brick quote #a

sâmbătă, 10 apr. 2010, 13:11

A Tale of Two Cities LITE
  • by Charles Dickens
A man in love with a girl who loves another man who looks just like him has his head chopped off in France because of a mean lady who knits.
Crime and Punishment LITE
  • by Fyodor Dostoevski
A man sends a nasty letter to a pawnbroker, but later feels guilty and apologizes.
The Odyssey LITE
  • by Homer
After working late, a valiant warrior gets lost on his way home.

via fortune; more on this subject.

brick quote(s), #7

duminică, 15 mart. 2009, 19:21

Light bulb screw, Bitwise shift:

Q:    How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? A:    None.  The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way.
Q:    How many bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb? A:    Two.  One to assure everyone that everything possible is being done while the other screws the bulb into the water faucet.
Q:    How many IBM CPU’s does it take to do a logical right shift? A:    33.  1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register.

via fortune.

brick quote #6

miercuri, 31 dec. 2008, 00:11

Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized that like most books, it had too many words.  The plot was the same one that all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive women.  There, that’s it: 24 words.  But the guy who wrote the book took *thousands* of words to say it. Or consider „The Brothers Karamazov”, by the famous Russian alcoholic Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  It’s about these two brothers who kill their father. Or maybe only one of them kills the father.  It’s impossible to tell because what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages.  If all Russians talk as much as the Karamazovs did, I don’t see how they found time to become a major world power. I’m told that Dostoyevsky wrote „The Brothers Karamazov” to raise the question of whether there is a God.  So why didn’t he just come right out and say: „Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me.” Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words:
  • „Moby Dick” — Don’t mess around with large whales because they symbolize nature and will kill you.
  • „A Tale of Two Cities” — French people are crazy.

Dave Barry, via fortune.

quite disturbing.

vineri, 15 aug. 2008, 18:16

[ Note to self: fortune never lies. ]