One day,
A mad meta-writer,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-blog
That started: “One day,
A mad meta-writer,
With nothing to say,
Wrote a mad meta-blog
That started: “One day,
[…]
October 17, 2011, 01:00
Music: Hum honge kamyab and Hum Honge Kamyab
Mood: Tired…
Weather: Whoa! Warm @ 4-5°C from previously 1-2°C…
Its been three days now since I have stepped out of my house. What, you say?! Thats crazy?!! What kind of nerdy behaviour is that!! But, then again, I am as comfortable indoors as I am outdoors and love both and find enough things to do everywhere…And I am as happy with people as without…Yeah, weird, I know…But, whats that that Voltaire said: The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.
Closeted thus indoors out of choice, I almost inadvertently discovered the secret of studying: it is to have fun. And to recognize that it is not studying for a purpose, but learning for its own sake. Performances in a three-hour concrete cuboid will be forgotten in a flash, but the learning will remain. Hopefully, that is! 😛 And it helps me that I have come here to learn and nothing else. Not for a job, not for a career, not for any material advancement, and definitely not perforce. Will I be “successful”? If, two years down the line, I feel that I did not waste my time here (according to my definitions and standards), I will have been successful I think. If, on my deathbed, I feel that I did not waste my time in this silly human-infested planet, I will have been somewhat successful I think. Of course, its also easy to convince, cajole, and fool oneself!
Hard(ly) work(ing)...
Nevertheless, mental strain is mental strain, and like a pressure cooker, everyone needs a valve of release. Else, ka-boom. In my case, I rediscovered a fortune. When a friend wrote about Siri‘s humour in Apple iPhone 4S, I was reminded of something Linux has been having for years. The Fortune program.
Pieces of eight! pieces of eight! pieces of eight! pieces of eight! pieces of eight!
Screamed the parrot in Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Yup, pieces of eight indeed! Essentially, fortune is a simple program that displays a (pseudo)random message from a database of quotations, which not only contain many obscure jokes about computer science and computer programming but also quotations from science fiction (Star Trek, The Cyberiad, Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, etc.), Zippy the Pinhead, and the writings of Ambrose Bierce, and Dave Barry. Most fortune collections also include a wide variety of more conventionally sourced quotations, jokes, and other short passages. There are also…err…offensive ones, if you prefer.
One of the included fortunes speaks of the purpose of the program in typical fortune style:
Has anyone realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is to defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a non-cynical, or even an informative cookie?
Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This
still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or only serves to blunt the warning signs.
Long live the revolution!
Have a nice day.
These Linux guys are simply the tops. Just for the way they work, for the love of their work. Or, rather, play. And the variety of $ fortune “cookies” is amazing; short and sweet, they are perfect for 5-min breaks!
For example, some are repartees,
Dustin Farnum: Why, yesterday, I had the audience glued to their seats!
Oliver Herford: Wonderful! Wonderful! Clever of you to think of it!
Brian Herbert, Classic Comebacks
; some, straightforward quotations,
We’re constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spiritual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it’s not going to do anything for you.
Bob Dylan, LA Times, September 5, 1984
; some, cynicisms,
The best laid plans of mice and men are usually about equal.
Blair
; some, twisted humour,
Proposed Country & Western Song Titles:
I Wouldn’t Take You to a Dog Fight Even If I Thought You Could Win
Don’t Cry, Little Darlin’, You’re Waterin’ My Beer
I Wanted Your Hand in Marriage but All I Got Was the Finger
; some, geeky triple-entendre humour,
What’s this script do?
unzip ; touch ; finger ; mount ; gasp ; yes ; umount ; sleep
Hint for the answer: not everything is computer-oriented. Sometimes you’re in a sleeping bag, camping out.
(Contributed by Frans van der Zande)
; some, just great advice,
Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him.
Save energy; be apathetic.
; some, promoting free software movement,
How about some patent on “(a+b)^2 == a^2 + 2ab + b^2”? Choose free software!
Laurent Szyster
; some, nice quotes,
TV is chewing gum for the eyes.
Frank Lloyd Wright
; and some, pleasant well-deserved Windows bashing,
The nice thing about Windows is – It does not just crash, it displays a
dialog box and lets you press ‘OK’ first.
(Arno Schaefer’s .sig)
Linux Viruscan…..
Windows 95 found. Remove it? (Y/y)
The best Windows accelerator is that which works at 9.81 m/s^2
; and some, gentle laconic philosophy,
Linus: I guess it’s wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow. Maybe we should think only about today.
Charlie Brown: No, that’s giving up. I’m still hoping that yesterday will get better.
(Peanuts, Charles Schulz)
, which is so true of exam preparations; but they are all godsent as I prepare for my exams this week and learn of many things under the sun…away from the sun…
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
So, you ask whats the big damn Finnish connection in all this, eh? Why, Linus Torvalds, the guy who initiated the development of the open source Linux kernel, is from, yup, you guessed it, Helsinki, Finland!!
[…]
sort of close”.
Were the words that the writer,
Finally chose,
To bring his mad blog,
To some sort of close”.
Were the words that the writer,
Finally chose,
To bring his mad blog,
To some sort of close”.
Adapted from a poem in Fortune program
Lappeenranta Sojourn 