Quote of the Day

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
-- Alfred Hitchcock

Mmmm, Gelatinous Mutant Coconut

Quote of the Day

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
-- Voltaire

Quote of the Day

"What shall we do?" said Twoflower.

"Panic?" said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was the best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people faced with hungry sabretoothed tigers could be divided very simply into those who panicked and those who stood there saying "What a magnificent brute!" and "Here, pussy."
-- Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic

Quote of the Day

The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be correct.
-- William of Occam

Quote of the Day

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
-- Richard Dawkins

Quote of the Day

It's hard to have a righteous opinion on the environment when you're as selfish and uninformed as I am. On one hand, I'm a cat-loving vegetarian who ought to care deeply about the caribou or koala bears or bats or whatever they have in Alaska. On the other hand, I live in California so I'd be willing to squeeze school children to death if I thought some oil would come out.
-- Scott Adams

Quote of the Day

Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to PLEASE FOR GOD'S SAKE READ THIS OWNER'S MANUAL CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU UNPACK THE DEVICE. YOU ALREADY UNPACKED IT, DIDN'T YOU? YOU UNPACKED IT AND PLUGGED IT IN AND TURNED IT ON AND FIDDLED WITH THE KNOBS, AND NOW YOUR CHILD, THE SAME CHILD WHO ONCE SHOVED A POLISH SAUSAGE INTO YOUR VIDEOCASSETTE RECORDER AND SET IT ON "FAST FORWARD", THIS CHILD ALSO IS FIDDLING WITH THE KNOBS, RIGHT? AND YOU'RE JUST NOW STARTINGTO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, RIGHT??? WE MIGHT AS WELL JUST BREAK THESE DEVICES RIGHT AT THE FACTORY BEFORE WE SHIP THEM OUT, YOU KNOW THAT?
-- Dave Barry

Quote of the Day

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
-- Albert Einstein

Quote of the Day

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
-- Isaac Asimov

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

10. You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.
9. You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
8. You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
7. Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!
6. You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
5. You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
4. You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."
3. While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
2. You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
1. You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

Quote of the Day

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
-- Frederick Brooks, (The Mythical Man-Month)

Quote of the Day

No proper program contains an indication which as an operator-applied occurrence identifies an operator-defining occurrence which as an indication-applied occurrence identifies an indication-defining occurrence different from the one identified by the given indication as an indication-applied occurrence.
-- ALGOL 68 Report

Laws of Frisbee

Keep in mind always the four constant Laws of Frisbee:

1. The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just out of reach (this force is technically termed "car suck").
2. Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!"
3. The probability of a Frisbee hitting something is directly proportional to the cost of hitting it. For instance, a Frisbee will always head directly towards a policeman or a little old lady rather than the beat up Chevy.
4. Your best throw happens when no one is watching; when the cute girl you've been trying to impress is watching, the Frisbee will invariably bounce out of your hand or hit you in the head and knock you silly.

Quote of the Day

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Doctor Blue Box

Doctor Who? -
... do you know this man? Contact Clive here.

(more)

Quote of the Day

Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.
-- Alfred E. Newman

Quote of the Day

Remember there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
-- Frank Zappa

Scarlett Johansson: 'I Look Like a Boy'

Quote of the Day

I have only one superstition. I touch all the bases when I hit a home run.
-- Babe Ruth

Links that are of interest to but a few

• Maritime Simulation News
• Drum and Bugle Corps

Quote of the Day

Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking.
-- Dave Barry

Quote of the Day

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
-- Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Quote of the Day

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
-- Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Quote of the Day

I love treason but hate a traitor.
-- Gaius Julius Caesar

Quote of the Day

The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture, finished, and put inside boxes.
-- Dave Barry

Quote of the Day

In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death -- even vegetarians.
-- Spock, "Wolf in the Fold", stardate 3615.4

Quote of the Day

Because all you of Earth are idiots!
-- Eros (Plan 9 from Outer Space)

Quote of the Day

Hey, what's the big deal about going to some building every Sunday? I mean, isn't God everywhere?
-- Homer J. Simpson

Quote of the Day

A lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. That's why I like them. If we could find a way to tax people who are bad at English, science and history I'd be a happy camper.
-- Dana Blankenhorn

Quote of the Day

Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it
-- Richard P. Feynman

Quote of the Day

I went home with a waitress,
The way I always do.
How I was I to know?
She was with the Russians too.

I was gambling in Havana,
I took a little risk.
Send lawyers, guns, and money,
Dad, get me out of this.

-- Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns and Money"

Quote of the Day

Modern women. They've been like that all down through the ages.
-- Jeff Trent (Plan 9 from Outer Space)

Quote of the Day

Marge, please, old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied, so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use.
-- Homer J. Simpson

Computer keys that should be added to the standard keyboard

Quote of the Day

You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion.... Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, quite intelligent enough.
-- Aldous Huxley

Quote of the Day

My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here".
-- Stephen Wright

Quote of the Day

America ... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
-- Hunter S. Thompson