17th Rule of Friendship|A friend will refrain from telling you he picked up the same amount of life insurance coverage you did for half the price when yours is noncancellable.\n-- Esquire, May 1977
186,282 miles per second|It isn't just a good idea, it's the law!
18th Rule of Friendship|A friend will let you hold the ladder while he goes up on the roof to install your new aerial, which is the biggest son-of-a-bitch you ever saw.\n-- Esquire, May 1977
2180, U.S. History question|What 20th Century U.S. President was almost impeached and what office did he later hold?
3rd Law of Computing|Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation violation -- Core dumped
667|The neighbor of the beast.
A hypothetical paradox|What would happen in a battle between an Enterprise security team, who always get killed soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't hit the broad side of a planet?\n-- Tom Galloway
A Law of Computer Programming|Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find that programmers cannot write in English.
A musician, an artist, an architect|the man or woman who is not one of these is not a Christian.\n-- William Blake
A new koan|If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. It is an ice cream koan.
Abbott's Admonitions|(1) If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know.\n(2) If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question.\n-- Charles Abbot, dean, University of Virginia
Absent, adj.|Exposed to the attacks of friends and acquaintances; defamed; slandered.
Absentee, n.|A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Abstainer, n.|A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Absurdity, n.|A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Academy|A modern school where football is taught. Institute: An archaic school where football is not taught.
Acceptance testing|An unsuccessful attempt to find bugs.
Accident, n.|A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better.\n-- Foolish Dictionary
Accordion, n.|A bagpipe with pleats.
Accuracy, n.|The vice of being right
Acquaintance, n|A person whom we know well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to.  A degree of friendship called slight when the object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
ADA|Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in Computing.  Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness.\n-- "Datamation", January 15, 1984
Adler's Distinction|Language is all that separates us from the lower animals, and from the bureaucrats.
Admiration, n.|Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Adore, v.|To venerate expectantly.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Adult, n.|One old enough to know better.
Advertising Rule|In writing a patent-medicine advertisement, first convince the reader that he has the disease he is reading about; secondly, that it is curable.
Afternoon, n.|That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning.
Age, n.|That period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we no longer have the enterprise to commit.\n-- Ambrose Bierce
Agnes' Law|Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of.
Air Force Inertia Axiom|Consistency is always easier to defend than correctness.
air, n.|A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Alaska|A prelude to "No."
Albrecht's Law|Social innovations tend to the level of minimum tolerable well-being.
Alden's Laws|(1)  Giving away baby clothes and furniture is the major cause of pregnancy.\n(2)  Always be backlit.\n(3)  Sit down whenever possible.
algorithm, n.|Trendy dance for hip programmers.
alimony, n|Having an ex you can bank on.
All new|Parts not interchangeable with previous model.
Allen's Axiom|When all else fails, read the instructions.
Alliance, n.|In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Alone, adj.|In bad company.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Ambidextrous, adj.|Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Ambiguity|Telling the truth when you don't mean to.
Ambition, n|An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.\n-- Ambrose Bierce
Amoebit|Amoeba/rabbit cross; it can multiply and divide at the same time.
Andrea's Admonition|Never bestow profanity upon a driver who has wronged you. If you think his window is closed and he can't hear you, it isn't and he can.
Androphobia|Fear of men.
Anoint, v.|To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Anthony's Law of Force|Don't force it; get a larger hammer.
Anthony's Law of the Workshop|Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop. Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes.
Antonym, n.|The opposite of the word you're trying to think of.
Aphasia|Loss of speech in social scientists when asked at parties, "But of what use is your research?"
aphorism, n.|A concise, clever statement. afterism, n.: A concise, clever statement you don't think of until too late.\n-- James Alexander Thom
Appendix|A portion of a book, for which nobody yet has discovered any use.
Applause, n|The echo of a platitude from the mouth of a fool.\n-- Ambrose Bierce
aquadextrous, adj.|Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toes.\n-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
Arbitrary systems, pl.n.|Systems about which nothing general can be said, save "nothing general can be said."
Arithmetic|An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries.
Armadillo|To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle.
Armor's Axiom|Virtue is the failure to achieve vice.
Armstrong's Collection Law|If the check is truly in the mail, it is surely made out to someone else.
Arnold's Addendum|Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats.
Arnold's Laws of Documentation|(1) If it should exist, it doesn't.\n(2) If it does exist, it's out of date.\n(3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws.
Arthur's Laws of Love|(1) People to whom you are attracted invariably think you remind them of someone else.\n(2) The love letter you finally got the courage to send will be delayed in the mail long enough for you to make a fool of yourself in person.
ASCII|The control code for all beginning programmers and those who would become computer literate.  Etymologically, the term has come down as a contraction of the often-repeated phrase "ascii and you shall receive."\n-- Robb Russon
Atlanta|An entire city surrounded by an airport.
Auction|A gyp off the old block.
audophile, n|Someone who listens to the equipment instead of the music.
Authentic|Indubitably true, in somebody's opinion.
Automobile, n.|A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians.
Bachelor|A guy who is footloose and fiancee-free.
Bachelor|A man who chases women and never Mrs. one.
Backward conditioning|Putting saliva in a dog's mouth in an attempt to make a bell ring.
Bagdikian's Observation|Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele.
Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry|A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by governors.
Banacek's Eighteenth Polish Proverb|The hippo has no sting, but the wise man would rather be sat upon by the bee.
Banectomy, n.|The removal of bruises on a banana.\n-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
Barach's Rule|An alcoholic is a person who drinks more than his own physician.
Barbara's Rules of Bitter Experience|(1) When you empty a drawer for his clothes and a shelf for his toiletries, the relationship ends.\n(2) When you finally buy pretty stationary to continue the correspondence, he stops writing.
Barker's Proof|Proofreading is more effective after publication.
Barometer, n.|An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Barth's Distinction|There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't.
Baruch's Observation|If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Basic Definitions of Science|If it's green or wiggles, it's biology. If it stinks, it's chemistry. If it doesn't work, it's physics.
BASIC, n.|A programming language.  Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company.
Bathquake, n.|The violent quake that rattles the entire house when the water faucet is turned on to a certain point.\n-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
Battle, n.|A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that will not yield to the tongue.\n-- Ambrose Bierce
Beauty, n.|The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.\n-- Ambrose Bierce
Beauty|What's in your eye when you have a bee in your hand.
Begathon, n.|A multi-day event on public television, used to raise money so you won't have to watch commercials.
Beifeld's Principle|The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidical progression when he is already in the company of (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better-looking and richer male friend.\n-- R. Beifeld
belief, n|Something you do not believe.
Bennett's Laws of Horticulture|(1) Houses are for people to live in.\n(2) Gardens are for plants to live in.\n(3) There is no such thing as a houseplant.
Benson's Dogma|ASCII is our god, and Unix is his profit.
Bershere's Formula for Failure|There are only two kinds of people who fail: those who listen to nobody... and those who listen to everybody.
beta test, v|To voluntarily entrust one's data, one's livelihood and one's sanity to hardware or software intended to destroy all three. In earlier days, virgins were often selected to beta test volcanos.
Bierman's Laws of Contracts|(1) In any given document, you can't cover all the "what if's".\n(2) Lawyers stay in business resolving all the unresolved "what if's".\n(3) Every resolved "what if" creates two unresolved "what if's".
Bilbo's First Law|You cannot count friends that are all packed up in barrels.
Binary, adj.|Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes.
Bing's Rule|Don't try to stem the tide -- move the beach.
Bipolar, adj.|Refers to someone who has homes in Nome, Alaska, and Buffalo, New York.
birth, n|The first and direst of all disasters.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
bit, n|A unit of measure applied to color.  Twenty-four-bit color refers to expensive $3 color as opposed to the cheaper 25 cent, or two-bit, color that use to be available a few years ago.
Bizoos, n.|The millions of tiny individual bumps that make up a basketball.\n-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
blithwapping|Using anything BUT a hammer to hammer a nail into the wall, such as shoes, lamp bases, doorstops, etc.\n-- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends
Bloom's Seventh Law of Litigation|The judge's jokes are always funny.
Blore's Razor|Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier.
Blutarsky's Axiom|Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason.
Boling's postulate|If you're feeling good, don't worry.  You'll get over it.
Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom|Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress.
Bombeck's Rule of Medicine|Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
Boob's Law|You always find something in the last place you look.
Booker's Law|An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.
Bore, n.|A guy who wraps up a two-minute idea in a two-hour vocabulary.\n-- Walter Winchell
Bore, n.|A person who talks when you wish him to listen.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Boren's Laws|(1) When in charge, ponder.\n(2) When in trouble, delegate.\n(3) When in doubt, mumble.
boss, n|According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss, in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an ornamental stud."
Boucher's Observation|He who blows his own horn always plays the music several octaves higher than originally written.
Bower's Law|Talent goes where the action is.
Bowie's Theorem|If an experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment.
boy, n|A noise with dirt on it.
Bradley's Bromide|If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in.
Brady's First Law of Problem Solving|When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?"
brain, n|The apparatus with which we think that we think.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
brain, v: [as in "to brain"]\nTo rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source\nof error in an opponent.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Bride, n.|A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
briefcase, n|A trial where the jury gets together and forms a lynching party.
broad-mindedness, n|The result of flattening high-mindedness out.
Brogan's Constant|People tend to congregate in the back of the church and the front of the bus.
brokee, n|Someone who buys stocks on the advice of a broker.
Brontosaurus Principle|Organizations can grow faster than their brains can manage them in relation to their environment and to their own physiology:  when this occurs, they are an endangered species.\n-- Thomas K. Connellan
Brook's Law|Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Brooke's Law|Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition.
Bubble Memory, n.|A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence. See also "vacuum tube".
Bucy's Law|Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
Bug, n.|An aspect of a computer program which exists because the programmer was thinking about Jumbo Jacks or stock options when s/he wrote the program. Fortunately, the second-to-last bug has just been fixed.\n-- Ray Simard
bug, n|A son of a glitch.
bug, n|An elusive creature living in a program that makes it incorrect. The activity of "debugging", or removing bugs from a program, ends when people get tired of doing it, not when the bugs are removed.\n-- "Datamation", January 15, 1984
Bugs, pl. n.|Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls.
Bumper sticker|All the parts falling off this car are of the very finest British manufacture.
Bunker's Admonition|You cannot buy beer; you can only rent it.
Burbulation|The obsessive act of opening and closing a refrigerator door in an attempt to catch it before the automatic light comes on.\n-- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends
Bureau Termination, Law of|When a government bureau is scheduled to be phased out, the number of employees in that bureau will double within 12 months after the decision is made.
bureaucracy, n|A method for transforming energy into solid waste.
Bureaucrat, n.|A person who cuts red tape sideways.\n-- J. McCabe
bureaucrat, n|A politician who has tenure.
Burke's Postulates|Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about. Don't create a problem for which you do not have the answer.
Burn's Hog Weighing Method|(1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse.\n(2) Put the hog on one end of the plank.\n(3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced.\n(4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.\n-- Robert Burns
buzzword, n|The fly in the ointment of computer literacy.
byob, v|Believing Your Own Bull
C, n|A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else.  It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't.\n-- Ray Simard
Cabbage, n.|A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.\n-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Cache|A very expensive part of the memory system of a computer that no one is supposed to know is there.
Cahn's Axiom|When all else fails, read the instructions.
Campbell's Law|Nature abhors a vacuous experimenter.
Canada Bill Jones's Motto|It's morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money. Canada Bill Jones's Supplement: A Smith and Wesson beats four aces.
Captain Penny's Law|You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you Can't Fool Mom.
Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.|The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance.\n-- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"
