| | | | 
  fortune index  all fortunes 
  
 |  |  | #2251 |  | The Magician of the Ivory Tower brought his latest invention for the master programmer to examine.  The magician wheeled a large black box into the
 master's office while the master waited in silence.
 "This is an integrated, distributed, general-purpose workstation,"
 began the magician, "ergonomically designed with a proprietary operating
 system, sixth generation languages, and multiple state of the art user
 interfaces.  It took my assistants several hundred man years to construct.
 Is it not amazing?"
 The master raised his eyebrows slightly. "It is indeed amazing," he
 said.
 "Corporate Headquarters has commanded," continued the magician, "that
 everyone use this workstation as a platform for new programs.  Do you agree
 to this?"
 "Certainly," replied the master, "I will have it transported to the
 data center immediately!"  And the magician returned to his tower, well
 pleased.
 Several days later, a novice wandered into the office of the master
 programmer and said, "I cannot find the listing for my new program.  Do
 you know where it might be?"
 "Yes," replied the master, "the listings are stacked on the platform
 in the data center."
 -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
 
 |  |  |  | #2252 |  | The master programmer moves from program to program without fear.  No change in management can harm him.  He will not be fired, even if the project
 is canceled. Why is this?  He is filled with the Tao.
 -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
 
 |  |  |  | #2253 |  | The meat is rotten, but the booze is holding out. 
 Computer translation of "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
 
 |  |  |  | #2254 |  | The meta-Turing test counts a thing as intelligent if it seeks to devise and apply Turing tests to objects of its own creation.
 -- Lew Mammel, Jr.
 
 |  |  |  | #2255 |  | The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be general systems laws.  For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that
 any field that had the word "science" in its name was guaranteed thereby
 not to be a science.  He would cite as examples Military Science, Library
 Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer
 Science.  Discuss the generality of this law, and possible reasons for its
 predictive power.
 -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems
 Thinking"
 
 |  |  |  | #2256 |  | The more data I punch in this card, the lighter it becomes, and the lower the mailing cost.
 -- S. Kelly-Bootle, "The Devil's DP Dictionary"
 
 |  |  |  | #2257 |  | The most important early product on the way to developing a good product is an imperfect version.
 
 |  |  |  | #2258 |  | The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on. 
 |  |  |  | #2259 |  | The net is like a vast sea of lutefisk with tiny dinosaur brains embedded in it here and there. Any given spoonful will likely have an IQ of 1, but
 occasional spoonfuls may have an IQ more than six times that!
 -- James 'Kibo' Parry
 
 |  |  |  | #2260 |  | The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory, in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system.
 
 But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay:
 for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
 -- Matthew 5:37
 
 |  |  |  |  |  |   ...            ...   | 
 
  art   computers   cookie   definitions   education   ethnic   food   fortunes   humorists   kids   law   literature   love   medicine   men-women   news   paradoxum   people   pets   platitudes   politics   riddles   science   sports   wisdom   work
 | 
 | 
 | 
 |  |  
 | |  |  |  |  | | | You're not logged in! If you don't have an account yet, please register one and get your very own elite (but free) BGA account! | 
 |  | 
 |  |  |  |  | 
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 
 |