"WRT presentation, of course the HTML markup has the added benefit of influencing the presentation of the content. If I write <h1>This is a header</h1> then I can be almost certain that any browser will present it in a way that the user can immediately see it is a header. However, what I can *not* know is exactly how the browser will do that. And that is because I can not know what methods of presentation the browser has at hand. Does it have different fonts? Can it do bold text? Can it underline? Does it have color? Can I add 6 points of vertical white space or am I limited to adding empty lines? Is the browser visual at all or will it speak the text aloud? These are questions that I, the author can not answer, but the browser can. That's why the presentation issues are left to the browser. HTML 3.0 and style sheets will give the authors ways to add presentation hints, but these can only guide the browser, they can in no way be authoritative."

- Marcus E. Hennecke (marcush@leland.stanford.edu)
<3v6q2p$og9@news.acns.nwu.edu>

"The Superhighway? That sounds like a place that's long and boring and kills 50,000 people a year."

(Dick Cavett at UCLA's Information Superhighway conference)

"> death isn't some cute chick in a hat, death is cold and hard.
Life's a bitch, but Death's a babe!"

(Kevin O' Gorman spidey@maths.tcd.ie)

"People need to be shocked"

(Daniel Ouellette)

"There are no social problems which a few well placed bombs will not solve."

(Frank Rydberg)

Q How many goths does it take to change a lightbulb?
A None, they like the dark.
Q How many goths does it take to change a lightbulb?
A None, the lights wouldn't be on anyway.
Q How many goths does it take to change a lightbulb?
A Two, One to replace the UV tube, the other to put on Floodlands.
Q How many goths does it take to change a lightbulb?
A Three, One to change it and the other two to talk about Lord Byron's Grand Tour and creative uses of laudinum in a metaphysical environment.
MORE I-WAY SURVEY RESULTS According to a new survey of 1,000 people conducted by Porter/Novelli, 33% say they're "going the speed limit in the right lane" on the information superhighway and 18% say they're "on the entrance ramp." A speedy 11% boast they're "passing everyone on the left." "There's a gap in perception in terms of where business folks think consumers are and where consumers really are," says a public relations firm spokesman.

(St. Petersburg Times 8/3/94 E1)

Erotica is when you use a feather; kinky is when you use the whole chicken. The difference between erotica and pornography is that in erotica, the pictures are out of focus.

(said by Gina, taken from ?)

"The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from."

-- Andrew S. Tanenbaum

I still believe in Goth, but Goth no longer believes in me.

(unknown)

As a lark, we decided to do parodies of the Multics environment. We looked at Multics and designed the new system to be as complex and cryptic as possible to maximize casual users' frustration levels, calling it Unix as a parody of the Multics, as well as other more risque allusions.

(Ken Thompson, UnixWorld Software Development Forum)

As my grandpappy always told me, "Son, you can lead a newbie to FAQs but you can't make him read." Grandpappy was years ahead of his time.

(Steven King, king@cig.mot.com)

"I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal."

(Calvin)

General Motors doesn't have a help line for people who don't know how to drive. Imagine if they did ...


HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"
Customer: "I got in my car and closed the door and nothing happened!"
HelpLine: "Did you put the key in the ignition slot and tu rn it?"
Customer: "What's an ignition?"
HelpLine: "It's a starter motor that draws current from yo ur battery and turns over the engine."
Customer: "Ignition? Motor? Battery? Engine? How come I have to know all these technical terms just to use my car?"

General Motors doesn't have a help line for people who don't know how to drive. Imagine if they did ...


HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"
Customer: "My car ran fine for a week and now it won't go anywhere!"
HelpLine: "Is the gas tank empty?"
Customer: "Huh? How do I know?"
HelpLine: "There's a little gauge on the front panel with a needle and markings from 'E' to 'F'. Where is the needle pointing?"
Customer: "It's pointing to 'E'. What does that mean?"
HelpLine: "It means you have to visit a gasoline vendor an d purchase some more gasoline. You can install it yourself or pay the vendor to install it for you."
Customer: "What? I paid $12,000 for this car! Now you te ll me that I have to keep buying more components? I want a car that comes with everything built in!"

General Motors doesn't have a help line for people who don't know how to drive. Imagine if they did ...


HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"
Customer: "Your cars suck!"
HelpLine: "What's wrong?"
Customer: "It crashed, that's what wrong!"
HelpLine: "What were you doing?"
Customer: "I wanted to run faster, so I pushed the acceler ator pedal all the way to the floor. It worked for a while and then it crashed and it won't start now!
HelpLine: "It's your responsibility if you misuse the prod uct. What do you expect us to do about it?"
Customer: "I want you to send me one of the latest version that doesn't crash any more!"

General Motors doesn't have a help line for people who don't know how to drive. Imagine if they did ...


HelpLine: "General Motors HelpLine, how can I help you?"
Customer: "Hi, I just bought my first car, and I chose you r car because it has automatic transmission, cruise control, power steering, power brakes, and power door locks."
HelpLine: "Thanks for buying our car. How can I help you? "
Customer: "How do I work it?"
HelpLine: "Do you know how to drive?"
Customer: "Do I know how to what?"
HelpLine: "Do you know how to drive?"
Customer: "I'm not a technical person. I just want to go places in my car!"

Earth is 98% full, please delete anyone you can.


"Tut, tut, it looks like rain..."

(Pooh)

"Another of Fortran's breakthroughs was the GOTO statement, which was a uniquely simple and understandable means of structuring and modularizing programs."

(From the May/June'94 IEEE Institute, an article about John Backus receiving the Draper Prize for having developed Fortran)

"I don't know why people are so worried about seat belts, seems I almost always come close to running someone over when putting it on."

(Michael.Grabenstein@gsfc.nasa.gov)

Rule of Thumb: An individual's command of high technology is in INVERSE proportion to their use of the terms "cyber-" and "information superhighway".

(ekleist@csulb.edu)

Our strategy is, simply stated, "Write it once, store it on anything and display it on anything and any where". Our goal is to be able to provide choices, to the reader and to the publisher.

As proof that it works, we have reduced the production costs of Physical Review Letters. We are printing the journal from the sgml file. We are creating a WAIS database, currently as an archive, that is capable of being serched and converting, real time, the sgml to html. The conversion allows the display, via Mosaic, of the title, authors, abstracts and figure lists. Full display of an article will provide choices of .ps, .dvi, .pdf, image and sgml. All of this, basicly for free because we have the original in a format neutral sgml data base.

(Quoted without permission from Bob Kelly (rakelly@aps.org), American Physical Society)

THE WEB IS AN IDEA, NOT A PIECE OF SOFTWARE
Physicist Tim Berners-Lee, who was the individual who conceived of the World Wide Web, warns that one thing to guard against is "someone who says that in order to get this piece of information you've got to have this particular software, or someone who tells you you've got to use such-and-such a carrier. That's directly contrary to all the ideas behind the Web."

(Internet Business Report Nov. '94, p.8)

Procrastinator's attitude:
" The sooner I get behind, the more time I have to catch up. "

(ccboon@csulb.edu)

"Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore, for the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore, Nameless here forevermore."

(Poe)

Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job.

(pg@login.dknet.dk (Per Goetterup))

I'm convinced that the "Abandon Hope..." inscription over the entrance to hell is a long, centered stream of blinking text in that insanely ugly font whose lowercase letters are half the height of the uppercase.

(Lazlo Nibble (lazlo@rt66.com))

US TWO
"Wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
"Where are you going today?" says Pooh:
"Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too.
Let's go together," says Pooh, says he.
"Let's go together," says Pooh...

"Let's look for dragons," I said to Pooh.
"Yes, let's," said Pooh to Me.
We crossed the river and found a few-
"Yes, those are dragons all right," said Pooh.
"As soon as I saw their beaks I knew.
That's what they are," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what they are," said Pooh.

(insert drawing of geese)

"Let's frighten the dragons," I said to Pooh.
"That's right" said Pooh to Me.
"I'm not afraid," I said to Pooh,
And I held his paw and I shouted "Shoo!
Silly old dragons!" - and off they flew.
"I wasn't afraid," said Pooh, said he,
"I'm never afraid with you."

So wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
"What would I do?" I said to Pooh,
"If it wasn't for you," and Pooh said: "True,
It isn't much fun for One, but Two
Can stick together," says Pooh, says he.
"That's how it is," says Pooh.

- A.A. Milne
"Larry Wall should be shot. Along with Bill Joy and Eric Allman."
-- Daniel Finster, comp.lang.lisp
"Why, just because you guys frittered away a 20-year headstart?"
-- Larry Wall, comp.lang.perl

A good description of the World Wide Web ...

"It's as if the Library of Congress had exploded in midair. There's all kinds of information strewn over the countryside, approximately laid out according to its logical relationship. If you want a particular piece of information, it's probably not there, although some corpuses of data have landed intact. And the professional librarians haven't arrived yet to sort out the mess."


"Something is fundamentally wrong with our government considering the free flow of information in the same catagory as passing out weapons of mass destruction to school children."

- Adam L. Beberg

Does the name "Pavlov" ring a bell?


"Predicting that arguments on netnews will be rejected is akin to predicting that dropped rocks will fall"

- mwm@contessa.phone.net (Mike Mey er)

Hey! Where am I going?
And what am I doing in this handbasket?

- Ilaine de Cameron
Q: How many AOLers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: All of them. One to volunteer to do it and the rest to go "me too"!
Q: How many AOLers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: It can't be done unless someone else writes a GUI program to help them do it

"There are people of the day, and the creatures of the night.

"And it's important to remember that the creatures of the night aren't simply the people of the day staying up late because they think that makes them cool and interesting. It takes a lot more than heavy mascara and a pale complexion to cross the divide."


(Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. "Hasan B. Mutlu" in flames on rec.food.cooking. I watched Time turning to Mass in the dark near the McElwaine Gate. All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to log out."


(bweiner@electron.rutgers.edu)

I went to a general store. They wouldn't let me buy anything specifically.


- Stephen Wright

If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?


- Stephen Wright

Two cannibals were eating a clown.
One said to the other, "Does this taste funny to you?"


Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?
The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
We have enough youth, how about a fountain of SMART?
Position Available: Telepath. You know where to apply.

A woman sneered at my suede jacket and said, "You know a cow was murdered to make that jacket?" I replied in a psychotic tone, "I didn't know there were any witnesses. Now I'll have to kill you too."



"I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants."
-- A. Whitney Brown



On a tombstone: "I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK"



Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
Hobbes: Isn't your pants' zipper supposed to be in the front?



"Every group has a couple of experts. And every group has at least one idiot. Thus are balance and harmony (and discord) maintained. It's sometimes hard to remember this in the bulk of the flamewars that all of the hassle and pain is generally caused by one or two highly-motivated, caustic twits."


-- Chuq Von Rospach, about Usenet

Albert Einstein: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."


Unknown: "Astronomers say the universe is finite, which is a comforting thought for those people who can't remember where they leave things."



Woody Allen: "I'm astounded by people who want to 'know' the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown."



"The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing."


-- William J. Broad

Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson): "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us."



"1. Software expands to fill the available memory
2. Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware gets faster."
- Parkinson's Laws for software



There's music in a hammer, there's music in a nail. There's music in a cat, if you step on it's tail.


-- Mike Hell

'I am the e-mail messiah
The SMTP God!'


-- Chris Rapier

'I am the HTML messiah
The cgi-bin God!'


-- Chris Rapier

God Save Me
From Your Followers


-- unknown

"I think quotes are very dangerous things"


-- Kate Bush

Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.


-- Hedy Lamarr

Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.


-- Tim Berners-Lee

You shouldn't wallow in self-pity. But it's OK to put your feet in it and swish them around a little.


-- Guindon

I don't want to run a company. I'm not good at managing people. You have a problem with the guy in the next cubicle? I don't care. Shoot him or something.


-- Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape, Rolling Stone, 5/97

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.


-- unknown

There's very little advice in men's magazines, because men don't think there's a lot they don't know. Women do. Women want to learn. Men think, "I know what I'm doing, just show me somebody naked."


-- Jerry Seinfeld

When women hold off from marrying men, we call it independence. When men hold off from marrying women, we call it fear of commitment.


-- Warren Farrell (American Psychologist)

One thing vampire children have to be taught early on is, don't run with a wooden stake.


-- Jack Handy, Deep Thoughts

"And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."


-- TS Eliot

Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.


-- TV listing for the Wizard of Oz in the Marin Independent Journal

There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast reflexes.


-- random unix fortune

Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing.


-- Dick Brandon

If it turns me on, it's erotica.
If it turns you on, it's pornography.
If it turns them on, it's filth.


-- Unknown
No skeletons in my closet; they're all in the living room drinking martinis.
-- Peter Caffin
Have you ever been able to keep a straight face around someone who tried to say 'Foolish mortal!' with fangs in? It's much more like 'Thhoolith morthalthth!' About as mysterious and threatening as Sylvester the cat. Hmmmmm..... Looney Toons LARP, anyone?
-- Branwyn Folsom (StrangeGirl)
There were lots of goths 2000 years ago if I am not mistaken. They sacked Rome repeatedly I believe. Didn't listen to Sisters of Mercy though...
-- Orren Merton
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
-- Confucius
Revolution and War are not murder unless you lose. This is a basic tenet of civilization.
-- Jim Choate
Computer memory is like an orgasm. It's a lot better if you don't have to fake it.
-- Seymore Cray, on virtual memory
I have a plan so cunning, you could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel. -- The Black Adder I
When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run. -- Abraham Lincoln
Nevine Khalil: And what if there is democracy in the region and the people decide to elect governments that are not friendly to the US? What would you do about that?

Welch: You mean like France?
-- discussion over Iraq between U.S. Ambassador in Egypt David Welch and some Al-Ahram Weekly journalists, as reported via FrontPage Magazine 12/2003