www.sixfingeredman.net
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miscellaneous

You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
	-- Navajo Proverb

Fruit flies like a banana.

"The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity."
	-- Jean-Paul Sartre

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
	-- Socrates

I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to
mis-attribute this quote to Voltaire.
	-- Avram Grumer, rec.arts.sf.written, May 2000

Information wants to be two dollah!

"My reaction to intelligence is the same as my reaction to pornography, I can't
define it but I like it when I see it."
	-- Hugh Loebner, establisher of Loebner Prize for AI to pass the Turing
	   Test

" The trouble with people is not that they don't know but that they know so
much that ain't so."
	-- Josh Billings' Encyclopedia of Wit and Wisdom (1874)

I used to worry about paying my bills until I realized that the loan company
paid professionals to do the worrying, too. Now I relax and let the pros handle
everything.
	-- I Robot k5

When the state executes a man, it becomes a murderer. When the state send a man
to prison, it becomes a gay dungeon master.
	-- Big Sexxy Joe k5

Shyness is really just an acceptable form of rudeness anyway.
	-- Phillip Asheo k5

Addiction has been the criterion for illegalization. This is absurd. Oxygen is
addicting. The drive for oxygen is stronger than the drive for sex or food.
Since it is both legal and free, oxygen doesn't cause a drug problem.
	-- OldCoder k5

Hard systems are for acolytes, not experts. When you get into the expertlevel,
the tools get simpler. Consider cooking. A blender for the home cooking acolyte
typically has buttons for 14 different speeds, labeled creatively as chop,
whip, beat, liquefy, puree, and nine others. If you go into a restaurant, the
blender has a single toggle switch: on and off. The acolyte will use a Kitchen
Magician or a food processor; the chef will use a knife. The acolyte will have
a smart, self-cleaning range and oven with all sorts of features. The chef has
a chunk of iron with fire inside it.
	-- epepke k5

"There's this thing called being so open-minded your brains drop out."
	-- Richard Dawkins

"People smoke because it's the last honorable means of committing suicide."
	-- Kurt Vonnegut (probably)

Lisa: We're the MTV generation. We have neither highs nor lows.
Homer: Really? How does it feel?
Lisa: Eh...
	-- The Simpsons

Friends are like plants. They need attention and they need to drink.
	-- k5 SPYvSPY

"Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we
perform, is truly important to other people."
	-- André Dubus

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
	-- Jean Giraudoux

"[The movie] Harry Potter is released this Friday. I want to go on record that
I've been dressing like that for years."
	-- Bill Gates

If you lose your lucky rabbit's foot... do you chalk it up to bad luck?

"The immediate issue here is whether the Pooh animals realise they constitute a
de facto nudist colony."
	-- Frederick Crews, Postmodern Pooh

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means
just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
	-- Lewis Carroll

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

"Children are, after all, not a breed apart but merely very short people whose
self-control and range of allusion still want improving."
	-- Frederick Crews, Postmodern Pooh

"A ship is safe in a harbor, but that's not what a ship is for."
	-- Admiral Grace Hopper

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, conceive it possible you may be
mistaken."
	-- Cromwell

You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem.
	-- Edwards' Law

Corollary: You cannot apply a sociological solution to a technological problem.

It might be a bidet. Of course, this being the Japanese, it might also be
something that involves tentacles.
	-- k5 Alarmist

But looking back, I think I spent more time conforming myself to a
non-conformist sub-culture than really developing my own way of living.
	-- k5 sudasana

The evil comes, as is evil's wont, through the corruption of good things.
	-- k5 gnovos

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities as well as those
of other people will keep a man from the commission of all sins, or nearly all,
save those that are worth committing.
	-- Samuel Butler

Barne's Law: If nothing changes, everything will remain the same.

The thing with beating your head against a wall is that it feels so good when
you stop. The trouble is:
	1. You can get used to hitting your head against a wall.
	2. It's not always you hitting the wall: sometimes, the wall hits you.

	-- Joelogon

A man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all,
since he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without
deciding on his own precise niche in the temple of Fame.
	-- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

A man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by
pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels.
	-- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

I can bend minds with my spoon.
	-- k5 communista

When my mom found my diaphragm, I told her it was a bathing cap for my cat.
	-- Liz Winston

Don't become a well-rounded person. Well rounded people are smooth and dull.
Become a thoroughly spiky person. Grow spikes from every angle. Stick in their
throats like a pufferfish. If you want to woo the muse of the odd, don't read
Shakespeare. Read Webster's revenge plays. Don't read Homer and Aristotle. Read
Herodotus where he's off talking about Egyptian women having public sex with
goats. If you want to read about myth don't read Joseph Campbell, read about
convulsive religion, read about voodoo and the Millerites and the Munster
Anabaptists. There are hundreds of years of extremities, there are vast
legacies of mutants. There have always been geeks. There will always be geeks.
Become the apotheosis of geek. Learn who your spiritual ancestors were. You
didn't come here from nowhere. There are reasons why you're here. Learn those
reasons. Learn about the stuff that was buried because it was too experimental
or embarrassing or inexplicable. 
	-- Bruce Sterling, The Wonderful Power of Storytelling

Red Dwarf is in essence nothing more than a multi-season long 'why did the
chicken cross the road' joke.
	-- trhurler

My mind's split open. I've got my eyeballs on my knees.

When free speech is outlawed, only criminals will complain.
	-- unknown k5 user

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty;
not knowing what comes next. 
	-- Ursula K. LeGuin

A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps,
snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana
bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a
jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal -- Panama!
        -- GLS, Common Lisp: The Language

Wir aber, wir haben begrenzte Macht über die Natur und über uns selbst, und wir
müssen lernen, was Blatt, Fisch und Wind unwillkürlich richtig tun. Wir müssen
lernen, das Gleichgewicht aufrechtzuerhalten. Da uns Verstand gegeben wurde,
dürfen wir nicht handeln, als ob wir keinen hätten. Da uns eine Wahl gegeben
ist, dürfen wir nicht unverantwortlich handeln.
	-- Ursula K. LeGuin (via Margot Paronis)

It is NOT a toy. It has icing packets. And a 40-watt bulb. But the secret
ingredient is love... Dammit.
	-- SeaLab 2021

I wasn't the only one tired of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
	-- k5 thejones

Es braucht nur einen Feind, um einen Krieg herbeizuführen, nicht zwei...
	-- J.R.R. Tolkein (via Margaret Carroux)

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man
is wise by his questions.
	-- Mahfouz Naquib

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who
cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
	-- George Santayana

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.

... Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail
in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas,
which grows brighter as one woman wears it, and, worn by another, dulls and
goes to dust. Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls
are. But both are sensitive.
	-- Ursula LeGuin

Finding the truth is a lot like picking raspberries, you miss a lot if you
approach it from only one angle.

"Oh, bother," said the Borg. "We've assimilated Pooh."

Many people feel that they deserve some kind of recognition for all the bad
things they haven't done.

Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehen, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird.
	-- Nietzsche

I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin.
	-- Britney Spears

He stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the fields and hills. To
add weight to his words he stuck the rabbit bone in his hair. He spread his
arms out wide. 'I will go mad!' he announced.
	-- Douglas Adams, _Life, the Universe, and Everything_

Engineering: "How will this work?"
Science: "Why will this work?"
Management: "When will this work?"
Liberal Arts: "Do you want fries with that?"

And when the future hinges on the next words that are said, don't let logic
interfere, believe your heart instead.
	-- Philip Robison

Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time
that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
	-- Oscar Wilde

bIHeghvIpchugh bIHeghpu'.
If you are afraid to die, you have already died.
	-- Klingon proverb

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
	-- Erica Jong

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging
their prejudices.
	-- William James

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child. Teach him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep. Wake him.
He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man. Follow him.
	-- Arab proverb

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
	-- Epicurus

My advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife you'll be happy;
if not you'll become a philosopher.
	-- Socrates

Nobody ever lost money overestimating the vulgarity of the American people.
	-- Unknown (H. L. Mencken?)

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who
have not got it.
	-- Unknown

Premature cynicism is worse than premature ejaculation.

"...but that's beyond the scope of this comment."
You might be a geek if... Your comments have "scope."
	-- /.

Dad, when I grow up, I want to be a fighter pilot!
Now son, you can't do both.

The function of the expert is not to be more right than other people,
but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons.
	-- Dr. David Butler, British psephologist

There seems no plan because it is all plan.
	-- C.S. Lewis

I think the world is ready for the story of an ugly duckling, who grew up to
remain an ugly duckling, and lived happily ever after.
	-- Chick

Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that
there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof.
	-- k5 (Unknown)

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no
proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.
	-- John Keats

According to polls, 95% of people believe they have above-average
intelligence.

Eric Serveraid was fond of saying "the principle cause of problems is
solutions."

The truth is more important than the facts. 
	-- Frank Lloyd Wright

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner,
you have learned how to live.
	-- Lin Yutang, 1895-1976

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.
	-- Albert Einstein

It was a Roman who said it was sweet to die for one's country. The Greeks
never said it was sweet to die for anything. They had no vital lies.
	-- Edith Hamilton, "The Greek Way"

All things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
	-- Albert Einstein

Television: a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done.
	-- Ernie Kovacs.

Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it
is the rule.
	-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Never attribute to maliciousness that which can adequately be explained by
stupidity!
	-- Unknown (in some form from Napoleon?)

It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
	-- Andrew Jackson 

When people are free to do as they choose, they usually imitate each other.

The meaning of any communication is the response it elicits.
	-- NLP

The future was never like this.

Die Menschen sagen immer, die Zeiten werden schlimmer. Die Zeiten bleiben
immer; die Menschen werden schlimmer.
	-- German proverb

You non-conformists are all alike.
	-- e2

When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the
white men came, an Indian said simply "Ours."
	-- Vine Deloria, Jr.

The first requisite for immortality is death.
	-- Stanislaw Lem 

i'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living
apart.
	-- e. e. cummings

Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they
conceal is vital.
	-- Aaron Levenstein

There is a certain impertinence in allowing oneself to be burned for an
opinion.
	-- Anatole France

Obviously, a major malfunction has occurred.
	-- Steve Nesbitt, voice of Mission Control, January 28, 1986, as the
	   shuttle Challenger exploded within view of the grandstands.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
	-- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed

It's like looking for a needle in a haystack of needles.
	-- Ron, The Amazing Race Season 7

Golf is a Scottish practical joke played on the rest of the world,
kind of like snipe hunting or curling. It began when the Romans,
after conquering Scotland, asked "so, what do you guys do for fun
around here?"

Naught's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content.
	-- Shakespeare, Macbeth