Systems Manager for Unix in Computer Science,
Dartmouth College
Computer Help
Frequently asked Computer questions
department welcome
Some security tips for Linux owners
Computers in the CS Department
list printers
Dept Maps
Department Welcone
his bookmarks
There have been
visitors since March 28, 1998 (but who is counting?)
A'Tuin... Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen
students arrive from school confident that they know nearly everything, and they leave
years later certain that they know practically nothing. Where did the knowlege go in the
meantime? Into the university, of course, where it is carefully dried and stored.
(Terry Pratchett, "The Science of Discworld" 44)
What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.
"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
"We all did our best, God knows, but we were severly weakened by our training"
The Macmouses loved this. It gave them a chance to wear the Arctic-Explorers,-Surplus-Stock-Suitings (which
Bumble had bought for them through an advertisement in the Long-Tailed-Courier)...
Bumble found the bereaved lady very trying. She wouldn't stop talking and always expected the worst to happen. She had a melancholy nature, unlike her children...
- Magdalen Eldon
Way back in the old days, before everything was plug and play, you could buy a computer and accessories from one manufacturer and be certain it would all work together. The cool kids, though, would mix-and-match different pieces and end up with a better system that could do more things than any one manufacturer's system would, and for less money. They realized they might have to spend some time getting this to work with that, and once in a while things wouldn't work at all. That's the price you pay for being a cool kid and getting more for less money.
The people who had problems bought the same thing the cool kids did, but just got irritated when things didn't all work together right out of the box. The cool kids laughed, felt even cooler, and made some money debugging the other kids' systems for them.
Roger Cicala
"You never can tell with bees". Winnie the Pooh p 39
"You never can tell with Heffalumps". Winnie the Pooh p 110
"I have heard the brown creepers singing on the path to the sewage treatment plant"
Legolas did not say this
Tuppence had once laid upon him a serious injunction.
"If anybody over the age of sixty-five finds fault with you," she said, "never argue. Never try to say you're right. Apologize at once and say it was all your fault and you're very sorry and you'll never do it again."
Agatha Christie
"Only a mile from the shepherd and his flock was a goatherd and his herd. The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led". - Terry Pratchett, Small Gods.
‘And to think I never KNEW!’ went on the Toad in a dreamy monotone. ‘All
those wasted years that lie behind me, I never knew, never even DREAMT!
But NOW--but now that I know, now that I fully realise! O what a flowery
track lies spread before me, henceforth! What dust-clouds shall spring
up behind me as I speed on my reckless way! What carts I shall fling
carelessly into the ditch in the wake of my magnificent onset! Horrid
little carts--common carts--canary-coloured carts!’
What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing.
You may take any number of wrong turnings;
but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before warning signs appear.
You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you.
The universe rings true wherever you fairly test it.
- C. S. Lewis "Surprised by Joy" 177
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”
"And Youtube is full of crazy."
Anne Timberlake
"Alright," said the man kindly, "you can sing to my
cat if you like."
Let's face it: software is crap. Feature-laden and bloated, written under
tremendous time-pressure, often by incapable coders, using dangerous
languages and inadequate tools, trying to connect to heaps of broken or
obsolete protocols, implemented equally insufficiently, running on
unpredictable hardware -- we are all more than used to brokenness.
--Felix Winkelmann via John Cowan
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast," said Pooh. "What to you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said
Winnie the Pooh, p 215
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can
-Arthur Ashe via Anne Timberlake
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Brand says they brought a lot of lessons to the well: “Don’t overwork and underappreciate the females, or they leave, and then the party’s over. Don’t invest much in a charismatic leader: he will steal everything you’ve got and then blame you for not having any more. It takes more than a sharp stick and earnestness to make a garden produce food. Don’t piss off the neighbors."
The flute is the show-off of the wind section, the big shot:
Jean-Pierre Rampal, James Galway--both millionaires. (How many
millionaire bassoonists can you name real fast?) Well, that's fine.
Everybody knows it's the hardest, blowing across a tiny hole with your
head tilted all your life: it's like soloing on a pop bottle. The
problem with the flute is that it vibrates your brain, and you start
wearing big white caftans and smocks and eat roots and berries. You
become a pantheist and sit in meadows, and you believe that all is one and
God is everything--God is a column of air vibrating--and you know that's
not right.
Between times [the cat] came down on deck, and remonstrated with [Little Pig] Robinson. It never told him plainly why he ought not to eat so much; but it referred frequently to a mysterious date (which Robinson could never remember) - the date of Captain Butcher's birthday, which he celebrated annually by an extra good dinner. Beatrix Potter
