In the beginning, God created the Earth and he said, "Let there be
mud."
	And there was mud.
	And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud
can see what we have done."
	And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was
man.  Mud-as-man alone could speak.
	"What is the purpose of all this?" man asked politely.
	"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.
	"Certainly," said man.
	"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all of this," said God.
	And He went away.
		-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., "Between Time and Timbuktu"

	In the beginning there was data.  The data was without form and
null, and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of
IBM was moving over the face of the market.  And DEC said, "Let there
be registers"; and there were registers.  And DEC saw that they
carried; and DEC separated the data from the instructions.  DEC called
the data Stack, and the instructions they called Code.  And there was
evening and there was morning, one interrupt.
		-- Rico Tudor, "The Story of Creation or, The Myth of Urk"

	In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by
the Great Mathematical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist.  And they grew to
large numbers and prospered.
	One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far
as the eye could see.  So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that
was to reach up as far as "up" went.  Further and further up they went ...
until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox.
	The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge
structure reaching to the heavens.  One by one, the Mathematicians climbed
out from under the rubble.  It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when
they began to speak to one another, SURPRISE of all surprises! they could not
understand each other.  They all spoke different languages.  They all fought
amongst themselves and each went about their own way.  To this day the
Topologists remain the original Mathematicians.
		-- The Story of Babel

	In the beginning was the Tao.  The Tao gave birth to Space and Time.
Therefore, Space and Time are the Yin and Yang of programming.

	Programmers that do not comprehend the Tao are always running out of
time and space for their programs.  Programmers that comprehend the Tao always
have enough time and space to accomplish their goals.
	How could it be otherwise?
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

	In the days when Sussman was a novice Minsky once came to him as he
sat hacking at the PDP-6.
	"What are you doing?", asked Minsky.
	"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe."
	"Why is the net wired randomly?", inquired Minsky.
	"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play".
	At this Minsky shut his eyes, and Sussman asked his teacher "Why do
you close your eyes?"
	"So that the room will be empty."
	At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

	In the east there is a shark which is larger than all other fish.  It
changes into a bird whose wings are like clouds filling the sky.  When this
bird moves across the land, it brings a message from Corporate Headquarters.
This message it drops into the midst of the programmers, like a seagull
making its mark upon the beach.  Then the bird mounts on the wind and, with
the blue sky at its back, returns home.
	The novice programmer stares in wonder at the bird, for he understands
it not.  The average programmer dreads the coming of the bird, for he fears
its message.  The master programmer continues to work at his terminal, for he
does not know that the bird has come and gone.
		-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

	"In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa
to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to
like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely
baroque feel to a continent.  And they tell me it's not equatorial enough.
Equatorial!"  He gave a hollow laugh.  "What does it matter?  Science has
achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than
right any day."
	"And are you?"
	"No.  That's where it all falls down, of course."
	"Pity," said Arthur with sympathy.  "It sounded like quite a good
life-style otherwise."
		-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

	"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
	"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
	"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
	"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

	It is a period of system war.  User programs, striking from a hidden
directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire.
During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the
Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with
enough power to destroy an entire file structure.  Pursued by the Empire's
sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script,
custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore
freedom and games to the network...
		-- DECWARS

	It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and
by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate
the habit of thinking about what we are doing.  The precise opposite is the
case.  Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations
which we can perform without thinking about them.  Operations of thought are
like cavalry charges in battle -- they are strictly limited in number, they
require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
		-- Alfred North Whitehead

	It is always preferable to visit home with a friend.  Your parents will
not be pleased with this plan, because they want you all to themselves and
because in the presence of your friend, they will have to act like mature
human beings.
	The worst kind of friend to take home is a girl, because in that case,
there is the potential that your parents will lose you not just for the
duration of the visit but forever.  The worst kind of girl to take home is one
of a different religion:  Not only will you be lost to your parents forever but
you will be lost to a woman who is immune to their religious/moral arguments
and whose example will irretrievably corrupt you.
	Let's say you've fallen in love with just such a girl and would like
to take her home for the holidays.  You are aware of your parents' xenophobic
response to anyone of a different religion.  How to prepare them for the shock?
	Simple.  Call them up shortly before your visit and tell them that you
have gotten quite serious about somebody who is of a different religion, a
different race and the same sex.  Tell them you have already invited this
person to meet them.  Give the information a moment to sink in and then
remark that you were only kidding, that your lover is merely of a different
religion.  They will be so relieved they will welcome her with open arms.
		-- Playboy, January, 1983

	It seems there's this magician working one of the luxury cruise ships
for a few years.  He doesn't have to change his routines much as the audiences
change over fairly often, and he's got a good life.  The only problem is the
ship's parrot, who perches in the hall and watches him night after night, year
after year.  Finally, the parrot figures out how almost every trick works and
starts giving it away for the audience.  For example, when the magician makes
a bouquet of flowers disappear, the parrot squawks "Behind his back!  Behind
his back!"  Well, the magician is really annoyed at this, but there's not much
he can do about it as the parrot is a ship's mascot and very popular with the
passengers.
	One night, the ship strikes some floating debris, and sinks without
a trace.  Almost everyone aboard was lost, except for the magician and the
parrot.  For three days and nights they just drift, with the magician clinging
to one end of a piece of driftwood and the parrot perched on the other end.
As the sun rises on the morning of the fourth day, the parrot walks over to
the magician's end of the log.  With obvious disgust in his voice, he snaps
"OK, you win, I give up.  Where did you hide the ship?"

	It seems these two guys, George and Harry, set out in a Hot Air
balloon to cross the United States.  After forty hours in the air, George
turned to Harry, and said, "Harry, I think we've drifted off course!  We
need to find out where we are."
	Harry cools the air in the balloon, and they descend to below the
cloud cover.  Slowly drifting over the countryside, George spots a man
standing below them and yells out, "Excuse me!  Can you please tell me
where we are?"
	The man on the ground yells back, "You're in a balloon, approximately
fifty feet in the air!"
	George turns to Harry and says, "Well, that man *must* be a lawyer".
	Replies Harry, "How can you tell?".
	"Because the information he gave us is 100% accurate, and totally
useless!"

That's the end of The Joke, but for you people who are still worried about
George and Harry: they end up in the drink, and make the front page of the
New York Times: "Balloonists Soaked by Lawyer".

	It took 300 years to build and by the time it was 10% built,
everyone knew it would be a total disaster. But by then the investment
was so big they felt compelled to go on. Since its completion, it has
cost a fortune to maintain and is still in danger of collapsing.
	There are at present no plans to replace it, since it was never
really needed in the first place.
	I expect every installation has its own pet software which is
analogous to the above.
		-- K. E. Iverson, on the Leaning Tower of Pisa

	It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east
laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers.  The
thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle,
nursing a whopper.  Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying
for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's.
	Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating
under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting
icepacks.
		-- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"

	"It's a summons."
	"What's a summons?"
	"It means summon's in trouble."
		-- Rocky and Bullwinkle

	"It's today!" said Piglet.
	"My favorite day," said Pooh.

	Jacek, a Polish schoolboy, is told by his teacher that he has
been chosen to carry the Polish flag in the May Day parade.
	"Why me?"  whines the boy.  "Three years ago I carried the flag
when Brezhnev was the Secretary; then I carried the flag when it was
Andropov's turn, and again when Chernenko was in the Kremlin.  Why is
it always me, teacher?"
	"Because, Jacek, you have such golden hands," the teacher
explains.

		-- being told in Poland, 1987

	Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she
lived with was made up of idiots.  Remember?  One of them was always
getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to
the farmhouse to alert the other ones.  She'd whimper and tug at their
sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes saying things: "Do
you think something's wrong?  Do you think she wants us to follow her?
What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had never happened before, instead
of every week.  What with all the time these people spent pinned under
the tractor, I don't see how they managed to grow any crops whatsoever.
They probably got by on federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the
applications for.
		-- Dave Barry

	Leslie West heads for the sticks, to Providence, Rhode Island and
tries to hide behind a beard.  No good.  There are still too many people
and too many stares, always taunting, always smirking.  He moves to the
outskirts of town. He finds a place to live -- huge mansion, dirt cheap,
caretaker included.  He plugs in his guitar and plays as loud as he wants,
day and night, and there's no one to laugh or boo or even look bored.
	Nobody's cut the grass in months.  What's happened to that caretaker?
What neighborhood people there are start to talk, and what kids there are
start to get curious.  A 13 year-old blond with an angelic face misses supper.
Before the summer's end, four more teenagers have disappeared.  The senior
class president, Barnard-bound come autumn, tells Mom she's going out to a
movie one night and stays out.  The town's up in arms, but just before the
police take action, the kids turn up.  They've found a purpose.  They go
home for their stuff and tell the folks not to worry but they'll be going
now.  They're in a band.
		-- Ira Kaplan