blog

fortunes.txt (22272B)

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
— Donald E. Knuth; 1977 <https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/faq.html>
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I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.
— Donald E. Knuth; Digital Typography, ch. 33, p. 649 (1999)
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One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code.
— Ken Thompson
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Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
— Brian W. Kernighan and P. J. Plauger in The Elements of Programming Style.
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You are missing the point. Badly. All software sucks, be it open-source [or] proprietary. The only question is what can be done with particular instance of suckage, and that's where having the source matters.
— Alexander Viro https://web.archive.org/web/20130529234218/http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0404.3/1344.html
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{Ex-Cyber} some part of me desperately wants to believe that XML-RPC is some kind of elaborate joke, like a cross between Discordianism and IP Over Avian Carriers
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Not only is UNIX dead, it’s starting to smell really bad.
— Rob Pike circa 1991
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cat came back from Berkeley waving flags
— Rob Pike
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The X server has to be the biggest program I’ve ever seen that doesn’t do anything for you.
— Ken Thompson
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Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
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My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what’s really going on to be scared.
— P. J. Plauger, Computer Language, March 1983
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Theory is when you know something, but it doesn’t work. Practice is when something works, but you don’t know why. Programmers combine theory and practice: Nothing works and they don’t know why.
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A computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match
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Code never lies, comments sometimes do.
— Ron Jeffries
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BEWARE: the docs lie!
— /usr/share/xcb/randr.xml line 96
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A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn’t even know existed can render your own computer unusable.
— Leslie Lamport
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That’s the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers.
— Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle Oath of Fealty
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I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.
— Bjarne Stroustrup
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Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.
— Wirth’s law
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The problem with object-oriented languages is they’ve got all this implicit environment that they carry around with them. You wanted a banana but what you got was a gorilla holding the banana and the entire jungle.
— Joe Armstrong
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Bourne again.
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Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
— Andrew S. Tanenbaum; Computer Networks, 3rd ed., p. 83. (paraphrasing Dr. Warren Jackson, Director, University of Toronto Computing Services (UTCS) circa 1985)
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all the cringe she said 🎵
all the cringe she said 🎵
running through her head 🎵
running through her head 🎵
— vyivel https://outerheaven.club/objects/5538b70a-b9b4-479c-963e-4bcd60640b65
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who called it object oriented programming and not class struggle
— elle mundy https://mastodon.world/@exchgr/110686507297491516
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When I google for “cold dark place filled with sadness and despair” right now (with the quotes), google gives me exactly one result - my Linux kernel github repository.
— Linus Torvalds https://social.kernel.org/objects/c002fc06-9a1d-47cf-8cfd-51c75d121122
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I need privacy. Not because my actions are questionable, but because your judgement and intentions are.
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Watch out for nested macros
— Tron (1982) @ 00:59:51
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Haggis has a hole in his roof. He never fixed it because on rainy days it it too wet to work. And on sunny days it doesn't need fixing.
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Don't tell me that catgirl and the IBN 5100 are connected somehow.
— Okarin, Steins; Gate (2009)
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I keep vaguely wondering what Macs are like, but the ones I've seen spend too much time being friendly.
— Terry Pratchett; alt.fan.pratchett (5 July 1992)
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"Educational" refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of my teachers could easily have been replaced by a cheeseburger.
— Terry Pratchett; alt.fan.pratchett (15 October 1996)
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Oh dear, I'm feeling political today. It's just that it's dawned on me that 'zero tolerance' only seems to mean putting extra police in poor, run-down areas, and not in the Stock Exchange.
— Terry Pratchett; alt.fan.pratchett
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Up until now I'd always thought RSI meant 'I hate my damn job'.
— Terry Pratchett; alt.fan.pratchett
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There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.
— Terry Pratchett
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I don't mind authority, but not authoritarian authority. After all, the bus driver is allowed to be the boss of the bus. But if he's bad at driving, he's not going to be a bus driver anymore.
— Terry Pratchett in Interview with Cory Doctorow
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Half of the world is women!
— 紅の豚 (Porco Rosso, 1992)
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Better a pig than a Fascist.
— 紅の豚 (Porco Rosso, 1992)
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I've simply been pretending to be an adult until I can make it as an ideal grown-up.
— Himmel, Sousou no Frieren (2024)
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It's so cold out here I can see my farts.
— granny, Celeste
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Aux mains de l'État, la force s'appelle "droit", aux mains de l'individu, elle se nomme "crime".
— Max Stirner, L'unique et sa propriété
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J'appelle société conviviale une société où l'outil moderne est au service de la personne intégrée à la collectivité, et non au service d'un corps de spécialistes. Conviviale est la société où l'homme contrôle l'outil.
— La convivialité (1973), Ivan Illich, éd. Points, 1973  (ISBN 978-2-7578-4211-9), p. 13
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When men refer to themselves as "alpha males", I hear that in the context of software, where alpha veresions are unstable, missing important features, filled with flaws and nor fit for the public.
— Glenn F. Henriksen
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>go to friends house
>he has humidifier
>pour two liter of rootbeer into it
>leave
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No matter what I do, the PC-98 remains obsolete!
— Mamoru; 16-bit Sensation - Another Layer (episode 10, 00:16:27)
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Il serait temps que t'apprennes comment obtenir le son sur ce truc.
— Mémé Ciredutemps; Wyrd Sisters (animated) 00:27:45
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When life gives you lemons, ask for salt and tequila.
— Who Am I: Kein System Ist Sicher
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We had Joy, we had fun,
We ran Unix, on a Sun,
But the source and the song
Of Solaris have all gone
— Michael Büker (@emtiu@twitter.com), 2016-12-09
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I'd rather drink a pint of castor oil than let anyone use my machines.
— Benny; Black Lagoon, episode 18 @ 00:17:03
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I spent my entire childhood wishing that I was older now I'm older and this shit sucks
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we went directly from free software being bad to saying that the software community matters more than software quality without ever passing through the software being good first
— sun@shitposter.club 2024-04-13 https://shitposter.world/objects/d0f33a25-5dd9-4957-98ea-fac5eaceca07
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❌ free as in beer
❌ free as in speech
✅ free as in the shelf you picked up off the side of the road that had a big FREE sign
— @astrid@fedi.astrid.tech 2024-03-31 https://fedi.astrid.tech/objects/0981d0ff-73fb-4776-9670-483078d6b010
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In Computer Programming; 1 + 1 = …
A: 11; B: 2; C: 10; D: "11"
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fool stack developer
— @astrid@fedi.astrid.tech 2024-07-04 https://fedi.astrid.tech/objects/814bbacf-0b5f-4c67-830e-920d9e3f3e8a
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Program testing can be a very effective way to show the presence of bugs, but it is hopelessly inadequate for showing their absence.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra, "The Humble Programmer" (1972)
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In short, you can't use sizeof() on a structure whose elements haven't been
defined, and if you do, demons may fly out of your nose.
— John F. Woods, <https://groups.google.com/g/comp.std.c/c/ycpVKxTZkgw/m/S2hHdTbv4d8J>
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Better just drag this porn .mp4 accross the full width of my desktop over work chat to the media pla oops dropped it
— 2021-02-13 "vlc media player" <https://bonequest.com/8001>
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venite@twitter> A friend learned COBOL and received a codebase where the last change was done in the 90s... by. his. mum.
imaguid@twitter> that's not how inheritance is supposed to work in programming
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I'm in a super good mood. Everything is still broken, but now it's funny instead of making me mad.
— Gary Bernhardt (@garybernhardt) January 28, 2013 <https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/296033898822004738>
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All the many eyes are apparently attached to a lot of hands that type lots of words about many eyes, and never actually audit code.
— Theo de Raadt
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C is a razor-sharp tool, with which one can create an elegant and efficient program or a bloody mess.
— Brian Kernighan, The Practice of Programming (1999)
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Internet Explorer allows one to browse the Internet from your computer, and vice versa
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At this point, geofronts only exist within Japan and in science fiction.
- User:Kiwima on https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=geofront&oldid=67882629
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Q: Why doesn't Linode offer Windows VPS by default?
A: It's called Linode, and that means "Linux node", it's not called "Winode".
Q: If I install FreeBSD, does it mean that the host is going to open chatrooms for everyone?
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Sashok: Здравствуйте, это канал об аниме?
Да.
Sashok: Как мне пропатчить KDE2 под FreeBSD?
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Somehow I've lucked out and have an 8yo who thinks secretly reading under the covers past her bedtime is an act of rebellion, and it hasn't yet occurred to her that her flashlights never seem to run out of batteries.
— Robert McNees 2020-08-13 - https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110334058263166569
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here are the stable
*gestures towards horse stables containing Debian*
and here are the unstables
*gestures towards horse stables containing a version of Debian which is not fully tested, flickers, glitches in and out of reality, and explodes sending several car hammers in many directions*
— https://tapenoise.cafe/@kix3n/112182258732358279
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One of the big cries today is that software costs too much, and you can't maintain it.
— Admiral Grace Hopper, Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People (1982) <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW7ZHpKuqZg> (00:15:08)
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Android does not Open-Source development it's regularly updated Abandonware.
— Rob Landley, "Embedded Linux Conference 2013 - Toybox: Writing a Command Line from Scratch" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGmtP5Lg_t0> (00:14:58)
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Days since last timezone issue: -1
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Rien n'arrête une Renault
Pas même ses freins !
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Rick Roll has done a better job of preventing people from clicking random links than any corporate cyber-security training.
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And don't tell me there isn't one bit of difference between null and space, because that's exactly how much difference there is.
— Larry Wall <10209@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> (1990)
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Lisp has all the visual appeal of oatmeal with fingernail clippings mixed in.
— Larry Wall <1994Jul21.173737.16853@netlabs.com> (1994)
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The following two statements are usually both true:
There's not enough documentation.
There's too much documentation.
— Larry Wall <199709020026.RAA08431@wall.org> (1997)
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Is LISP a candidate for a scripting language? While you can certainly write things rapidly in it, I cannot in good conscience call LISP a scripting language. By policy, LISP has never really catered to mere mortals... And, of course, mere mortals have never really forgiven LISP for not catering to them.
— Larry Wall, State of the Onion 11 <http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2007/12/06/soto-11.html>
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I would not wish Autotools on an enemy.
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HODIE NATUS EST RADICI FRATER
— https://multicians.org/hodie-natus-est.html
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- So what do you do?
- I'm a supervillain.
- What's you name?
- Autocorrector.
- HAHAHA! Are you Sirius? What's your super powder? Wait a minion… waht the help is happy ninja to me? PLEATS MAKE IT DUCKING STOP!
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The inventor of autocorrect died
The funnel will be held tomato
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In the near future, corporate networks reach out to the stars,
electrons and light flow through out the universe.
The computerization however, has not yet wiped out nations
and ethnic groups.
- Ghost in the Shell
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The student approached the Master and said "He wants to put a million people on Mars by 2040! That's so amazing!"
The Master replied. "I have a better plan. I will put a million people on Antarctica by 2040."
"But that sounds fucking insane. Why would you want to do something that stupid? It's a barren wasteland that's difficult to populate and would provide us with absolutely nothing!"
At that moment, the student was enlightened.
— Chris Armstrong, 2024 <https://mastodon.social/@Rhodium103/113118466140842493>
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Welcome to Node.js v22.12.0.
Type ".help" for more information.
> throw "rock"
Uncaught 'rock'
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RARE isn't well-done
— Rob Blokzijl of Nikhef/HEPnet/RIPE
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X.Org X Server 1.20.13
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Fatal server error:
[    53.246] DIVINE LIGHT SEVERED
[    53.246] YOU ARE A FLESH AUTOMATON ANIMATED BY NEUROTRANSMITTERS
Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support 
	 at http://wiki.x.org for help.
— https://fedi.rubedo.gay/objects/443960be-8642-4082-ba47-87fb81a0a6a8
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“Well, ---- me,” he said. “A ----ing wizard. I hate ----ing wizards!”
“You shouldn’t ---- them, then,” muttered one of his henchmen, effortlessly pronouncing a row of dashes.
— from “Mort“, Sir Terry Pratchett
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[About Xorg]
Slide:
- Could generate a config file for you
- not smart enough to just *(%!{@# use it
"
 Who remembers generating a config file?
 Please generate me a config file
 … Please use this config file
 Why?
"
— Daniel Stone, "The Real Story Behind Wayland and X", linux.conf.au 2013 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIctzAQOe44>
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I like to add � and ’ any time I submit online forms because I know that some developer is going to see it and wonder if they have a bug
— Aaron Patterson (@tenderlove@twitter.com), Apr 20 2016
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tzdb has no way to represent stopped clocks.
— Paul Eggert (2020-06-12), timezone-data/europe
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When Œdipus reached Thebes, he encountered a Sphinx.
"If you want to pass this point alive, you must answer my riddle: Explain to me the plot of Neon Genesis Evangelion."
It was at this time that Œdipus knew he was in trouble.
"What's the matter Sphinx, too deep for you? Go watch something more your speed, a baby anime like Lucky Star."
Defeated and ashamed, the Sphinx has no recourse but to let him pass.
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That which cannot be repaired is already broken.
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— But if something is genuinely necessary, isn't it good to--
— *slam* No. That is a trap.
  The quickest path to true evil is to forget what evil is.
  In all our lives, there will be moment when there are only bad options to choose from.
  The easiest path is to make excuses. To say the least evil option is good.
  The more you say it, the more you believe it, and before you know it…
  you don't see it as evil anymore. You stop looking for the other options.
  I may be a monster but I keep looking for the other option.
— Tedd & Arthur in El Goonish Shive, 2021-11-24 <https://www.egscomics.com/comic/balance-087>
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Ken Thompson was once asked what he would do differently if he were redesigning the UNIX system. His reply: "I'd spell creat with an e."
— Kernighan, Brian W.; Pike, Rob (1984). The UNIX programming environment. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0139376992. OCLC 10269821., p. 204.
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When in doubt, use brute force.
— Ken Thompson
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There is some irony in the fact that one of the most famous songs of the folk-rock era—an era associated primarily with ideals of peace and harmony—is one of vengeance
— Howard Sounes, 2001 about "Like a Rolling Stone" of Bob Dylan
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Sometimes people use "respect" to mean "treating someone like a person" and sometimes they use "respect" to mean "treating someone like an authority" and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say "if you won't respect me I won't respect you" and they mean "if you won't treat me like an authority I won't treat you like a person" and they think they're being fair but they aren't, and it's not okay.
— stimmyabby@tumblr, 2016
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From: Linus Torvalds
To: Arjan van de Ven
Subject: Re: I request inclusion of SAS Transport Layer and AIC-94xx into the kernel
Date:	Thu, 29 Sep 2005 12:57:05 -0700 (PDT)
X-Archived-At: https://web.archive.org/web/20051230124003/http://kerneltrap.org/node/5725
[About the SAS Transport Layer hardware specifications]
A "spec" is close to useless. I have _never_ seen a spec that was both big
enough to be useful _and_ accurate.
[…]
So please don't bother talking about specs. Real standards grow up
_despite_ specs, not thanks to them.
— Linus Torvalds, 29 Sep 2005
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Bad news has a way of gathering easily without much effort.
— Balalaika (Black Lagoon, episode 9: Maid to Kill)
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are you actually lazy or are you just looking at the combined creative output of literally the entire internet and then comparing yourself to that
— Corey Brickley, Jul 30 2023
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<[sA]HatfulOfHollow> i'm going to become rich and famous after i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face over the internet
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<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.
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*** Quits: TITANIC (Excess Flood)
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<Plot> I was either going to die now
<Plot> or get 80% third degree burns atleast
<Plot> someone had the gas nob opened
<Plot> I went into kitchen
<Plot> switched a bulb
<Plot> and wham
<Plot> kitchen was filled with one big ass fire ball
<theForger> woah dude
<C--> damn
<Jyrsija> jesus
<ThaDragon> If you just blow up your kitchen, and then proceed to get on IRC and tell people about it, you might be a junkie.
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<i8b4uUnderground> d-_-b
<BonyNoMore> how u make that inverted b?
<BonyNoMore> wait
<BonyNoMore> never mind
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*** Now talking in #christian
-Word_of_God- Welcome Abstruse to #christian I am a Bible Bot. For more info type: /msg Word_of_God !info
<Abstruse> !kjv numbers 22:21
<Word_of_God> Numbers 22:21 -- And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. - (KJV)
*** SageRider sets mode: +b *!*@c211-30-208-111.rivrw3.nsw.optusnet.com.au
*** Word_of_God was kicked from #christian by SageRider (Please dont Swear)
<Abstruse> I know I'm never going to be able to come back in this channel again after this, but damn was it worth it to see that...
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<lrvick> whoa
<lrvick> i just found a usb magstrip reader
<lrvick> i never knew i had
<lrvick> i wonder if it works like a keyboard...
<lrvick> %B4744740232448132^VICK/LANCE R^1506101000000000087800878000000?;4744740232258132=15061010000000000878?
<lrvick> well
<lrvick> damn
<lrvick> apparently it does
<Science> What did we just read?
<lrvick> no comment
<Science> CC info, gotcha
<ThantiK> lrvick...
<ThantiK> you swiped a VISA...
<ThantiK> 4744 is VISA start code for credit cards.
<ThantiK> A bank of america one, specifically.
<ThantiK> Might wanna change that now, lol - all of us probably have IRC logging turned on. You just threw your debit card info into all of our machines.
<Science> WELL NO ONE WOULD HAVE KNOWN IF YOU HADN'T SAID IT MAN
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"I give permission to IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil."
— Douglas Crockford <https://youtu.be/-C-JoyNuQJs?t=39m45s>
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Humans invented language to satisfy the need to complain.
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[…], et science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme, […]
— François Rabelais, Pantagruel, 1532
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Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
— Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park, 1993
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The point of satire is to attack the powerful, to expose their hypocrisy and absurdity, and of course to be funny. If satire is directed downwards it is not satire, it’s bullying.
— https://web.archive.org/web/20211023165634/https://socialistreview.org.uk/399/satire-should-spear-powerful
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i just can't convey the frustration and sorrow that it's been to grow up at first without the internet and then watching it bloom into this useful, fun, connecting force you sometimes spent time on, only for it to degrade into this constant oppressive waste of time and energy where people are constantly pumping out algorithmically designed content for max algorithmic appeal and even the most simple search generates either no results or an infinite abyss of ai generated slop none of which is usable or correct. we briefly had a library of alexandria and then fed it into a paper shredder so advertisers could sell a random mash of pulp back to us at a premium.
— arahir on Tumblr
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One of my college professors used to say “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly”. I didn’t understand that for years because I didn’t do anything poorly, I couldn’t do anything poorly, I had to Do Everything Perfectly. But brushing your teeth for 30 seconds is better than not brushing them at all when that 2 minutes seems exhausting. Doing ten minutes of yoga is better that 10 minutes of sitting when 30 minutes of cardio sounds inmpossible. Changing my clothes is good when a whole shower is impossible. Standing on the porch for a few minutes is worth it after being in the house for three straight days because I don’t have the energy to go anywhere. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly… because doing it poorly is better than not doing it.
— bananonbinary on Tumblr
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# Some old m4's don't support m4exit.  But they provide
# equivalent functionality by core dumping because of the
# long macros we define.
— autoconf 2.69 lib/m4sugar/m4sugar.m4
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