Words of Wisdom.... or Reasonable Facsimilies


"Things ain't like they used to be - and they never were." Yogi Berra
"The most important thing about food is that there should be some" from someone on a British Everest expedition - Bonnington, "Everest, the Hard Way."
"The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet." Damon Runyon
Mathematician Shing-Tung Yau commenting on physicists' drive to discover a single Theory Of Everything or General Unified Theory: "Nature is probably much more profound than that."
"Only those the snake has bitten can tell each other how it feels."
"Wherever you go, that's where you are.

And when you get there, remember, you can't beat fun for a good time."


"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want"
"When you get to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra
It's the difference in being involved and committed...

Chickens is involved in breakfast,

But pigs is committed...


THEY are of course Wrong, and Unwilling to accept it.

{ Were they 'right' they would of course BE US, rather than THEM. Hence as they are not US, they are therefore clearly WRONG. }


Lessons From Corporate America.

1. Indecision is the key to flexibility.

2. You can't tell which way the train went by looking at the track.

3. There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.

4. Happiness is merely the remission of pain.

5. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

6. Sometimes too much to drink is not enough.

7. The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant.

8. The careful application of terror is also a form of communication.

9. Someone who thinks logically is a nice contrast to the real world.

10. Things are more like they are today than they ever were before.

11. Anything worth having is worth cheating for.

12. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

13. Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

14. I have seen the truth and it makes no sense.

15. Suicide is the most sincere form of self-criticism.


30 Signs That Technology Has Taken Over Your Life:

-- Joe Mullich, AmericanWay Magazine, 11/15/94.

1. Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's address book. The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line services, and your Internet address, which spreads across the breadth of the letterhead and continues to the back. In essence, you have conceded that the first page of any letter you write *is* letterhead.

2. You have never sat through an entire movie without having at least one device on your body beep or buzz.

3. You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can't because there isn't one typewriter in your house -- only computers with laser printers.

4. You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends," but you forget to send your father a birthday card.

5. You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6. When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson talking with customers -- and you butt in to correct him and spend the next twenty minutes answering the customers' questions, while the salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.

7. You use the phrase "digital compression" in a conversation without thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.

8. You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the phrase "digital compression." Everyone understands what you mean, and you are not surprised or disappointed that you don't have to explain it.

9. You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have to look up your own social security number.

10. You stop saying "phone number" and replace it with "voice number," since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house are plugged into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.

11. You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your signature.

12. Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen keystroke symbols that are far more clever than :-).

13. You back up your data every day.

14. Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her at the store and you return with a rest for your mouse.

15. You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.

16. On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham novels.

17. The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely enters your mind.

18. You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot's phrase "electronic town hall" makes more sense than the term "information superhighway," but you don't because, after all, the man still uses hand-drawn pie charts.

19. You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit hall in advance. But you cannot give someone directions to your house without looking up the street names.

20. You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

21. You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you something, but you think it's okay for a computer to call and demand that you start pushing buttons on your telephone to receive more information about the product it is selling.

22. You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a- quarter-and three-and-a-half-inch sizes.

23. Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing" fellow.

24. You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually know where they are.

25. While contemporaries swap stories about their recent hernia surgeries, you compare mouse-induced index-finger strain with a nine-year-old.

26. You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel secure enough to say "I don't know" when someone asks you a technology question instead of feeling compelled to make something up.

27. You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires.

28. You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal.

29. You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different opinions about which is better -- the track ball or the track *pad*.

30. You understand all the jokes in this message. If so, my friend, technology has taken over your life. We suggest, for your own good, that you go lie under a tree and write a haiku. And don't use a laptop.

31. You email this message to your friends over the net. You'd never get around to showing it to them in person or reading it to them on the phone.

In fact, you have probably never met most of these people face-to-face.


Last Modified: December 18, 1995
Dennis Koho <cowpi@koho.org>