[2289] in Central_America
New quotes for Tue Mar 20
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Tue Mar 20 01:30:53 1990
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 90 01:29:57 EST
From: root@CHARON.MIT.EDU (Initializer.SysDaemon)
To: ca-mtg@BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU
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aaleigh (Angela A Leigh):
Cure cancer and all forms of unnecessary disease.
Bring about world peace.
Abolish all inequality and domination.
Have a bunch of kids.
Smile.
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celine (Robert Fullmer):
Jones's First Law:
Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of
endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an
obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the
importance of their original contribution.
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henry (Henry Mensch):
Then it was he who had ben her friend? The darkness turned to black.
"Are you her page?" asked Valya.
Tall, handsome people can ask any questions they like.
------
I knew that at home they'd guessed everything; Grandma began educating
me in her usual way.
"My neighbor's son, who's in the seventh grade, has decided to
graduate school first, then college, and get firmly on his feet. Only
after that will he be thinking of 'other' things."
From that I was to draw the conclusion that I should wait until I
graduate college before asking Lilia Tarasova to go skating.
The same evening, she said to my mother, "When you took a fancy to
Sergei Potapov in your fifth grade, it helped you get top marks. It
inspired you!"
I gathered I was supposed to get top marks in everything, too.
The next day, my marks in physics were poor.
"Really, I don't know you anymore," said the teacher.
I hardly knew myself.
I needed to get some advice. I remembered Yuri, a student of geology
who lived in our complex. His parents were geologists, too, and were
often away prospecting. One time when they were away he ahd become
seriously ill.
I could have been infected, but I didn't care about that, or about
Grandma's objections, either. I went in and looked after him, got his
medicines and even gave him mustard plasters.
"If ever you are in difficulties, come straight to me," Yuri said
then.
So now, I went and told him everything about Lilia.
And he laughed!
"That's not a real difficulty, brother! You're in the sixth grade,
right? I remember feeling the same way. But it isn't anything
serious. You took risks to help me, and I'd do the same for you, but
there's no help needed here. I'tll evaporate by itself, all in good
time -- like smoke, or the morning mist."
-----
After about a week, Lilia asked me, "Would you like to stand vigil at
my entry?"
"Sure I would! . . . What does that mean?"
"Suppose I need your help suddenly? Then there you are, right at my
door."
"I'll stand there day and night!"
"Why so long? An hour and a half or two hours a day, that's enough."
She was continuing to test me.
"Don't worry, you won't be bored. Vladik Babkin will share your
vigil."
So he was being tested, too.
Vladik and I started our vigil. Lilia sometimes came down and we
escorted her to the shops or the market. We walked behind her and
carried her shopping bags. She always went through the courtyard
where Valya from the second floor would be playing hockey. He would
stop, wave his stick and gibe at Vladik and myself, calling us "guards
of honor" or "musical accompaniment" or "a couple of burrs."
When he met us in the entry, he would say, "Well? Coming on duty?"
I endured it all, and waited for the twenty-ninth of February.
A speaker whom I once heard in a park said that if a boy my age falls
in love, he must drag the girl about by her braids or even hit her. I
certainly didn't want to drag Lilia Tarasova about by her braids --
especially since she hadn't any. But I did want -- and very much --
to go skating with her.
So I waited.
One day when she came down the stairs, Lilia said to us, "Don't you
think there should only be one of you here in the entry?"
(more to follow tomorrow)
---------------------------------
"I voted in genuine secrecy. No one told me in advance how to
vote, and I have no fear of immediate reprisals tommorrow at work for
voting the way I wanted. In my heart, I feel as if I just voted for the
first time."
--Christopher Schoppe, a cattle rancher in Schwanebeck, East
Germany.
---------------------------------
Plans for this month:
* organising the PANSS tape (and thinking about off-site support)
* finding and retaining a man who can pass the "breakfast" test
* workable solutions for qa problems with respect to courseware
and other materials developed by non-athena personnel
D shoveling out my apartment
* considering moving the rest of my furniture (and books,
and tapes, etc.) back into my apartment.
! release 7.0
! treatment of athena network services as layers upon vendor os.
legend: * = "in progress"
+ = "in 'bureaucratic-wait' state"
! = "a future problem"
D = "done"
Planned absences:
North Carolina State University; last week in March (or so i'm told).
--
>off-campus readers will want to know that you'll find me here usually
>... when i'm not travelling to somewhere exotic, i'm a member of MIT's
>Project Athena Release Engineering and External Relations Groups, where
>i handle a potpourri of systems development related tasks, including
>quality assurance, software export issues, etc. ... other details: i'm
>an alumnus of syracuse university, purdue university, and theta chi
>fraternity at those universities ... i like to travel often, and hate
>answering the phone.
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janis (Janice L Nelson):
To survive the semester long enough to remove my head from the clamp
MIT has on it.
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jik (Jonathan I. Kamens):
Entertaining NetNews signatures, number 4 in a series:
(This one's for Andrew.)
--
"Computer Science Considerations"-- BYTE 2/86. An interview with the
developer of TEX and METAFONT, Donald Knuth: "I was excited that I started
out trying to apply computer science to typography and wound up applying
typography to computer science. . ."
*************************
How many programmers does it take to wall-paper a room?
Twelve, but you have to slice them thinly.
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jtidwell (Jenifer P. Tidwell):
God, who stretched the spangled heavens
Infinite in time and place
Flung the suns in burning radiance
Through the silent fields of space
We, Your children, in Your likeness,
Share inventive powers with Thee
Great Creator, still creating,
Show us what we yet may be.
We have conquered worlds undreamed of
Since the childhood of our race -
Known the ecstasy of winging
Through uncharted realms of space
Probed the secrets of the atom
Yielding unimagined power,
Facing us with life's destruction
Or our most triumphant hour.
As thy new horizons beckon,
Father, give us strength to be
Children of creative purpose
Serving man while honoring Thee.
'Til our dreams are rich with meaning,
Each endeavor, Thy design,
Great Creator, lead us onward
Until our dreams are one with Thine.
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padrelou (Brian F Kelly):
{From system: This user's .plan file is not world readable}
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redle (Brian L Elder):
Prepare to meet my friend, Mr. Ionic Displacer!
Dibs! I get to lick the beaters!
Yes Robin, your life was saved by good oral hygene.
With great power comes great responsibilty.
Quoth the raven, "nevermore."
Womp bomp a loo bomp a womp bam boom!
Ba weep gra na weep ninny bom.
Be by be, be by bo, be by bicky bicky be bicky bo, bicky by be bay bo.
Guess I better wind down my woofers!
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ruthless (Ruth M Heffernan):
{From system: This user's .plan file is not world readable}
--- End of Central America ---
