"What does it take for Americans to do great things; to go to the moon, to win
wars, to dig canals linking oceans, to build railroads across a continent?  In
independent thought about this question, Neil Armstrong and I concluded that it
takes a coincidence of four conditions, or in Neil's view, the simultaneous
peaking of four of the many cycles of American life.  First, a base of
technology must exist from which to do the thing to be done.  Second, a period
of national uneasiness about America's place in the scheme of human activities
must exist.  Third, some catalytic event must occur that focuses the national
attention upon the direction to proceed.  Finally, an articulate and wise leader
must sense these first three conditions and put forth with words and action the
great thing to be accomplished.  The motivation of young Americans to do what
needs to be done flows from such a coincidence of conditions....  The Thomas
Jeffersons, The Teddy Roosevelts, The John Kennedys appear.  We must begin to
create the tools of leadership which they, and thier young frontiersmen, will
require to lead us onward and upward."

- Dr. Harrison H. Schmidt,Sen.,New Mexico -


  "My own life has been spent chronicling the rise and fall of human systems,
and I am convinced that we are terribly vulnerable....	We should be reluctant
to turn back upon the frontier of this epoch.  Space is indifferent to what we
do; it has no feeling, no design, no interest in whether or not we grapple with
it.  But we cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand, slow march of
intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can
explore and understand and utilize it.	To turn back now would be to deny our
history, our capabilities."

- James A.  Michener -



Gilb's Laws of Reliability

  (1) Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.

  (3) The only difference between the fool, and the criminal who attacks a
systrem is that the fool attacks unpredictably and on a broader front.

  (5) Self-checking systems tend to have a complexity in proportion to the
inherent unreliability of the system in which they are used.

  (6) The error-detection and correction capabilities of any system are the key
to understanding the type of errors which they cannot handle.

  (7) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable
errors, which by definition are limited.

  (8) All real programs contain errors until proven otherwise - which is
impossible.

  (9) Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost
of errors, or somebody insists on getting some useful work done.

TOM GILB

  Where's the Wind-up Key ?
JAMES E. KELLEY

  Some days it's hard to get it together
ANON

  There is a time to let things happen and a time to make things happen.
HUGH PRATHER

  The best thing for being sad is to learn something.  That is the only thing
that never fails.
T. H. WHITE

  Time is the freight train of all truth
R. OVERLOCK

  No one wants to be the only available source.
HUGH PRATHER

  A man's mind, stretched by a new idea,can never go back to it's original
dimension.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

  There is no such thing as best in a world of individuals.
HUGH PRATHER

  It takes a long time to understand nothing.
EDWARD DAHLBERG

  Do not condemn your neighbor:  you do not know what you would have done in his
place.
"Sayings of the Fathers"

  Only the ignorant man becomes angry.	The wise man understands.
 --Indian wisdom.

  Anything that can go wrong WILL go wrong
EDSEL MURPHY

  If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million
realities
MAYA ANGELOU

  What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything ?
VINCENT van GOGH

  Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.
DOUG LARSON

  Progress begins with the belief that what is necessary is possible.
NORMAN COUSINS

  Simple solutions seldom are.
FORBES

  The best mirror is a friend's eye.
GAELIC PROVERB

  Foolproof systems don't take into account the ingenuity of fools.
GENE BROWN

  Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.
THOMAS CARLYLE

  Chance favors the prepared mind.
LOUIS PASTEUR

  Things will probably come out alright, but sometimes it takes strong nerves
just to watch.
HEDLEY DONOVAN

  If everything would be permitted to me, I would feel lost in the abyss of
freedom
IGOR STRAVINSKY

  You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact
with a new idea.
JOHN NUVEEN

  Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
CLARK

  Ill play with it first and tell you what it is later.
MILES DAVIS

  Nothing is true.  Everything is permitted.
HASSAN I SABBAH

  Dont let your mouth write no check that your tail cant cash.
BO DIDDLEY

  The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.  But the opposite of
a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
NIELS BOHR

  Just because everything is different doesnt mean anything has changed.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ORACLE

  The most merciful thing in the world ...  is the inability of the human mind
to correlate all its contents.
H P LOVECRAFT

  Take what you can use and let the rest go by.
KEN KESEY

  Its not the size of the ship, its the size of the waves.
LITTLE RICHARD

  I never loved another person the way I loved myself.
MAE WEST

  Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
SIGMUND FREUD

  When choosing between two evils I always like to take the one Ive never tried
before.
MAE WEST

  Her life was saved by rock and roll.
LOU REED

  I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of
oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.
J EDGAR HOOVER

  Honest Officer, had I known my health stood in jepoardy I would never had lit
one.
MAXIM OF THE HELLS ANGELS

  It is a rather pleasent experience to be alone in a bank at night.
WILLIE SUTTON

  Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs painting.
BILLY ROSE

  The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.
KARL MARX

  If Karl, instead of writing a lot about capital, had made a lot of it ...  it
would have been much better.
KARL MARX'S MOTHER

  If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping
center in the world?
RICHARD M NIXON

  When I sell liquor, its called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake
Shore Drive, its called hospitality.
AL CAPONE

  Anything anybody can say about America is true.
EMMETT GROGAN

  Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

  If youve seen one city slum, youve seen them all.
SPIRO AGNEW

  If youve seen one redwood, youve seen them all.
RONALD REAGAN

  He who shits on the road will meet flies on his return.
SOUTH AFRICAN SAYING

  Use it up ...  Wear it out.  Make it do ...  Or do without.
US WORLD WAR II MESSAGE

  You cant underestimate the power of fear.
TRICIA NIXON

  The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak.
WAVY GRAVY

  The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.
BUCKMINSTER FULLER

  Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
DWIGHT D EISENHOWER

  You smash it - and Ill build around it.
JOHN LENNON

  College isnt the place to go for ideas.
HELLEN KELLER

  Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
ARTHUR C CLARKE

  America, how can a write a holy litany in your silly mood?
ALLEN GINSBERG

  It is necessary for me to establish a winner image.  Therefore, I have to beat
somebody.
RICHARD M NIXON

  Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearence of magic.
ARTHUR C CLARKE

  Justice is incedental to law and order.
J EDGAR HOOVER

  Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
GROUCHO MARX

  The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
ABBIE HOFFMAN

  Stay out of the road, if you want to grow old.
PINK FLOYD

  Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still dont know what I want to be when I grow
up.
PETER DRUCKER

  How can you be two places at once when youre not anywhere at all?
FIRESIGN THEATER

  I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
OSCAR WILDE

  We are what we pretend to be.
KURT VONNEGUT, JR

  We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
OSCAR WILDE

  The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong - but thats
the way to bet.
DAMON RUNYON

  I could prove God statistically.
GEORGE GALLUP

  My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit
who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail
and feeble mind.
ALBERT EINSTEIN

  Real wealth can only increase.
R BUCKMINSTER FULLER

  Anyone can hate.  it costs to love.
JOHN WILLIAMSON

  In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or
becomes true.
JOHN LILLY

  Time is an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space.
GRAFFITI

  The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
ALBERT EINSTEIN

  Nobody can be exactly like me.  Even I have trouble doing it.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD

  A physicist is an atoms way of knowing about atoms.
GEORGE WALD

Dont lose
Your head
To gain a minute
You need your head
Your brains are in it.
BURMA SHAVE

  It was always thus; and even if 'twere not, 'twould inevitably have been
always thus.
DEAN LATTIMER

  Burnt Sienna.  Thats the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas.
KEN WEAVER

  We dont know who discovered water, but we are certain it wasnt a fish.
JOHN CULKIN

  Try to be the best of what you are, even if what you are is no good.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  I waited and waited, and when no message came, I knew it must have been from
you.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  Please dont lie to me, unless youre absolutely sure Ill never find out the
truth.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  Please dont ask me what the score is, Im not even sure what the game is.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  If you cant learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  I dont have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  Maybe Im lucky to be going so slowly, because I may be going in the wrong
direction.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely
overwhelm me.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the
target.
ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

  America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without
civilization in between.
OSCAR WILDE

  The flush toilet is the basis of Western civilization.
ALAN COULT

  If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would
presumably flunk it.
STANLEY GARN

  The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of trolls.
FATHER ROBERT F CAPON

  Sure there are dishonest men in local government.  But there are dishonest men
in national government too.
RICHARD M NIXON

  We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
DWIGHT D EISENHOWER

  If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution
inevitiable.
JOHN F KENNEDY

  "Contrariwise", continued Tweedledee, "If it was so, it might be; and if it
were so, it would be; but as it isnt, it aint.	Thats logic."
LEWIS CARROLL

  It takes a long time to understand nothing.
EDWARD DAHLBERG

  To know the world one must construct it.
CESARE PAVESE

  Eeny Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak.
BULLWINKLE MOOSE

  The mistake you make is in trying to figure it out.
TENESSEE WILLIAMS

  An object never serves the same function as its image- or its name.
RENE MAGRITTE

  All I kin say is when you finds yo'self wanderin' in a peach orchard, ya dont
go lookin' for rutabagas.
KINGFISH

  He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.
M C ESCHER

Law of Computability Applied to Social Sciences:
 If at first you don't suceed, transform your data set.

Laws of Computer Programming
(1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete.
(2) Any given program costs more and takes longer.
(3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed.
(4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented.
(5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory.
(6) The value of a program is porportional to the weight of its output.
(7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer
    who must maintain it.
(8) Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you
    will find that programmers cannot write in English.
SIGPLAN Notices, Vol 2 No 2

  When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.
CALVIN COOLIDGE

  The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
PAUL ERLICH

If A equals success, then the formula is:
   A= X + Y + Z
X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
ALBERT EINSTEIN

  Sex is hereditary.  If your parents never had it, chances are you wont either.
JOSEPH FISCHER

Fourth Law of Thermodymanics:
  If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damn near zero.
DAVID ELLIS

Frouds Law:
  A transistor protected by a fast acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing
first.

Fullers Law of Cosmic Irreversibility:
 1 Pot T == 1 Pot P
 1 Pot P != 1 Pot T
R BUCKMINSTER FULLER

  The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.
J PAUL GETTY

  Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs
pounding.
ABRAHAM KAPLAN

  The fault lies not with our technologies but with our systems.
ROGER LEVIAN

  Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some
ordinance under which you can be booked.
ROBERT D SPRECHT (RAND CORP)

Thoreau's Law:
  If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good,
you should run for your life.

Vique's Law:
  A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.

  If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first
woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
GERALD WEINBERG

Zimmerman's Law of Complaints:
Nobody notices when things go right.

  Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.
CONFUCIUS

  Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.
BOOK OF PROVERBS

  It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.
MARK TWAIN

  The unnatural, that too is natural.
GOETHE

  I used to be indecisive; now Im not sure.
GRAFFITI

  I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didnt like it.
SAMUEL GOLDWYN

  He hasn't one redeeming vice.
OSCAR WILDE

  I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.
GRAFFITI

(To Walter Cronkite):
  "Well Walter, I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of
heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a
street"
- Neil Armstrong -

  "You doubted Me," God tells the Lawgiver [Moses], "But I forgave you that
doubt.	You doubted your own self and failed to believe in your own powers as a
leader, and I forgave you that also.  But you lost faith in these people and
doubted the divine possibilities of Human Nature.  THIS loss of faith makes it
impossible for you to enter the Promised Land."
- The Midrash -

  " 'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability"
- George Bernard Shaw -

  "Science has proof without any certainty.  Creationists have certainty without
any proof"
Ashley Montague -

  "Birth, Copulation, and Death.  That's all the facts when you come to brass
tacks"
T. S. Elliot -

  "Make no little plans.  They have no Magic to stir Men's blood."
D. B. Hudson -

  "Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more '
user-friendly'....  Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old
brochures, and stamp the words, 'user-friendly' on the cover."
Bill Gates,Pres.,Microsoft,Inc.  -

Eight Things your computer won't do:
 1) It won't save you money
 2) It won't make your organization run right
 3) It won't solve every problem
 4) It won't run itself
 5) It won't always be right
 6) It won't meet all its own needs
 7) It won't protect itself
 8) It won't become obsolete
J. Makower -

Bradley's Bromide:
  If computers get too powerful,we can organize them into a committee...  that
will do them in.

Civilization Law #1:
  Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations one can
do without thinking about them.

Ketterling's Law:
  Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.

  "Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is
most likely a scoundrel"
H. L. Mencken -

  "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the
Christian Religion"
George Washington -

  "In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty."
 - Thomas Jefferson -

  "During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has
been upon trial.  What has been its fruits?  More or less, in all places, pride
and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity,; in both,
superstition, bigotry, and persecution."
 - James Madison -

  "Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations"
 - Thomas Jefferson -

  "We must all hang together, or we will surely all hang separately"
 - Benjamin Franklin -

  "Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried"
 - Thomas Jefferson -

  "Assuming that either the left wing or the right wing gained control of the
country, it would probably fly around in circles"
 - Pat Paulsen -

  "An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself"
 - Camus -

  "I don't drink water.  Fish fuck in it"
 - W. C. Fields -

  "Six years for possession of a cigarette?...I got six months for possession of
a deadly weapon!"
 - cartoon by S. Harris -

The Swartzberg Test:
 The validity of a science is its ability to predict.

  "There is no choice before us.  Either we must Succeed in providing the
rational coordination of impulses and guts, or for centuries civilization will
sink into a mere welter of minor excitements.  We must provide a Great Age or
see the collapse of the upward striving of the human race"
 - Alfred North Whitehead -

  "What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?  A stick!"
 - Bill Kirchenbaum, comedian -

  "To err is human, to compute divine.  Trust your computer but not its
programmer"
 - Morris Kingston -

  "I've seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I've seen
more of them who were paralyzed in the head"
 - George Wallace -

  "You don't have to explain something you never said"
 - Calvin Coolidge -

  "A little caution outflanks a large cavalry"
 - Bismarck -

  "A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money"
 - Everett Dirksen -

  "The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip
market.  Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and is
fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose"
 - James Finke,Pres.,Commodore Int'l Ltd.(1982) -

  "I like a man who grins when he fights."
 - Winston Churchill -

  "There are a lot of lies going around....  and half of them are true."
 - Winston Churchill -

  "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick
himself up and carry on..."
 - Winston Churchill -

  "God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,
and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday."
 - William Bragg -

  "Pioneering basically amounts to finding new and more horrible ways to die"
 - John W. Campbell -

  "That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest"
 - Thoreau -

  Life is not one thing after another....  it's the same damn thing over and
over!

  The meek will inherit the Earth.....	The rest of us will go to the stars.

  After all is said and done, a lot more has been said than done.

  Beauty is only skin deep, but Ugly goes straight to the bone.

  There is no remedy for sex but more sex.

  Any given program, when running correctly, is obsolete.

  Tell a man that there are 300 billion stars in the universe, and he'll believe
you....  Tell him that a bench has wet paint upon it and he'll have to touch it
to be sure.

  Sex is like snow...  You never know how many inches you're going to get or how
long it will last.

  What matters is not the length of the wand, but the magic in the stick.

  Love is a matter of chemistry, but Sex is a matter of physics.

  "Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no
one else has thought."
 - Albert Szent-Gyorgi -

  "Revolution is the opiate of the intellectuals"
 - "Oh, Lucky Man" -

I really hate this damn machine,
I wish that they would sell it.
It never does just what I want,
But only what I tell it.

  "Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it,
she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels"
 - Goya -

  "Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead
of using it"
 - Gordon R. Dickson -

  "Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor."
 - Toynbee -

  "We have met the enemy and he is us"
 - Walt Kelly (in POGO) -

  "You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are
now extinct."
 - M. Somerset Maugham -

  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
 - Bert Lantz -

  "The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity."
 - Oscar Wilde -

  "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
 - Voltaire -

Ode to Turbulent Flow:
 Big whirls have little whirls
 Which feed on their velocity,
 And little whirls have lesser whirls
 And so on, to viscosity.

  "IBM uses what I like to call the 'hole-in-the-ground technique' to destroy
the competition.....  IBM digs a big HOLE in the ground and covers it with
leaves.  It then puts a big POT OF GOLD nearby.  Then it gives the call, 'Hey,
look at all this gold, get over here fast.' As soon as the competitor approaches
the pot, he falls into the pit"
 - John C. Dvorak -

  "There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them"
 - Heisenberg -

  "It takes all sorts of in & out-door schooling to get adapted to my kind of
fooling"
 - R. Frost -

  "Confound these ancestors....  They've stolen our best ideas!"
 - Ben Jonson -
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