Story of My Life

“After an access cover has been secured by 16 hold-down screws, it will be discovered that the gasket has been omitted.” – De la Lastra’s Corollary There’s probably a linear relationship between the work needed to secure said access cover and the likelihood of omitting the gasket. As usual, from Michael Moncur’s Cynical Quote Collection over at QOTD.

They Make Me Feel Fancy

“Even though I’m a man, I don’t like beer. I prefer appletinis. They make me feel fancy.” – J.D., on Scrubs. Boy I’m glad Scrubs is back.

Sufficiently Advanced

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke “Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.” – Gray’s Law (hat tip to Joshua Brauer at Adding Understanding for calling my attention to Gray’s Law)

Inaccuracy

“A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.” – Saki (hat tip to QOTD as usual, best quote feed ever)

Get Even

“Don’t get mad. Get even.” – David Plankers (1946 – 2001)* * also, I realize that he’s probably not the first to say it, it’s just where I heard it.

Shortcuts Aren't

“It’s hard to overemphasize how out-of-balance the economics are here. You saved maybe thirty person-seconds by skipping the review and checkpatch steps. But the cost (if this bug had gone into mainline) would be many many thousands times higher than this.” – Andrew Morton, admonishing someone on the LKML for not checking their work. How many times a week do you work around shortcuts, where the original person saved a few minutes but cost weeks of time later?

The Future Is Called 'Perhaps'

“The future is called ‘perhaps,’ which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the important thing is not to allow that to scare you.” – Tennessee Williams

Grey's Law

Daring Fireball featured a great quote last Sunday, Grey’s Law: “Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.” Interestingly enough, nobody knows who “Grey” was.