Quotes

[jack]

1. "We used to quip that "password" is the most common password. Now it's "password1." Who said users haven't learned anything about security?" -- Bruce Schneier.

In fact, there were many less funny but more optimistic trends to be drawn.

And indeed, often I want to use the simplest password the submission will let me. I have a weak password I use for throwaway accounts on websites where possible. Of course, this only works if the only thing risked is *my* access, if hacking the account wouldn't escalate someone else's privelege nor let them spam email to arbitrary addresses. Eg. if the site has no more functionality, or lets anyone sign up, or lets you do some things only after you've authenticaed in a slightly more rigorous fasion.

2. "If the PuTTY web site is down (Connection Timed Out), please don't bother mailing us to tell us about it. Most of us read our e-mail on the same machines that host the web site, so if those machines are down then we will notice before we read our e-mail." -- The PuTTY team

Which is completely true, of course. I just thought it was well-phrased.

3. // Version 0.1 "What happens when you try to develop a bug tracking system with a bug tracking system"
int main() {
printf("Bug 0\n");
printf("\n");
printf("printf("Reproduce: Run the program\n");
printf("What happened: Terminated immediately with errcode 0\n");
printf("What I expected: A bug tracking system\n");
printf("Assigned to: me\n");
printf("Suggested fix: Write a bug tracking system\n");
printf("Status: under development\n");
printf("\n");
return 0;
}

4. Two hale young men coming out of formal hall:
First: Do you remember Woof? The series of children's books about a guy who turns into a dog?
Second: No.
First: You're INSANE.
Second: But it sounds good!

5. "The male is generally silent but gives a low whistle during court. The female makes a gruff growling call."

6. Verne famously got ticked at Wells for making bleep up, pointing out that Wells had no Cavorite to hand, while he had used an entirely plausible cannon to launch three buckets of soup to the Moon. -- Making Light

7. TBQ: So Lestat and Nicolas run away to Paris together.
Other Person: Uh-huh.
TBQ: And get an apartment together.
OP: Uh-huh.
TBQ: And sleep together.
OP: Uh-huh.
TBQ: And talk about how they love each other.
OP: Uh-huh.
TBQ: And kiss each other before they go to bed at night - in the same bed, mind you.
OP: Uh-huh.
TBQ: And then in later books Lestat talks about how much he loved Louis. And then he tries to sleep with David. And in Tale of the Body Thief he repeatedly talks about how he loves men as much as he loves women.
OP: Uh-huh.
TBQ: So you see what I'm saying?
OP: Sure. But, he's not gay. He's French.
TBQ: [bangs forehead into desk] --BratQueen

8. We saw a pigeon with what looked like an olive branch, though it may have been privet, and the water is out of the house now, so we let the pairs of taller animals go. -- About recent flooding

9. int error() {
  return 0/0;
}

10 "I know some pretty unscrupulous art dealers, but I doubt even they deserve this." -- Five days a stranger

Comments

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

3. ROFL!

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

#9 can be a useful technique in some circumstances. I have found it best to make it a macro so that you get the error in the same stack frame as the caller (because when your debugger when your platform doesn't do the right thing with abort, it may not do the right thing with stack-local variables either).

Also it's worth disguising the divisor because some compilers will notice that you're dividing by zero and output spurious warnings.

So something like:

#define ERROR() do { exit(1 / fabs(0)); } while (0)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yes, good point. I think I may have misquoted it a bit (I made that one up) -- there was a function name which was obviously intended to do something other than *produce* an error, but had a name that was confusing, and I synthesised it into this. Of course, a function which does produce an error would be called error :)