Quotes

My laugh of the day….

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Early Unix hackers struggled with this in many ways. In the languages of 1970 function calls were expensive, either because call semantics were complicated (PL/1. Algol) or because the compiler was optimizing for other things like fast inner loops at the expense of call time. Thus, code tended to be written in big lumps. Ken and several of the other early Unix developers knew modularity was a good idea, but they remembered PL/1 and were reluctant to write small functions lest performance go to hell.

Dennis Ritchie encouraged modularity by telling all and sundry that function calls were really, really cheap in C. Everybody started writing small functions and modularizing. Years later we found out that function calls were still expensive on the PDP-11, and VAX code was often spending 50% of its time in the CALLS instruction. Dennis had lied to us! But it was too late; we were all hooked…
— Steve Johnson

Hmm, I’ve always wondered why some really old programms written in C look so odd, as if the person had never heard of a function call (or macro) before. I’ve never been able to figure out if it was because many function calls were more expensive on the hardware back then, because the programmer was used to assembly, or loyality to some “style of the day”.

I guess that clears that up a bit more; if so, thank GOD he lied!

Quote of the Day

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This is a consequence rather than a goal. I abhor a system designed for the “user”, if that word is a coded pejorative meaning “stupid and unsophisticated”.

— Ken Thompson

Hmm, some how this makes me laugh when I think of ed and notepad (ed is like the most basic editor I’ve ever met, but it’s still 1000 times better then notepad)

I can really relate to this:

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Dark Helmet: Careful you idiot! I said across her nose, not up it!
Laser Gunner: Sorry sir! I’m doing my best!
Dark Helmet: Who made that man a gunner?
Major Asshole: I did sir. He’s my cousin.
Dark Helmet: Who is he?
Colonel Sandurz: He’s an asshole sir.
Dark Helmet: I know that! What’s his name?
Colonel Sandurz: That is his name sir. Asshole, Major Asshole!
Dark Helmet: And his cousin?
Colonel Sandurz: He’s an asshole too sir. Gunner’s mate First Class Philip Asshole!
Dark Helmet: How many asholes do we have on this ship, anyway?
[Entire bridge crew stands up and raises a hand]
Entire Bridge Crew: Yo!
Dark Helmet: I knew it. I’m surrounded by assholes!
[Dark Helmet pulls his face shield down]
Dark Helmet: Keep firing, assholes!

For some reason, they’ve been playing Spaceballs a lot lately, refreshing really – they usually don’t put it on cable that much.

How to fix complex technology

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Russian Cosmonaut: It’s stuck, yes?
American Astronaut: Back off! You don’t know the components!
[Russian guy pushes American gal out of the way; who looks ready to belt him one]
Russian Cosmonaut: Components. American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!
[He beats the crap out of the machinery with a wrench until it works]

Ain’t it just the truth? Does it really matter which country uses it, it’s all more or less from the same place, and none of it works properly ^_^

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When writing up a post on DF, in reply to JMJ_coders recent thread, some of my mental-checks lead me Google for one of the user groups, leading me to an old document; which helped spurk my interest in unix. As I normally do, finished writing the post, and started floating around various cross links.

Noticed a few additions to the Rootless Root since I last parsed it. One that really caught my eye,

Master Foo and the MCSE

Once, a famous Windows system administrator came to Master Foo and asked him for instruction: “I have heard that you are a powerful Unix wizard. Let us trade secrets, that we may both gain thereby.”

Master Foo said: “It is good that you seek wisdom. But in the Way of Unix, there are no secrets.”

The administrator looked puzzled at this. “But it is said that you are a great Unix guru who knows all the innermost mysteries. As do I in Windows; I am an MCSE, and I have many other certifications of knowledge not common in the world. I know even the most obscure registry entries by heart. I can tell you everything about the Windows API, yes, even secrets those of Redmond have half-forgotten. What is the arcane lore that gives you your power?”

Master Foo said: “I have none. Nothing is hidden, nothing is revealed.”

Growing angry, the administrator said “Very well, if you hold no secrets, then tell me: what do I have to know to become as powerful in the Unix way as you?”

Master Foo said: “A man who mistakes secrets for knowledge is like a man who, seeking light, hugs a candle so closely that he smothers it and burns his hand.”

Upon hearing this, the administrator was enlightened.

Although I have little love for most of the Microsoft products I’ve tried over the years; it’s worth noting that the people I’ve met with the higher certs from MS, generally know their domain very well.

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Part of my login scripts, is to execute ‘[ -x /usr/games/fortune ] && /usr/games/fortune -aes’, which prints a short message from the fortune database, found this one appropriate lol.

It is not true that life is one damn thing after another — it is one
damn thing over and over.
— Edna St. Vincent Millay

Chuckles of the day

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And don’t forget the first rule of writing internet applications – ‘Don’t re-implement TCP/IP’.
-Bram Cohen

…if we judge something by how badly it is misused, well, hell would be perl, right? — dancer

Unix and C are the ultimate computer viruses.
— The Rise of “Worse is Better”
By Richard Gabriel

My chuckle of the day, 2008-12-06

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If you’re writing a calculator program, ‘+’ should always mean addition!
— source, The Art of Unix Programming, Chapter 1. Basics of the Unix Philosophy

Now that made my smile xD

QTOD

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While ProgramName always endeavours to protect its users from unnecessary harm, it will not stop you from ignoring the big red warning signs.

What a screamin’ and hollerin’ filled day, AGAIN!.

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Let’s see, where do I start?

Stuck getting up for work, overslept and got bitched at..

When we’re about to leave for work, the battery is discharged.

So I end up walking the dogs, but Coco doesn’t get her turn because their is no time.

So Ma calls the place from yesterday to get someone out here with jumper cables for the car…

Then it’s a waiting for the road service, because the place from yesterday don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. And coco is whining because she didn’t get to go out.

The guy with the tow truck and jumper cables explains the battery problem is bacause the internal lights were stuck in the always on position -> BP or PAC, piss on you!

So we head to the normal family mechanic… Good guy, know him and his wife from church.

The alternator is still working (thankfully), so the battery charges and passes sanity checks when hooked up to a voltmeter. He also dismantled something on the engine and whatever he pushed had the same effect as putting the gas pedal flat on the deck,

Ma decides to get a new battery, since it was 3 years old… Which is roughly another $100 between battery / service / warranty / whatever.

I spend ~50% of my laptops own battery charge righting code.

5 minute down the road, the engines running worse then ever… return to mechanic, and guess what? I hose up top near the crankcase was cracked. As far as I can tell from google and his description, it was probably some kind of breather tube for a PCV system.

Son of a bitch, replacing that tube has fixed the cars chugging up and down the road, which has been driving Ma crazy, for what? Nearly 3+ years by now loool.

It is always the simple things in life that getcha !!! Be it a broken serpentine belt driving the alternator and power steering among other things, leaving a light on, just righting to the teletypewriter device, or replacing a stupid hose that helps regulate the amount of air / gases in the chamber to the right levels.

Get stuck going shopping, since we missed work, and I bloody hate grocery shopping !!!!!

I managed to leak the trooper by accident over instant messenger, and had to change it in a hurry, then report myself for stupidity.

To top it off, there is almost nothing on TV; just Keeping The Faith.

Scratch that, to make it even worse! I just ended up having to rub her royal majesties feet.

If tomorrow is like today, yesterday, or worse, I am really taking the weekend off doing shit for awhile loooooooooooool.

Bartender: Let me get this straight, I’m talking to a priest who went on a
bender, because his best friend; a rabbi, stole his girl.

Priest: Right

Bartender: I want to thank you for telling my this story.

Priest: Why?

Bartender: Because now I can retire.

Priest: You have to give me advice, that’s what this is supposed to be about.

Bartender: Oh GOD, what do I know? I half Punjabi Sikh, one quarter Tummel
separatist, my sister married a Jewish doctor from New Jersey, and our
other grandmother was an Irish nun; who left me this bar, which is a VERY
long story.

Priest: You’re a Sikh, Catholic, Muslim, with Jewish in-laws?

Bartender: Yes, yes, it is very complicated… I’m reading dynetics.

Priest: I don’t blame you.

Priest: I thank you for listening to me, I feel like I should ask you for my
penance

Bartender: I don’t do penance, I do shots!

both: *snorts* Hahaha

*pours them both another shot*

Bartender: I tell you what I know

Bartender: May those who love us, love us. And those who don’t love us – may
GOD turn their hearts. And if HE cannot turn their hearts, may HE turn their
ankles, so that we may know them by their limping

Priest: *nods agreement*