John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen, http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith. --Galadriel, LOTR:FOTR John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --The Hobbit John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org At times of peril or dubitation, Perform swift circular ambulation, With loud and high-pitched ululation. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org One time I called in to the central system and started working on a big thick 'sed' and 'awk' heavy duty data bashing script. One of the geologists came by, looked over my shoulder and said 'Oh, that happens to me too. Try hanging up and phoning in again.' --Beverly Erlebacher John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz. --Calvin, giving Newton's First Law "in his own words" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org There is / One art / No more / No less To do / All things / With art- / -Lessness --Piet Hein John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org One art / There is / No less / No more To do / All things / With sparks / Galore --Douglas Hofstadter John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Charles li reis, nostre emperesdre magnes, Set anz totz pleinz ad ested in Espagnes. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org .e'osai ko sarji la lojban. Please support Lojban! http://www.lojban.org John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "You need a change: try Canada" "You need a change: try China" --fortune cookies opened by a couple that I know John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn. You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn. Clear all so! `Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Please leave your values at the front desk. --sign in Paris hotel Check your assumptions. In fact, check your assumptions at the door. --Cordelia Vorkosigan John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Not to perambulate the corridors during the hours of repose in the boots of ascension. --Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "Mr. Lane, if you ever wish anything that I can do, all you will have to do will be to send me a telegram asking and it will be done." "Mr. Hearst, if you ever get a telegram from me asking you to do anything, you can put the telegram down as a forgery." John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "Any legal document draws most of its meaning from context. A telegram that says 'SELL HUNDRED THOUSAND SHARES IBM SHORT' (only 190 bits in 5-bit Baudot code plus appropriate headers) is as good a legal document as any, even sans digital signature." --me John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Knowledge studies others / Wisdom is self-known; Muscle masters brothers / Self-mastery is bone; Content need never borrow / Ambition wanders blind; Vitality cleaves to the marrow / Leaving death behind. --Tao 33 (Bynner) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Consider the matter of Analytic Philosophy. Dennett and Bennett are well-known. Dennett rarely or never cites Bennett, so Bennett rarely or never cites Dennett. There is also one Dummett. By their works shall ye know them. However, just as no trinities have fourth persons (Zeppo Marx notwithstanding), Bummett is hardly known by his works. Indeed, Bummett does not exist. It is part of the function of this and other e-mail messages, therefore, to do what they can to create him. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Deshil Holles eamus. Deshil Holles eamus. Deshil Holles eamus. Send us, bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening, and wombfruit. (3x) Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoopsa! --Joyce, Ulysses, "Oxen of the Sun" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Her he asked if O'Hare Doctor tidings sent from far coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that O'Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word to hear that him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All she there told him, ruing death for friend so young, algate sore unwilling God's rightwiseness to withsay. Joyce, Ulysses, "Oxen of the Sun" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Promises become binding when there is a meeting of the minds and consideration is exchanged. So it was at King's Bench in common law England; so it was under the common law in the American colonies; so it was through more than two centuries of jurisprudence in this country; and so it is today. --Specht v. Netscape John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org A: "Spiro conjectures Ex-Lax." Q: "What does Pat Nixon frost her cakes with?" --"Jeopardy" for generative semanticists John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Assent may be registered by a signature, a handshake, or a click of a computer mouse transmitted across the invisible ether of the Internet. Formality is not a requisite; any sign, symbol or action, or even willful inaction, as long as it is unequivocally referable to the promise, may create a contract. --Specht v. Netscape John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org All Gaul is divided into three parts: the part that cooks with lard and goose fat, the part that cooks with olive oil, and the part that cooks with butter. --David Chessler John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants. --Isaac Newton John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If [Tim Berners-Lee] has seen farther than others, it is because he is standing on a stack of dwarves. --Mike Champion John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If I have seen farther than others, it is because I am surrounded by dwarves. --Murray Gell-Mann John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side with the giants on whose shoulders we stand. --Gerald Holton John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders. --Hal Abelson John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org In computer science, we stand on each other's feet. --Brian K. Reid John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia. --blurb for Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Humpty Dump Dublin squeaks through his norse Humpty Dump Dublin hath a horrible vorse But for all his kinks English / And his irismanx brogues Humpty Dump Dublin's grandada of all rogues. --Cousin James John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Only do what only you can do. --Edsger W. Dijkstra's advice to a student in search of a thesis John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague. --Edsger Dijkstra John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org De plichten van een docent zijn divers, die van het gehoor ook. --Edsger Dijkstra John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org A mosquito cried out in his pain, "A chemist has poisoned my brain!" The cause of his sorrow / Was para-dichloro- Diphenyltrichloroethane. (aka DDT) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org No, John. I want formats that are actually useful, rather than over- featured megaliths that address all questions by piling on ridiculous internal links in forms which are hideously over-complex. --Simon St. Laurent on xml-dev John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a [Ww]all that people have stopped banging their head against? --Larry John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Business before pleasure, if not too bloomering long before. --Nicholas van Rijn John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org He made the Legislature meet at one-horse tank-towns out in the alfalfa belt, so that hardly nobody could get there and most of the leaders would stay home and let him go to work and do things as he pleased. --H.L. Mencken's translation of the Declaration of Independence John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Some people open all the Windows; wise wives welcome the spring by moving the Unix. --Advertisement for Unix Book Units (U.K.) (see https://9p.io/who/dmr/unix3image.gif) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Be yourself. Especially do not feign a working knowledge of RDF where no such knowledge exists. Neither be cynical about RELAX NG; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment in the world of markup, James Clark is as perennial as the grass. --DeXiderata, Sean McGrath John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and all other acyclic graphs; you have a right to be here. --DeXiderata by Sean McGrath John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "The exception proves the rule." Dimbulbs think: "Your counterexample proves my theory." Latin students think "'Probat' means 'tests': the exception puts the rule to the proof." But legal historians know it means "Evidence for an exception is evidence of the existence of a rule in cases not excepted from." John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Evolutionary psychology is the theory that men are nothing but horn-dogs, and that women only want them for their money. --Susan McCarthy (adapted) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org We call nothing profound that is not wittily expressed. --Northrop Frye (improved) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org First known example of political correctness: After Nurhachi had united all the other Jurchen tribes under the leadership of the Manchus, his successor Abahai (1592-1643) issued an order that the name Jurchen should be banned, and from then on, they were all to be called Manchus. --S. Robert Ramsey, The Languages of China John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If you have ever wondered if you are in hell, it has been said, then you are on a well-traveled road of spiritual inquiry. If you are absolutely sure you are in hell, however, then you must be on the Cross Bronx Expressway. --Alan Feuer, New York Times, 2002-09-20 John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos --Lithuanian proverb Deus dedit dentes; deus dabit panem --Latin version thereof Deity donated dentition; deity'll donate doughnuts --English version by Muke Tever God gave gums; God'll give granary --Version by Mat McVeagh John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Said Agatha Christie / To E. Philips Oppenheim "Who is this Hemingway? / Who is this Proust? Who is this Vladimir / Whatchamacallum, This neopostrealist / Rabble?" she groused. --George Starbuck, Pith and Vinegar John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org My confusion is rapidly waxing For XML Schema's too taxing: I'd use DTDs / If they had local trees -- I think I best switch to RELAX NG. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org My corporate data's a mess! It's all semi-structured, no less. But I'll be carefree / Using XSLT On an XML DBMS. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Henry S. Thompson said, / "Syntactic, structural, Value constraints we / Express on the fly." Simon St. Laurent: "Your / Incomprehensible Abracadabralike / schemas must die!" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Higglédy-pigglèdy / XML programmers Try to escape those / I-eighteen-N woes; Incontrovertibly / What we need more of is Unicode weenies and / François Yergeaus. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Winter: MIT, / Keio, INRIA, / Issue lots of Drafts. So much more to understand! / Might simplicity return? (A "tanka", or extended haiku) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org XQuery Blueberry DOM Entity parser dot-com Abstract schemata / XPointer errata Infoset Unicode BOM --Richard Tobin John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org With techies, I've generally found If your arguments lose the first round Make it rhyme, make it scan / Then you generally can Make the same stupid point seem profound! --Jonathan Robie John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org A poetical purist named Cowan [that's me] Once put the rest of us dowan. [on xml-dev] "Your verse would be sweeter / If it only had metre And rhymes that didn't force me to frowan." [overpacked line!] --Michael Kay John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Long-short-short, long-short-short / Dactyls in dimeter, Verse form with choriambs / (Masculine rhyme): One sentence (two stanzas) / Hexasyllabically Challenges poets who / Don't have the time. --robison who's at texas dot net John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Even a refrigerator can conform to the XML Infoset, as long as it has a door sticker saying "No information items inside". --Eve Maler John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic tenebrous ultimate gods --the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep. (Lovecraft) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org When I wrote it I was more than a little febrile with foodpoisoning from an antique carrot that I foolishly ate out of an illjudged faith in the benignancy of vegetables. --And Rosta John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I am expressing my opinion. When my honorable and gallant friend is called, he will express his opinion. This is the process which we call Debate. --Winston Churchill John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org They do not preach that their God will rouse them A little before the nuts work loose. They do not teach that His Pity allows them to drop their job when they damn-well choose. --Rudyard Kipling, "The Sons of Martha" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Is it not written, "That which is written, is written"? John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "Not to know The Smiths is not to know K.X.U." --K.X.U. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Most languages are dramatically underdescribed, and at least one is dramatically overdescribed. Still other languages are simultaneously overdescribed and underdescribed. Welsh pertains to the third category. --Alan King John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Eric Raymond is the Margaret Mead of the Open Source movement. --Bruce Perens, a long time ago John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Yes, chili in the eye is bad, but so is your ear. However, I would suggest you wash your hands thoroughly before going to the toilet. --gadicath John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You escaped them by the will-death and the Way of the Black Wheel. I could not. --Great-Souled Sam John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I suggest you solicit aid of my followers or learn the difficult art of mud-breathing. --Great-Souled Sam John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org So they play that [tune] on their fascist banjos, eh? --Great-Souled Sam John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org All Norstrilians knew that humor was "pleasurable corrigible malfunction". --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrilia John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Real FORTRAN programmers can program FORTRAN in any language. --Ed Post John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org May the hair on your toes never fall out! --Thorin Oakenshield (to Bilbo) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org It's the old, old story. Droid meets droid. Droid becomes chameleon. Droid loses chameleon, chameleon becomes blob, droid gets blob back again. It's a classic tale. --Kryten, Red Dwarf John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org There are three kinds of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org In my last lifetime, I believed in reincarnation; in this lifetime, I don't. --Thiagi John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. --Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Micropayment advocates mistakenly believe that efficient allocation of resources is the purpose of markets. Efficiency is a byproduct of market systems, not their goal. The reasons markets work are not because users have embraced efficiency but because markets are the best place to allow users to maximize their preferences, and very often their preferences are not for conservation of cheap resources. --Clay Shirky John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If you understand, things are just as they are. if you do not understand, things are just as they are. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Do what you will / this Life's a Fiction And is made up of / Contradiction. --William Blake John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org LEAR: Dost thou call me fool, boy? FOOL: All thy other titles thou hast given away: That thou wast born with. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org All "isms" should be "wasms". --Abbie John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org A rabbi whose congregation doesn't want to drive him out of town isn't a rabbi, and a rabbi who lets them do it isn't a man. --Jewish saying John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org MEET US AT POINT ORANGE AT MIDNIGHT BRING YOUR DUCK OR PREPARE TO FACE WUGGUMS John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Values of beeta will give rise to dom! (5th/6th edition 'mv' said this if you tried to rename '.' or '..' entries; see http://9p.io/who/dmr/odd.html) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org After fixing the Y2K bug in an application: WELCOME TO DATE: MONDAK, JANUARK 1, 1900 John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org It was impossible to inveigle Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Into offering the slightest apology For his Phenomenology. --W. H. Auden, from "People" (1953) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Dream projects long deferred usually bite the wax tadpole. --James Lileks John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The Imperials are decadent, 300 pound free-range chickens (except they have teeth, arms instead of wings, and dinosaurlike tails). --Elyse Grasso John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org In politics, obedience and support are the same thing. --Hannah Arendt John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org O beautiful for patriot's dream that sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law! --one of the verses not usually taught in U.S. schools John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Is a chair finely made tragic or comic? Is the portrait of Mona Lisa good if I desire to see it? Is the bust of Sir Philip Crampton lyrical, epical or dramatic? If a man hacking in fury at a block of wood make there an image of a cow, is that image a work of art? If not, why not? --Stephen Dedalus John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org 'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.' --the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out. --Arthur C. Clarke, "The Nine Billion Names of God" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org But that, he realized, was a foolish thought; as no one knew better than he that the Wall had no other side. --Arthur C. Clarke, "The Wall of Darkness" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The man that wanders far from the walking tree --first line of a non-existent poem by me John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org In might the Feanorians / that swore the unforgotten oath brought war into Arvernien / with burning and with broken troth. and Elwing from her fastness dim / then cast her in the waters wide, but like a mew was swiftly borne, / uplifted o'er the roaring tide. --the Earendillinwe John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht. --Albert Einstein John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org One Word to write them all / One Access to find them, One Excel to count them all / And thus to Windows bind them. --Mike Champion John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Andrew Watt on Microsoft: Never in the field of human computing has so much been paid by so many to so few! (pace Winston Churchill) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I must confess that I have very little notion of what [s. 4 of the British Trade Marks Act, 1938] is intended to convey, and particularly the sentence of 253 words, as I make them, which constitutes sub-section 1. I doubt if the entire statute book could be successfully searched for a sentence of equal length which is of more fuliginous obscurity. --MacKinnon LJ, 1940 John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Income tax, if I may be pardoned for saying so, is a tax on income. --Lord Macnaghten (1901) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org A witness cannot give evidence of his age unless he can remember being born. --Judge Blagden John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Where the wombat has walked, it will inevitably walk again. (even through brick walls!) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen. I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number. --Bilbo John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me. I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider. --Bilbo to Smaug John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. --Bilbo John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You let them out again, Old Man Willow! What you be a-thinking of? You should not be waking! Eat earth! Dig deep! Drink water! Go to sleep! Bombadil is talking. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "But I am the real Strider, fortunately," he said, looking down at them with his face softened by a sudden smile. "I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and if by life or death I can save you, I will." John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org By Elbereth and Luthien the Fair, you shall have neither the Ring nor me! --Frodo John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org They tried to pierce your heart with a Morgul-knife that remains in the wound. If they had succeeded, you would become a wraith under the domination of the Dark Lord. --Gandalf John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org BALIN FUNDINUL UZBAD KHAZADDUMU BALIN SON OF FUNDIN LORD OF KHAZAD-DUM John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org But you, Wormtongue, you have done what you could for your true master. Some reward you have earned at least. Yet Saruman is apt to overlook his bargains. I should advise you to go quickly and remind him, lest he forget your faithful service. --Gandalf John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org It was dreary and wearisome. Cold clammy winter still held sway in this forsaken country. The only green was the scum of livid weed on the dark greasy surfaces of the sullen waters. Dead grasses and rotting reeds loomed up in the mists like ragged shadows of long-forgotten summers. --LOTR, "The Passage of the Marshes" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to [Sam], a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit's eyes, but the Mumak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and his majesty. --"Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I marvel at the creature: so secret and so sly as he is, to come sporting in the pool before our very window. Does he think that Men sleep without watch all night? --Faramir John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org We are lost, lost. No name, no business, no Precious, nothing. Only empty. Only hungry: yes, we are hungry. A few little fishes, nassty bony little fishes, for a poor creature, and they say death. So wise they are; so just, so very just. --Gollum John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org But the next day there came no dawn, and the Grey Company passed on into the darkness of the Storm of Mordor and were lost to mortal sight; but the Dead followed them. --"The Passing of the Grey Company" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You cannot enter here. Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go! --Gandalf John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Kill Gorgun! Kill orc-folk! No other words please Wild Men. Drive away bad air and darkness with bright iron! --Ghan-buri-Ghan John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless. For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org And it was said that ever after, if any man looked in that Stone, unless he had a great strength of will to turn it to other purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering in flame. --"The Pyre of Denethor" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest? --Frodo "Well, I'm back." --Sam John Cowan John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Does anybody want any flotsam? / I've gotsam. Does anybody want any jetsam? / I can getsam. --Ogden Nash, No Doctors Today, Thank You John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Original line from The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold: "Only on Barrayar would pulling a loaded needler start a stampede toward one." English-to-Russian-to-English mangling thereof: "Only on Barrayar you risk to lose support instead of finding it when you threat with the charged weapon." John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday. --From a Nigerian-type scam spam John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org At the end of the Metatarsal Age, the dinosaurs abruptly vanished. The theory that a single catastrophic event may have been responsible has been strengthened by the recent discovery of a worldwide layer of whipped cream marking the Creosote-Tutelary boundary. --Science Made Stupid John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If a soldier is asked why he kills people who have done him no harm, or a terrorist why he kills innocent people with his bombs, they can always reply that war has been declared, and there are no innocent people in an enemy country in wartime. The answer is psychotic, but it is the answer that humanity has given to every act of aggression in history. --Northrop Frye John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures. --Samuel Gompers John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Principles. You can't say A is made of B or vice versa. All mass is interaction. --Richard Feynman John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Reversing the apostolic precept to be all things to all men, I usually [before Darwin] defended the tenability of the received doctrines, when I had to do with the [evolution]ists; and stood up for the possibility of [evolution] among the orthodox --thereby, no doubt, increasing an already current, but quite undeserved, reputation for needless combativeness. --T. H. Huxley John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. --Thomas Henry Huxley John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Work hard / play hard, cowan@ccil.org die young / rot quickly. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Police in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV cop shows. When it's explained to them that they are in a different country, where those rights do not exist, they become outraged. --Neal Stephenson John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org How they ever reached any conclusion at all is starkly unknowable to the human mind. --"Backstage Lensman", Randall Garrett John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org While staying with the Asonu, I met a man from the Candensian plane, which is very much like ours, only more of it consists of Toronto. --Ursula K. Le Guin, Changing Planes John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org What has four pairs of pants, lives in Philadelphia, and it never rains but it pours? --Rufus T. Firefly John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You know, you haven't stopped talking since I came here. You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. --Rufus T. Firefly John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I could dance with you till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather dance with the cows when you come home. --Rufus T. Firefly John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Monday we watch-a Firefly's house, but he no come out. He wasn't home. Tuesday we go to the ball game, but he fool us. He no show up. Wednesday he go to the ball game, and we fool him. We no show up. Thursday was a double-header. Nobody show up. Friday it rained all day. There was no ball game, so we stayed home and we listened to it on-a the radio. --Chicolini John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Clear? Huh! Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can't make head or tail out of it. --Rufus T. Firefly on government reports John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Ambassador Trentino: I've said enough. I'm a man of few words. Rufus T. Firefly: I'm a man of one word: scram! --Duck Soup John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Go, and never darken my towels again! --Rufus T. Firefly John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The Unicode Standard does not encode idiosyncratic, personal, novel, or private use characters, nor does it encode logos or graphics. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup the rest of your life. --Groucho John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You're a brave man! Go and break through the lines, and remember while you're out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we'll be in here thinking what a sucker you are! --Rufus T. Firefly John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettes of a creatific thinkerizer. --Peter da Silva John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Using RELAX NG compact syntax to develop schemas is one of the simple pleasures in life.... --Jeni Tennison John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The Penguin shall hunt and devour all that is crufty, gnarly and bogacious; all code which wriggles like spaghetti, or is infested with blighting creatures, or is bound by grave and perilous Licences shall it capture. And in capturing shall it replicate, and in replicating shall it document, and in documentation shall it bring freedom, serenity and most cool froodiness to the earth and all who code therein. --Gospel of Tux John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org 'Tis the Linux rebellion / Let coders take their place, The Linux-nationale / Shall Microsoft outpace, We can write better programs / Our CPUs won't stall, So raise the penguin banner of / The Linux-nationale. --Greg Baker John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Arise, you prisoners of Windows / Arise, you slaves of Redmond, Wash, The day and hour soon are coming / When all the IT folks say "Gosh!" It isn't from a clever lawsuit / That Windowsland will finally fall, But thousands writing open source code / Like mice who nibble through a wall. --The Linux-nationale by Greg Baker John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org There are books that are at once excellent and boring. Those that at once leap to the mind are Thoreau's Walden, Emerson's Essays, George Eliot's Adam Bede, and Landor's Dialogues. --Somerset Maugham John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org He played King Lear as though someone had played the ace. --Eugene Field John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org What asininity could I have uttered that they applaud me thus? --Phocion, Greek orator John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Is not a patron, my Lord [Chesterfield], one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help? --Samuel Johnson John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty. --Oscar Wilde John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender. --Philip Guedalla John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Female celebrity stalker, on a hot morning in Cairo: "Imagine, Colonel Lawrence, ninety-two already!" El Auruns's reply: "Many happy returns of the day!" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Here lies the Christian, judge, and poet Peter, Who broke the laws of God and man and metre. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Heckler: "Go on, Al, tell 'em all you know. It won't take long." Al Smith: "I'll tell 'em all we *both* know. It won't take any longer." John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Mark Twain on Cecil Rhodes: I admire him, I freely admit it, and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Samuel Johnson on playing the violin: "Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible." John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If a traveler were informed that such a man [as Lord John Russell] was leader of the House of Commons, he may well begin to comprehend how the Egyptians worshiped an insect. --Benjamin Disraeli John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Rather than making ill-conceived suggestions for improvement based on uninformed guesses about established conventions in a field of study with which familiarity is limited, it is sometimes better to stick to merely observing the usage and listening to the explanations offered, inserting only questions as needed to fill in gaps in understanding. --Peter Constable John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Lope de Vega: "It wonders me I can speak at all. Some caitiff rogue did rudely yerk me on the knob, wherefrom my wits yet wander." An Englishman: "Ay, belike a filchman to the nab'll leave you crank for a spell." --Harry Turtledove, Ruled Britannia John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org There is a Darwinian explanation for the refusal to accept Darwin. Given the very pessimistic conclusions about moral purpose to which his theory drives us, and given the importance of a sense of moral purpose in helping us cope with life, a refusal to believe Darwin's theory may have important survival value. --Ian Johnston John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Gules six bars argent on a canton azure 50 mullets argent six five six five six five six five and six --blazoning the U.S. flag John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. --John Donne John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org SAXParserFactory [is] a hideous, evil monstrosity of a class that should be hung, shot, beheaded, drawn and quartered, burned at the stake, buried in unconsecrated ground, dug up, cremated, and the ashes tossed in the Tiber while the complete cast of Wicked sings "Ding dong, the witch is dead." --Elliotte Rusty Harold on xml-dev John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Unless it was by accident that I had offended someone, I never apologized. --Quentin Crisp John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Si hoc legere scis, nimium eruditionis habes. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Linguistics is arguably the most hotly contested property in the academic realm. It is soaked with the blood of poets, theologians, philosophers, philologists, psychologists, biologists and neurologists, along with whatever blood can be got out of grammarians. - Russ Rymer John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Newbies always ask: "Elements or attributes? Which will serve me best?" Those who know roar like lions; Wise hackers smile like tigers. --a tanka, or extended haiku John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The penguin geeks is happy / As under the waves they lark The closed-source geeks ain't happy / They sad cause they in the dark But geeks in the dark is lucky / They in for a worser treat One day when the Borg go belly-up / Guess who wind up on the street. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Any sufficiently-complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. --Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming (rules 1-9 are unknown) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org And now here I was, in a country where a right to say how the country should be governed was restricted to six persons in each thousand of its population. For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express dissatisfaction with the regnant system and propose to change it, would have made the whole six shudder as one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid black treason. --Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org That you can cover for the plentiful and often gaping errors, misconstruals and disinformation in your posts through sheer volume -- that is another misconception. --Mike to Peter John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Your worships will perhaps be thinking that it is an easy thing to blow up a dog? [Or] to write a book? --Don Quixote, Introduction John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org On the Semantic Web, it's too hard to prove you're not a dog. --Bill de hOra John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Time alone is real the rest imaginary like a quaternion --phma John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org When I'm stuck in something boring where reading would be impossible or rude, I often set up math problems for myself and solve them as a way to pass the time. --John Jenkins John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Babies are born as a result of the mating between men and women, and most men and women enjoy mating. --Isaac Asimov in Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org A few times, I did some exuberant stomping about, like a hippo auditioning for Riverdance, though I stopped when I thought I heard something at the far side of the room falling over in rhythm with my feet. --Joseph Zitt John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Don't be so humble. You're not that great. --Golda Meir John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The experiences of the past show that there has always been a discrepancy between plans and performance. --Emperor Hirohito, August 1945 John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Why are well-meaning Westerners so concerned that the opening of a Colonel Sanders in Beijing means the end of Chinese culture? [...] We have had Chinese restaurants in America for over a century, and it hasn't made us Chinese. On the contrary, we obliged the Chinese to invent chop suey. --Marshall Sahlins John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org We pledge allegiance to the penguin and to the intellectual property regime for which he stands, one world under Linux, with free music and open source software for all. --Julian Dibbell on Brazil, edited John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Mos Eisley spaceport. You will never see a more wretched hive of scum and villainy --unless you watch the Jerry Springer Show. --georgettesworld.com John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Well, I have news for our current leaders and the leaders of tomorrow: the Bill of Rights is not a frivolous luxury, in force only during times of peace and prosperity. We don't just push it to the side when the going gets tough. --Molly Ivins John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org As we all know, civil libertarians are not the friskiest group around -- comes from forever being on the qui vive for the sound of jack-booted fascism coming down the pike. --Molly Ivins John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Economists were put on this planet to make astrologers look good. --Leo McGarry John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The present impossibility of giving a scientific explanation is no proof that there is no scientific explanation. The unexplained is not to be identified with the unexplainable, and the strange and extraordinary nature of a fact is not a justification for attributing it to powers above nature. --The Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "telepathy" (1913) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org This great college [Trinity], of this ancient university [Cambridge], has seen some strange sights. It has seen Wordsworth drunk and Porson sober. And here am I, a better poet than Porson, and a better scholar than Wordsworth, somewhere betwixt and between. --A.E. Housman John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but if you called it an onion you'd get cooks very confused. --RMS John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Nobody expects the RESTifarian Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise ... surprise and tedium ... tedium and surprise .... Our two weapons are tedium and surprise ... and ruthless disregard for unpleasant facts.... Our three weapons are tedium, surprise, and ruthless disregard ... and an almost fanatical devotion to Roy Fielding.... John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The whole of Gaul is quartered into three halves. --Julius Caesar John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Half the lies they tell about me are true. --Tallulah Bankhead, American actress John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Sound change operates regularly to produce irregularities; analogy operates irregularly to produce regularities. --E.H. Sturtevant, ca. 1945, probably at Yale John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Cash registers don't really add and subtract; they only grind their gears. But then they don't really grind their gears, either; they only obey the laws of physics. --Unknown John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org There was an old man Said with a laugh, "I From Peru, whose lim'ricks all Cut them in half, the pay is Look'd like haiku. He Much better for two." --Emmet O'Brien John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that optimum or inadequate performance in the trend of competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account. --Ecclesiastes 9:11, Orwell/Brown version John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The first thing you learn in a lawin' family is that there ain't no definite answers to anything. --Calpurnia in To Kill A Mockingbird John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Possession is said to be nine points of the law, but that's not saying how many points the law might have. --Thomas A. Cowan (law professor and my father) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "After all, would you consider a man without honor wealthy, even if his Dinar laid end to end would reach from here to the Temple of Toplat?" "No, I wouldn't", the beggar replied. "Why is that?" the Master asked. "A Dinar doesn't go very far these days, Master. --Kehlog Albran Besides, the Temple of Toplat is across the street." The Profit John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "The serene chaos that is Courage, and the phenomenon of Unopened Consciousness have been known to the Great World eons longer than Extaboulism." "Why is that?" the woman inquired. "Because I just made that word up", the Master said wisely. --Kehlog Albran, The Profit John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Even the best of friends cannot attend each others' funeral. --Kehlog Albran, The Profit John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You annoy me, Rattray! You disgust me! You irritate me unspeakably! Thank Heaven, I am a man of equable temper, or I should scarcely be able to contain myself before your mocking visage. --Stalky imitating Macrea John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I now introduce Professor Smullyan, who will prove to you that either he doesn't exist or you don't exist, but you won't know which. --Melvin Fitting John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Normally I can handle panic attacks on my own; but panic is, at the moment, a way of life. --Joseph Zitt John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org It's like if you meet an really old, really rich guy covered in liver spots and breathing with an oxygen tank, and you say, "I want to be rich, too, so I'm going to start walking with a cane and I'm going to act crotchety and I'm going to get liver disease. --Wil Shipley John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Today an interactive brochure website, tomorrow a global content management system that leverages collective synergy to drive "outside of the box" thinking and formulate key objectives into a win-win game plan with a quality-driven approach that focuses on empowering key players to drive-up their core competencies and increase expectations with an all-around initiative to drive up the bottom-line. --Alex Papadimoulis John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do, What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must; Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust. --Bokonon John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org C'est la` pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux, de rapport nyait pas. --Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Historians aren't constantly confronted with people who carry on self-confidently about the rule against adultery in the sixth amendment to the Declamation of Independence, as written by Benjamin Hamilton. Computer scientists aren't always having to correct people who make bold assertions about the value of Objectivist Programming, as examplified in the HCNL entities stored in Relaxational Databases. --Mark Liberman John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Most people are much more ignorant about language than they are about [other subjects], but they reckon that because they can talk and read and write, their opinions about talking and reading and writing are as well informed as anybody's. And since I have DNA, I'm entitled to carry on at length about genetics without bothering to learn anything about it. Not. --Mark Liberman John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Any day you [see] all five woodpeckers is a good day. --Elliotte Rusty Harold John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org An observable characteristic is not necessarily a functional requirement. --John Hudson John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Man has no body distinct from his soul, for that called body is a portion of the soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of the soul in this age. --William Blake John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Statistics don't help a great deal in making important decisions. Most people have more than the average number of feet, but I'm not about to start a company selling shoes in threes. --Ross Gardler John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If I read "upcoming" in [the newspaper] once more, I will be downcoming and somebody will be outgoing. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Uneasy lies the head that wears the Editor's hat! --Eddie Foirbeis Climo John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org if if = then then then = else else else = if; John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Would your name perchance be surname Puppet, given name Sock? --Rick Moen John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "Repeat this until 'update-mounts -v' shows no updates. You may well have to log in to particular machines, hunt down people who still have processes running, and kill them." John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Let's face it: software is crap. Feature-laden and bloated, written under tremendous time-pressure, often by incapable coders, using dangerous languages and inadequate tools, trying to connect to heaps of broken or obsolete protocols, implemented equally insufficiently, running on unpredictable hardware -- we are all more than used to brokenness. --Felix Winkelmann John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Note that nobody these days would clamor for fundamental laws of *the theory of kangaroos*, showing why pseudo-kangaroos are physically, logically, metaphysically impossible. Kangaroos are wonderful, but not *that* wonderful. --Daniel Dennett on zombies John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org One of the oil men in heaven started a rumor of a gusher down in hell. All the other oil men left in a hurry for hell. As he gets to thinking about the rumor he had started he says to himself there might be something in it after all. So he leaves for hell in a hurry. --Carl Sandburg John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org La mayyitan ma qadirun yatabaqqa sarmadi Fa idha yaji' al-shudhdhadh fa-l-maut qad yantahi. --Abdullah al-Hazred, Al-`Azif No saves, Antonio, loke es morirse en su lingua. Es komo kedarse soliko en el silensyo kada dya ke Dyo da, komoser sikileoso sin saver porke. --Marcel Cohen, 1985 John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The native charset of SMS messages supports English, French, mainland Scandinavian languages, German, Italian, Spanish with no accents, and GREEK SHOUTING. Everything else has to be Unicode, which means you get only 70 16-bit characters in a text instead of 160 7-bit characters. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org How comes city and country to be filled with drones and rogues, our highways with hackers, and all places with sloth and wickedness? --W. Blith, Eng. Improver Improved, 1652 John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Almost all theorems are true, but almost all proofs have bugs. --Paul Pedersen John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I Hope, Sir, that we are not mutually Un-friended by this Difference which hath happened betwixt us. --Thomas Fuller, Appeal of Injured Innocence (1659) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Sir, I quite agree with you, but what are we two against so many? --George Bernard Shaw, to a man booing at the opening of _Arms and the Man_ John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Fundamental thinking is ha-ard. Let's go ideology-shopping. --Philosopher Barbie John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The peculiar excellence of comedy is its excellent fooling, and Aristophanes's claim to immortality is based upon one title only: he was a master maker of comedy, he could fool excellently. Here Gilbert stands side by side with him. He, too, could write the most admirable nonsense. There has never been better fooling than his, and a comparison with him carries nothing derogatory to the great Athenian. --Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "Make a case, man; you're full of naked assertions, just like Nietzsche." "Oh, i suffer from that, too. But you know, naked assertions or GTFO." --heard on #scheme, sorta John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org The internet is a web of tiny tyrannies giving an illusion of anarchy. --David Rush John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Being understandable rather than obscurantist poses certain risks, in that one's opinions are clear and therefore falsifiable in the light of new data, but it has the advantage of encouraging feedback from others. --James A. Matisoff John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org weirdo: When is R7RS coming out? Riastradh: As soon as the top is a beautiful golden brown and if you stick a toothpick in it, the toothpick comes out dry. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Pour moi, les villes du Silmarillion ont plus de realite que Babylone. --Christopher Tolkien, as interviewed by Le Monde John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Awk!" sed Grep. "A fscking python is perloining my Ruby; let me bash him with a Cshell! Vi didn't I mount it on a troff?" --Francis Turner John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org And they pack their lyrics till they're so damn dense You could put 'em in your yard and you could use 'em for a fence. --Alan Chapman, "Everybody Wants to Be Sondheim" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "Why yes, I'm ten percent Jewish on my manager's side." --Connie Francis John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org People go through the bother of Christmas because Christmas helps them to understand why they go through the bother of living out their lives the rest of the year. For one brief instant, we see human society as it should and could be, a world in which business has become the exchanging of presents and in which nothing is important except the happiness and well-being of the ultimate consumer. --Northrop Frye (1948) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Adam [...] did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. --Mark Twain John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "Your honour puts yourself to much trouble correcting my English and doubtless the final letter will be much better literature; but it will go from me Mukherji to him Bannerji, and he Bannerji will understand it a great deal better as I Mukherji write it than as your honour corrects it." --19th-century Indian civil servant to his British superior John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past. --Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org I should say generally that that marriage was best auspiced, for the achievement of happiness, which contemplated a relation between a man and a woman in which the independence was equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligations reciprocal. --Louis Anspacher (1944) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org He that would foil me must use such weapons as I do, for I have not fed my readers with straw, neither will I be confuted with stubble. --Thomas Vaughan (1650) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Wer es in kleinen Dingen mit der Wahrheit nicht ernst nimmt, dem kann man auch in grossen Dingen nicht vertrauen. --Albert Einstein on honesty John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org "Hacking is the true football." --F.W. Campbell (1863) in response to a successful attempt to ban shin-kicking from soccer. Today, it's biting. My .sigs are from my large and miscellaneous reading both on and off the net. Occasionally I hear one viva voce or make one up (without attribution, of course). I try to stay within the McQuary limit, but sometimes fail, as in this case. In general, the quotes are chosen at random by a script from , but sometimes I choose one on purpose. I've been collecting and using them for 30+ years. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org A male Jang appeared at my side. "Get a grip on yourself," he said. "Get a grip on your graks," I suggested. --Tanith Lee, Drinking Sapphire Wine John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Tautology is something that is tautological. --Francois-Rene Rideau John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was looking through a spyglass with my one good eye, with a parrot standing on my shoulder. --"Y" John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If I have seen farther than others, it’s because my head is sitting on the shoulders of a giant. --Trond Engen John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If I have not seen as far as other giants, it’s because I have been standing on my head. --Trond Engen John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If I have seen farther than others, it is because they are closer than I am. --Noetica Noetica’s standing on the shoulders of galahs. --Gibbon Better than standing on the shoulders of hobyahs (not to be confused with hobbits, though some have done so). --me John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org By naming the names they rejoiced in the complexity and specificity, the wealth and beauty of the world, they participated in the fullness of being. They described, they named, they told all about everything. But they did not pray for anything. --Le Guin, The Telling John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Ahhh, I love documentation. --Stephen C. Now I know that I know, and why I believe that I know it. My epistemological needs are so satisfied right now. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org If one were to ask where Americans [excluding Natives] come from, the answer would be simple: from nowhere; they became Americans because they came to America. --Gonzalo Rubio John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org Heh, heh: ... or three pairs of wheels? I wonder what would have happened if Ravna had just read a little further. In some weird way, Twirlip knows the Secret of the Riders. --Vernor Vinge, note 601 John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org America is not a morally pure country. No country ever has been or ever will be, but in democratic countries you get things done by compromising your principles in order to form alliances with groups about whom you have grave doubts. --Richard Rorty, Achieving Our Country (1998) John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars; General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite and flatterer: For Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars. --William Blake, il miglior fabbro John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit -- General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess. --William Blake, il miglior fabbro