Q: What do you get when you cross a mobster with an international standard?

A: You get someone who makes you an offer that you can't understand!

— /usr/games/fortune

Obligatory joke about OfficeOpen XML:

Q: What do you get when you cross Microsoft with an international standards organization?

A: You get an Office format that you can't understand.

Debian's policy is foolish and unfriendly to us. So we do not cater to it. If they don't like the results, they should change the policy.

— RMS [original source] (speaking in context of the Debian GFDL policy)

Debian's policy starts from good motives, but they were too rigid in carrying them out, and reached a foolish conclusion. I wish they would change it, but I can't make them change it.

— RMS [original source]

Couldn't agree more.

My study’s methodology, reviewer one opined,
Was flawed because a crucial part was not made double-blind
And my biased expectations were a problem, I concede
Now I’ll follow where the evidence may lead...

— The Digital Cuttlefish [original quote]

I love that a hymn was written about the scientific method. It is such a deserving topic.

One definite way to prove that we are half a chromosome away from being chimpanzees is to look at our religious practices.

— Christopher Hitchens [original source, mirror]

It's a strongly suggestive bit of evidence rather than a proof, but food for thought, certainly.

Four species of penguins that breed in Antartica are endangered by global warming.

Even I, the only man in the world who can get angry from looking at a picture of a penguin, find this bad news.

— RMS [original quote]

I don't think this should replace the splash screen, and we have pretty much resolved the issue of the splash screen. But it might be nice to display these four messages in the echo area Burma Shave style.

Emacs is GNU
Emacs is free
For more information
Type C-h C-p

— Richard Stallman [original quote]

I would love to see this in Emacs. The title of this post is a riff on e1f's phrase "shaving/flogging the GNU", which I am somewhat disdainful of.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

— Aristotle, Politics

Aristotle may have been wrong on quite a few of his theories about the way the world works, but at least he got this one right.