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Yucks Digest V4 #38
Yucks Digest Wed, 7 Dec 94 Volume 4 : Issue 38
Today's Topics:
... and hence unable to independently further her own selfhood?
Caring for Disks
Humor:There's one born every minute
If only the IRS were run like Microsoft
Keith Bostic: Complaining workers quoted the Plant Manager as saying "Ship it."
Microsoft finds God
Punkin Chunkin
The "Yucks" digest is a moderated list of the bizarre, the unusual,
the sometimes risque, the possibly insane, and the (usually) humorous.
It is issued on a semi-regular basis, as the whim and time present
themselves.
Back issues can be obtained via Gopher as
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Submissions and problem reports should be sent to spaf@cs.purdue.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 08:28:55 -0500
From: bostic
Subject: ... and hence unable to independently further her own selfhood?
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
Actually, this is YAPCLRRH (Yet Another ...)
Forwarded-by: whorfin@pixar.com (Rick Sayre)
Forwarded-by: Kane Hunter <kane@ghost.uunet.ca>
Forwarded-by: timstarr@netcom.com (Tim Starr)
Politically-Correct Little Red Riding Hood
------------------------------------------
There once was a young person named Little Red Riding Hood who
lived on the edge of a large forest full of endangered owls and rare
plants that would probably provide a cure for cancer if only someone
took the time to study them.
Red Riding Hood lived with a nurture giver whom she sometimes
referred to as "mother", although she didn't mean to imply by this
term that she would have thought less of the person if a close
biological link did not in fact exist.
Nor did she intend to denigrate the equal value of
nontraditional households, although she was sorry if this was the
impression conveyed.
One day her mother asked her to take a basket of organically
grown fruit and mineral water to her grandmother's house.
"But mother, won't this be stealing work from the unionized
people who have struggled for years to earn the right to carry all
packages between various people in the woods?"
Red Riding Hood's mother assured her that she had called the
union boss and gotten a special compassionate mission exemption form.
"But mother, aren't you oppressing me by ordering me to do this?"
Red Riding Hood's mother pointed out that it was impossible for
womyn to oppress each other, since all womyn were equally oppressed
until all womyn were free.
"But mother, then shouldn't you have my brother carry the
basket, since he's an oppressor, and should learn what it's like to
be oppressed?"
And Red Riding Hood's mother explained that her brother was
attending a special rally for animal rights, and besides, this wasn't
stereotypical womyn's work, but an empowering deed that would help
engender a feeling of community.
"But won't I be oppressing Grandma, by implying that she's sick
and hence unable to independently further her own selfhood?"
But Red Riding Hood's mother explained that her grandmother
wasn't actually sick or incapacitated or mentally handicapped in any
way, although that was not to imply that any of these conditions were
inferior to what some people called "health".
Thus Red Riding Hood felt that she could get behind the idea of
delivering the basket to her grandmother, and so she set off.
Many people believed that the forest was a foreboding and
dangerous place, but Red Riding Hood knew that this was an
irrational fear based on cultural paradigms instilled by a
patriarchal society that regarded the natural world as an exploitable
resource, and hence believed that natural predators were in fact
intolerable competitors.
Other people avoided the woods for fear of thieves and deviants,
but Red Riding Hood felt that in a truly classless society all
marginalized peoples would be able to "come out" of the woods and be
accepted as valid lifestyle role models.
On her way to Grandma's house, Red Riding Hood passed a
woodchopper, and wandered off the path, in order to examine some
flowers.
She was startled to find herself standing before a Wolf, who
asked her what was in her basket.
Red Riding Hood's teacher had warned her never to talk to
strangers, but she was confident in taking control of her own budding
sexuality, and chose to dialogue with the Wolf.
She replied, "I am taking my Grandmother some healthful snacks
in a gesture of solidarity."
The Wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little
girl to walk through these woods alone."
Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in
the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status
as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to
develop an alternative and yet entirely valid worldview. Now, if
you'll excuse me, I would prefer to be on my way."
Red Riding Hood returned to the main path, and proceeded towards
her Grandmother's house.
But because his status outside society had freed him from
slavish adherence to linear, Western-style thought, the Wolf knew of
a quicker route to Grandma's house.
He burst into the house and ate Grandma, a course of action
affirmative of his nature as a predator.
Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist gender role notions,
he put on Grandma's nightclothes, crawled under the bedclothes, and
awaited developments.
Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said,
"Grandma, I have brought you some cruelty free snacks to salute
you in your role of wise and nurturing matriarch."
The Wolf said softly "Come closer, child, so that I might see
you."
Red Riding Hood said, "Goddess! Grandma, what big eyes you
have!"
"You forget that I am optically challenged."
"And Grandma, what an enormous, what a fine nose you have."
"Naturally, I could have had it fixed to help my acting career,
but I didn't give in to such societal pressures, my child."
"And Grandma, what very big, sharp teeth you have!"
The Wolf could not take any more of these specist slurs, and, in
a reaction appropriate for his accustomed milieu, he leaped out of
bed, grabbed Little Red Riding Hood, and opened his jaws so wide that
she could see her poor Grandmother cowering in his belly.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Red Riding Hood bravely
shouted. "You must request my permission before proceeding to a new
level of intimacy!"
The Wolf was so startled by this statement that he loosened his
grasp on her.
At the same time, the woodchopper burst into the cottage,
brandishing an ax.
"Hands off!" cried the woodchopper.
"And what do you think you're doing?" cried Little Red Riding
Hood. "If I let you help me now, I would be expressing a lack of
confidence in my own abilities, which would lead to poor self esteem
and lower achievement scores on college entrance exams."
"Last chance, sister! Get your hands off that endangered
species! This is an FBI sting!" screamed the woodchopper, and when
Little Red Riding Hood nonetheless made a sudden motion, he sliced
off her head.
"Thank goodness you got here in time," said the Wolf. "The brat
and her grandmother lured me in here. I thought I was a goner."
"No, I think I'm the real victim, here," said the woodchopper.
"I've been dealing with my anger ever since I saw her picking those
protected flowers earlier. And now I'm going to have such a trauma.
Do you have any aspirin?"
"Sure," said the Wolf.
"Thanks."
"I feel your pain," said the Wolf, and he patted the woodchopper
on his firm, well padded back, gave a little belch, and said "Do you
have any Maalox?"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 94 14:32:00 -0700
From: someone
Subject: Caring for Disks
To: spaf
PROPER DISKETTE CARE AND USAGE
(1) Never leave diskettes in the drive, as the data can leak out
of the disk and corrode the inner mechanics of the drive.
Diskettes should be rolled up and stored in pencil holders.
(2) Diskettes should be cleaned and waxed once a week.
Microscopic metal particles may be removed by waving a
powerful magnet over the surface of the disk. Any stubborn
metal shavings can be removed with scouring powder and steel
wool. When waxing a diskette, make sure the surface is
even. This will allow the diskette to spin faster,
resulting in better access time.
(3) Do not fold diskettes unless they do not fit into the drive.
"Big" diskettes may be folded and used in "Little" drives.
(4) Never insert a diskette into the drive upside down. The
data can fall off the surface of the disk and jam the
intricate mechanics of the drive.
(5) Diskettes cannot be backed up by running them through a
photocopy machine. If your data is going to need to be
backed up, simply insert TWO diskettes into your drive.
Whenever you update a document, the data will be written
onto both disks. A handy tip for more legible backup
copies: keep a container of iron filings at your desk.
When you need to make two copies, sprinkle iron filings
liberally between the diskettes before inserting them into
the drive.
(6) Diskettes should not be removed or inserted from the drive
while the red light is on or flashing. Doing so could result
in smeared or possibly unreadable text. Occasionally, the
red light remains flashing in what is known as a "hung" or
"hooked" state. If your system is hooking, you will
probably need to insert a few coins before being allowed to
access the slot.
(7) If your diskette is full and needs more storage space,
remove the disk from the drive and shake vigorously for two
minutes. This will pack the data enough (data compression)
to allow for more storage. Be sure to cover all openings
with scotch tape to prevent loss of data.
(8) Data access time may be greatly improved by cutting more
holes in the diskette jacket. This will provide more
simultaneous access points to the disk.
(9) Periodically spray diskettes with insecticide to prevent
system bugs from spreading.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 94 23:21:12 PST
From: Chris "Big Laugh" Borton <borton@searanch.com>
Subject: Humor:There's one born every minute
To: nobody@batnet.com (cbb Humor Mailing List)
[This is a scam piece that's both funny and sad for those who unwittingly
fall for such claims. But for those who know Intel things a bit, it's
rather amusing. -cbb]
From: Turlough O'Connor
P.T. Barnum was right....
I particularly like the grandiose claims, such as "this utility takes away NO
MEMORY, it resides in a special unused portion of your memory"...
<begin forwarded message>
Hello all, a recent download by me from a LL BBS, is the following. If
you would like a copy, then let me know. It will ONLY work as it says. All I
know is that it will not work on a 386SX!!
=====================
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS TO RUN THIS PROGRAM:
= A 486 SX/SLC 25 MHz CPU with at least 1 MEG of Extended memory.
NB^^^^^^^^^^NB
= HIMEM.SYS / QEMM or any other EMM manager.
= DOS 4.x or higher and Windows 3.1
Welcome to a FIRST in PC TECHNOLOGY. Your computer is capable of
doing much more than you think, and the companies that make them
don't tell you everything. Well WE WILL. What if we told
you that there is a program that converts your 486 SX into a
real Pentium compatible processor. You would say it's impossible,
or it's another one of those HOAX PROGRAMS. Well you are wrong. In fact
there are many programs out there that CLAIM to SPEED-UP your computer
or increase your memory, but do they REALLY give results ? They
either eat memory, behave strangely, and the result is not significant.
Well throw away all those programs, because 486TO586.COM is the
right choice. Yes, this little program, under 10 K, will convert
your 486 SX into a Pentium, SAFELY.
This program only works with 486 SX or SLC's, it does not support 386 or 286
computers.
Now you might seem skeptic and think this is a joke. This program
took 9 months to program, and was carefully studied by top notch
programmers and debuggers. They have come up with a SAFE
technique to do so.
We will not go into technical details, but we will attempt to explain.
What this program does, is, it adds a mini TSR program into
a protected memory area and this RESIDENT program acts as a CPU,
it analyses the program being run and takes over the work, does
its own calculations, compresses the program in memory, changes
certain commands, all in realtime! All this frees up your
regular CPU. So your regular CPU does its chores and the
EMULATED CPU does its work too. It's like having a math co-processor,
but in this case it's a CPU co-processor.
And it's not all!!! This TSR does more than free the load out of
your CPU, it also features a graphic processor and sound processor.
2 independant built-in modules that take care of graphic manipulations
in all modes including CGA, EGA, VGA, SVGA, XVGA, and modes up to 24 bit
color. It's like having a seperate GRAPHIC CPU, so imagine all the
work load taken off your regular CPU. It also features a built-in
sound processor, that takes care of sound processing, for programs
that use sound cards and PC SPEAKER as well.
The program also features a MATH CO PROCESSOR emulator, even better
than Q387.EXE, it is as fast as the real math chip itself, this also
is installed.
So with all these utilities in memory (TSR) it works to help free your
CPU, it also changes your BIOS, setup and memory contents to configure
it into a 486 66 so other programs can recognise it.
When we say it converts it into a Pentium, we really mean it!!!
Your 486 SX 25 becomes a Pentium, tests have been made
and we measured the CPU speed with different programs.
Without this utility installed we got from 23.5 to 25.2 MHZ.
With the utility installed we got an amazing 47.2 MHZ to 54.2 MHZ!
Faster than a 486/33 MHZ!!!
Everything is automatic and temporary, once you turn off your
computer everything is reset. When you run the program it will
read your configuration and adjust itself accordingly. This
utility takes away NO MEMORY, it resides in a special unused portion
of your memory, and it is fully compatible with ANY DOS version,
any WINDOWS version, any other TSR's in memory, other memory
managers, and 100% of all the programs out there.
So we hope you understand the principle around this, it uses
very complex programming code to acheive this. And it's more
than just an emulation, your system becomes a real Pentium SYSTEM!
And you REALLY will notice the difference when you run graphic programs.
WARNING: Do not attempt to use this program if you have a 286/386 processor,
it won't work! Also if you have a 486 portable type of computer,
it might not work.
Feel free to distribute this program around, we hope you enjoy it!
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 94 19:30:06 EST
From: MGLASS@fnalv.fnal.gov (Michael Glass at Fermilab)
Subject: If only the IRS were run like Microsoft
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
"Government should be run like a business." We've all
heard that chestnut. Here is how the Internal Revenue
Service (nobody's favorite government agency) would be
like, if only it were run like Microsoft Corp. (a
successful private enterprise).
-- The IRS, as always, announces new tax forms will be
mailed the week before the new year. However it will
follow Microsoft's example and actually ship them the
following May.
-- Responding to pressure from some large corporations and
a users' group, some early copies of the tax forms will
actually be released in March. The recipients must
sign non-disclosure agreements.
-- In June, the forms will be recalled because the IRS
loses a suit for appropriating some other country's
intellectual property.
-- When you move, the IRS will continue to send mail to
your previous address forevermore, just like Microsoft
sends its product upgrade notices.
-- When you upgrade from form 1040 EZ to 1040 A, and then
to 1040, you will pay an upgrade fee each time. Also
you need to send in a new registration card and get a
new Social Security Number. In order to upgrade, you
have to submit the original first page of your previous
year's form.
-- Like Microsoft, when you file a late or amended tax
return the IRS will reject it on the grounds that the
the prior year is no longer supported.
-- The IRS telephone help will remain similar to
Microsoft's, staffed by ill-trained, high-turnover
personnel who sometimes give a correct answer, but
the IRS will have to discontinue using a toll-free
phone number.
-- After struggling with reams of dense documentation of
complex options and rules, you discover that you will
need publication 3297, with a ten-word-long title, in
order to answer (you hope) a single obscure question.
The IRS, like Microsoft, will charge a minimum of $40
for that publication.
-- The IRS, like Microsoft, will continue to issue
immense volumes of bug fixes, interpretations, and
clarifications. However the tax-rule updates should
be neither easily searchable nor well-indexed.
-- Instead of three-ring binders containing complete sets
of tax code bugs and interpretations, IRS rulings will
be promulgated in a haphazard fashion by individual
taxpayers via BBS, Usenet, and Compuserve. A for-
profit publishing subsidiary would also be nice.
-- The new all-powerful (and eccentric) Commissioner of
Internal Revenue will jet around the country giving
speeches and granting numerous interviews, but only
to sycophantic reporters. Changes to the tax code
will be at the whim of the Commissioner and largely
kept secret until they are published.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 03 Dec 1994 11:33:23 -0500
From: spaf (Gene Spafford)
Subject: Keith Bostic: Complaining workers quoted the Plant Manager as saying "Ship it."
To: serc-all
Think what this approach would do to/for the computer industry?
Especially if we could start at Intel and Microsoft.... :-)
--spaf
------- Forwarded Message
From: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
Subject: Complaining workers quoted the Plant Manager as saying "Ship it."
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 1994 08:07:20 -0500
Forwarded-by: guy@netapp.com (Guy Harris)
Subject: A new twist on Total Quality Management
Forwarded-by: mjacob@jupiter.Legato.COM (Matt Jacob)
[ forwards deleted ]
Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal - Tuesday, September 13
18 Chinese Managers Executed for Shoddy Quality
BEIJING - Eighteen factory managers were executed for poor product
quality at Chien Bien Refrigerator Factory on the outskirts of the
Chinese capital.
The managers - twelve men and six women - were taken to a rice paddy
outside the factory and unceremoniously shot to death as 500 plant
workers looked on. Ministry of Economic Reform spokesman, Xi Ten
Haun, said the action was required for committing unpardonable crimes
against the people of China.
He blamed the managers for ignoring quality and forcing shoddy work,
saying the factory's output of refrigerators had a reputation for
failure. For years factory workers complained that many component
parts did not meet specification and end product did not function as
required. Compressors were cracked, leaked freon and the electrical
components were sub-standard. Complaining workers quoted the Plant
Manager as saying "Ship it."
Customers, who waited up to five years for their appliances, were
outraged, he says.
"It is understandable our citizens would express shock and outrage
when managers are careless in their attitudes toward the welfare of
others."
Refrigerators are among the most sought after consumer items in
Communist China.
"Managers in charge of production and engineering failed to perform
any useful corrections to the quality problems for the last 20 years,"
Haun said.
"Our soldiers are justified in wishing to bring proper justice to
these errant managers."
The executed included the Plant Manager, the Quality Control Manager,
the Engineering Managers and their top staff.
------- End of Forwarded Message
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 94 09:54:42 PST
From: nathan@hal.com (Nathan Hoover)
Subject: Microsoft finds God
To: spaf
[ Headers deleted ]
The following is (just slightly) behind the times -- there's already a
Web page which will hear your confessions for you -- but the post does
correctly characterize Microsoft's approach.
BTW have y'all seen Microsoft's new institutional ad on TV? Very
expensive, very post-modern. Screen shots of Microsoft products doing
various things in various languages (including japanese). A rainbow
coalition of smiling faces: using Microsoft products makes you happy.
Soundtrack begins in chaos, then forms structure around a woman's voice
intoning vague affirmations: "Our stuff is good." "Use our stuff to
make something great." "We're in your corner." -- then resolves into
a children's choir singing over U2-look&feel geetar music. I give this
commercial a 70; it's got a good beat, you can dance to it.
S.
> From: Newswire Mailing
> To: IS Daily News Services for Executives
> Cc: Newswire Mailing
> Subject: MICROSOFT: Bids to Acquire Catholic Church
> Date: Tuesday, November 29, 1994 7:16AM
>
>
> MICROSOFT Bids to Acquire Catholic Church
>
> By Hank Vorjes
>
> VATICAN CITY (AP) -- In a joint press conference in St. Peter's Square
> this morning, MICROSOFT Corp. and the Vatican announced that the
> Redmond software giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church in
> exchange for an unspecified number of shares of MICROSOFT common stock.
> If the deal goes through, it will be the first time a computer software
> company has acquired a major world religion.
>
> With the acquisition, Pope John Paul II will become the senior
> vice-president of the combined company's new Religious Software
> Division, while MICROSOFT senior vice-presidents Michael Maples and
> Steven Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said
> MICROSOFT Chairman Bill Gates.
>
> "We expect a lot of growth in the religious market in the next five to
> ten years," said Gates. "The combined resources of MICROSOFT and the
> Catholic Church will allow us to make religion easier and more fun for
> a broader range of people."
>
> Through the MICROSOFT Network, the company's new on-line service, "we
> will make the sacraments available on-line for the first time" and
> revive the popular pre-Counter-Reformation practice of selling
> indulgences, said Gates. "You can get Communion, confess your sins,
> receive absolution -- even reduce your time in Purgatory -- all without
> leaving your home."
>
> A new software application, MICROSOFT Church, will include a macro
> language which you can program to download heavenly graces
> automatically while you are away from your computer.
>
> An estimated 17,000 people attended the announcement in St Peter's
> Square, watching on a 60-foot screen as comedian Don Novello -- in
> character as Father Guido Sarducci -- hosted the event, which was
> broadcast by satellite to 700 sites worldwide.
>
> Pope John Paul II said little during the announcement. When Novello
> chided Gates, "Now I guess you get to wear one of these pointy hats,"
> the crowd roared, but the pontiff's smile seemed strained.
>
> The deal grants MICROSOFT exclusive electronic rights to the Bible and
> the Vatican's prized art collection, which includes works by such
> masters as Michelangelo and Da Vinci. But critics say MICROSOFT will
> face stiff challenges if it attempts to limit competitors' access to
> these key intellectual properties.
>
> "The Jewish people invented the look and feel of the holy scriptures,"
> said Rabbi David Gottschalk of Philadelphia. "You take the parting of
> the Red Sea -- we had that thousands of years before the Catholics came
> on the scene."
>
> But others argue that the Catholic and Jewish faiths both draw on a
> common Abrahamic heritage. "The Catholic Church has just been more
> successful in marketing it to a larger audience," notes Notre Dame
> theologian Father Kenneth Madigan. Over the last 2,000 years, the
> Catholic Church's market share has increased dramatically, while
> Judaism, which was the first to offer many of the concepts now touted
> by Christianity, lags behind.
>
> Historically, the Church has a reputation as an aggressive competitor,
> leading crusades to pressure people to upgrade to Catholicism, and
> entering into exclusive licensing arrangements in various kingdoms
> whereby all subjects were instilled with Catholicism, whether or not
> they planned to use it. Today Christianity is available from several
> denominations, but the Catholic version is still the most widely used.
> The Church's mission is to reach "the four corners of the earth,"
> echoing MICROSOFT's vision of "a computer on every desktop and in every
> home".
>
> Gates described MICROSOFT's long-term strategy to develop a scalable
> religious architecture that will support all religions through
> emulation. A single core religion will be offered with a choice of
> interfaces according to the religion desired -- "One religion, a couple
> of different implementations," said Gates.
>
> The MICROSOFT move could spark a wave of mergers and acquisitions,
> according to Herb Peters, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Baptist
> Conference, as other churches scramble to strengthen their position in
> the increasingly competitive religious market.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 22:08:35 -0500
From: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Punkin Chunkin
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
Forwarded-by: Peter Langston <psl@acm.org>
Forwarded-by: "pardo@cs.washington.edu" <pardo@cs.washington.edu>
From: dylan@striper
Hi all!
Well, here it is, the promised report on the 1994 World Championship
Punkin Chunkin. First, some background.
It seems that about 9 years ago, a bunch of guys in lower (slower)
Delaware decided to see who could build a machine who could throw a 10 lb
pumpkin farthest. The event quickly outgrew its humble beginnings as the
contestants got better and better at this task, and eventually its
organization and production was taken over by the Lewes Chamber of
Commerce and moved to an abandoned airfield. It now draws in excess of
10,000 observers and contestants to a day- long event featuring multiple
classes of pumpkin throwing. But the big event of the day is still the
Unlimited Class, where anything short of explosives can be used to throw
a pumpkin. (The other two rules are that the pumpkin must be launched
intact, and that no part of the machine may cross the finish line. {I
imagine this is to prevent the attachment of booster rockets, wings, or
an engine to the gourd.}) The contestants apparently do this for pride
and bragging rights, and the amount of trash-talking in the week leading
up to the 94 Chunkin rivaled that of anything the NFL or NBA produces.
Last year saw an end to the three-year domination by centrifugal machines,
when a pneumatic slingshot launched a pumpkin 1,024 feet, beating the
closest competitor by over 200 feet. The centrifugal boys were aiming
for revenge, vowing to build bigger and faster machines. Everyone was
predicting winning throws in the quarter-mile range. Meanwhile, the guy
who had retired from the event after winning the first three years because
"it was just to damn easy to beat all them other guys," came out of
retirement to show everybody he could "still whip their butts," entering
his newest creation, a pneumatic cannon with a 22 foot barrel that he
could crank up to "2500, mebbe 3,000 psi."...
We rolled up to the event site at about 1. There were thousands and
thousands (the newspaper later estimated a crowd of over 10,000) of folks
on this long field. The state cops were directing traffic, flags were
flying, vendors were selling food and drink, helicopter and plane rides
were being offered...
The machines were quite impressive looking. There were three centrifugal
machines, "Bad to the Bone," "De-Terminator" and "Ultimate Warrior", which
essentially were frames supporting 15-30 foot rotating arms with buckets
at the end. Last years winner, "Under Pressure", was a big steel frame
like a crane arm with a "Y" at the end and a complicated series of cables,
all painted pumpkin orange--I never did get close enough to figure out
how it worked. The Polytechnic Institute of Gravitational Science had a
150 foot crane with a wrecking ball attached--obviously this was some sort
of a gravity-powered slingshot. "Loaded Boing" resembled a traditional
slingshot with a bad hyperthyroid problem: it looked like a pair of
bridge pilings (or very obese telephone poles, maybe 2 or 3x normal
diameter) had been sunk into the ground and guy-wired, and 3 or 4 pieces
of what looked like latex surgical tubing except that it must have been
about a foot in diameter attached to some sort of pumpkin holder were
slung between the poles; the whole thing was drawn back by a power winch.
Then there was the New Bethel Church Marching Band Tabernacle Choir
Motorcycle Club Pumpkin Throwing Team of Reston Virginia, who were there
mostly for a good time and armed with a flexible fiberglass pole that was
to act as a catapult, mounted on the roof of a bus. And finally, there
was "Universal Soldier", the pneumatic cannon, which was mounted on a
vehicle that consisted of an old station wagon body on a 3/4 ton truck
chassis; the whole thing was painted in cammo and the barrel, all 22 feet,
was elevated to a 45 degree angle.
The centrifugal machines were impressive to watch. "Bad to the Bone"
seemed to be powered, we think, by a diesel-electric motor. A huge frame
shaped like a swingset frame was mounted on a flatbed, and the motors were
on the top. They would crank up loudspeakers with George Thoroughgood's
"Bad to the Bone" at high decibels, fire up a diesel engine, and the arm,
painted bright orange, would start spinning faster and faster. At
something between 1 and 2 revs per second, a trap door at the bottom of
the bucket at the end of the arm sprung open, and the pumpkin would fly
in this amazing arc and splat around 1200 feet down-range. "Ultimate
Warrior" seemed to have some kind of monster engine mounted on top and
connected to the shaft, and it too would spin up to incredible speeds
before launch. I'm not sure what powered the "De-Terminator". Then the
PIGS fired up. The crowd was warned to pay close attention, since this
machine had never before fired a pumpkin. And in the launch area, people
were asked to stay out from underneath the crane. Suddenly, the wrecking
ball began to drop, and cable running over the top of the crane began to
pay out very fast, and then pieces of pumpkin came flying over the top of
the crane. The NBCMBTCMCPT Team went next. They all crowded around their
shaft, bodily bending it down. With a loud cheer they let it go, and the
pumpkin payload flew up and out about 20 feet. Backwards. "Under
Pressure" went next--like I said, I'm not sure how it worked--but suddenly
pieces of pumpkin came flying through the Y. Another pumpkin pie throw.
Then it was "Loaded Boing's" turn. The winch began to pull back the
slingshot, and ever so slowly it stretched more and more. Then the sling
came flying forward, and . . . nothing came out. At first. The payload
jumped back and forth between the posts about 3 times until suddenly the
pumpkin was released. Also backwards, setting a new reverse throw world
record of maybe 50 feet. And then it was time for the "Universal Soldier"
to take a turn. The crowd was warned to watch very closely. Suddenly
there was a sound like the cork popping from the universe's largest
champagne bottle, as a cloud of vapor shot out of the barrel. But nobody
saw any pumpkins flying through the air. People in the crowd looked at
each other, puzzled. One of the spotters, standing maybe 1200 feet
downrange, was wandering around in a confused manner. Suddenly, his
companion jumped into his pickup and went bouncing downrange at high
speed. And then, over the loudspeakers came the announcement that pieces
of pumpkin had been found in the bottom of a crater about 2000 feet away!
At this point, we were more than a little skeptical. We couldn't imagine
how the pumpkin hadn't been turned into microscopic spray, and figured
that somebody had simply dropped a pumpkin down by the road. Put we were
proven wrong.
The second round was pretty much a repeat of the first, except that the
Motorcycle Club Etc. launched an orange helium balloon instead of a
pumpkin, which of course fooled nobody but was pretty funny nonetheless.
And the slingshot managed to fire correctly this time; however, they were
set up to fire at about a 15 degree angle instead of the necessary 45,
and so the crowd was treated to the spectacle of a pumpkin travelling very
fast and nearly horizontally, and in fact it must have shot around 300
feet at least. And when it came time for the "Soldier" to fire, I (and
probably the rest of the crowd) resolved to watch *very* closely. This
time they stopped traffic on the highway beyond the end of the
field--clearly they were being serious about this world record stuff.
They were also waiting for a break in the helo traffic, as the copters
were landing through what had suddenly turned out to be the flight path
of high-speed gourds, a collision with which would almost certainly be
disastrous. Then, with a loud *FOOP* and a cloud of vapor, they fired,
and suddenly, *WAY* up in the sky, over the spot where the best of the
other machines were landing their pumpkins, I spotted a small orange dot,
and *IT WAS STILL GOING UP!!!*. At an impossible speed, too! And then
for a microsecond I lost my concentration, and it disappeared from view.
Word came back that it had indeed landed on the highway (flying over where
my car was parked--YIKES!), but they were having trouble figuring out
exactly how far the shot had gone, as there were buildings and trees and,
for all I know, the curvature of the earth, between the launch and impact
spots, all things guaranteed to make laser rangefinding problematic. But
somehow they finally figured out that they had shot a pumpkin over 2500
feet! ...
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End of Yucks Digest
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