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Date: Tue, 23 Aug 1994 09:04:13 -0700
From: cate3@netcom.com (Henry Cate)
Message-Id: [199408231604.JAA06032@netcom.netcom.com]
To: JWry.dl@netcom.com
Subject: Life B.L
Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com
Status: R
---------------
Date: 21 Dec 93 16:13:13 PST (Tuesday)
Subject: Life B.L
The following are from the mailing list:
silent-tristero@world.std.com
----------------------------------------------------
To: Michael Travers [mt@media.mit.edu]
On 24 Nov, Michael Travers writes: Re: IBM
]International Brotherhood of Magicians
This is a real organization that happens to share the initials.
--------------------------
From: Jerry Leichter [leichter@lrw.com]
A time-honored (but probably now obsolete) translation, dating from a time
when advancement at IBM - at least in the managerial ranks, but where else
was there advancement - depended on a record of service at IBM locations
throughout the world: I've Been Moved.
--------------------------
From: Ephraim Vishniac [ephraim@think.com]
From: dm@hri.com (Dave Mankins)
] Oh yes, what about tools. I have heard most highly recommended: "An
] office with a door on it" and "A wastebasket for overly complex designs"
After seeing the late Dr. An Wang interviewed on TV years ago, my wife
could see that he was a no-nonsense manager: he had wastebaskets on
*both* sides of his desk.
--------------------------
From: dave mankins (dm@world.std.com, dm@hri.com)
----
From: "Mich Kabay / JINBU Corp." [75300.3232@compuserve.com]
Subj: Brazilian computer snarls in corruption probe
]Excerpted from the United Press International newswire via Executive News
Service (GO ENS) on CompuServe:
UPn 11/18 1948 Data-packed computer snarls in Brazilian corruption probe
BRASILIA (UPI) -- A congressional committee investigating massive fraud
in Brazil was held up Thursday when the computers froze in response to a
command to cross-reference data on thousands of checks, bank accounts and
budget amendments between 1990 and 1992.
The article explains that the network ran out of processing resources,
including memory, when trying to track down corruption in the government.
--------------------------
Forwarded by: Art Medlar [medlar@adoc.xerox.com]
From: dorsey@lila.com (Bill Dorsey)
Subj: Nautilus Digital Voice Communicator
Request for Alpha testers & developers:
I am seeking individuals interested in the testing (and development) of
Nautilus, a program that allows users to communicate with each other
digitally over public phone lines. It requires a computer with audio
input and output capability and a Hayes compatible 9600 baud (V.32) or
faster modem. Current supported platforms include:
[...]
Nautilus enables two users equipped as indicated above to carry on a
conversation with each other using their modems to transfer the
compressed speech. Because of the limitations of most PC sound cards,
Nautilus currently only supports half-duplex operation. This limitation
is expected to be removed in the future when cards capable of supporting
full duplex operation become more common.
[...]
--------------------------
From: Michael Travers [mt@media.mit.edu]
I kid you not, this directory exists and is accessible via anonymous FTP:
whitehouse.gov:/pub/political-science/speeches/kibo-for-prez/*
[and while you are poking around, be sure to pick up the full text of
the NAFTA agreement and other fun bedtime reading]
--------------------------
From: dm@hri.com
``The modern automobile has more computing power than the
Lunar Lander had when it landed on the moon. By the year
2000, the automobile computer is expected to have more
interactive sensor-control loops than the larges chemical
refinery in Baytown, Texas.''
from ``Systems engineering of computer-based systems'' _IEEE
Computer_, Nov. 1993.
--------------------------
From: "Kristin Spence" [kristin@wired.com]
This is almost as good as the t-shirt I once saw in LA, no doubt meant for the
back of an artificially tanned juice-monkey type:
Body by Nautilus, Brain by Mattel.
--------------------------
From: "Lee S. Kilpatrick" (Mr. Breeze) [leekil@bbn.com]
A couple weeks ago, Time magazine ran an article on the Internet.
This week, they had letters from readers responding to that article.
Here's what they published from one reader. I've seen this sentiment
expressed before, but not exactly in this manner.
"So long as the internet remains a challenge to use, so will it remain
immune to buffoonery. It's one of the few things yet unruined-- like dogs.
--------------------------
From: Bruce Boghosian [bmb@think.com]
From: gbrophy@vnet.IBM.COM
"Campaigns to bear-proof all garbage containers in wild areas have been
difficult, because as one biologist put it, 'There is a considerable
overlap between the intelligence levels of the smartest bears and the
dumbest tourists.'"
Yes, Yogi lives. ;-)
When I first camped in Yosemite National Park 15 years ago, we were
warned that we should "bearbag" our food at night. The Park Service had
grown tired of "garbage bears" prowling around the dumpsters in the
valley, and so they had them helecoptered to the more distant reaches of
the park. Once there, these street-smart bears did not change their
ways -- the connection between humans and garbage being firmly etched in
their minds -- so they simply searched out backpackers.
So, to prevent them from getting your food at night, you had to put your
food in a "bearbag." The trouble was then that you then had to put the
bearbag *somewhere*. I had a friend who put it in his car's trunk at
the trailhead where he camped on his first night out. He awoke the next
morning to find that his trunk had been ripped open, causing
considerable damage to his car. He bought new food before setting out,
but the next night he just stuffed his backpack -- containing the food
-- into a crack in the rocks. The next morning, he followed a trail of
bear scat from the crack to the twisted aluminum remnants of his
backpack frame a few hundred feet away. Completely disgusted, he cut
the trip short and went home.
Now, the next thing that might come to mind is to put the food up in a
tree. This must be approached with caution, however, because California
brown bears (unlike grizzlies) can climb trees. If you hang the bearbag
from a branch that's too thin, they'll go up and break it off; if you
hang it from a branch that's too thick, they'll simply climb out on it
and reel in the bag.
At this point, you might suggest finding a long rope, tying one end to
the ground, the other end to the bearbag, and throwing the bearbag over
a very high branch. Unfortunately, the bears (and this may only be true
of the human-wise bears from Yosemite Valley, and not of their more wild
cousins) were actually smart enough to reel in the bag from the end of
the rope that was tied to the ground, or to simply break off the
supporting branch if they could get to it.
So, the preferred method was to (i) find a branch that was neither so
thin that a bear could break it nor so thick that a bear could climb out
on it (a tough judgement call), (ii) find a rope of half-length less
than the height of the branch minus about 8 feet (the reach of a bear),
but greater than the height minus about 15 feet (you'll see why in a
minute), (iii) tie one end of the rope to the bearbag and the other end
to a counterweight, (iv) sling the rope over the branch, and (v) use a
long stick to push *both* ends up so that they are out of reach of the
bears. Of course, there are numerous details to worry about -- such as
the resulting configuration being inaccessible to bears standing on
other branches of the tree, etc. Getting the food down in the morning
was also an interesting procedure -- it made you earn your breakfast.
So this is the procedure that we followed, and the bears never got our
food. One would think that garbage dumpster designers, who always have
the option of resorting to battleship steel -- would have an easier time
of it...
--------------------------
From: Nichael Cramer [ncramer@bbn.com]
N years ago my wife and I were at Yellowstone and we went to see Old
Faithful. If you've never been there, the area behind the geyser is
covered with hot springs and --besides being very beatiful-- is a favorite
hangout for bison in cold weather. When we got to the lodge I noticed that
there postings about ever 20 ft warning us to:
BE CAREFUL AROUND THE BISON.
[N-DOZEN] PEOPLE HAVE BEEN GORED THIS YEAR.
Now, if you've never seen a real live Bison, you should bear in mind a bull
can easily stand 7 feet or more at the shoulders, weigh 3000lbs and run
35-40mph. Moreover they have two baseball bat-sized jousting spears
mounted on either side of their head. Yes they tend to stand around and
graze most of the time, but this is not Bambi you're dealing with, folks.
So I figured, "Yeah, sure. 'beware of the Bison'. Right. Shouldn't they
be doing something useful like reminding us not to lick light-sockets?
Clearly the gorings that season must have been freak accidents involving
jimpson weed or some such. I mean, just how *stupid* do they think we are,
anyway?"
Well...
An hour or so later we were out wandering among the hotsprings and we came
up over a ridge. There a hundred yard ahead, just off the path was a large
bull munching away at the grass and looking for all the world like he was
doing his best to ignore Joe and Jane Tourist standing, not ten feet to his
side, camera in hand *throwing*pebbles*at*his*head* trying to get him to
look over his way.
Being good Darwinists, it seem best to turn around, head back and let
Nature do Her pruning as best She saw fit.
--------------------------
From: Gary Oberbrunner [garyo@think.com]
Nowadays in Yosemite and the other major bear parks they put up food
seesaws (my name, not theirs). This is a 20 or so foot steel pole with a
big concrete counterweight on one end, and a pivot about 2 1/2 feet from
that end mounted to a vertical 3 foot beam sticking out of the ground. You
pull the other (long) end of the pole down (pulling against the
counterweight), attach your food bag to the end of the pole, release it,
and your food swings up to the top, courtesy of the counterweight. In the
morning you pull sideways on the pole (hard), and/or lift the counterweight
to swing it down. Works better with 2 people. If there are no trees in
the vicinity, the thing is pretty bearproof. Some of these poles may even
have a cotter pin to keep the pole up, or so I've heard. But any bear
worth its dinner could pull out a cotter pin, I'd bet. It's the grasping
the pole to pull on it that gets them; without opposable thumbs it's pretty
tough.
The problem they have with them, of course, is that the backpackers don't
always use them. (See the original signature...) Then they have to take
the bear, whose hunting techniques are now permanently tainted, and airlift
it far *far* away, and in many cases it must be killed. The new park
service slogan, at least at Grand Canyon where I was recently, is "a fed
bear is a dead bear." Makes you think twice before handing over that ham
sandwich...
--------------------------
From: joshua@het.brown.edu (Joshua W. Burton)
Bruce Boghosian has described some of the early skirmishes in the ongoing war
between backpackers and bears for the right to eat blueberry cobbler out of
season (the loser eats roots and bugs). I've been a foot soldier in these
campaigns since my Boy Scout days, and have accumulated a few war-stories.
By now it's pretty well understood that bear-bags are a zero-sum game, like
car alarms: all they can really do is make the bear decide on someone else's
dinner instead of yours. Fortunately, there are enough lazy campers, and few
enough perfect branches, that the trees in overburdened places like Sequoia
and Yosemite are full of misconceived bear-bags. It's quite impressive to see
what the bear can do to one of these: somewhere in my desk at work I have a
can of deviled chicken that was torn open and licked so clean through the
small hole that it's hard to believe it ever contained food. But on a lean
night a bear will go after even a _good_ bear-bag, and it's then that his
persistence and ingenuity really shine....
We were camped in the high Sangre de Cristo country (northeast NM) about ten
years ago, a good long three days' hike from trailhead by the shortest route,
or five days in by the route that would leave us on the same side of the
range as our car. The rangers had warned us about a new trick the bears had
for snagging chow in that area, and had advised us to buy some quarter-inch
steel cable. We begrudged the weight and decided to make due with the usual
clothesline, but decided that night to rig a Mark II bear-bag, as we called
it: swung over branches 20+ feet up _two_ trees, then pulled tight from both
sides with the food hanging high in the air halfway between. We picked big
ancient Ponderosa pines with no lower branches to help the bear climb, and
even tied off the ends as high up the trunks as we could manage. Besides, I
didn''t believe a bear had the dexterity to gnaw or scratch through nylon line,
so I figured we were pretty safe.
We had been joking ever since the ranger's warning about all the tricks a
bear in those parts might have learned, and `kamikaze bears' had become one
of those catch-phrases that will crack everyone up by mere repetition. Late
that night we heard this enormous THUMP from outside the tents, in more or
less the direction of the bear-bags. We sat up, looked at each other, and
simultaneously mouthed `kamikaze bears!!!' My buddy started looking for his
flashlight, ignoring my frenzied pantomime of dissuasion...but before he
could get it there was another THUMP, this time accompanied by unmistakable
creaking and crashing of branches. Both of us and two of our other friends
stumbled out of the tents at just about that moment, and....
Under the trees, about halfway between the two big pines, there was a large
female black bear (perhaps 350-400 pounds), lying on her side on the ground
and breathing heavily. The bear-bag was still hanging from the crotches of
the two opposing branches, but one of the two was broken through and hanging
crazily, and the rope was so slack that the bag hung barely ten feet in the
air. Subsequent examination showed that the bag was torn almost in half, and
was actually hanging from the line by a single strip of cloth. As we were
taking this in, the bear got up, gave an uncannily human sigh, and ambled over
to a smaller tree that overhung our bag about 30-35 feet up. We started
banging pots and waving our flashlights around about the time she got to it,
and after thinking that over she wandered unhappily away.
In the years since I've even seen campers with `bear footballs', screw-tight
arrangements made from two cooking pots that the bear supposedly can't do more
than dent a bit, which you find a hundred yards away after the bear gives up
on playing with them. I wonder what's next?
--------------------------
From: John Robinson [jr@ksr.com]
From: Tim Peters [tim]
I've spent many an unpleasant hour over the past few days wrestling with
C++ for the first time. We're not afraid to compare! Following is an
extract, from the start of our 3-megabytes-and-growing report:
Twin Peaks C++
---------- ---
category TV show programming language
parent David Lynch Bjarne Stroustrup
can say own name? yes questionable
humor high none
clarity high low
obscurity high over the edge
syntax clean incomprehensible
scoping concentric & everywhere, like vomit
reentrant waves
fun high low
suspense high high
casting inspired same crap as C
in color? yes no
stereo sound? yes no
protected
inheritance? no yes, but nobody really
knows what it means
giants & midgets? yes, but nobody knows no
what it really means
villains? yes yes
heroes? yes no
net group? yes yes
better alternatives? no yes
how many? none all
And so on. Clearly-- and I'm sorry if this upsets you --they're not as
similar as most believe. This Net Creature glimpses part of the ugly
truth:
] It seemed obvious to me that not only did C++ miss the whole point of
] object oriented programming, but in many circumstances it's even worse
] than regular C!
Our advice: Stick to Twin Peaks! If you absolutely have to learn an
object-oriented language so you won't feel out of place at nerd cocktail
parties, learn Python instead. It has exactly one keyword in support of
classes, and the full semantics are explained clearly and precisely in a
few pages of text.
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