Date: 11 Oct 93 11:08:36 PDT (Monday)
Subject: Life A.U
The following are from Spaf's Yucks Digests:
spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene "Chief Yuckster" Spafford)
----------------------------------------------------
From: Mark Covey [covey@cobber.cord.edu]
Encountered the following in the Periscope section of the latest Newsweek.
Purloined without permission...
Bumper Cars... (Newsweek, June 7, 1993)
An empty Saab Automobila factory in Sweden got a little *too* mobile
last month when a misprogrammed assembly line jump-started itself and
assembled 24 cars, rolling them off one after the other into a wall. A
worker finally discovered the auto-automated line, but not before it had
created an impressive chrome-and-steel pileup. Saab officials said that
damage was minimal.
"Assembly lines run slowly, and we have big bumpers," a Saab spokesman said.
--------------------------
From: kr@mr.picker.com (Kevin Randolph)
A friend of mine works as a consultant. While at a site
one day, one of the people there asked him,
"Do you know how to use the six editor?"
"Six...?"
"Yea. Six. v... i..."
Ture story. I do not know if this is a standard UNIX
joke, but it's one of mine now.
[The same guy probably believes he's limited to 10 windows
under the X Window System.... --spaf]
--------------------------
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
"There's a rule of performing that I've always followed, and that is: If
you make a mistake in verse 1, make the mistake exactly the same way in
verse 2. Then it's called jazz."
- John Tesh, Entertainment Tonight co-host and pianist/composer
--------------------------
From: pearl@spectacle.sw.stratus.com (Dan Pearl)
Top 10 Bad Experiences when Renting from U-Haul
9. Tow bar failed. We're still looking for the car.
6. "Air-conditioner" was actually a stick-on decal.
5. Brakes failed on steep mountain road. When I complained that I was
almost killed, they called me a "crybaby".
2. Their "one-way" rental truck couldn't shift into reverse.
And the number one bad experience when renting from U-Haul:
1. They insisted that odometer "wrapped around" -- charged me for 1000120
miles.
--------------------------
From: rdippold@qualcomm.com (Ron "Asbestos" Dippold)
A counter-example to Wiles's proof ...
[In case you've been hiding under a rock: it looks like Fermat's Last
Theorem has been proven. From sci.math.]
David G. Caraballo (carabalo@phoenix.Princeton.EDU) wrote:
] The proof cannot be correct, because, according to "Star Trek: The Next
] Generation" Fermat's Last Theorem was still unproven in their time, so, in
] particular, it cannot be proven this century. Q.E.D.
--------------------------
From: rkatos@hpunila.MSR.HP.COM (Ray Katos)
To add to the Pringles history.
Potato chips are a regional food. Why? because they will be totally
destroyed after about 300 miles of bouncing around in a truck.
Proctor and Gamble started Pringles soley to have a national potato chip
product that could be shipped all over, few factories, economies of scale.
Also, you may notice they are made of potato goo, so less waste, or is it
more waste, or is it all waste.
--------------------------
From: uunet!sgi.siemens.com!golub (JOSHUA GOLUB 708-304-7573)
as long as we are on this voltaire thing, i just got the following
message from someone:
[blah, blah, blah.] that is my opinion, and i will defend to
your death my right to express it.
--------------------------
From: gabeh@maxstrat.com (Gabe Hebert)
I was recently able to obtain a copy of the IBM Dictionary of Official
Acronyms, or IBM DOA as it is better known. Until now I was convinced
that the rumors of BIG BLUE having an entire department, with a staff of
834 people dedicated to this publication, were pure nonsense.
What an eye opener!! I was embarrassed to discover that I had used many
acronyms incorrectly over the years.
Here are some examples from the IBM DOA (1,234 pages, International
Business Machines Press (IMBP)):
SCSI (ska-zee) something dirty. people who pronounce this (skoo-zee) won't
understand.
DOS (dos(like dog with an "s")) Disfunctional Operating System (used to be
Disk Operating System until that *$#@ Gates.....)
--------------------------
From: rutgers!twty.chi.il.us!benjamin.cohen
Re: Yucks 3/24, Administrivia
]]I'm sure this will give me another source of bizarre stories.
]]Like why she seems to dirty her diaper
]]every time her father picks her up....
What have you been telling her?
Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1993, Tales From the Front Column, by
Cheryl Lavin:
"Jim is a good father, and he wanted to avoid a lot of problems by
having that father-daughter talk early. 'Having agonized for
months over the inevitable, I presented her with my two simple
rules for dating: (1) She may not date until she's 18. (2) No
man will ever be good enough for her. Her response? She smiled,
gurgled, and immediately filled her diaper."
--------------------------
From: shoe@tivoli.com (Mark Shoemaker)
TORONTO (UPI) -- Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of
windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with
his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death.
This seems a twisted case of life (or least death) imitating art (or at
least TV).
There was a Hill Street Blues episode in which the leading candidate in
the (show's) Mayor's race was giving a tour of a high-rise tenement to
reporters (I believe he had moved in there as a PR stunt earlier). In
pointing out the need for better maintenance, he went to demonstrate how
rotten the wood was around a large window in one of the stairwells. It
broke free and he plunged to his death.
The capsule description of the episode in most TV listings was "Leading
Mayoral Candidate falls out of race".
--------------------------
From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey)
When we were in high school, Barbara and I decided that one should never
eat anything that they were not themselves willing to kill.
Today, Barbara is a strict vegetarian and I own a surplus Chinese sniper
rifle. We have both held firmly to this ideal, albeit in different ways.
--------------------------
From: jfw@jfwhome.FUNHOUSE.COM (John F. Woods)
In [gerald.743292502@gerald] gerald@gerald.torolab.ibm.com (Gerald Oskoboiny) writes:
]A friend of mine has a book called "The SAS Survival Guide" (I think).
]It was written by a guy who spent a couple decades in the army, in forests
]and jungles and other weird places.
]There is also a section on eating bugs:
The SAS ensures the survival of its agents in the wild by teaching them to
eat bugs.
The CIA is ensuring the survival of its agents in the wild by enabling
MacDonalds to have a restaurant EVERY FOUR HUNDRED YARDS over
the ENTIRE surface of the Earth.
Now, whose approach do you prefer?
--------------------------
From: Burt.Kaufman@f40.n382.z1.fidonet.org (Burt Kaufman)
-=] Quoting Bradley T Banko to All [=-
BTB] Is there an easy way to identify bad AA NiCad batteries?
BTB] (something that doesn't require any circuits other than a voltmeter?)
BTB] KB8CNE, Brad Banko
Bad ones wear black leather, have tattoos and hang out on street corners
late at night. Good ones have pocket protectors, black framed glasses
held together by tape, and a slide rule (okay calculator) hanging from
their belt. Sorry.
--------------------------
From: karn@qualcomm.com (Phil Karn)
Seen stenciled on the side of a Sparrow air-to-air missile on static
display last weekend at the Miramar Air Show in San Diego:
CONTROL SECTION
GUIDED MISSILE
WCU-15A/B
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND
[blah blah blah]
WARRANTED ITEM
WARRANTY EXPIRES [blank]
IN CASE OF FAILURE UNDER
WARRANTY SHIP TO:
GENERAL DYNAMICS
CAMDEN, AR
Okay, so maybe there can be failures during pre-flight testing. But
the first image this notice brought to mind was that of a bunch of
grunts scouring the Iraqi desert in search of tiny bits of metal,
carefully scooping each one into bags marked "Camden, Arkansas"...
--------------------------
Geologists Study Earthquake Cycles in Midwest, New England May 31
Baltimore, Md. (AP) -- New studies suggest there is an enormous earthquake
along a Midwestern fault at least once every 1,000 years and a major quake in
New England about every 4,500 years.
Researchers attending the American Geophysical Union national meeting here
told AP that recent studies are giving a greater understanding of the rate of
seismic activity along the New Madrid fault of the Midwest and of the
earthquake potential in the six New England states.
"This meeting is presenting new evidence that a large earthquake has
occurred about every 1,000 years along the New Madrid fault," said Eugene
Schweig of the U.S. Geologic Survey in Memphis. "That hasn't been all that
clear until recently."
An earthquake that would have measured an estimated magnitude 8 on the
Richter scale occurred along the New Madrid fault in 1811. It was centered
near New Madrid, Mo., which gave the fault its name.
The affected area had little European settlement then, and reported damage
was slight. But the shaker was felt as far away as Boston, where bells rang,
and its considered to be one of the largest quakes verified in North America.
But Schweig said new evidence suggests that the New Madrid fault, which
runs generally from near Cairo, Ill., to just west of Memphis, has produced a
series of large earthquakes, going back for 4,000 years. Large quakes occurred
in the New Madrid fault area every 500 to 1,200 years.
Another study, said Schweig, has detected movement of land along the fault
of about one centimeter (one-third inch) per year in a 100-kilometer (62-
mile) stretch.
Such movement is slower than what is recorded along some California faults,
said Arch Johnston of Memphis State University, but "it is rapid enough to
produce a great earthquake [measuring 8 on the Richter scale] every 1,000
years.
[Memphis: "A whole lot of shakin going on." -- E. Presley --spaf]
--------------------------
[Gene is now the proud parent of a baby girl, here's his observations]
From: Gene Spafford [spaf@uther.cs.purdue.edu]
I will pass along my top 10 recommendations for
dealing with labor and delivery, based on my recent experience:
10) Daddy should wear shoes in which he can stand for 12-16 hours
without undue fatigue.
9) If daddy can pack some crackers or food bars, it helps.
Mommy-to-be does not want daddy to leave, but daddy may fall over from
lack of food after 12 hours or so. Mommy will have no interest in
food at all until about 30 minutes after birth, at which time she will
want to eat a whole cow.
8) Mommy should not be wearing contact lenses during labor. Advise her
against this, seriously (if she wears any). Daddy should wear his
contact lenses, unless the sight of bodily fluids (known and unknown)
make him quesy.
7) Afterwards, daddy should not make any comments about "There, that
wasn't so bad, was it?" or "Gee, you did that well -- let's have
several more!"
6) Daddy should not flirt with the nurses. Except, perhaps, during
contractions when mommy won't notice much of anything.
5) Once a labor pain starts, if daddy can tell mommy how much time has
elapsed (15 seconds....30 seconds...etc), that seems to help mommy a
*lot* in enduring the pain. It some helps her know that the end is
coming if she just holds on for another 30 or 60 seconds. Daddy should
not throw in numbers like 150, 300, or 1000 just to see mommy's reaction.
4) Daddy should refrain from any comments such as "Euuuww! Gross!" at
any point during labor and delivery.
3) At the point at which the doctor tells mommy to grab her knees and
push, be certain she can find her knees and not some portion of daddy's
body or clothing. Mommies are incredibly strong at this moment and will
rip daddy's arm out if he is not cautious.
2) After delivery of the afterbirth, Daddy should not act horried and
state "You're not throwing that away, are you?" without thinking what
will happen if the doctor also has a strange sense of humor.
...and the #1 recommendation is:
1) Demerol injections early in labor. For both parents.
--------------------------
From: tom_van_vleck@taligent.com (Tom Van Vleck)
Multics - Iliad
Full of heroes & exploits.
Modern firepower renders most of its tactics obsolete.
UNIX - Aeneid
Studied in more classrooms than the Iliad.
Doesn't make it better or more of a success.
Different language, different cultural matrix, different goals.
OS/360 - Internal revenue code
Widely studied but only a few consider it epic.
MSDOS - Gilligan's Island
Mac OS - Cheers
Windows - Married With Children
--------------------------
From: knauer@ibeam.intel.com (Rob Knauerhase)
In an E-mail message, Monica King wrote:
[on using the word 'web' instead of 'newsgroup' for newsgroups]
]I prefer web to the sterile "newsgroup" as it connotes a living structure,
]rather than a mechanistic one. Cheers, Monica
Maybe she has a point; the analogy of ideas (or people) getting trapped and
dying in Usenet 'webs' is strangely compelling, n'est-ce pas?
--------------------------
From: straz@cambridge.apple.com (Steve Strassmann)
]anyone know of a program which helps to convert Pascal code to C?
Try crypt.
--------------------------
From: "Marc G. Frank" [mgfrank@erebus.com]
Exactly ten days after purchasing *Programming in Ada* by JGP Barnes, I
get a flier from the US Navy that begins "HIGH TECH FUTURES. JOBS.
MONEY." and ends with a business reply card: "Yes, I would like to learn
more about an exciting job with travel and adventure."
Coincidence?
--------------------------
From: Jeremy Frank [frank@cs.ucdavis.edu]
[These are selected quotes from the 2nd Computer Misuse and Anomaly
Detection Workshop held at UC Davis last month. I'm responsible for at
least one of the quotes.
Providing context might ruin the effect, so none is provided. --spaf]
"I don't think incompetence is limited to universities."
"The jury thought she was comitting perjury, when she was being a typical
engineer."
"Thou shalt not put a telephone device connected to a public network
within six feet of a computer with classified data on it, because as
everyone knows, those little electrons will jump the six feet from the
computer to the telephone and vice versa."
"On UNIX systems there are two security classes: God and peon. If you're
God, you can do absolutely anything. If you're a peon, you can become
God."
"Every time you display an equation in a talk you lose 50% of your audience.
By recursion, I've lost you all."
--------------------------
From: cdash@ludell.uccs.edu (Charles M. Shub)
==] From a schizophrenic self-employed person:
==] The opinions herein are not necessarily those of my employer!
--------------------------
From: cdash@ludell.uccs.edu (Charles M. Shub)
=] RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest Thu 30 September 1993 Volume 15 : Issue 05
=]
=] FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS
=] ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator
=]
=] The RISKS Forum is a moderated digest discussing risks; comp.risks is its
=] USENET counterpart. Undigestifiers are available throughout the Internet,
=] but not from RISKS. Contributions should be relevant, sound, in good taste,
=] objective, cogent, coherent, concise, and nonrepetitious. Diversity is
=] welcome.
one would think the above rules out items of relevance to yucks,
but...
=] An announcement recently posted at an installation that shall remain nameless:
=]
=] Subject: IMPORTANT: All machines will be down
=]
=] ALL MACHINES WILL BE DOWN!
=]
=] When: Saturday morning (9 to 13) September the 25th
=] Why: Maintenance of the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)
--------------------------
From: Patrick Tufts [zippy@cs.brandeis.edu]
Seen on a bottle of Lucozade
BEST
SERVED
CHILLED
BEST BEFORE END
A reference to the coming apocalypse, perhaps?
--
Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com]
The Life humor collection maintainer, selections from the internet
From: "Patrick Ryan" [p.ryan@uws.edu.au]
"Honour thy father" does not mean repeat his mistakes.
Back to my Life Humor Page
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