Monday, December 10, 2012

Monday, November 26, 2012

Laws for Computer Programmers

1.  A poorly planned program takes three times as long to finish than you planned.  A well planned program only takes twice as long.

2.  If builders built like programmers programmed, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

3.  If one program crashes, it will take equipment with it.

4.  Any program left running expands to fill all available memory.

5.  Any given program, when running correctly is obsolete.

6.  Adding more programmers to an already late project will make it later.

7.  Design a foolproof system and only a fool will use it.

8.  The system which cannot fail, will.

9.  Only fools use foolproof systems because everyone else makes it crash.

10. The number one rule in hacking:  There is no such thing as a foolproof system.

11. Design a hackerproof system and only a hacker will use it.

12. There are no hackerproof systems, only ones that slow hackers down.

13. Foolproof systems are much like alcohol proofs: 100-proof is only 50% alcohol.

Math Puzzlers

1.  The letters a, b, and c are whole numbers in the following puzzle, and abca represents a 4-digit number.  The symbol ˆ precedes an exponent and the letter 'x' represents a multiplication sign.

  aˆb  x  cˆa  = abca

Find what a, b and c represent.

2.  What number less than 1000 has the most divisors?  As an illustration, the number 6 has divisors 1, 2, 3 and 6; four in total.  The number we are after has more than 30 divisors.

3.  Each of the capital letters below stands for a different whole number and the symbol * represents a multiplication sign.  Find the value of M and the 6 other letters. 

ABCDEF      

 *              M
_______
BCDEFA 

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Quotable Quotes

"There are two tragedies in life.  One is not to get your heart's desire, the other is to get it."
-George Bernard Shaw

"Sculpture is what you  bump into when you back up to look at a painting."
-Ed Reinhart

"If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?"
-Solzhenitsyn

"I don't find any correlation between size and greatness."
-Woody Allen

"If you look just like your passport photo, in all probability you need the journey."
-Earl Wilson

"He who requires much from himself and little from others will be secure from hatred."
-K'ung Fu-Tse

"A man who knows that he is a fool is not a great fool."
-Chuang Tzu

"When there is sugar, there are ants."
-Malayan Proverb

"Don't be afraid about people stealing an idea.  If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."
-Howard Aiken

"He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning."
-Danish Proverb

"Speak the truth, but leave immediately after."
-Yugoslav Proverb

"He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know."
-Lao Tsu

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."
-Friedrich Nietzche

"Religion without science is blind.  Science without religion is lame."
-Albert Einstein

"Any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic."
-Arthur C. Clarke

"I'm not afraid of flying.  I'm afraid of crashing."
-Neil Simon                              

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

New Obama Slogan

Yeah, it's a guy and a Democrat.  Has a few problems with spelling and critical thinking, but not entitlements.


Sunday, October 21, 2012

A Modest Proposal

I'm sure that all of you have wondered about the intricacies of the USA voting system, where the nation's popular vote does not directly lead to the election of the president, but the Electoral College Votes do.

It is estimated that there are currently some 12 million illegal Mexicans living in the USA at any one time and also that almost all of them vote Democrat.  That explains the strident insistence of President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to prevent individual states insisting on voters having Voter ID cards (even if obtained for free).  Illegal aliens tend to reward the party that turns a blind eye to them being here illegally.

My proposition is to cut through the subterfuge and just allot a nominal number of electoral college votes to Mexico - say 25 - as the Mexicans in the lower 48 already vote anyway.  This would validate their votes and keep the Democrats in the presidency for quite a few decades to come.

A few emails to Harry Reid or your state democratic member of congress should help this plan get implemented. 

Friday, October 12, 2012

More Laws & Maxims

Meade's Maxim
Always remember that you are absolutely unique.  Just like everybody else.

George Bernard Shaw's Principle
Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.

Kipling's Konstant
If you keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you don't understand the problem.

Anthony's Ruminations
(i) Little white lies are for golfers.
(ii) Equal opportunities are for the dead.
(iii) Build a better mousetrap - if you hate cats.
(iv) Overpopulation is not a disease - it's a growth.
(v) You can't tell a book by its movie.      

Van Roy's Postulates
(i) Never whisper to the deaf and wink at the blind.
(ii) Recipe for trouble: believe all you hear and repeat it.

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

John's Law of Collateral
In order to get a loan, you must first prove you don't need it.

Pipe Axiom
A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.

Lippka's Law  
When the world falls into complete moral decay, don't be so old you can't enjoy it.

Two Thanksgiving Tenets
(i) At any given dinner where a single turkey is served, three of the guests will ask for a wing.
(ii) The job of carving a turkey is always assigned to the person least capable of carrying it out.         

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

What Me Worry?

Yeah, don't worry about it. We can all emigrate to Greece if he's re-elected, right?

Monday, April 9, 2012

More Laws and Axioms

Remember that not all the faculty has all their faculties.


You can get away with anything as long as you tell someone about it.


The grass is brown on BOTH sides of the damn fence.


A motion to adjourn is always in order.


People in groups tend to agree to things which they know individually are stupid.


Time is an illusion perpetuated by the manufacturer of space.


The Art of Diplomacy is saying "Nice doggie!" until you can find a big enough stick.


I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good lie.


Intelligence is when you can spot the flaw in your boss's reasoning. Wisdom is not pointing it out.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Darwin Award Winners

In Detroit, a 41-year old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18"-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.


A 49-year old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," accidentally jogged off a 100'-high cliff on his daily run.


Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8'-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beach goers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom when it suddenly collapsed, burying him under 5' of sand. People on the beach on the outer banks used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while a crowd of almost 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at the hospital.


Santiago Alvarado, 24, was kiled in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of the bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused by the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.


Sylvester Bridell, Jr., 26, was killed in Selbyville, Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with 4 bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

HONORABLE MENTION (only because they lived)

Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover Township, NJ, and his wife Bonnie was injured, when a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around at 2 AM, the bored couple lit the cut-down stick of dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what kind of a 'pop' would happen, but apparently failed to notice that the window was closed.

Tacoma, WA: Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said he knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of rush hour traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM. Upon arrival at the mid-point of the bridge, they realized that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, discovered a coil of lineman's electrical cable laying nearby. One end of the cable was tied around Bingham's left ankle and the other end to a bridge strut. His fall was at least 40' before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two fishermen who had arrived for some morning fishing.

"All I can say," said Bingham from his hospital bed, "is that God was watching out for me that night. There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's foot was never recovered.

AND OUR WINNER:

Overzealous zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally was able to let fly, and suffocated the keeper under some 200 lbs of poop.

Investigators say the ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive-oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him.

"The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Herr Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on the ground and lay unconscious as Stefan continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him," said flabbergasted police detective Erik Dern. "With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time, he suffocated. It seems to be one of those freak accidents which proves the old saying that 'Shit happens'."

Rejected from Sports Illustrated










Cajun Math

A Cajun man wants a job, but the foreman won't hire him until he passes a little math test.
Here is your first question, the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9."
"Without numbers?" The Cajun says, "Dat is easy." And proceeds to draw three trees.

"What's this?" the boss asks?
"Ave you got no brain? Tree and tree and tree make nine," says the Cajun.
"Fair enough," says the boss. "Here's your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99."
The Cajun stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree. "Ere you go."

The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99?"
"Each of da trees is dirty now. So, it's dirty tree, and dirty tree, and dirty tree. Dat is 99."
The boss is getting worried that he's going to actually have to hire this Cajun, so he says, "All right, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100."
The Cajun stares into space some more, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says, "Ere you go. One hundred."

The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!"
The Cajun leans forward and points to the marks at the base of each tree and says, "A little dog come along and crap by each tree. So now you got dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, which makes one hundred."
"So, when I start?"