Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. -- Sam Brown, "The Washington Post", January 26, 1977

The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries #10 Sometimes the only way out is through. . . through the hull.

Han Solo: Chewie and I will check it out, you two stay here. Luke Skywalker: Quietly. There may be more of them out there. Han Solo: Hey, it's me.

There is no pleasure to me without communication: there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind that it does not grieve me to have produced alone, and that I have no one to tell it to. ~ Michele de Montaigne

My calculator is my shepherd, I shall not want It maketh me accurate to ten significant figures, and it leadeth me in scientific notation to 99 digits. It restoreth my square roots and guideth me along paths of floating decimal points for the sake of precision. Yea, tho I walk through the valley of surprise quizzes, I will fear no prof, for my calculator is there to hearten me. It prepareth a log table to comfort me, it prepareth an arc sin for me in the presence of my teachers. It annoints my homework with correct solutions, my interpolations are over. Surely, both precision and accuracy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of Texas instruments forever.

You'll feel devilish tonight. Toss dynamite caps under a flamenco dancer's heel.

Gul Madred: I remember the first time I ate a live taspar. I was six years old and living on the streets of Lakat. There was a band of children, four, five...six years old—some even smaller, desperately trying to survive. We were thin, scrawny little animals, constantly hungry, always cold. We slept together in doorways, like packs of wild gettles, for warmth. Once I found a nest. Taspars had mated and built a nest in the eave of a burned-out building. And I found three eggs in it. It was like finding treasure. I cracked one open on the spot and ate it, very much as you just did. I planned to save the other two. They would keep me alive for another week. But of course, an older boy saw them and wanted them. And he got them. But he had to break my arm to do it. Jean-Luc Picard: Must be rewarding to you to...to repay others for all those years of misery. Gul Madred: What do you mean? Jean-Luc Picard: Torture has never been a reliable means of extracting information. It is ultimately self-defeating as a means of control. One wonders it is still practiced. Gul Madred: I fail to see where this analysis is leading. Jean-Luc Picard: Whenever I look at you now, I will not see a powerful cardassian warrior; I will see a six-year-old boy who is powerless to protect himself. Gul Madred: Be quiet! Jean-Luc Picard: In spite of all you have done to me, I find you a pitiable man. Gul Madred: Picard, stop it. Or I will turn this on and leave you in agony all night! Jean-Luc Picard: Aha! You called me "Picard!" Gul Madred: What are the Federation's defense plans for Minos Korva? Jean-Luc Picard: There are four lights! "Star Trek: The Next Generation: Chain of Command, Part II [6.11], Season 6"

They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality. -- Frida Kahlo

OBVIOUSLY YOU STRIKE OUT AGAINST PEOPLE WITHIN RANGE. IT'S CATHARTIC TO AFFECT SOMEONE WHEN YOU'RE ANGRY. ALTERNATIVELY, CHOOSE ENEMIES IMPOSSIBLY FAR AWAY SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO FIGHT. -- Jenny Holzer

* dpkg hands stu a huge glass of vbeer * Joey takes the beer from stu, you're too young ;) * Cylord takes the beer from Joey, you're too drunk. * Cylord gives the beer to muggles. -- #Debian, celebrating the 5th anniversary

Jabba the Hutt: Bring me Solo and the Wookiee! They will all suffer for this outrage.

The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. -- H. L. Mencken

The Fundamental Truths (3) With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.

EPIGRAMS IN PROGRAMMING 83. What is the difference between a Turing machine and the modern computer? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the establishment of a Hilton hotel on its peak.

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but is also their means of communication. It is the same with us and God. Every separation is a link. -- Simone Weil

Protism, Simple A retroactive coinage used by Uthentine and Erasmas to contrast the traditional conception of Protism, which consisted of one Hylaean Theoric World having a causal relationship to the cosmos in which Arbre is embedded, to their new scheme, which they dubbed Complex Protism. See Protism, Complex. ~ From the glossary of 'Anathem' by Neal Stephenson

Q: Know what the difference between your latest project and putting wings on an elephant is? A: Who knows? The elephant *might* fly, heh, heh...

Blissful quiet, the rocking of a recent love Is both repose and anguish in my fainting dreams ~ Racter (The Policeman’s Beard is Half Constructed)

revolutionary, adj.: Repackaged.

Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another. -- George Carlin