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Who knows what lurks behind all the sayings of the computerised world, and its authors of classic literature? Many of the quotes below have been cut and pasted from computerised sources and computer magazines, and the rest from printed books I’ve loved. (Before you get any ideas like’s happened to me in the past, none of these quotes are my own work so I don’t have any rights over them…)
Just prior to the Second World War, a French government official asked … Marseilles how they managed to maintain the accuracy of the speaking clock. ‘It is easy, sir,’ replied the … engineer, ‘…according to the time signals [of] Radio Marseille.’ The man … then telephoned the … station and asked how they knew … their time signals were accurate. ‘No problem,’ came the reply. ‘We simply ring up the speaking clock.’
‘Speaking Clock’ in The Guinness Book of Innovations (1994) by Geoff Tibballs.
The Unix operating system has … enemies. But who could dislike … a quirky sense of humour?
Entering the following commands, exactly as written, …
% man: Why did you get a divorce?
TOO MANY ARGUMENTS
% make ‘heads or tails of all this’
MAKE: DON’T KNOW HOW TO MAKE HEADS OR TAILS OF ALL THIS
…
% How would you rate New Zealand beer?
UNMATCHED.
% %Treasurer-Peters
TREASURER-PETERS: NO SUCH JOB
NZ InfoTech Weekly, October 1998
Awake! Awake!
Ring the alarum bell! Murder and treason!
Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself! Up, up, and see
The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up and walk like sprites
To countenance this horror! Macduff in Act 2 Scene 1 of Macbeth, William Shakespeare
Farewell, too little and too lately known,
Whom I began to think and call my own;
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mould with mine. To the Memory of Mr Oldham, John Dryden
My dear fellow, said Sherlock Holmes,
life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
A Case of Identity, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Never attempt to run an exhibition on its educational merits. Instead provide the public with plenty of good healthy entertainment. G.S. Munro, General Manager 1906 (Christchurch) Exhibition