Ever since upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04 I get Java debug messages when starting xmaple or when running maplets from the commandline maple. They look like this:

Anyone want to try isprime(2-1) for me?

(see also)

Bruce Schneier posted a link to a nice powerpoint presentation full of (sometimes snarky) maxims about the security industry.  I think a lot of them are pretty universal to software development in general.  You can replace security with computational math in many of the Maxims.  Good examples:

Infinity Maxim:  There are an unlimited number of  [bugs and errors] for a given [computational math] device, system, or program, most of which will never be discovered.

Ignorance is Bliss Maxim:  The confidence that people have in
[a piece of software] is inversely proportional to how much they know about it.

Rohrbach’s Maxim:  No [computational math] device, system, or program
will ever be used properly (the way it was designed) all the time.

Rohrbach Was An Optimist Maxim:  Few  [computational math] devices,
systems, or programs will ever be used properly.