Life is like an analogy.
Logic is a means of CONFIDENTLY being wrong.
Love your enemies. It will make them crazy.
Love: The warm feeling you get towards someone who meets your neurotic needs.
Male zebras have white stripes, but female zebras have black stripes.
Mankind has never reconciled itself to the ten commandments.
Marriage is not a word; it is a sentence.
Matter cannot be created or destroyed; nor can it be returned without a receipt.
May you have many friends and very few living enemies.
Modesty: Being comfortable that others will discover your greatness.
Most general statements are false, including this one. -- Alexander Dumas
Nobody knows the trouble I have been.
Now and then an innocent person is sent to the Legislature.
Only fools are quoted. -- Anonymous
Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing. -- Roy Ash
Our problems are mostly behind us. Now we have to fight the solutions.
Packrat's credo: "I have no use for it, but I hate to see it go to waste."
Perhaps your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
Positive: Being mistaken at the top of your voice.
Predestination was doomed from the start.
Puritan: Someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun.
Sailing: A form of mast transit.
Some people cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
Someday you'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.
Spinster: A bachelor's wife.
The best way to inspire fresh thoughts is to seal the envelope.
The chief cause of problems is solutions.
The death rate on Earth is: One per person.
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. -- Einstein
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
The number you have dialed is imaginary. Please multiply by i and dial again.
The zebra is chiefly used to illustrate the letter Z.
There is an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to.
There is no problem a good miracle can't solve. -- Shick
There is no time like the pleasant.
There is nothing more permanent than a temporary tax.
There is nothing wrong with abstinence, in moderation.
We are all self-made, but only the rich will admit it.
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