Certains systèmes d'exploitation de type UNIX proposent un petit programme nommé fortune qui permet d'afficher, par exemple à chaque début de session, un aphorisme, petite phrase destinée le plus souvent à faire sourire ou à détendre l'utilisateur.

Ces petites phrases humoristiques sont appelées en anglais des fortune cookies (littéralement « biscuits du destin ») en référence aux biscuits chinois (appelés également fortune cookies en anglais) contenant un petit bout de papier sur lequel est inscrite une phrase censée vous renseigner sur votre avenir.

Les aphorismes proposés ci-dessous sous tous en anglais et sont classés en deux catégories :

• Thèmes divers ;
• Aphorismes relatifs à l'informatique (certaines références des aphorismes de cette catégorie peuvent nécessiter des connaissances plus poussées de la culture informatique pour être comprises).

Thèmes divers

All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific.

Best of all is never to have been born. Second best is to die soon.

Life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100% mortality.

"I think it is true for all n. I was just playing it safe with n >= 3 because I couldn't remember the proof."

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.

Grabel's Law:

2 is not equal to 3 – not even for large values of 2.

Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head.

I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path.

All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power

Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do.

Who needs friends when you can sit alone in your room and drink?

Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter'.

Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die.

The solution of this problem is trivial and is left as an exercise for the reader.

When nothing can possibly go wrong, it will.

QOTD:

I'm not a nerd — I'm "socially challenged".

Never be afraid to tell the world who you are.

Sooner or later you must pay for your sins.

(Those who have already paid may disregard this cookie).

Quantity is no substitute for quality, but it's the only one we've got.

Visits always give pleasure: if not on arrival, then on the departure.

Deja vu:

• French., already seen; unoriginal; trite.
• Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time.
• Psychol., The illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time.

Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations:

• Negative expectations yield negative results.
• Positive expectations yield negative results.

Beware of low-flying butterflies.

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you.

Reality is for people who lack imagination.

Avoid reality at all costs.

There are three things I always forget. Names, faces – the third I can't remember.

All extremists should be taken out and shot.

Cookies traitant de l'informatique

• Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless.
• Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop.

Eagleson's Law:

Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months, might as well have been written by someone else. (Eagleson is an optimist, the real number is more like three weeks.)

UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.

“Waving away a cloud of smoke, I look up, and am blinded by a bright, white light. It's God. No, not Richard Stallman, or Linus Torvalds, but God. In a booming voice, He says: "THIS IS A SIGN. USE LINUX, THE FREE UNIX SYSTEM FOR THE 386.”

God is real, unless declared integer.

Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming:

Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.

Whom the gods would destroy, they first teach BASIC.

Command, n.:

Statement presented by a human and accepted by a computer in such a manner as to make the human feel as if he is in control.

I haven't lost my mind — it's backed up on tape somewhere.