If you have been on-line for any period of time, you've probably noticed them. They appear on e-mails, USENET posts, and social media sites (including SoylentNews, if you have setup an account). I'm talking about a .sig file, also known as a signature file.
Many are humorous, some are thoughtful, some are just placeholders. But, once in a while, I stumble upon one that makes me laugh out loud, or stops me in my tracks and makes me think. For humorists, some of my favorites are: Dorothy Parker, Ogden Nash, Erma Bombeck, and Ashleigh Brilliant. For the more thought-provoking, I've seen quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, and Oscar Wilde.
I thought it would make for an interesting weekend discussion. What are some of your favorites?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:25PM
thimk
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday May 02 2016, @02:33AM
thimk?
I don't know what that is, or why you're marked troll for it. Now I'm just curious......
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 02 2016, @03:12AM
Thimk - it's just think, misspelled. It was a big thing way, way back in the seventies. It made it's way onto the internet a couple of times when the internet finally happened. I still see it now and then where engineers and STEM people congregate, and it makes it's rounds through the Navy.
Another from way back:
Help stamp out repetitive redundancey, completely and totally.
As for the troll mod, I have a fan club. Nothing to worry about, it's just their way of showing us that they love me. ;^)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @03:50AM
Also referenced in Taxi Driver.
(Score: 1) by Osamabobama on Monday May 02 2016, @04:56PM
I believe "Think" was once the motto (for internal use?) of IBM, back in its heyday. My dad used to have a book of single-panel cartoons, mostly set in a computer room (populated by a wall-sized mainframe) or corporate office. At least one of them featured a sign on the wall that said "Thimk." Another had a sign that spelled "think" correctly, but there wasn't quite enough room for the n and k, so they were narrower, with the k shifted downward and angled to fit it into the sign, which was distorted from the typical rectangular shape to put more room in the bottom right for the displaced k.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:55PM
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 5, Funny) by aristarchus on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:05PM
Mash up of two great British thinkers, Sir Francis Bacon, and Lord Acton:
"Knowledge is power, power corrupts; study hard, be evil."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ilPapa on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:09PM
The best sigs are the most useful ones.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:19PM
('.')
(> <)
this is Bunny. copy and paste Bunny into your signature to help him on his way to world domination.
(Score: 3, Informative) by UncleSlacky on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:34PM
Example of Kibo's .sig here: http://archive.birdhouse.org/etc/kibosig.txt [birdhouse.org]
Example of a BIFF .sig at the end of this message: https://www.eyrie.org/~thad/strange/b1ff.html [eyrie.org]
Speaking as a close personal friend(tm) of Xibo, Kibo is of course Not Allowed.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fishybell on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:10PM
Dear god. The humanity.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:56PM
Thanks a lot, I have been looking for that Twin Peaks chart for years!
(Score: 2) by fleg on Monday May 02 2016, @05:23AM
thanks for that, took me back.
digging around on there, came across this which i also hadnt seen in quite a while...
https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/writing/rant.html [eyrie.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:44PM
I'm of course familiar with forums, email clients etc. letting you specify a signature by typing in some text, but a .sig file? Never heard of it.
(Score: 2) by Valkor on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:09PM
It's short for .signature which is a file you place in your home directory to be appended to the end of emails. Most mail clients (even modern ones) will use its content by default for your sig.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday May 02 2016, @06:27AM
A co-worker had signatures that seemed to rotate to new ones for each mail or usenet message. I never checked how it was done but guess that he had fortune running with custom data via a named pipe in place of the expected .sig file
A feature I would like for a mail client or mail client plug-in would be to have different signature files for each list.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:46PM
Least favorite: those that read like "Don't like my driving? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT"
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:07PM
back in the days, when many hacks would dial in for usenet access, the fuckers will post a one-line message with a page-or-two length sig file attached. next couple dozen messages will bitch and moan about mofos posting such message, many of them trailed by lengthy sig files themselves, pissing us off even more for the time it took to download that repetitive garbage. And back in those days, phone companies charged you by the minutes, even local calls.
(Score: 4, Touché) by mtrycz on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:09PM
it comes from a discussion held here about the ad industry.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday May 02 2016, @02:55AM
As the author of the original comment [soylentnews.org], I'm glad you like it!
Mine came out of another Soylent discussion about silly political parties and votes (e.g. Kang v Kodos).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Monday May 02 2016, @06:37AM
Hey man! Didn't have the time to check for the actual comment, thanks for the link.
Cheers!
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Username on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:34PM
They are usually offtopic and add nothing but noise to a discussion.
If you allow them on your CMS, an ability to disable them should always be included.
(Score: 5, Funny) by maxwell demon on Sunday May 01 2016, @09:23PM
One sig I particularly liked on Slashdot:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:34PM
Actually, this one is my favorite:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Congratulations, maxwell demon!
Close second is one I don't seem to be able to find anymore. I read it on the Babylon 5 mailing list. In it someone claimed to be the ruler of all the jelly beans in the world, except the black ones, which are made with bug blood.
Coincidentally, I prefer the black ones, which taste like licorice.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday May 02 2016, @05:29PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday May 01 2016, @09:47PM
dyingtolive's sig here.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @02:43AM
That was originally proposed by someone as a punishment. (#11) [soylentnews.org]
Which raised a question. [soylentnews.org]
...and, as they say, the rest is (really funny) history.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @09:47PM
Enquiring brains in jars want to escape.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @09:57PM
For the more thought-provoking, I've seen quotes from ... Winston Churchill,
Maybe they should also include quotes from Stalin, Pol Pot, and friends... you know, to keep him company. A criminal does get lonely sometimes.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday May 02 2016, @07:00PM
"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas."
"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:01PM
"Tilting at windmills for a better tomorrow."
It expressed my identification with Don Quixote. He may have been insane, but he always tried to do the right thing.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @07:21AM
In grad school mine paraphrased Don Quixote: "From too much reading and not enough sleep, his brain dried up and shriveled away."
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:06PM
"These people are extras. Extra people. ... Extras. ... Extra humans."
--Peter Falk, Der Himmel über Berlin/Wings of Desire
(Score: 4, Funny) by tynin on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:29PM
Light a fire for a man and he will be warm for the night. Light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
(Score: 1) by wirelessduck on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:35AM
One space can make all the difference...
Light a man a fire and he will be warm for the night. Light a man afire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Wednesday May 18 2016, @01:19AM
Sort of like how there is a small difference in Networking, and Not working? :)
(Score: 4, Funny) by inertnet on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:45PM
I come from a small town whose population never changed. Each time a
woman got pregnant, someone left town.
War on common sense - I think we actually won that one...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 01 2016, @11:36PM
No one ever died.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @11:04PM
"We fought the wrong enemy."
- George S. Patton, General, WWII.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kell on Monday May 02 2016, @01:49AM
I've seen that one attributed to Eisenhower, Patton and various others - and then said to pertain to the communists, the capitalists, the Jews, the illuminati and so on. I've been looking, but have not yet found, a good authoritative source for the quote coming from Patton or anybody notable. "$FAMOUS_PERSON inferred that $DISLIKED_GROUP is bad!" is classic urban legend stuff, used by fringe-dwellers to buttress an otherwise unsupportable position.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 02 2016, @06:32AM
I hate fucking Nazis and their erroneously attributed quotations. Hitler hisself once said: "I love to do kind acts to people, and ensure that everyone has equal human rights and the opportunity to participate in a truly democratic system of government that is not invading France." He added, " My dog has no nose!" A voice from the vast crowd at Neueremberg (or a Trump Rally in NC) said: "How does he smell?" And der Fuereriosa responded: "Terrible"! Fucking Nazis, really bad jokes.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @01:16AM
Taglines [textfiles.com] of the good old BBS days were hilarious. I remember one archive that had 50,000 taglines - can probably find them somewhere online.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @12:11PM
Check out the huge archive on taglinesgalore [taglinesgalore.com]. I love the "borg" taglines.
Have it OUR way - Borger King.
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Monday May 02 2016, @01:26AM
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
LOAD "SIG"
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
People can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Hartree on Monday May 02 2016, @01:30AM
"There we were spanking each other with raw pork chops. And then things got weird."
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @01:53AM
public void Ballmer(Developers developers) throws Chair
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday May 02 2016, @02:33AM
I hate Linux because it made me type 'man mount'.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by srp on Monday May 02 2016, @03:39AM
"By the time their numbers had dwindled from 15 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect Hungry."
"I live like I type: fast and with a lot of mistakes."
And, off topic I know but, from a tomb stone: "Better late than never."
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Monday May 02 2016, @05:31AM
I don't know about favorites but after about 15 years not bothering to have any kind of sig online I played around with a Unicode "face" generator for a few minutes and found the results to be amusing enough to use it to create a sig for myself. Because why not, you know? It's been 15 years.
Almost immediately I was informed in no uncertain terms by that infamous and highly opinionated poster "Anonymous Coward" that my newly minted sig was so awful that it made him appreciate Slashdot. Pretty sure he wasn't kidding either. Apparently he has something against Unicode. Or bears. Maybe both.
I thought briefly about letting his negativity give me teh bad feelz 8'-{, but I decided against it.
Behold, my horrible sig that scared someone back to the bad place:
.
.
.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Monday May 02 2016, @10:07AM
It's probably paraphrasing, but here goes: .sigs remembered from Slashdot:
- This .sig intentionally left blank
(remember those IBM manuals?)
- Sarah Palin will not have sex with you.
- A spook is a criminal who works for your government.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday May 02 2016, @11:25AM
I've always liked the ones with ANSI-codes in them.. my favorite problably was:
"Useful tip number ESC[0mESC[2J : PRESS CTRL-ALT-DEL TO REBOOT ESC[22;30;40m right now"
Or my favorite pure ascii:
"Now you see me +++ Now you don't"
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Monday May 02 2016, @12:49PM
There is a missing one:
Buck Feta
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 02 2016, @01:52PM
one was, "smile! cthulhu loathes you"
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 02 2016, @02:54PM
"The worst that can happen under monarchy is rule by a single imbecile, but democracy often means the rule by an assembly of three or four hundred imbeciles."
"Of course I am crazy, but that doesn't mean I am wrong."
"The average is that which no person quite ever is."
"It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @03:15PM
Every pithy saying will at some time be attributed to Mark Twain.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Translation Error on Monday May 02 2016, @03:54PM
(Score: 1) by mattwrock on Monday May 02 2016, @08:46PM
My own mind is my own church
Or really anything Bender says...
Ones and zeros everywhere... I even saw a 2 - Bender
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @11:21PM
"The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."
But one of the best ideas I got (on copyright taxation at a self-assessed buyout rate) was inspired from a Slashdot sig years ago that said something like: "If it is intellectual property, then why isn't it taxed?"
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:24PM
Three o'clock in the afternoon is always just a little too late or a little too early for anything you want to do. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul didn't understand the concept of "beer-thirty". -- RedneckMother
Mas cerveza por favor.