1. Google's immortal cookie:
"Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number." -- Google: Big Brother of the Year

2003 Big Brother Awards

WOMDs
(Thanks to James)

"The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success." -- Bruce Feirstein

Gridlock

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. ... Create a nation of law-breakers, and then you cash in on the guilt. --Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged"

Just wrote up an example of how to derive types from an O'Caml statement.

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." --GW Bush

Why a German jew did not flee Nazi Germany while he still could

"No man escapes when freedom fails; the best men rot in filthy jails. And those who cried, 'Appease! Appease!', are hanged by those they tried to please." --Horace Mann

Word of the day:
lacuna: An empty space or a missing part; a gap: “self-centered in opinion, with curious lacunae of astounding ignorance” (Frank Norris)

Seven Lessons from the ICFP Programming Contest

www.111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.com
(Keep clicking "ENTER" until you hit the end)

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson

"Software engineering (SE) has probably largest concentration of snake oil salesmen. Even object-oriented design cannot compete with SE ;-). Such "dynamic" figures as Yourdon, Ben Shneiderman and partially Gerard Weinberg... can change their own position twice a week, as they sense that something new becomes fashionable" Skeptical Software Engineering Bibliography

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs