A few years ago I was touring the Jet Propulsion Lab and they showed
me a prototype of the Hubble Space Telescope. "Pretty cool machine,
guys," I said, "but is there anyway us amateur astronomers can get in
on this kind of action?" They said yes, plans for the HST were
available through the gift shop. "How much?" I asked. They said
"Fifty." I said "Great! Here's my American Express Plutonium Card!"
I picked up the plans and went home, happy as a clam, until I got my
American Express bill. The total amount due was $50,119.00! I
figured the $119 must have been from one of these Northwest student
ticket vouchers, but where was that $50,000 from? Only then did I
realize that JPL had charged me, no fifty dollars, but fifty THOUSAND
dollars. Boy was I mad. But it was too late to return the plans and
get my fifty thousand dollars back, so I just chalked it up to
experience. But now I'm getting my revenge... I asked the folks at
the JPL copyright office if I could give the plans out to all my
friends and they said, "Heck, why not? What do we need with
royalties? Tell the world!" So I've written up the key steps here.
Please post them to every bboard you can think of and mail them to all
your friends. Remember, if you break the chain you'll get seven years
of bad sunspot interference.
You will need:
1 launch vehicle.
126 "Master Constructor" Erector Sets(tm).
1 Radio Shack(tm) Pro-2001 scanner.
1 2-meter block of glass.
1 box of aluminum foil.
4 sheets of #20 (coarse) sandpaper.
4 sheets of #150 (fine) sandpaper.
2 children's magnifying glasses.
(optional) filters and instrumentation as needed.
Instructions:
1. Using the erector sets, construct a superstructure capable of
supporting a 2-meter mirror and whatever instrumentation you will
be using. Make sure that the superstructure can survive the
G-forces during launch. Don't be tempted to skimp on the nuts and
bolts here.
2. Using the #20 sandpaper, grind the block of glass until it takes
on the shape of a convex mirror. Be very careful in this step
because if you get the shape wrong you'll have to start over
again. Use the #150 sandpaper to smooth out any irregularities
and fix any minor problems with the focus. Then melt the aluminum
foil and vacuum deposit 1-2 atomic layers of aluminum on the
surface of the mirror. Mount the mirror in its place in the
superstructure.
3. Mount the children's magnifying glasses at the focal point of the
mirror. These will serve as an eyepiece for your instruments.
4. Open the back of the Pro-2001 scanner. There will be a 16-pin
chip on the upper left of the circuit board labelled 1Y1169AV.
Carefully clip out the fourth pin on the left and remove it from
the chip. This will convert your Pro-2001 scanner into the usually
much more expensive Pro-2010 scanner with orbital transceiver
capabilities. Close the back of the scanner, check that the
batteries are in place, mount it in the superstructure, and
connect it to your instruments.
5. Make one last check of everything and you're ready to launch!
This is a true story, every bit of it, I swear on my father's sister's
grave. Even if it isn't, I hope that you get as much use and
enjoyment out of your home-built Hubble Space Telescope as I have from
mine!
---- End of Forwarded Message
Comment from a System Manager at the Space Telescope Science Institute
(which didn't _build_ the Hubble, but operates it):
Hmm. Got the instructions for the mirror wrong.
-------------------------
Reply-To: paul@guadalupe.Central.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Why does a truck bearing down on you in the middle of the road have the
word DODGE written on it?
-------------------------
From: rushing_tw@lrc.edu
Subject: MORE murphy's laws of combat
Date: 21 Apr 92 15:26:26 EST
Organization: Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, NC
Here's the EXTENDED list of Murphy's Laws of Combat coming from a 'grunt'
infantryman.
MURHPY'S LAWS OF COMBAT
1. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
2. Incoming fire has the right of way.
3. Don't look conspicuous, it draws fire.
4. There is always a way, and it usually doesn't work.
5. The problem with the easy way out is that it has already been mined.
6. Try to look unimportant, the enemy may be low on ammo.
7. Veterans are predictable, it's the replacements that are dangerous.
8. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions:
a. when you're ready for them.
b. when you're not ready for them.
9. Teamwork is essential, it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.
10. If you can't remember, then the claymore anti-personnel mine IS
pointed at you.
11. The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack.
12. A "sucking chest wound" is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
13. If your attack is going well, then it's an ambush.
14. Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you.
15. Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing.
16. If you build yourself a bunker that's tough for the enemy to get into
quickly, then you won't be able to get out of it quickly either.
17. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
18. If you're short of everything but the enemy, you're in combat.
19. When you've secured the area, don't forget to tell the enemy.
20. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
21. Friendly fire isn't.
22. If the platoon Sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
23. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay
awake when you can sleep.
24. The most dangerous thing in the world is a Second Lieutenant with a map
and a compass.
25. There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.
26. A grenade with a seven second fuse will always burn down in four seconds.
27. Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just regrouping for a counter-
attack.
28. If at first you don't succeed call in an air-strike.
29. Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan.
30. Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when the General is
watching.
31. The enemy never watches until you make a mistake.
32. One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many.
33. A clean (and dry) set of BDU's is a magnet for mud and rain.
34. Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on
ammo, you can't hit the broad side of a barn.
35. The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be
repaired.
36. Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
37. Interchangeable parts aren't.
38. No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill.
39. There is no such thing as military 'intelligence'.
40. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. (in boot camp)
41. The one item you need is always in short supply.
42. The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it.
43. The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the
weapon's operator.
44. Airstrikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short.
45. When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most
important ones are always illegible.
46. Those who hesitate under fire usually do not end up killed or wounded.
47. The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don't know what
they want, but they know for certain what they DON'T want.
48. To steal information from a person is called plagarism. To steal
information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.
49. The weapon that always jams when you need it the most is the M60.
50. The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet
is filled by some unqualified idiot.
51. When you have sufficient supplies & ammo, the enemy takes 2 weeks to
attack. When you are low on supplies & ammo the enemy decides to attack
that night.
52. The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the
Congressional Medal of Honor.
53. A Purple Heart just goes to prove that were you smart enough to think of
a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.
54. The enemy never monitors your radio traffic until you broadcast on an
unsecure channel.
55. Whenever you drop your equipment in a fire-fight, your ammo and grenades
always fall the farthest away, and your canteen always lands at your feet.
56. As soon as you are served hot chow in the field, it rains.
57. Never tell the platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.
58. The seriousness of a wound is inversely proportional to the distance to
the nearest form of cover.
59. Walking point = sniper bait.
60. Your bivouac for the night is the spot where you got tired of marching that
day.
61. If only one solution can be found for a field problem, then it is usually
a stupid solution.
62. Recoiless weapons aren't.
63. Suppressive fire works on everything but the enemy.
64. You are not Superman, but sometimes thinking you are will save you!
65. Murphy was a grunt.
-------------------------
From: Kenneth.E.Harker@dartmouth.edu (Kenneth E. Harker)
Subject: COMP: Servicing Machines
Date: 9 May 92 22:10:14 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
HOW TO GET SERVICE ON YOUR MACHINE:
1. Do not call for service until everyone concerned has had time
to form an opinion as to what is wrong. Allow each person the chance
to correct the problem. Whenever possible all controls and adjusting
screws should be turned.
2. After several days, when the machine malfunction has become a
major emergency, place an urgent call for service. Fridays are best,
but anytime after 4:00 pm is OK.
3. Alert all personnel so that each can give their version of
what is wrong. Suggestions on how to fix the machine will be welcomed
by the service man.
4. Hide the service history log that is found inside the machine.
Make several references to the man who was here for the same problem
last week.
5. Have at least eight graduate engineers present to ask highly
technical questions which are in no way related to the immediate
problem.
6. The minute the service man arrives, ask what caused the delay.
Make it clear that he was to arrive two days ago. Before he can
answer, ask him when the machine will be back in service.
7. The machine should be as dirty and greasy as possible. A
mixture of oil and pencil sharpener shavings work well. If the
machine has electrical components, add staples and paper clips to the
mixture.
8. Assign someone to supervise the repair. A person who has
never seen the machine before is prefered. Bad breath is a big plus.
9. Ask again when the machine will be ready for use.
10. Be sure that the lights are off in the room where the machine
is to be repaired. A good service man can fix them blindfolded.
11. Ask if the machine is ready yet. If the service man is
looking at a schematic diagram, ask if he knows what he is doing.
12. When the repair is completed, tell him what a swell job he
did. Tell him that the job should be swell, as it took him long
enough.
13. Try to talk the service man down on the bill. Those companies
make too much money anyways.
14. After the service man has gone, call his supervisor and tell
him that the machine is now worse than it was before. Follow up with
a letter and send a copy to the company's home office.
-------------------------
Early in the morning,
in the middle of the night,
two dead boys
got up to fight.
Back to back,
they faced each other,
drew their swords
and shot each other.
A deaf policeman
heard this noise
and came and killed
those two dead boys.
They lived on the corner
in the middle of the block
in a two story house
on a vacant lot.
But, if you don't believe
my story is true,
ask the blind man
'cause he saw it too.
-------------------------
From: bmh@terminus.ericsson.se (Bernard Hatt)
Subject:Form to apply for a file to be restored
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 92 4:30:03 EST
APPLICATION TO HAVE A FILE RESTORED
-----------------------------------
Your name ? ________________
Your login name ? ________________
Which project ? ________________
1. Urgency
<1 hour __ 1-2 hours __ 2-4 hours __ next day __
next week __ never __
2. Reason for needing restore ?
Accidental deletion __ Accidental corruption __
General clumsiness __ Complete stupidity __
Other _____________
3. Were you using "RCS" or "SCCS"
Yes __ No __
3.1 If 'No' why not ? ________________
4. Are you sure the file existed in the first place ?
Yes __ No __
5. Are you sure the file isn't somewhere else ?
Yes __ No __
6. How long do you think it would take for you to re-create the file(s)
were a backup not available ? ________________
7. How much had you had to drink when you deleted the file ? ________________
8. Don't you think it would be better if you hadn't deleted the file in
the first place ?
Yes __
9. If you didn't want to delete the file, why did you type the command ?
________________________________________________________________
10. Do you appreciate the amount of inconvenience that restoring a few
files from a backup causes ?
Yes __ No __
11. Have you deleted more work than you would normally create in a day ?
Yes __ No __
11.1 If 'Yes' why did you turn up for work today ?
__________________________________________________________________
12. Don't you feel really stupid having to rely on a backup to recover
from your mistake ?
Yes __ No __
13. Do you often regret things you have done ?
Yes __ No __
14. Do you often worry about your responsibilities ?
Yes __ No __
15. Do you worry about not being able to control your actions ?
Yes __ No __
16. Do you think that there could be any connection between someone
destroying their own work and having self destructive thoughts ?
Yes __ No __
-------------------------
Some of you have seen this before,
but a reminder couldn't hurt. (Note: a reindeer might hurt.)
YOUR CO-WORKER COULD BE A SPACE ALIEN, SAY EXPERTS ...
Here's how you can tell (by Michael Cassels of the "National Inquirer").
Many Americans work side by side with space aliens who look human
- but you can spot these visitors by looking for certain
tip-offs, say experts.
They listed 10 signs to watch for:
1. Odd or mismatched clothes. "Often space aliens don't fully
understand the different styles, so they wear combinations that
are in bad taste, such as checked pants with a striped shirt or a
tuxedo jacket with blue jeans or sneakers," noted Brad Steiger, a
renowned UFO investigator and author.
2. Strange diet or unusual eating habits. Space aliens might eat
French fries with a spoon or gobble down large amounts of pills,
the experts say.
3. Bizarre sense of humor. Space aliens who don't understand
earthly humor may laugh during a serious company training film or
tell jokes that no one understands, said Steiger.
4. Takes frequent sick days. A space alien might need extra time
off to "rejuvenate its energy," said Dr. Thomas Easton, a
theoretical biologist and futurist.
5. Keeps a written or tape recorded diary. "Aliens are
constantly gathering information," said Steiger.
6. Misuses everyday items. "A space alien may use correction
fluid to paint its nails," said Steiger.
7. Constant questioning about customs of co-workers. Space
aliens who are trying to learn about earth culture might ask
questions that seem stupid, Easton said.
"For example, a co-worker may ask why so many Americans picnic on
the Fourth of July," noted Steiger.
8. Secretive about personal life-style and home. "An alien won't
discuss domestic details or talk about what it does at night or
on weekends," said Steiger.
9. Frequently talks to himself. "An alien may not be used to
speaking as we do, so an alien may practice speaking," Steiger
noted.
10. Displays a change of mood or physical reaction when near
certain high-tech hardware. "An alien may experience a mood
change when a microwave oven is turned on," said Steiger.
The experts pointed out that a co-worker would have to display most
if not all of these traits before you can positively identify him
as a space alien.
-------------------------
HEAVIEST ELEMENT DISCOVERED
The heaviest element known to science was discovered
recently at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The element, tentatively named Administratium (Ad) has
no protons or electrons, thus it has an atomic number
of zero. It does, however, have one neutron, 75 associate
neutrons, 111 deputy associate neutrons, and 125
assistant deputy associate neutrons. This gives it an
atomic mass of 312. The 312 particles are held together
in the nucleus by a force that involves the continuous
exchange of meson-like particles, called memos.
Since it has no electrons, Administratium is highly inert,
though far from noble. Nevertheless, it can be detected
chemically because it seems to impede every reaction
in which it takes part. According to one of the
discoverers of the element, a very small amount of
Administratium made one reaction, which normally takes
less than a second, take over four days to go to completion.
Administratium has a half-life of approximately four years,
at which time it does not actually decay. Instead, it
undergoes an internal reorganization in which associates
to the neutron, deputy associates to the neutron, and
assistant deputy associates all exchange places. Some
studies have indicated that the atomic mass actually
increases during each reorganization.
Researchers at other laboratories throughout the world
have had little difficulty in verifying the existence of
Administratium. While Ad(312) has been found primarily
by scientists at national laboratories, scientists
at other major research centers have encountered a variety
of isotopes of Administratium. But the only difference
seems to be the atomic mass, since all the known isotopes of
Administratium are equally inert, scientists report.
For this reason, researchers have all but ruled out any
useful application for the element. "If anything useful
comes from its discovery," says one scientist, "it's that
now we can identify it, eliminate it, and stockpile it
where it won't interfere with anything."
-------------------------
The following quotes taken from the Toronto News, July 26, 1977 (and
possibly other sources),
are actual statements found on insurance forms where car drivers
attempted to summarize the details of an accident in the fewest words
possible.
It appears their writing ability is as good as their driving ability.
These instances of faulty writing serve to confirm that even
incompetent writing may be highly entertaining!
"Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I
don't have."
"The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its
intentions."
"I thought my window was down, but I found it was up when I put my
hand through it."
"I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way."
"A truck backed through my windshield into my wife's face."
"A pedestrian hit me and went under my car."
"The guy was all over the road; I had to swerve a number of times
before I hit him."
"I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law,
and headed over the embankment."
"In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole."
"I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I
reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscurring my vision -- I
did not see the other car."
"I had been driving for forty years when I fell asleep at the wheel
and had an accident."
"I was on my way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal
joint gave way causing me to have an accident."
"As I approached the intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place
where no stop sign had ever appeared before. I was unable to stop in
time to avoid the accident."
"To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the
pedestrian."
"My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle."
"An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my vehicle and
vanished."
"I told the police that I was not injured, but on removing my hat, I
found I had a fractured skull."
"I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of
the road when I struck him."
"The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run, so I ran him
over."
"I saw a slow-moving, sad-faced old gentleman as he bounced off the
hood of my car."
"The indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car
with a big mouth."
"I was thrown from my car as it left the road. I was later found in a
ditch by some stray cows."
"The telephone pole was approaching. I was attempting to swerve out
of the way, when it struck my front end."
"The gentleman behind me struck me on the backside. He went to rest in
the bush with just his rear end showing."
"The accident occurred when I was attempting to bring my car out of a
skid by steering it into the other vehicle."
"I had been learning to drive without power steering. I turned the
wheel to what I thought was enough and found myself in a different
direction going the opposite way."
"When I saw I could not avoid a collision, I stepped on the gas and
crashed into the other vehicle."
"I saw her look at me twice; she appeared to be making slow progress
when we met on impact."
"No one was to blame for the accident but it never would have happened
if the other driver had been alert."
"I was unable to stop in time and my car crashed into the other
vehicle. The driver and passengers then left immediately for a
vacation with injuries."
Happy motoring!
-------------------------
From: kkoller@nyx10.cs.du.edu (Captain Sarcastic)
Subject: A Taco Bell Story
The following is a *true* story.
I hope it isn't one of those "had to be there" things.
On my way home from the second job I've taken for the extra holiday ca$h I
need, I stopped at Taco Bell for a quick bite to eat. In my billfold is
a $50 bill and a $2 bill. That is all of the cash I have on my person.
I figure that with a $2 bill, I can get something to eat and not have to
worry about people getting upset at me.
ME: "Hi, I'd like one seven layer burrito please, to go."
IT: "Is that it?"
ME: "Yep."
IT: "That'll be $1.04, eat here?"
ME: "No, it's *to* *go*." [I hate effort duplication.]
At his point I open my billfold and hand him the $2 bill. He looks at it
kind of funny and
IT: "Uh, hang on a sec, I'll be right back."
He goes to talk to his manager, who is still within earshot. The
following conversation occurs between the two of them.
IT: "Hey, you ever see a $2 bill?"
MG: "No. A what?"
IT: "A $2 bill. This guy just gave it to me."
MG: "Ask for something else, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A $2 BILL." [my emphasis]
IT: "Yeah, thought so."
He comes back to me and says
IT: "We don't take these. Do you have anything else?"
ME: "Just this fifty. You don't take $2 bills? Why?"
IT: "I don't know."
ME: "See here where it says legal tender?"
IT: "Yeah."
ME: "So, shouldn't you take it?"
IT: "Well, hang on a sec."
He goes back to his manager who is watching me like I'm going to
shoplift, and
IT: "He says I have to take it."
MG: "Doesn't he have anything else?"
IT: "Yeah, a fifty. I'll get it and you can open the safe and get change."
MG: "I'M NOT OPENING THE SAFE WITH HIM IN HERE." [my emphasis]
IT: "What should I do?"
MG: "Tell him to come back later when he has REAL money."
IT: "I can't tell him that, you tell him."
MG: "Just tell him."
IT: "No way, this is weird, I'm going in back."
The manager approaches me and says
MG: "Sorry, we don't take big bills this time of night." [it was 8pm and
this particular Taco Bell is in a well lighted indoor mall with 100
other stores.]
ME: "Well, here's a two."
MG: "We don't take *those* either."
ME: "Why not?"
MG: "I think you *know* why."
ME: "No really, tell me, why?"
MG: "Please leave before I call mall security."
ME: "Excuse me?"
MG: "Please leave before I call mall security."
ME: "What for?"
MG: "Please, sir."
ME: "Uh, go ahead, call them."
MG: "Would you please just leave?"
ME: "No."
MG: "Fine, have it your way then."
ME: "No, that's Burger King, isn't it?"
At this point he BACKS away from me and calls mall security on the phone
around the corner. I have two people STARING at me from the dining area,
and I begin laughing out loud, just for effect. A few minutes later this
45 year oldish guy comes in and says [at the other end of counter, in a
whisper]
SG: "Yeah, Mike, what's up?"
MG: "This guy is trying to give me some [pause] funny money."
SG: "Really? What?"
MG: "Get this, a *two* dollar bill."
SG: "Why would a guy fake a $2 bill?" [incredulous]
MG: "I don't know? He's kinda weird. Says the only other thing he has is
a fifty."
SG: "So, the fifty's fake?"
MG: "NO, the $2 is."
SG: "Why would he fake a $2 bill?"
MG: "I don't know. Can you talk to him, and get him out of here?"
SG: "Yeah..."
Security guard walks over to me and says
SG: "Mike here tells me you have some fake bills you're trying to use."
ME: "Uh, no."
SG: "Lemme see 'em."
ME: "Why?"
SG: "Do you want me to get the cops in here?"
At this point I was ready to say, "SURE, PLEASE," but I wanted to eat, so
I said
ME: "I'm just trying to buy a burrito and pay for it with this $2 bill."
I put the bill up near his face, and he flinches like I was taking a
swing at him. He takes the bill, turns it over a few times in his hands,
and says
SG: "Mike, what's wrong with this bill?"
MG: "It's fake."
SG: "It doesn't look fake to me."
MG: "But it's a **$2** bill."
SG: "Yeah?"
MG: "Well, there's no such thing, is there?"
The security guard and I both looked at him like he was an idiot, and it
dawned on the guy that he had no clue.
My burrito was free and he threw in a small drink and those cinnamon
things, too. Makes me want to get a whole stack of $2 bills just to see
what happens when I try to buy stuff. If I got the right group of
people, I could probably end up in jail. At least you get free food.
-------------------------
From: kenyon@pogo.den.mmc.com (Warren Edward Kenyon)
Subject: The Highway Stupidity (A commentary on "oversight" of the Space Program.)
Organization: Martin Marietta Astronautics, Denver
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 23:39:24 GMT
I don't know about all of you out there, but I can't believe what the
government is doing. They keep asking us for more money to repair roads.
Specifically, the Interstate system. We have spent Billions on these
roads, and they have POTHOLES!!! It seems to me that for all of those
billions, they would have done it right. But they keep asking us for more
money to fix them!!! And they do it while traffic is USING the roads!!!
They should just close the roads and fix them, opening them back up to the
public when they are done. Of course, they shouldn't have to be fixing
them in the first place.
All those government people, reviewing the work of all of those civil
engineers. Obviously, those engineers didn't know what they were doing
when they designed and built those roads. Billions wasted on roads that do
not work.
Why didn't they get it right. Billions, billions, billions spent. And
they ask for billions more. They didn't get it right, they don't know what
they are doing. Civil engineers and road construction crews are idiots.
They don't know how to build roads. Billions billions billions billions
billions.
Obviously I haven't the faintest idea on how to build roads, but I am right
anyway. Everyone else is wrong. They should have done it right. Oh, all
of that wasted money. Billions billions billions billions billions
billions billions billions billions billions billions billions billions
billions. They didn't get it right. Close the roads and fix them, I say,
and I am always right, even though I don't know how to build a road. I've
never built a road before, do not know the history of road building, never
even seen a guy in an orange vest before, but they took my money for roads
that do not work. Billions billions billions billions billions billions
billions billions billions billions billions billions billions billions
billions.
They should have tested those roads first, building say a mile, then
driving semis on it for 10 years, seeing how it held up. Then go to
building 10 miles, and driving semis on it for 25 years. Then maybe they
could have built the first stretch of real road from Washington to
Baltimore, and let commuters drive on it for 100 years. But they had to go
and build the entire interstate system all at once, and it doesn't work.
Billions billions billions billions billions billions billions billions
billions billions billions billions billions billions billions billions
billions billions billions billions billions billions.
-------------------------
Subj: He was so quiet...
"He was such a quiet kind of guy; pretty much kept to himself."
How often have you heard this statement when news reporters interview
neighbors of the perpetrator of the latest grisly crime somewhere?
Let's get these guys a (normal) hobby!!
Write to your Senators and Representatives to ask them to insert a
clause in the upcoming national crime bill that provides for finding
these guys and getting them involved in something constructive.
Reduce senseless crime!
Your neighbors and local hobby shops will appreciate it!
Michael Cook
-------------------------
WHY ASK WHY
Why do you need a driver's license to buy liquor when you can't drink and drive?
Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?
Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?
Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?
Do you need a silencer if you are going to shoot a mime?
Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?
How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the mornings?
If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks on the
doors?
If a cow lauged, would milk come out her nose?
If nothing ever sticks to TEFLON, how do they make TEFLON stick to the pan?
If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height,
what would happen?
If you're in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on
the headlights?
You know how most packages say "Open here". What is the protocol if the
package says, "Open somewhere else"?
Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM?
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Why is it that when you transport something by car, it's called a shipment, but
when you transport something by ship, it's called cargo?
You know that little indestructible black box that is used on planes, why can't
they make the whole plane out of the same substance?
Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down
the volume on the radio?
-------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 94 3:20:02 EST
Subject: MAKE.TENURE.FAST
From: demers@cs.ucsd.edu (David DeMers)
Dear Fellow Scientist:
This letter has been around the world at least seven times. It has been
to many major conferences. Now it has come to you. It will bring you
good fortune. This is true even if you don't believe it. But you must
follow these instructions:
- include in your next journal article the citations below.
- remove the first citation from the list and add a
citation to your journal article at the bottom.
- make ten copies and send them to colleagues.
Within one year, you will be cited up to 10,000 times! This will
amaze your fellow faculty, assure your promotion and improve
your life. In addition, you will bring joy to many colleagues.
Do not break the reference loop, but send this letter on today.
Dr. H. received this letter and within a year after passing it on she
was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Prof. M. threw this
letter away and was denied tenure. In Japan, Dr. I. received this
letter and put it aside. His article for Trans. on Nephrology was
rejected. He found the letter and passed it on, and his article was
published that year in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the
Midwest, Prof. K. failed to pass on the letter, and in a budget cutback
his entire department was eliminated. This could happen to you if you
break the chain of citations.
1. Miller, J. (1992).
Post-modern neo-cubism and the wave theory of light.
Journal of Cognitive Artifacts, 8, 113-117.
2. Johnson, S. (1991).
Micturition in the canid family: the irresistable pull of the hydrant.
Physics Quarterly, 33, 203-220.
3. Anderson, R. (1990). Cheers for Dears:
An empirical study of high-school cheerleading tryouts.
Psychology Yesterday 12, 63-77.
4. David, E. (1994).
Modern Approaches to Chaotic Heuristic Optimization:
Means of Analyzing Non-Linear Intelligent Networks
with Emergent Symbolic Structure.
(doctoral dissertation, University of California at
Santa Royale El Camino del Rey Mar Vista by-the-sea).
-------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 94 19:30:06 EST
From: lauren@reed.edu (Lauren Wiener)
Subject: The IRS's contribution to the War on Drugs
My accountant recently sent me a thick wad of photocopied pages about the IRS's
position on home offices, in which I (really, truly) found the following
startling bit.
From _Federal Tax Coordinator_ 2d, 2/18/93-73, pp. 34,052B - 34,053,
Section L-1311, "Residence Used for Business" [footnotes omitted]:
"Even though a taxpayer may have to do part of her work at home, if another
location was her principal place of business, a deduction will be denied.
Thus, where taxpayer who ran a hot dog stand had to prepare meats, stews, and
soups at home because the stand wasn't big enough, the Tax Court denied a
deduction because sales, which produced her income, and final packaging for
consumption, took place at the hot dog stand.
"A pharmacist whose rented premises couldn't be expanded to include an office
couldn't get a deduction for his home office.
"A nurse-anesthetist who rendered service to patients only at hospitals
couldn't get a deduction, even though he had to do his record keeping,
billing, and professional reading at home.
"An emergency room doctor who treated patient at a hospital 35 hours a week was
denied deductions for a home office where he performed related tasks 5 hours a
week.
[In the next 8 paragraphs, home office deductions are denied to a housing court
judge, a professional actor, a contractor, someone with muffler repair and
airplane leasing businesses, an office worker whose employer supplied her with
home office equipment, airline pilots, an engineer, and a licensed real estate
person. We finally come to our lone success...]
"A drug dealer was entitled to a home office deduction with respect to a
portion of his apartment where it was his only place of business and he made
substantial use of it in his dealings in amphetamines, cocaine, and marijuana."
Perhaps I'm in the wrong business?
-- Lauren Ruth Wiener, writer
-------------------------
-
There was a young man from Japan
Whose limericks just would not scan.
When they said it was so,
He replied "Yes I know
but I always try to get as many words into the last line as ever I can"
- Edward Lear
-
I HAVE A PROBLEM
I CAN'T THINK OF A HAIKU
WHAT AM I TO DO?
-
This haiku poem
Has seventeen syllables
Quite meaningful, eh?
-
There was a young lady of Crewe
Whose limericks stopped at line two.
-
There was a young man of Verdun.
-
The perfect haiku
is seventeen syllables
and one brief image.
-------------------------
In Japan, the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages have
been replaced with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku poetry has strict
construction rules.
Each poem has only three lines, 17 syllables:
Five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third.
Haiku is used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a
wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity.
----------------------------------
Your file was so big.
It might be very useful.
But now it is gone.
----------------------------------
The Website you seek
Cannot be located, but
Countless more exist.
----------------------------------
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
----------------------------------
Program aborting:
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
----------------------------------
Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.
----------------------------------
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
----------------------------------
First snow, then silence.
This thousand-dollar screen dies
So beautifully.
----------------------------------
With searching comes loss
And the presence of absence:
"My Novel" not found.
----------------------------------
The Tao that is seen
Is not the true Tao - until
You bring fresh toner.
----------------------------------
Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
----------------------------------
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
----------------------------------
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
----------------------------------
You step in the stream,
But the water has moved on.
This page is not here.
----------------------------------
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
----------------------------------
Having been erased,
The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
----------------------------------
Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.
-------------------------
In a heroic dogfight fought over international waters off the
mainland China coast, a 60s era American-built Lockheed Electra
propeller airliner with 24 US Navy passengers/observers aboard
chewed up one of China's best state-of-the-art supersonic fighter
aircraft.
The Americans, utilizing the infrequently seen combat tactic of
straight and level flight, often accomplished by relying solely
on autopilot, engaged the unfortunate single seat combat jet and
knocked it out of the air using only one of its four formidable
rotating air mass propellers.
After the action, the crew and passengers/observers dropped in on
China's Hainan Island Resort, for some much deserved R&R as guests
of the Chinese government.
from "The Taiwan Daily Gazette" (April 12, 2001)
-------------------------
Qualifying Examination
Instructions: Read each question carefully.
Answer all questions.
Begin immediately.
Time Limit: 4 hours.
1. History
Describe the history of the Papacy from its origins to the present
day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social,
political, economic, religious, and philosophical impact on Europe,
Asia, America, and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific.
2. Medicine
You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a
bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your
work has been inspected. You have fifteen minutes.
3. Public Speaking
2,500 riot-crazed aborigines are storming the classroom. Calm them.
You may use any ancient language except Latin or Greek.
4. Biology
Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if
this form of life had developed 500 million years earlier, with
special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary
system. Prove your thesis.
5. Music
Write a piano concerto. Orchestrate and perform it with flute and
drum. You will find a piano under your seat.
6. Psychology
Based on your degree of knowledge of their works, evaluate the
emotional stability, degree of adjustment, and repressed frustrations
of each of the following: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Rameses II,
Gregory of Nicea, Hammurabi. Support your evaluations with quotations
from each man's work, making appropriate references. It is not
necessary to translate.
7. Sociology
Estimate the sociological problems which might accompany the end of
the world. Construct an experiment to test your theory.
8. Management Science
Define Management. Define Science. How do they relate? Why? Create
a generalized algorithm to optimize all managerial decisions.
Assuming an IBM 1130 CPU supporting 50 terminals, each terminal to
activate your algorithm; design the communications interface and all
necessary control programs.
9. Engineering
The disassembled parts of a high-powered rifle have been placed in a
box on your desk. You will also find an instruction manual, printed
in Swahili. In ten minutes a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted to
the room. Take whatever action you feel is appropriate. Be prepared
to justify your decision.
10. Economics
Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Trace the
possible effects of your plan in the following areas: Cubism, the
Donatist controversy, the wave theory of light. Outline a method for
preventing these effects. Criticize this method from all possible
points of view. Point out the deficiencies in your point of view, as
demonstrated in your answer to the last question.
11. Political Science
There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III.
Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any.
12. Epistemology
Take a position for or against truth. Prove the validity of your position.
13. Physics
Explain the nature of matter. Include in your answer an evaluation of
the impact of the development of mathematics on science.
14. Modern Physics
Disprove Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Construct an experiment to
prove your position.
15. Philosophy
Sketch the development of human thought; estimate its significance.
Compare with the development of any other kind of thought.
16. Foreign Affairs
It has recently been suggested (especially after Black Monday) that
only a foreign war can restore America's lost national consensus.
Propose the ideal opponent(s) for the US in such a war, and how the
conflict might be engineered so that US would seem not to be the
aggressor in the situation. Discuss the pros and cons.
17. Art
Explain Mona Lisa's smile.
18. Juris Prudence
In Part 2 of Shakespeare's "Henry VI", Jack Cade, the leader of the
populist revolt, proposes that the first order of business following a
successful coup d'e'tat could be to "kill all the lawyers". In light
of the present populist mood in the United States, assess the utility
and any potential impact of such a policy today.
19. Religion
Assuming the Judeo-Christian moral structure, take the stand for Adam
and Eve, and the eating of the forbidden fruit. Explain your position
fully to a Chassidic Rabbi, and answer his arguments. An Anglican
bishop will moderate this debate.
20. General Knowledge
Describe in detail. Be objective and specific.
Extra Credit
Define the Universe. Give three examples.
-------------------------
Recent Generations Compared:
1940 generation 1965 generation 1990 generation
_______________ _______________ _______________
International Defeat of Hitler, Opposed Vietnam Changed channel
Achievement Communism War to MTV
Judicial Legal system should Legal system should Legal system should
idea support society change society destroy society
Technological Moon landing Personal computer Beeper, car alarm
highlight
Highbrow Classical Jazz Easy listening
Music
Lowbrow Big bands Rock Rap
Music
Civil rights Martin Luther King Malcolm X Damian Williams
leader
Hero Eisenhower John Kennedy Madonna
Economic Raise 60's generation Develop Support 60's
achievement Sophisticated generation
Tastes retirement
Fav' drug Cigarettes Marijuana Crack
Drug most Marijuana Crack Cigarettes
hated
Economic Work hard - get ahead Let your parents/ Prepare for employment
philosophy government support at K-Mart
you
Cartoon Bugs Bunny Bullwinkle Simpsons
Boast "We made this country "We are great" "We are better armed"
great"
Excuse 'I did it for the 'I was upset by 'I was abused'
country' world injustice'
Youthful Drag race Demonstration Use AK-47 at school
rebellion
Movie Casablanca Easy Rider Bill and Ted's
Excellent Adventure
Science Einstein Jacques Cousteau Biosphere II
Enemy USSR USA not sure where
country countries located
Influential Eleanor Roosevelt Jane Fonda Roseanne Arnold
woman
Religion Monotheism Atheism Paganism
Enemy Hitler Nixon Joe Camel
Blames Them--> <--Them--> <--Them
(Loses 2-1)
Robert L. Richard (written 4-24-94)
rrichard@igpp.ucla.edu
-------------------------
From: al677@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jerry Cosyn)
Subject: La Dolce Vita
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 05:10:45 GMT
Billy Green stretched groggily and groaned when the electronic
alarm clock/radio shrilled. His coarse right hand batted the long wide
button that brought merciful silence. He cast a sleep-veiled eye at the
digital display. He
shouldn't have hit the snooze button so many times; now he'd have to
rush or he'd be late. The digital clock read 7:00 am.
[It had taken hundreds of engineers, technicians, scientists and
laborers more than two decades and tens of millions of man-hours to
develop the theory, engineering, and manufacturing techniques that
produced the tiny electronic devices inside the clock/radio; the digital
logic circuitry, LEDs, and transistors alone were masterful tributes to
man's ability to conceptualize and manipulate fundamental forces of
nature at the quantum level. To Billy Green, the device was a necessary
pain in the neck, for which he had paid eighteen dollars -- about one
hour's wage -- and which, for the past six years, had accurately told
him the time and awakened him for work five days a week.]
Billy rolled from the waterbed and sighed his way to the bathroom
and stepped into the
shower. Clean hot water, easily adjusted to the temperature and
pressure he desired, poured over him, and he began to feel more awake
and alert. He was tempted to linger in the shower, but knew he had no
time, so he reluctantly lathered himself with soap and shampoo, rinsed,
and dried himself on a large, freshly washed towel. His electric razor
buzzed briefly, and he quickly brushed his teeth, of which he still had
all but one, despite being forty-two years old.
[Billy had only the vaguest notion of how modern plumbing worked, could
not have guessed to within five miles how far the water he showered in
had been pumped, had never had cholera nor dysentery, absolutely
despised the open pit toilets he occasionally used at the state park,
and had not the slightest idea how chlorine was manufactured. The water
heater in his basement had not failed him in the ten years he'd lived in
that house, though it had heated thousands of gallons of water using
thousands of cubic feet of natural gas, which travelled hundreds of
miles to his home. The chemical processes by which the components of
his toothbrush had been manufactured had taken decades to develop.
Billy had never seen or touched the primitive lye soap of his
grandparents' generation, and did not know that his grandfather had died
at the age of forty-eight as a result of a series of infections and
disease which had begun in his rotting gums.]
Minutes later, dressed in clothing of various fabrics which were
comfortable, colorful and durable, Billy sat in the kitchen drinking a
cup of coffee which the automatic coffee maker -- which had cost him a
little over two hours' wages -- had prepared about the time he was
getting into the shower. The morning newspaper, printed only hours ago
and delivered to his doorstep as he slept, was spread before him. He
scanned the headlines, frowning and grunting to himself at the news that
government was catering to big business by allowing an increase in
electrical rates, was somewhat mollified when he saw on the next page
that the public-gouging electric company had again been denied
permission to construct a new nuclear power plant, and then turned to
the section in which he was most fervently interested: the astrology
column.
[Billy was completely ignorant of modern methods of planting, growing,
harvesting and processing cotton. He could not guess within several
orders of magnitude the number of chemical processes involved in the
manufacture of modern fabrics, even those labeled "all natural". He
knew that his coffee came from South America, though his knowledge of
geography was fuzzy at best. He had never given any thought to the
manner by which coffee came to be in his local grocery store, and cared
nothing about shipping, ship building, ship yards, ports, trade routes,
railroad switchyards, highway construction, or the trucking industry.
He purchased food as he purchased clothing, accepting its ready
availability with a complete lack of wonder, as a kitten would accept a
bowl of milk placed under its nose. Billy was unaware of how paper was
manufactured beyond his certainty that big corporations slashed millions
of acres of trees with no thought for the future in the process.
Methods of printing and producing a modern newspaper were unknown to
him. Of electricity he knew only that it was outrageously expensive,
and a necessity of life, and that someone should make the greedy utility
companies lower their ridiculous rates. Of nuclear power (he pronounced
it "new-kyew-ler") he knew nothing other than that it was hideously
dangerous to all life on the planet, should never have been invented,
and would have been banned long ago had not the power companies used
their ill-gotten millions to bribe greedy and unscrupulous politicians.
He did not know that he had many times suffered mild radiation burns
from a nuclear reactor, and accepted sunburn as the perfectly natural
result of failing to spread easily obtained, inexpensive, chemically
produced sunscreen on his skin.]
With the reassurance from the newspaper that Libras would survive
another day, that Saturn would have a strong influence on him in the
next week, and that he might expect an unexpected financial gain in the
next couple of days, Billy left the house, got into his two-year-old
car, and began the drive to work, with a favorite tape in the stereo and
the air conditioner pumping cool air into his enclosed environment.
[The steel in the car had been produced from ore and coal mined in areas
selected by satellite survey of an entire world. Billy considered the
decades of the space program and rocketry research a waste of money
which should be spent on solving problems on earth. The manufacture of
automobiles was an enormously complex operation, involving tens of
thousands of people and machines working at highly specialized tasks,
producing thousands of materials and products by the use of extremely
sophisticated technology. Each of the material components had required
considerable intellectual effort to conceive and develop, and followed
from a long line of earlier invention and innovation. Tens of millions
of cars drove over hundreds of millions of miles of roads each day,
conveying people like Billy to jobs which they would otherwise be unable
to hold, to places they would otherwise be unable to visit and to
entertainment they would otherwise never have experienced.]
Billy cursed the traffic, the red lights which impeded his
progress, and the modern world which forced a man to live with such
hardships. When at last he arrived at work, twelve minutes and seven
miles later, he parked the car and joined the throng of his fellow
workers flowing into the factory.
Working conditions in the factory were unpleasant, it being a hot,
noisy, noxious smelling place, but Billy had to have a job and he was
unqualified for anything else. He took solace in the company of his
friends during their union-mandated mid-morning break, and commiserated
with them over the injustice of a world where people such as themselves,
who did all the work and kept the company running, should receive a
pittance of an hourly wage, (plus overtime, insurance and benefits)
while the greedy bigshots sat in their ivory towers and made millions
off the sweat of other people's labors.
At lunchtime, Billy enjoyed a conversation about the good old days,
when there were no factories and everybody farmed his own land and
people took care of each other, and a man could see the results of his
hard work. They bemoaned the bygone era when there was no pollution or
chemicals or stress or traffic, and people worked with nature in natural
ways, and nobody worried about cholesterol levels or radiation poisoning
or the whole planet frying because the ozone layer was gone. They
talked of "getting back to the land" and "good honest work" and barn-
raisings and "a sense of community".
[Billy had never worked on a farm. He'd never plowed behind a mule for
fourteen hours in the sun, nor chopped enough wood to heat a house, nor
cooked on a woodstove. He'd never depended on his own farming skills to
keep him alive, nor on the fickleness of the weather to grow him
sufficient food for the winter months. He gave no thought to life
without indoor plumbing. He'd never walked ten miles through snow to
summon a doctor for his croup-ridden child, only to find he'd returned
home to a tiny corpse and a grief-stricken wife. He'd never seen a town
wiped out by smallpox. Billy didn't know what ozone was, nor where it
came from, nor how many cubic miles of it cloaked the earth. He'd have
been hard pressed to define what a cubic mile is. He could not explain
what ozone did to ultraviolet light, nor why.]
At the end of his shift, Billy slogged routinely through the ritual
of clocking out and walking to his car without really thinking about it.
He was already thinking ahead to stopping for a few beers with some of
his co-workers. The conversation at the bar would be routinely bitter,
centering primarily on how the various fogeys in charge were able to
mess up the world and make things harder for men like Billy Green. It
being an election year, there would then follow the usual argument about
candidates, and which of them would be least likely to make things
worse.
Then Billy would stop to eat on the way home. Usually it was drive-
through fast food, which he ate in the car. At home, he would watch
television for an hour or two, flipping channels at random until a laugh
track caught his attention.
At the end of the evening, a tired Billy Green would tumble into
his heated waterbed, set the electronic alarm clock/radio with the
gentle touch of a finger, and surrender himself to unconsciousness, his
standard workday done. It differed in no significant aspect from the
workday of his father, forty years before.
One day, in fifteen or twenty years, Billy Green would retire. He
would collect his pension checks and his Social Security each month and
take it easy, with beer and ballgames and his buddies. The modern world
simply demanded too much of the workingman. Billy Green looked forward
to living the good life.
-------------------------
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Your Chance to Get Rich!
FIVE YEARS AGO, I WAS BROKE, IN DEBT, AND DESPERATE!
TODAY I HAVE A VILLA IN TUSCANY, A CHATEAU IN FRANCE,
SIX VINTAGE AUTOMOBILES, A LARGE COLLECTION OF OLD
MASTERS, AND A SEVEN-DIGIT ANNUAL INCOME!!
YOU TOO CAN HAVE WEALTH, FORTUNE, SUCCESS, FAST CARS
AND ALL YOU EVER DREAMED OF!!!
The simple secret: REUSE! That it. Minimal training, minimal
effort, nothing illegal. My library of reusable Ada code is
the largest in the world, and I just sit back drinking my
own champaign, looking at my own Rembrandts (all eight of
them), and raking in the royalties.
Did you know, for instance, that a major international airport
(sorry - I'm not allowed to say who they are) is paying me
$10,000 PER DAY for my reusable baggage handling code?
And when it works, that goes up to $25,000! And that's
just one customer!! Interested??
Well, here's how YOU can do it too! First, write 100 lines
of reusable Ada code. Yes, you read that right - just
100 measly lines. That's the last code you'll ever write
in your life. It's the last work you'll ever have to do
in your life, because you're gonna be RICH!
Next, send those 100 lines to the name at the top of the
list below.
Now make ten copies of this message, but delete the first
name on the list and put your own name as last. Send the
message to ten friends. Or, if you don't have ten friends
(most Ada programmers don't), send them to ten random
readers of this newsgroup.
Within a couple of weeks, you will receive TEN MILLION LINES
of reusable Ada code, and you will be SET UP FOR LIFE!
DO IT TODAY! DO IT NOW!! THIS IS THE CHANCE OF A LIFETIME!!!
G G Byron (byron@missolonghi.hellas.ec)
C Babbage (bellman@snark.ucl.uk)
A Turing (alan@enigma.bletchley.mod.uk)
J Ichbiah (ichbiah@cheops.csf.rf.ec)
R Firth (firth@bcci.abu_dhabi.me)
-------------------------
It's Hard Being a Supermodel...
ON POVERTY
"Everyone should have enough money to get plastic surgery."
-- Beverly Johnson
ON ARRIVING
"Because modeling is lucrative, I'm able to save up and be more
particular about the acting roles I take."
-- Kathy Ireland, star of 'Alien From L.A.' and 'Danger Island'
ON CAREER CHOICES
"My boyfriend thinks I lost my true calling to be a librarian."
-- Paulina Porizkova
ON PRIORITIES
"I would rather exercise than read a newspaper."
-- Kim Alexis
ON GEOPOLITICS
"Mick Jagger and I just really liked each other a lot. We talked all
night. We had the same views on nuclear disarmament."
-- Jerry Hall
ON INNER STRENGTH
"I love the confidence that makeup gives me."
-- Tyra Banks
ON DEATH
"Richard doesn't really like me to kill bugs, but sometimes I can't help it."
-- Cindy Crawford
ON TRAVEL
"I haven't seen the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre. I haven't
seen anything. I don't really care."
-- Tyra Banks
ON BREAKTHROUGHS
"Once I got past my anger toward my mother, I began to excel in
volleyball and modeling."
-- Gabrielle Reece
ON EPIPHANY
"I just found out that I'm one inch taller than I thought."
-- Christie Brinkley
ON THE BASICS
"It's very important to have the right clothing to exercise in. If you
throw on an old T-shirt or sweats, it's not inspiring for your workout."
-- Cheryl Tiegs
ON INTRODUCTIONS
"I think most people are curious about what it would be like to be able
to meet yourself -- it's eerie."
-- Christy Turlington
ON PARADOX
"Sometimes I get lonely, but it's nice to be alone."
-- Tatjana Patitz
ON THE CONSERVATION OF MATTER
"I've looked in the mirror every day for 20 years. It's the same face."
-- Claudia Schiffer
ON INSTINCT
"If I'm making a movie and get hungry, I call time-out and eat some
crackers."
-- Carol Alt
ON THE CASTE SYSTEM
"We're not Prince Charles and Princess Di. We don't think of ourselves
as royalty. We happen to be working people."
-- Christie Brinkley
ON OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS
"I tried on 250 bathing suits in one afternoon and ended up having
little scabs up and down my thighs, probably from some of those with
sequins all over them."
-- Cindy Crawford
ON ECONOMICS
"I don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day."
-- Linda Evangelista
ON ZEN
"When I model I pretty blank. You can't think too much or it doesn't work."
-- Paulina Porizkova
ON BODY PARTS
"I don't know what to do with my arms. It just makes me feel weird and
I feel like people are looking at me and that makes me nervous."
-- Tyra Banks
ON BODY LANGUAGE
"You can usually tell when I'm happy by the fact that I've gained weight."
-- Christy Turlington
ON DEPRIVATION
"If they had Nautilus on the Concorde, I would work out all the time."
-- Linda Evangelista
ON MOTIVATION
"It was kind of boring for me to have to eat. I would know that I had
to, and I would."
-- Kate Moss
ON VERSATILITY
"I can do anything you want me to do so long as I don't have to speak."
-- Linda Evangelista
ON THE GRIEF PROCESS
"When my Azzedine jacket from 1987 died, I wrapped it up in a box,
attached a note saying where it came from and took it to the Salvation
Army. It was a big loss."
-- Veronica Webb
ON VENGEANCE
"Girls are always getting mad at each other and they tell their
hairdresser to purposely mess up another girl's hair."
-- Tasha
-------------------------
A Mexican newspaper reports that bored Royal Air Force pilots
stationed on the Falkland Islands have devised what they consider
a marvelous new game. Noting that the local penguins are
fascinated by airplanes, the pilots search out a beach where the
birds are gathered and fly slowly along it at the water's edge.
Perhaps ten thousand penguins turn their heads in unison watching
the planes go by, and when the pilots turn around and fly back,
the birds turn their heads in the opposite direction, like
spectators at a slow-motion tennis match.
Then, the paper reports, "The pilots fly out to sea and directly
to the penguin colony and overfly it. Heads go up, up, up, and
ten thousand penguins fall over gently onto their backs."
-------------------------
Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which
produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very
little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered
from bad breath. What did this make him?
A super callused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis.
-------------------------
This was actually posted very briefly on the McDonnell Douglas website
by an employee there who obviously has a sense of humor.
Thank you for purchasing a McDonnell Douglas military aircraft.
In order to protect your new investment, please take a few moments
to fill out the warranty registration card below.
Answering the survey questions is not required, but the information
will help us to develop new products that best meet your needs and
desires.
1. [_] Mr. [_] Mrs. [_] Ms. [_] Miss [_] Lt. [_] Gen.
[_] Comrade [_] Classified [_] Other
First Name: .....................................................
Initial: ........
Last Name: ......................................................
Password: .............................. (max 8 char)
Code Name: ......................................................
Latitude-Longitude-Altitude: ........... ........... ..........
2. Which model aircraft did you purchase?
[_] F-14 Tomcat
[_] F-15 Eagle
[_] F-16 Falcon
[_] F-117A Stealth
[_] Classified
3. Date of purchase (Year/Month/Day): ....... / ....... / .......
4. Serial Number:................................................
5. Please check where this product was purchased:
[_] Received as gift / aid package
[_] Catalog showroom
[_] Independent arms broker
[_] Mail order
[_] Discount store
[_] Government surplus
[_] Classified
6. Please check how you became aware of the McDonnell Douglas
product you have just purchased:
[_] Heard loud noise, looked up
[_] Store display
[_] Espionage
[_] Recommended by friend / relative / ally
[_] Political lobbying by manufacturer
[_] Was attacked by one
7. Please check the three (3) factors that most influenced your
decision to purchase this McDonnell Douglas product:
[_] Style / appearance
[_] Speed / maneuverability
[_] Price / value
[_] Comfort / convenience
[_] Kickback / bribe
[_] Recommended by salesperson
[_] McDonnell Douglas reputation
[_] Advanced Weapons Systems
[_] Backroom politics
[_] Negative experience opposing one in combat
8. Please check the location(s) where this product will be used:
[_] North America
[_] Iraq
[_] Central / South America
[_] Iraq
[_] Aircraft carrier
[_] Iraq
[_] Europe
[_] Iraq
[_] Middle East (not Iraq)
[_] Iraq
[_] Africa
[_] Iraq
[_] Asia / Far East
[_] Iraq
[_] Misc. Third World countries
[_] Iraq
[_] Classified
[_] Iraq
9. Please check the products that you currently own or intend to
purchase in the near future:
[_] Color TV
[_] VCR
[_] ICBM
[_] Killer Satellite
[_] CD Player
[_] Air-to-Air Missiles
[_] Space Shuttle
[_] Home Computer
[_] Nuclear Weapon
10. How would you describe yourself or your organization?
(Check all that apply:)
[_] Communist / Socialist
[_] Terrorist
[_] Crazed
[_] Neutral
[_] Democratic
[_] Dictatorship
[_] Corrupt
[_] Primitive / Tribal
11. How did you pay for your McDonnell Douglas product?
[_] Deficit spending
[_] Cash
[_] Suitcases of cocaine
[_] Oil revenues
[_] Personal check
[_] Credit card
[_] Ransom money
[_] Traveler's check
12. Your occupation:
[_] Homemaker
[_] Sales / marketing
[_] Revolutionary
[_] Clerical
[_] Mercenary
[_] Tyrant
[_] Middle management
[_] Eccentric billionaire
[_] Defense Minister / General
[_] Retired
[_] Student
13. To help us understand our customers' lifestyles, please
indicate the interests and activities in which you and your
spouse enjoy participating on a regular basis:
[_] Golf
[_] Boating / sailing
[_] Sabotage
[_] Running / jogging
[_] Propaganda / disinformation
[_] Destabilization / overthrow
[_] Default on loans
[_] Gardening
[_] Crafts
[_] Black market / smuggling
[_] Collectibles / collections
[_] Watching sports on TV
[_] Wines
[_] Interrogation / torture
[_] Household pets
[_] Crushing rebellions
[_] Espionage / reconnaissance
[_] Fashion clothing
[_] Border disputes
[_] Mutually Assured Destruction
Thank you for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire.
Your answers will be used in market studies that will help
McDonnell Douglas serve you better in the future - as well as
allowing you to receive mailings and special offers from other
companies, governments, extremist groups, and mysterious consortia.
As a bonus for responding to this survey, you will be registered
to win a brand new F-117A in our Desert Thunder Sweepstakes!
-------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 08:05:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Nev Dull nev@bostic.com
To: nev@bostic.com (/dev/null)
Subject: Warning: Unix Virus!
Forwarded-by: Bob Miller kbob@jogger-egg.com
As seen on
(Slashdot)
There's a new email virus out, and it infects Unix systems.
Here's a copy.
--------
> From: 5kr1p7.k1dd13@hotmail.com
> Subject: ILOVELINUX.txt
>
>
> Hi. Please type the following at your prompt -
>
> sudo rm -rf /
>
> Love ya,
> 5kr1p7
-------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 12:05:00 -0400 (EDT)
From: Nev Dull nev@bostic.com
Subject: The second UNIX virus this week. *sigh*
Forwarded-by: John Hedtke john@hedtke.com
UNIX VIRUS! Beware! Beware!!!!
If you're running UNIX, please forward this message to everyone
you know and delete a bunch of your files at random.
This virus works on the honor system.
-------------------------
> My name is Dave Rhodes. In September 1988 my car was reposessed and
[ ... rest of chain letter deleted ... ]
These chain letters are illegal, and they don't work. Every so often, an
outbreak of these letters shows up on various news groups and email spams.
For a booklet explaining why chain letters don't work, why they are
illegal, and what you can do about them, send me $5.00 and the names
of 5 of your friends. Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.
-- Michael Cook
-------------------------
After having seen too many government documents...
This page intentionally left blank.
(Well, not completely blank, since the above non-empty disclaimer
appears on the page. What is meant is that this page is devoid
of meaningful content related to the rest of the document. This
page serves only as a separator between sections, chapters, or
other divisions of the document. This page is not completely
blank so that you know that nothing was unintentionally left out,
or that the page is not blank because of an error in duplication,
or that the page is not blank because of some other production
problem. If this page were really blank, you wouldn't be reading
anything. This page has not been left blank by accident, but is
left non-blank on purpose. The statement on the page should say
"This page was intentionally left non-blank".)
-- Michael Cook
-------------------------
I'm considering jumping on the bandwagon and writing a new book
with the title "Ventriloquism for Dummies".
This will either be an introduction to ventriloquism for beginners,
or a management consultant's guide on how to indirectly change
corporate workings through the selected use of company memos,
CEO speeches, house newsletters, and rumor.
After that, it's "Crash Testing for Dummies", in which I either
document how the U.S. government performs and analyzes automobile
test crashes for safety reasons, or I document Kevin Mitnick's
use, misuse, and overuse of his personal computer system,
and how he analyzes himself as a security threat to his own system.
-- Michael Cook
-------------------------
See also Segfault.org.
Jimmy Carter to Oversee Florida Recount
Plains, Georgia (API) - Former U.S. President Jimmy
Carter has been sent to Florida to oversee the election
results and vote recounting there. In his role as mediator,
Mr. Carter will advise and assist local election officials in
their work to finalize the vote recount and give some
appearance of decorum during these turbulent days. He
will help officials produce official voting results.
Mr. Carter said that "My past work monitoring elections
in foreign countries has given me insight as to my role in
Florida. Without my previous work of advice and
encouragement to many foreign election officials, things
in Florida could get way out of hand quickly. I’m honored
to be able to serve my country again in this important
capacity, and at a turning point in American history."
Both Democratic and Republican campaign officials
have agreed to let Mr. Carter lead the way during the
vote recount and events that will follow. Even though
Carter is a Democrat, he is respected by both parties.
"He’s a swell guy," commented one Republican official.
Mr. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, have worked
tirelessly for human rights and democracy since leaving
office several years ago. They and their staff work out of
the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. Carter also said that "I’m always available to help out
in times of crisis, such as the current situation in Florida.
It also fits well with my planned family trip to Disney
World at Thanksgiving."
-- Michael Cook
-------------------------
See also Segfault.org.
Al Gore's Mother Invented Perl
San Jose, CA (API) - In an attempt to win over the dot-com, e-business,
and iCompany programming crowd, Democratic presidential candidate Al
Gore made a surprising announcement here on Friday at a small hacker
gathering in the late afternoon.
Gore claims that many years ago his mother, Pauline, invented Perl.
"I remember sitting next to her while she rocked in her old rocking
chair out on the porch of our little Washington, D.C., apartment. She
would mumble to herself things like 'Knit 1.0, Perl 2.0'," recalled Gore
during his speech. "She also made some kind of funny marks in her
knitting notebook; instructions of some kind, I suppose."
"I didn't think much of it until many years later, after I invented the
Internet," said Gore in his best impression of a Tennessee drawl. "I
knew then that we'd need a whole new approach to programming my new
Internet."
Gore related that he remembered meeting Larry Wall during his college
years. "Larry and I would get together occasionally for some math
homework, and he would show me how to manipulate budget figures so that
a tax increase could be shown as a cut. Because of that friendship and
mentoring, I knew that Larry would be just the guy to develop a language
for my new Internet.
"I showed Larry my mom's old notebook, and he saw immediately that my
mom's curious notations would be exactly the basis he needed to extend
the language for my Internet. Out of respect for my mom's pioneering
achievement, he continued to call the new language 'Perl'."
Gore continued, "Larry got together with a friend of his, Randy Switz,
or Schwertz, or something like that. The two of them relentlessly worked
over that language notation until it was satisfactory for a first
release. Over the next several years, they added virtually all keyboard
keystroke combinations to the language. So, pretty much whatever you can
type will be a program that will work on my Internet."
As an example of how Perl has helped the Internet grow, Gore noted,
"Even monkeys have been trained to develop web site data processing
routines. You might visit heyheywearethemonkeys.com for their work. I've
even decided to invest in iMonkey, a new portal site for our world's
endangered species."
Gore concluded his speech with "Thanks for helping make my Internet what
it is today. I couldn't have done it without help from all of you.
Please encourage me with your votes in November."
Several people noticed that Gore left the site of his speech in a Ford
Explorer, dubbed "Internet too", with at least one under-inflated tire.
-- Michael Cook
-------------------------
See also Segfault.org.
1 Meg Geek March to be held in Cyberspace
Yet another Million Person March, the "Virtual 1 Meg Geek
March" (YAV1MGM), was jointly announced today on several
geek-related web sites. Acknowledging that it would be next to
impossible to physically gather over one million geeks in a
single area, this virtual march will occur in cyberspace. Some
of the top names in cyberspace are expected to "attend".
Originally conceived by a group calling itself "K00L K1DZ",
the virtual geek march will happen over the web via a
collaboration of sites. It is hoped that these sites will
experience a combined hit count of at least 1,048,576 (2^20) in
a 24-hour period.
The theme of the march is "Geeks are real people, too, at least
most of the time."
In order to reduce visits by non-geeks just surfing the Net, the
virtual marching geeks will have to locate and hack into at least
one of the YAV1MGM web sites to register their attendance.
This will limit participation to those who are truly geeks. These
web sites will not be indexed by the major search engines.
The YAV1MGM will be held November 11, 2000. The "K00L
K1DZ" group picked this day because it is a Saturday,
allowing many geeks to take a short break from their other
work for this event. This is also a day for a full moon, giving
an added boost for some geeks.
"It should be a great time for all", announced Bill, spokes-geek
for the organizing committee. "I hope to see a lot of folks turn
out for this event. Virtual Mountain Dew, Cheetos, pizza, and
other snack items will be served. Virtual Nerf toys will be
given away randomly as prizes."
Final YAV1MGM attendance totals will be posted on the
Wired News site later in November.
-- Michael Cook
-------------------------
Review: "Who Moved My Malarky?"
"Who Moved My Malarky" is one of the newest entries in the field of
self-help, motivational, short-books-that-make-a-lot-of-money genre.
Written as a fable, this story briefly catches the lives of two mice
trapped in a maze, representing life, or some-such piffle. These mice
sit around drinking Snapple, watching movies on cable, and grousing about
the lack of fun and good times in their lives. Two other mice, in a
frantic maze running expedition, stumble across them, almost literally.
After the first pair of mice is asked why they're just sitting around,
the second pair encourages them to look around for more malarky. "Why,
it's all around you, if you just look!" says the second pair of mice.
The braver mouse in the first pair screws up enough courage to look
around. After a short while, he returns to his friend claiming "Well, I
looked and didn't find any new malarky." His friend asks, "How long did
you look?" "Long enough to know it's hard work finding new malarky," the
second mouse replied. So they both vowed to venture out for new malarky,
together, right after the next movie, or whatever.
Moral: Stories about mice are fun for the readers for awhile, but the
authors rake in the dough, laughing all the way to the bank.
-- Michael Cook
-------------------------
See also Segfault.org.
O’Reilly Discontinues "Nutshell" Series, Starts Legal "Briefs"
Sebastopol, CA (API), June 31, 2000 - Today, Tim O'Reilly,
President and CEO of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.,
announced the end of its publishing line of computer related books,
including the much touted "In a Nutshell" series.
"With the fall of many 'dot com' businesses in the marketplace, and
the saturation of books on many computer and Internet related topics,
we must move on to other areas of publishing," said O'Reilly. "And
besides," he continued, "we're running out of cute animals to put on
the covers of our books. Lately, we've even been forced to use
reptiles on our covers, not a great customer draw."
Spokeswoman Patti Ann Wiener of PETTA (People for the Ethical
Treatment of Tasty Animals) welcomed the announcement. "We've been in
contact with O'Reilly in the past regarding their use of animals on
their bookcovers. For some time, we've opposed the use of these
animal depictions. It demeans these wonderful, innocent woodland,
forest, and sea creatures. It puts the wrong associations in people's
minds about these animals. None of these animals asked, or wants, to
be used in this most unbecoming way. They're being used for crass
marketing purposes, just to make a buck, er, dollar for the O'Reilly
company."
Mr. O'Reilly did say that books currently in their publishing pipeline
will be produced, but new book titles will be declined. "I know this
is a disappointment to many of our customers. But its time for them
to get away from their keyboards and get a life!" O'Reilly exclaimed,
a little heatedly for our reporter.
Mr. O'Reilly continued, "We will not be laying off any of our staff,
however. We are starting a new line of books. This new series will
be on law for the general public, written by lawyers, and edited by
our fine staff with the oversight of our own legal team. The series
is titled 'Briefs', and will consist of several books with a 900-page
minimum length. You know that 2 lawyers can't greet each other in
less than 10 minutes, being compelled to cover all contingencies."
The first title in the series is "Humor in Briefs." "We've scoured
the Internet and law journals for jokes on lawyers and the legal
profession," claimed Mr. O'Reilly. "Our staff has been in an uproar
since we've been compiling the material, except for our cracked legal
team who keeps asking 'What's so funny about that one?'." The first
book will contain mostly non-fiction, though. As one unnamed lawyer
has noted, "There are only two lawyer jokes, the rest are true stories."
O'Reilly won't give up their catchy bookcovers, however. For the
'Briefs' line of books, they'll use images of bacteria and parasites
that have caused epidemics. The "Humor in Briefs" book will sport the
image of the bacteria 'Yersinia pestis', which caused the Black Plague
in Europe in the mid 1300's. "Not a fun time, to be sure, but perhaps
appropriate in some lawyerly way," said Mr. O'Reilly.
Future titles will feature bacteria which cause smallpox, cholera,
typhoid, and other epidemic diseases. "We haven't forgotten the
higher level parasites, such as leeches, but haven't assigned them to
particular books, yet," elaborated Mr. O'Reilly.
"We're looking forward to a fine series of books that will satisfy a
niche market too long overlooked, edify the reading public, enhance
our reputation, and earn us some serious cash."
-------------------------
eBay Sells Itself, On eBay!
San Jose, CA (API) - In a surprising development, eBay CEO Meg Whitman
confirmed today that the company would be selling itself via their own
business specialty: auction.
That's right, eBay will auction eBay itself on eBay!
Rumors started spreading after a bicycle courier found a fax printout
blowing in the wind. The brief encrypted message said:
"TARTSAY AUCTIONWAY ORFAY EBAY ONWAY ONDAYMAY, EGMAY".
The single plaintext word 'EBAY' was at first incorrectly decoded.
Further analysis indicated that this was intended as a red-herring, not
an indication that Be Incorporated, developers of BeOS, was up for sale
instead.
The bidding for eBay is set to start at 32 MB (Mega-Bucks), but the final
price is expected to be much higher when the bidding is complete. The
bidding period is expected to be at least six weeks long to allow time
for bidders to locate capital for the purchase and to allow bidding to
reach as high a level as possible.
For the duration of the bidding period, eBay has contracted with "The
Wall Street Journal" to have the current bid price continuously posted
on the WSJ web site, delayed by 15 minutes. The WSJ will also run an
online "office pool" for readers who can enter a contest to guess how
high the bidding will eventually run, and who will be the successful
bidder.
Once bidding is complete, the seller (eBay) and the buyer will be given
more than 3 days in which to complete the transaction. This time period
is longer than the general auction rule at eBay, but was extended
because of the more complicated nature of this transaction and the
amount of money exchanging hands. However, the buyer will be required
to pay 10% of the bid as earnest money within the standard 3 days.
Personal credit cards of the CEO of the buying company will be accepted.
Proxy bidding is allowed, but it is uncertain how much that will help
the bidders. Those bidding using obscure user id's won't really have an
advantage since eBay will know who is bidding; they own the user
database!
Word on the street also has it that the Sotheby's and Christie's auction
houses will be bidding against each other in this special auction. Each
one hopes to capture another outlet for auction material, and the
resulting profits.
The auction winner will also obtain all of eBay's customer information
and auction histories, fueling speculation that Amazon.com will be one
of the top bidders.
Ms. Whitman was asked what she plans to do with her winnings, er,
earnings after the eBay sale is complete. "I intend to buy a real bay,
somewhere along the California coast, where I can relax and plan my next
business venture."
-------------------------
Source: usenet: utastro!nather, May 21, 1983.
A recent article devoted to the *macho* side of programming made the
bald and unvarnished statement:
Real Programmers write in Fortran.
Maybe they do now, in this decadent era of Lite beer, hand calculators,
and "user-friendly" software, but back in the Good Old Days, when the
term "software" sounded funny and Real Computers were made out of drums
and vacuum tubes, Real Programmers wrote in machine code. Not Fortran.
Not RATFOR. Not, even, assembly language. Machine Code. Raw,
unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers. Directly.
Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this
glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the
generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel,
because that was his name.
I first met Mel when I went to work for Royal McBee Computer Corp., a
now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured
the LGP-30, a small, cheap (by the standards of the day) drum-memory
computer, and had just started to manufacture the RPC-4000, a
much-improved, bigger, better, faster -- drum-memory computer. Cores
cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you
haven't heard of the company, or the computer.)
I had been hired to write a Fortran compiler for this new marvel and Mel
was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers.
"If a program can't rewrite its own code," he asked, "what good is it?"
Mel had written, in hexadecimal, the most popular computer program the
company owned. It ran on the LGP-30 and played blackjack with potential
customers at computer shows. Its effect was always dramatic. The
LGP-30 booth was packed at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around
talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was
a question we never discussed.
Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the RPC-4000.
(Port? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one
addressing scheme, in which each machine instruction, in addition to the
operation code and the address of the needed operand, had a second
address that indicated where, on the revolving drum, the next
instruction was located. In modern parlance, every single instruction
was followed by a GO TO!
Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is,
locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job,
the next would be just arriving at the "read head" and available for
immediate execution. There was a program to do that job, an "optimizing
assembler", but Mel refused to use it.
"You never know where its going to put things", he explained, "so you'd
have to use separate constants".
It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the
numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum
addresses, every instruction he wrote could also be considered a
numerical constant. He could pick up an earlier "add" instruction, say,
and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not
easy for someone else to modify.
I compared Mel's hand-optimized programs with the same code massaged by
the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was
because the "top-down" method of program design hadn't been invented
yet, and Mel wouldn't have used it anyway. He wrote the innermost parts
of his program loops first, so they would get first choice of the
optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't
smart enough to do it that way.
Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky
Flexowriter required a delay between output characters to work right.
He just located instructions on the drum so each successive one was just
*past* the read head when it was needed; the drum had to execute another
complete revolution to find the next instruction. He coined an
unforgettable term for this procedure. Although "optimum" is an
absolute term, like "unique", it became common verbal practice to make
it relative: "not quite optimum" or "less optimum" or "not very
optimum". Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the "most
pessimum".
After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run, ("Even the
initializer is optimized", he said proudly) he got a Change Request from
the sales department. The program used an elegant (optimized) random
number generator to shuffle the "cards" and deal from the "deck", and
some of the salesmen felt it was too fair, since sometimes the customers
lost. They wanted Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a
sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the
customer win.
Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that
it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so
he refused to do it. The Head Salesman talked to Mel, as did the Big
Boss and, at the boss's urging, a few Fellow Programmers. Mel finally
gave in and wrote the code, but he got the test backwards, and, when the
sense switch was turned on, the program would cheat, winning every time.
Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was
uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it.
After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked
me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it.
Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real
adventure.
I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can
only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are
lovely gems and brilliant coups hidden from human view and admiration,
sometimes forever, by the very nature of the process. You can learn a
lot about an individual just by reading through his code, even in
hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius.
Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no
test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed
loop, where the program would circle, forever, endlessly. Program
control passed right through it, however, and safely out the other side.
It took me two weeks to figure it out.
The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an index
register. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used
an indexed instruction inside; each time through, the number in the
index register was added to the address of that instruction, so it would
refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index
register each time through. Mel never used it.
Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one
to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified
instruction right from the register. The loop was written so this
additional execution time was taken into account -- just as this
instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head,
ready to go. But the loop had no test in it.
The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that
lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word,
was turned on -- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero
all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me.
He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory -- the
largest locations the instructions could address -- so, after the last
datum was handled, incrementing the instruction address would make it
overflow. The carry would add one to the operation code, changing it to
the next one in the instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough,
the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the
program went happily on its way.
I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to
the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since
those long-gone days. I like to think he didn't. In any event, I was
impressed enough that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the
Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised.
When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you
turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be.
I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer.
-------------------------
Print Media Explained - (source unknown)
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they ought to run
the country.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country
but don't understand the Washington Post.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running
the country, if they could spare the time.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's
running the country.
8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running
the country, as long as they do something scandalous.
9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there
is a country, or that anyone is running it.
10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country.
-------------------------
An anagram of "Albert Arnold Gore" is:
"arrogant old rebel"
Maybe the Republicans *do* know more than they're telling!
-- Michael Cook
-------------------------
Sometimes it is better to leave bad enough alone. In support of my
advice, I offer the following from the California Newspaper
Publisher's Association. It is an example of a typographical error in
the classified section of a small town newspaper, and the subsequent
disasterous attempts to correct it.
(Monday)
FOR SALE - R.D. Jones has one sewing machine for sale. Phone 948-0707
after 7 p.m. and ask