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1
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2 Coming together is a beginning;
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3 keeping together is progress;
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4 working together is success.
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5 ---
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6 In the beginning there was only one kind of Mathematician, created by
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7 the Great Mathamatical Spirit form the Book: the Topologist. And they grew to
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8 large numbers and prospered.
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9 One day they looked up in the heavens and desired to reach up as far
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10 as the eye could see. So they set out in building a Mathematical edifice that
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11 was to reach up as far as "up" went. Further and further up they went ...
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12 until one night the edifice collapsed under the weight of paradox.
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13 The following morning saw only rubble where there once was a huge
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14 structure reaching to the heavens. One by one, the Mathematicians climbed
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15 out from under the rubble. It was a miracle that nobody was killed; but when
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16 they began to speak to one another, SUPRISE of all suprises! they could not
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17 understand each other. They all spoke different languages. They all fought
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18 amongst themselves and each went about their own way. To this day the
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19 Topologists remain the original Mathematicians.
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20 -- The Story of Babel
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21 ---
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22 This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can
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23 speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled;
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24 batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented,
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25 deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts,
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26 Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless,
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27 spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef,
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28 beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled,
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29 pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish;
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30 half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have
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31 a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon,
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32 individually and in combination, isn't it a little <fill in the blank> to be
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33 limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective?
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34 ---
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35 Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have
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36 much of anything to do with it.
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37 ---
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38 A sadist is a masochist who follows the Golden Rule.
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39 ---
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40 Any road followed to its end leads precisely nowhere.
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41 Climb the mountain just a little to test it's a mountain.
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42 From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.
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43 -- Bene Gesserit proverb, "Dune"
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44 ---
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45 Unix is like a toll road on which you have to stop every 50 feet to
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46 pay another nickel. But hey! You only feel 5 cents poorer each time.
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47 -- Larry Wall in <1992Aug13.192357.15731@netlabs.com>
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48 ---
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49 .
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50 / \
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51 | |
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52 |.|
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53 |.|
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54 |:| __
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55 ,_|:|_, / )
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56 (Oo / _I_
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57 +\ \ || __|
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58 \ \||___|
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59 \ /.:.\-\
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60 |.:. /-----\
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61 |___|::oOo::|
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62 / |:<_T_>:|
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63 |_____\ ::: /
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64 | | \ \:/
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65 | | | |
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66 \ / | \___
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67 / | \_____\
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68 `-'
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69 ---
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70 I loved her with a love thirsty and desperate. I felt that we two might commit
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71 some act so atrocious that the world, seeing us, would find it irresistible.
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72 -- Gene Wolfe, "The Shadow of the Torturer"
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73 ---
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74 Kime's Law for the Reward of Meekness:
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75 Turning the other cheek merely ensures two bruised cheeks.
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76 ---
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