View Source: RandomCrapola

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!!!What You Say !!

Sent along by [Kenneth Bowen|http://kennethbowen.com] recently, I have no idea who the original author is...
<verbatim>
]
In A.D. 2001
Shakeout was beginning.
CEO: What happen?
CFO: Somebody set up us the bankrupt
CTO: We get signal
CEO: What !
CTO: CNN fN turn on
CTO: It's You !!
Greenspan: How are you gentlemen !!
Greenspan: All your options are belong to us
Greenspan: You are on the way to destruction
CEO: What you say !!
Greenspan: You have no chance to survive make your time
Greenspan: HA HA HA HA ....
CEO: Take off every 'account'
CEO: You know what you doing
CEO: Move 'account'
CEO: For great justice
</verbatim>

Move along if you don't know the reference that makes this funny.

Note the verb tense error - the line should be 'All your option are belong to us'.

-----

Here's a passwd entry from a HP/UX server I adminster.  I have no idea what it means:

<verbatim>
hpdb:*:27:1:ALLBASE:/:/sbin/sh
</verbatim>
Related to AYBABTU?  You be the judge.

-----

From the Linux man page for the terminal program ''cu(1)'':
<pre>
__BUGS__

       This program does not work very well.
</pre>
-----

From ''A Short Introduction to LaTeX'':
<verbatim>
   -LaTex does not work well for people who have sold their souls

   -Your hamster might, despite some encouraging first steps, never be able to
   grasp the concept of logical mark up.
</verbatim>
-----

Ever get that deja vu feeling for no good reason?  Like you're getting deja vu about something totally meaningless and trivial?  Here's what I mean:  I was reading the [Association of Trial Lawyers|http://www.atlanet.org/cjfacts/other/frivolou.ht#anchor1118485] web site when I came across this quote:

;:Contract and property cases -- most of which involve businesses -- comprise more than one-third of all civil   cases in state courts. Domestic relations cases were the next most frequent type of proceeding, representing nearly 25 percent of all civil cases. By comparison, product liability cases accounted for only 0.21 percent of all civil cases. (National Center for State Courts, 1995).

;:Business cases account for 47 percent of all punitive damage awards. In contrast, only 4.4 percent and 2 percent of punitive damage awards are due to product liability and medical malpractice cases, respectively. (Rand Institute for Civil Justice, 1996).

And I suddenly realized I had read that before - in particular the ''.21%'' number rang some sort of bell.

But the real question is, why did I get a feeling of deja vu about such a meaningless quote?  Weird.

7/15/02
-----

I was reading [wired|http://www.wired.com] today and I saw a headline that said 'Former Adelphia Execs Executed'.  Wow, that is both aliterative and crazy at the same time.  Then I read the headline again and it really said 'Former Adelphia Execs Arrested'.  So it turns out that I am the crazy one.  But, doesn't the first headline sound cooler?

7/24/02
-----

Today I went to The Train Deli in Capitola to get a sandwich.  The total came to $7.51.  I gave the girl behind the counter what I thought was $8.00.  I then realized that if I gave her a penny, I would get two shiny quarters in return, instead of a quarter, two dimes, and four pennies.

So I gave her a penny.  She said thanks, took my money, and closed the register.  I said, huh?  Don't you owe me two shiny quarters?  She said no, you have me seven dollars.

I stood there with a look of total confusion on my face - if I still owed her fifty cents, why did she just close the register?  Did she give up and figure I wasn't going to pay her?  Was $7.01 close enough to $7.51 so she figured the boss wouldn't mind?

Anyway, I gave her two more quarters, since I wasn't sure if I had given her seven or eight dollars to begin with.  She took them.

I think I ended up getting screwed out of fifty cents in the whole thing.

7/29/02

-----

From a cool [vw bug repair web site|http://laudeman.com/bug_faq/all_faq.html?s=0&o=a]:
<verbatim>
    A warning before you start: gasoline explodes and it causes cancer.
</verbatim>

Well said.

8/14/02

-----

These days I'm trying to find a job, so I send a lot of resumes out via email.  Here's one autoresponse I received back:

<verbatim>
From: HR <HR@affymetrix.com>
To: "Philip J. Hollenback"
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: Resume for Senior Linux/Unix SysAdmin
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 23:37:16 -0800
X-Spam-Rating: fugazi 1.6.2 0/1000/N

Attention Applicants!

To ensure your resume is processed and forwarded to our hiring manager,
please use the on-line application located at
http://www.affymetrix.com/corporate/careers/index.affx If are submitting
your resume through this e-mail, we cannot guarantee your resume will not be
forwarded to our hiring managers.  This mailbox is checked once a week and
we will reply to your questions, at our earliest convenience.

Human Resources
</verbatim>

Read that paragraph carefully.  Can they also not guarantee that I won't get a job?  That would be something!

11/12/02

-----

From the NetBSD man(1) page for ping:
<pre>
-a      Emit an audible beep (by sending an ascii BEL character to the
        standard error output) after each non-duplicate response is re-
        ceived.  This is disabled for flood pings as it would probably
        cause temporary insanity.
</pre>

4/10/03

----

A coworker gave me some ''Dentyne Ice Peppermint'' chewing gum she purchased in Toronto  (so it's actually ''menthe'' flavor).  Every time I chew a piece, it makes me sneeze, twice.  I suspect a Canadian plot.  Either that or the peppermint is simply overloading all my senses at once.

12/4/03

----

I noticed today that my umbrella (which I must have stolen from someone) is from ''United Colors of Benettom''.  Who the hell buys an umbrella there?  Plus, it's all black.  Shouldn't it be all different colors?

12/11/03

----

I booted a linux machine without a proper initrd installed and saw this message:

<pre>
Kernel panic: I have no root and I want to scream
</pre>

As opposed to the old

<pre>
Kernel panic: Cannot mount root
</pre>

Seems to be generated by GRUB.

12/22/03

----

Some goofy ideas I've scribbled on my Palm Pilot over the years:

* Great idea for a mix tape I will never, ever make: ''Are We Men?  No, We Are Emo!''
* Great name for a band: ''John Denver Death Machine''
* ''P-touch'' is the new ''dymo''
* Another band name: ''The Comb-Overs''
* The ''Denny's Menu'' is a metaphor for bad website design.
* ''Pumphead'' is a confused mental state exhibited by people after open heart surgery.
* ''Criminal Syndicalism'' is one of the coolest-sounding crimes you can be charged with.

2/13/04

----

I've discovered by accident that pressing "08" on a Nokia phone while the keypad is locked turns the backlight on without unlocking the keypad.  A minor hack.

3/22/04

----

__Best terms I've heard to describe coffee lately__

* ''Newtonian'': drip (gravity feed) coffee
* ''Fultonian'': espresso (steam) coffee

3/23/04

----

__My Ongoing Quest to Collect Odd Error Messages__

A linux system at work just crashed with this message:

kernel: irq 7: nobody cared! (screaming interrupt?)

3/25/04

-----

New meme that's bubbling around on the internet but hasn't percolated to the top (yet):

I, for one, will welcome our new __X__.

Where X is something unpleasant.  The original phrase appears to be:

I, for one, will welcome our new alien overlords.

5/28/04

-----

As suggested by ''The New York Times'': I'm going to stop calling them __bloggers__ and go with __web diarists__ (or possibly ''web-diarists'').

7/10/04

-----

I ran across this word the other day and it sounded hilarious.  I'll let you figure out the meaning:  __madam's apple__.

8/27/04

-----

For some reason I thought about a funny little term we used to use all the time in college.  We would call video game systems __Super Nofriendo__, as a dig against people who played them all the time.  This was back in 1992, so nobody had a Playstation or an Xbox.  If you wanted a game console, it was either Super Nintendo or perhaps Sega Genesis.  One acquaintance in particular had one and played it all the time... thus the legend of the __Super Nofriendo__ was born.

9/7/04

-----

From the __chat(8)__ man page on linux:

<verbatim>
COPYRIGHT
       The  chat  program  is  in  public  domain.  This is not the GNU public
       license. If it breaks then you get to keep both pieces.
</verbatim>

9/27/04

-----

I've worked with a lot of Indians (from India) over the years, and one thing that has stuck in my mind is a particular phrase they often use in emails:

;:''Please do the needful''

As in, ''the server is down.  Please do the needful to restart it.''

I think this is a wonderfully descriptive and weird phrase.  My suspicion is it's some remnant from the British education system, but I've never bothered to look it up.

So why don't you see if you can sneak that into your everyday conversation?

11/29/04

-----

Best email subject line __EVAR__:

<verbatim>
From: Axxx
To: <linux-poweredge@dell.com>
Subject: Will I pass stupidty onto my children?

Dear All,

I can confirm after a fairly exhaustive session of out of hours testing that
Dell's latest RHEL3 drivers for the Perc 4e/Si (Megaraid2) do _not_ work on
RHEL2.1.  Surprisingly, it tooks me a couple of hours, much searching and
many floppy bakes to determine this.

It wasn't until I eventually looked at the CD and saw somebody had given me
RHEL2.1 U4 rather than the RHEL3.0 U4 that I asked for (several times) that
the penny finally dropped.

I hope this doesn't happen to you, but if it does may, there be something
inexpensive and crying out to be beaten close to hand.

Axxx
(Name intentionally witheld due to unbearable shame).
</verbatim>

1/21/05

-----

I was reading the New York Times today and glanced at this headline:

!!At Least 14 Are Hurt as Small Jet Crashes in N.J.

And my first thought was, "wow, they're happy that ''at least'' 14 are hurt?"  What kind of monsters are these Times headline writers?

Then I came to my senses.

2/2/05

-----

I think if you are writing a story, an excellent starting sentence is, __My father...__.  You can use that to segue into anything.  For example

<verbatim>
My father was a good man, kind but firm.  I thought about him often as I paced the length of my cell.
</verbatim>

or how about

<verbatim>
My father was a commanding presence in my life.  Too bad he had to take that one last ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl.
</verbatim>

You can practically hear the hilarity ensuing ''all by itself''.

2/15/05

-----

[These people are trying to find the sexiest indie gamer|http://www.tigsource.com/sexiest-indie-gamer.html].  There's a most curious sentence in the Rules section:

;:We demand the subtle sexiness that is genital-free.

Is it just me or does that stick in your head somehow?  I can't put my finger on it, but that sentence is just plain weird.

3/2/05

-----

Fun syslog error message for today:

<verbatim>
kernel: Uhhuh. NMI received. Dazed and confused, but trying to continue
kernel: You probably have a hardware problem with your RAM chips
</verbatim>

That's on a 2.4.22 linux kernel.

4/25/05

-----

There should be a bar called Akbar.  Then you could go there and yell __ITS A TWAP__ in your best froggy voice and all your star wars geek friends would love you.

-----

I've sometimes considered starting a blog commenting on ''The New York Times''.  But then I usually decide that's too meta and too much NYC navel-gazing.  However, quotes such as this one:

;:The other said, "Literally I watched that thing as if my face was palsied, that's how not laughing I was."

(from [TV's Languishing Laughometer|http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/arts/television/08come.html?ei=5090&en=f7786d0538564a8d&ex=1278475200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all]) make me reconsider.  Almost.

7/8/05

-----

Today's favorite Linux kernel message:

<verbatim>
TCP: Treason uncloaked! Peer 192.168.1.5:514/1018 shrinks window 1994890729:1994890749. Repaired.
</verbatim>

Seen on one of my servers at work.  Side effect of a switch reboot.

7/28/05

-----

The best way to glue casino dice to a mirror is by using contact cement.  I tried superglue but it is too brittle and eventually the constant flexing of the mirror causes the dice to come off.  Contact cement is more flexible and keeps them attached permanently.

I'm using dice as the handles on my bathroom vanity mirror.

*Update*: the day after I wrote this one of the [dice fell off|http://flickr.com/photos/phrenologist/14420816/].  Guess I tempted fate.

11/22/06

-----

From the __pwgen(1)__ man page, version 2.06 in Macports:

<verbatim>
    -a, --alt-phonics
              This option doesn't do anything special; it is present only for backwards compatibility.
</verbatim>

Ok so does the <code>-a</code> switch do nothing at all, or just __nothing special__?  What does that mean?

2/26/09


--[phil|PhilHollenback]

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