Arne Johannessen

The Collection

This is a small collection of email signatures, quotations, one-liners and other remarks I found interesting, insightful or just funny. They’re mostly in English, but a small number of entries in German and Latin might also appear occasionally. Note that this is an unordered list.

More quotations  can be found at Ingo Brückner’s site , and elsewhere.

• “The difference between me and you [reporters] is that I do good fiction.” —Tom Clancy
• “A simple user interface is not boring. It excites users because it lets them connect with the content and engage the company behind the site.” —Jakob Nielsen (Alertbox 2004-08-30)
• “… quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.” —Lucius Annaeus Seneca
• “One time a cop pulled me over for running over a stop sign. He said ‘didn’t you see the stop sign?’ I said ‘yeah, but I don’t believe everything I read.’ ” —Stephen Wright
• „Patriotismus und Weltoffenheit sind keine Gegensätze – sie bedingen einander! Nur wer sich selbst achtet, achtet auch andere.“ —Horst Köhler (Rede  in der 12. Bundesversammlung)
• “Never ask what sort of computer a guy drives. If he’s a Mac user, he’ll tell you. If he’s not, why embarrass him?” —Tom Clancy
• “The difference between a virus and Windows? Viruses work!”
• Everyone I know who uses Macs love Macs. Nobody I know who uses PCs love PCs, they just tolerate them.
• “I have probably used more OSes than you have owned computers, and I am certainly a Mac advocate.” —Mark Choi
• “Browsers are some of the only software that can get away with doing everything wrong without having to display any warnings or errors to the user.” —Telcontar (iCab Yahoo! group)
• “If you know the HTML format and you have looked at the source of some pages on the Web, you have probably wondered occasionally what monster was able to mangle the HTML code behind a simple Web page or an email message in such a way that it is hard to believe that HTML was ever called a ‘structured language.’ Given the opportunity, some people will make a mess of anything.”
• “Keep it as simple as possible but not simpler.” —Albert Einstein
• “At meetings someone speaks and says nothing. Nobody listens – and then everybody disagrees.”
• “There are 10 kinds of people: Those who understand binary, and those who don’t.”
• Halloween == Oct 31 == Dec 25 == Christmas
• “Junk: stuff we throw away. Stuff: junk we keep.”
• “If you don’t know six ways to abuse a tool then you don’t know how to use it.”
• “Comparing vi and emacs is much like comparing a screwdriver to a 747 repair facility, when what you really need is a shovel.”
• “Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.” —Henry Spencer
• “Our software never has bugs. It just develops random features.”
• “Run a never changing system. Change a never running system. Never run a changing system. Never change a running system.” —Ill Eagle
• “If you’re a bad guy and you want to frustrate law enforcement, use a Mac.” —Dave Thomas, FBI (SecurityFocus)
• There are a couple of simple rules to follow:
  1. If it’s on the internet, it can be hacked.
  2. If it’s backed up, it can be restored.
  3. If it’s patched, it’s less likely to be exploited.
  4. Ease of use and security are inversely proportional.
• “If you’re a script kiddie and you want to get caught, use a Windows based PC.” —Dave Thomas, FBI (SecurityFocus)
• “A recent ‘it’s just an OS’ remark by a co-worker got me thinking. I spend more hours a day looking at and interacting with my OS than I do with my wife, more time looking at it than looking at trees, clouds, the ocean, or anything beautiful – combined! Millions of people log billions of hours in front of their OSs. For the sake of the soul, OSs at least need to be less aggravating, and at best to be things that are a pleasure to the eye and to the soul.”
• “If you’re a glutton for punishment type of guy and you want to frustrate yourself, use a Windows based PC.” —Dave Thomas, FBI (SecurityFocus)
• “There are two things one should never buy without handling them for a while, and making sure that they feel good in the hands: Guns and cameras. Both will produce poor results if you aren’t entirely comfortable using them.”
• “Thanks in part to policital spin, ‘fact’ has taken on a new set of meanings, including ‘assertion,’ ‘belief,’ and ‘highly probable.’” —Dave Smith
• A: No.
  Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?
• “They are smoking crack.” —Linus Torvalds about SCO
• “AOL is like a bicycle with training wheels that you can’t remove, even if your ability exceeds the need for those extra wheels.”
• “There is nothing more worthless than the runway behind you, or the altitude above you.”
• „Es ist stets besser hier unten zu stehen, und zu wünschen, dort oben zu sein, als dort oben zu sein, und zu wünschen, hier unten zu stehen.“
• „Fliegen ist gar nicht so schwierig, wie man denkt. Man muss sich nur auf den Boden schmeißen und vergessen aufzuschlagen.“
• „Nur eines ist besser als viel Arbeitsspeicher: noch mehr Arbeitsspeicher!“ —Götz Hoffart (Knubbelmac )