Date: 5 Oct 92 17:02:38 PDT (Monday)
Subject: Life 8.Q
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The following are from dsc.cuties
which I think is maintained by lindsay@dscatl.UUCP (Lindsay Cleveland)
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Contributed by: ihuxi!ixn5c!ihldt!ll1!sb1!sb6!lhs1
Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom:
No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats-
approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Larry Sikes
..!ll1!sb1!lhs
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Contributed by: avsdT!wcl
Heard from a canadian friend:
I eats me peas with honey,
I've done it all me life.
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps 'em on the knife.
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Contributed by: ihnss!knudsen
If Darwin's Theory isn't wrong,
But almost proven true,
How come the ape in "Donkey Kong"
Is smarter'n me and you?
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Contributed by: sdccsu3!ix222
There is no realizable power that man cannot,
in time, fashion the tools to attain, nor any
power so secure that the naked ape will not
abuse it. So it is written in the genetic
cards -- only physics and war hold him in
check. And also the wife who wants him home
by five, of course.
Encyclopadia Apocryphia, 1990 ed.
from an article on the blink bomb
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Contributed by: burl!lda
Continued from the Book of Lists 2, are the worlds worst puns:
14. A hen stopped right in the middle of the highway. She wanted to lay it
on the line.
15. The husband of a talkative wife sighed, "I've given that woman the best
ears of my life."
16. "It's raining cats and dogs," one man remarked. "I know," said another.
"I just stepped into a poodle."
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Contributed by: wegdcb!gcegb
GUILT BY ASSOCIATION
"I've been married and divorced three times," the young
man lamented. "I can't hold a job for more than six months
at a time, and I'm in debt up to my ears. Dad, tell me,
where did you and Mom go wrong?"
--Edward Stevenson, WSJ, 9/19/83.
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Contributed by: eagle!karn
Rinaldo's Laws
As I will be leaving the Washington area in early May, I thought
it appropriate to share the wisdom that I have accumulated thus far.
These truths have come not as a vision but by observation over time.
Accordingly, I have synthesized the following laws:
First Law. Choreography is its own reward.
Some things are done only for the sake of form. Don't fight it
by looking for substance in everything. Do it long enough and you'll
find enjoyment in an elephant dance.
Second Law. He who does the work shapes it.
As applied to computers, he who writes the code rules (the
Codin' rule).
In meetings, he who writes the minutes determines the outcome.
Third Law. The less the knowledge, the more jealously it is preserved.
Societies with only a few precious facts make their people
memorize them and pledge to faithfully abide by them.
In contrast, highly developed disciplines quit worrying about
losing knowledge (unless the computer crashes and there is no backup).
Fourth Law. Excellence increases demands.
Critics gather to spot tinier flaws as work nears perfection.
Promptness invites impatience. In correspondence, the faster
you answer a letter, the faster your correspondent will answer giving
you something with a shorter deadline. This reaches a fever pitch with
electronic mail.
Fifth Law. Skills diminish professionalism.
Engineers who admit to drafting skills are vulnerable to
assignment of drafting work, just to help out.
Similarly, female professionals should hide any clerical skills
lest they be asked to pinch hit for one of the secretaries in the event
of illness.
Sixth Law. What separates the competent from the incompetent is the
ability to cover up mistakes.
Many successful sales demonstrations have been made with
defective products in the hands of competent persons who avoid
demonstrating the features which don't work. Beautiful Xerox copies can
be made from originals riddled with correction fluid. Recovery from
some grievous errors can be attained by simply announcing, "No problem.
We'll just put it back in the word processor!" The computer software
profession seems to be the exception; who else is so blatant as to have
a term such as "debugging" to let the world know that they need extra
time funded by the customer to correct their own errors.
Seventh Law. Silence is not acquiescence.
Contrary to what you may have heard, silence of those present is
not necessarily consent, even the reluctant variety. They simply may
sit in stunned silence and figure ways of sabotaging the plan after they
regain their composure.
Eighth Law. Quick-reaction and slow-reaction facilities rotate.
Once people discover that there is a quick-reaction facility (QRF),
they will try to get all their work done there, bogging it down in work
and leaving the slow-reaction facility (SRF) nothing to do, thus
becoming the faster of the two.
Ninth Law. Complexity attracts brilliance.
The KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle is no fun and
certainly not a professional approach. If you want brilliant people to
do work for you make it complex and demanding.
The true professional will spend 20 hours at the computer
writing a one-time-use program that will replace 10 hours of clerical
work. Anyway, 20 hours at professional rates pays more than 10 hours at
clerical rates. Also, it's more intellectually rewarding. The greatest
achievement is to use one's finest professional talents to accomplish
something that didn't need to be done.
Tenth Law. Bad guys are replaced.
Did you ever rejoice over the departure of someone that you
couldn't get along with only to find that a replica has shown up?
When you are trying to make a U-turn and you have someone
tailgating you, have you pulled off on a sidestreet, then into an alley
only to find that two other cars are right behind you?
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Contributed by: emory!jfp
ELECTRONIC GRAINS
The Vegetable Computer was invented in 1842 by Charles Cab-
bage, regarded by many as the father of the field. Cabbage
called his computer the Agricultural Engine. Modern versions
consist of rose and rose of integrated carrots connected to
a flower supply by a maize of wires. Input is from pea
switches, yard weeder and tell-he's-ripe. A hayseed vine
printer may be used to generate hard coffee, while a veget-
able display unit supports interactive composting. Main
memory consists of interleaved beet-addressable magnetic
corn. Secondary store consists of plough discs and grape
drives. All peripherals are daisy chained.
A later version of the Agricultural Engine was known as
the AR-16 (after Agricultural Revolution). It was based on
the sack discipline, first perfected by the Barrow Combine,
and sprouted a high-swede paper tape reaper for the first
lime.
Early computers consumed large amounts of power. Many
required their own electric spud-station to seed them and
had to overcome the problem of providing adequate lentila-
tion. Such problems caused many a furrowed brow in the pas-
ture and we cannot expect to avoid harrowing days ahead.
However, the many fertile minds that constitute the rate-
of-the-cart computer technology cannot fail to produce the
harvest of the future, particulary with the bloom of very
large scale irrigation. Artificial pollination techniques
grafted on to parallel earthworks will soon be producing
computers proudly proclaiming "I think, therefore I yam".
All chokes aside, we can look beyond the melon-cauli thymes
through the winnow of the ears till the salad days ahead.
Lettuce advance to the world of two marrows. To those reac-
tionaries who would turn back the docks we say, "hoe! hoe!
hoe!".
Herb and Russel Sprout,
Rice Presidents,
Assocn. for Cultivating Machinery
-----------------
John Pedersen. {sb1,akgua}!emory!jfp
Emory University, Atlanta.
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Contributed by: utcsstat!laura
To understand this joke you have to understand about The Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation, which I will call the CBC from now on.
The CBC is the national radio station. You can find it if you are
near Canada because it is the station with people reading poetry,
playing classical music, and (if you are lucky) presenting the
Royal Canadian Air Farce or (even better) Frantic Times -- 2
comedy shows.
If you ever do get to hear CBC radio, you will notice one thing.
All the announcers sound the same. There is a definite CBC radio
voice, and I know people who were not allowed to talk on CBC
radio until they had mastered the art of sounding 'right'. The
next thing to remember is that real Canadians do not sound like
CBC radio announcers. There are a lot of regional differences in
pronunciation.
Okay, this is background. Now we need a Canadian group to pick
on. I am going to pick on the Newfies, because I have a lot of
friends in Newfoundland.
******** begin joke ************
There was this Newfie who was unemployed, because times were
tough in Newfoundland. He decided that he would move to Toronto
to see if he could get a job there. When he got there, after
looking for work, he found that people did not understand him. No
matter how hard he tried people kept saying "What's that you're
saying? I don't understand you at all!".
After days of this, he decided that he was going to have to lose
some of his Newfie-isms or he would never get a job. So he went
to CBC radio and enrolled in the course to make you sound like a
CBC radio announcer. It was hard work, but after many months, he
had finally mastered the particular detached, snobbish voice that
was required. In fact, he did such a good job that CBC hired him
and gave him his own time slot to read short exerpts from
Robertson Davies' Fifth Business.
Of course, the Newfie was pleased. After receiving his first pay
check, he decided to buy some food. So he went to a store. He
asked the owner for a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, a loaf of
bread, and some milk.
"You must be a Newfie," exclaimed the shop owner.
The Newfie was crestfallen. "How did you know?" he asked.
"Because this is a hardware store!"
laura creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!laura
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Contributed by: clyde!lda
Editorial Written by Art Buchwald
Appeared in the Greensboro Daily News, summer 1983
In foreign policy, one F16 is worth a thousand words
One of the problems with everyone's foreign policy these days is that
countries have decided to send more and more expensive messages to each
other. In bygone years, an ambassador delivered a message to a foreign
government in a leather briefcase. The foreign secretary would then
call in the ambassador and hand him his government's reply. It was all
neat and tidy and a very cheap way of keeping in touch with each other.
But now the prices have gone sky high.
This is how governments are communicating with each other:
The President calls in his secretary of state: "I want to send a
message to the Soviet Union that they better stay out of Central
America. Give the El Salvador government $5 million in arms."
"Yes, sir."
A few days later the President calls the secretary, "Have we had a
reply to our message to the Soviets?"
"It just came in. The Soviets have delivered 50 MIGs to Cuba, as well
as new ground-to-air missiles."
"Get off a tough message to Cuba right away. Send a squadron of Huey
helicopter gunships to Honduras, and make sure they know we're going to
give Guatemala anything they ask for. Sign my name to them so they
know we mean business."
"Right, sir. By the way we just got a message from France. They're
supporting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua by selling them 100
Mirages. What is our reply?"
"Give the government of Trinidad two submarines and a missile cruiser
to inform the French we disapprove of the sale."
A few days later the President is being briefed by his National
Security Adviser, "Libya is protesting our vote in the United Nations
on Israel and has sent us a message by supplying the PLO with
Russian-made heavy artillery."
"What kind of reply do you suggest we send?"
"We could give Sudan 200 U.S.-made tanks. I think that would be loud
and clear."
"I don't think it's strong enough. Why don't we send 100 F16s to
Egypt?"
"Then we would have to give 100 F18s to Israel."
"Let's do it. That would also be a message to Iran. I've been wanting
to send them one for some time."
"The Secretary has reported that he got nowhere with the Russian Ambassador
on Poland."
"We're going to have to send the Russians another message. Have the
Defense Secretary arrange to place 1,000 cruise missiles in West Germany."
"Is that in response to their message of putting 100 SS-20s in the
Warsaw Pact countries?"
"I hope they read it that way. We must get through to them that we
mean business."
"What about developing new chemical warfare weapons that would destroy
the world? They might get that message."
"It's worth a try. Tell the Pentagon boys to get on it right away and
leak it to the press. Anything else?"
"Did you want to send a message to the People's Republic of China by
giving Taiwan a new shipment of planes?"
"We better hold off on that for the moment, as China might get the
wrong message that we don't need them in the cold war with Russia."
"That seems to do it for today. I'll get these messages off right
away. Oh, one thing, sir. Our ambassador in Moscow has just sent a
cable that he needs a Cadillac limousine, because the small car we gave
him is giving a message to the Russian people that capitalism doesn't
work."
"I didn't know we had an ambassador in Moscow?"
"We don't use him. But we keep him there just in case you may want to
deliver a message to the Kremlin."
"Why would I want to do that when there are so many easier ways of
communicating with the Soviets?"
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