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Yucks Digest V1 #97
Yucks Digest Thu, 31 Oct 91 Volume 1 : Issue 97
Today's Topics:
...and you'd better not forget it!
bats and the F-117 stealth
Billy Jack for prez. No, this isn't a movie; it's the real thing
cutie
Falwell says California gays sought to kill him
funny-oid
Letterman Lists Take Off
Nicaragua Witches Oppose Taxes
Nynex Lands Czech Yellow Pages
SPR on the year 2000 (long)
Take off, you hosers!
The "Yucks" digest is a moderated list of the bizarre, the unusual, the
possibly insane, and the (usually) humorous. It is issued on a
semi-regular basis, as the whim and time present themselves.
Back issues may be ftp'd from arthur.cs.purdue.edu from
the ~ftp/pub/spaf/yucks directory. Material in archives
Mail.1--Mail.4 is not in digest format.
Back issues may also be obtained through a mail server. Send mail to
"yucks-request@uther.cs.purdue.edu" with a "Subject:" line of the
single word "help". You may also use this server to join or leave the
list, or to obtain an index of past issues.
Submissions and subscription requests should be sent to
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 91 14:12:54 PST
From: Mike O'Brien <obrien@aero.org>
Subject: ...and you'd better not forget it!
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
ALERT : 100 MEV PROTON ARRIVAL ALERT
A major class X2.5/3B flare has erupted out of Region 6891 at S08W25 at
06:34 UT on 29 October. Protons at greater than 10 and 100 MeV began a
rapid increase at 07:10 UT (approximately 30 minutes after the maximum x-ray
flux). A ground level event (GLE) has not yet been observed. We are
currently experiencing a strong Forbush decrease, now registering
approximately 7 percent. PCA levels are now beginning to increase.
All indications point to the rapid development of MAJOR Satellite
Proton and Polar Cap Absorption events. Polar and high latitude regions
should witness complete absorption of radio signals over the next several
hours, lasting for at least the next 24 hours. PCA levels may exceed 10 dB.
The major flare is presently in progress, but is in the decay phase. It
is a long decay event and should be very geoeffective. A major flare alert
will be issued shortly followed later this UT day by an impact assessment.
Very preliminary estimates suggest this flare should produce a major to
severe geomagnetic storm based on the statistical nature of such strong
proton flares. Details will be released later this UT day. A preliminary
estimate for shock arrival time from this major event is between 10:00 UT and
24:00 UT on 31 October. A more accurate assessment will be released later
this UT day along with appropriate warnings.
[Maybe this explains why I'm having such a rotten day, including having
my car's muffler fall off in the parking lot. --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 91 19:30:49 GMT
From: gkn@Sdsc.Edu (Gerard K. Newman)
Subject: bats and the F-117 stealth
To: spaf
I attended a presentation (unclassified) on the F-117 a while ago
(when the Air Force finally admitted that it existed), and among
the interesting tidbits discussed about the aircraft was that the
largest radar cross section is the pilot's helmet ...
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 91 18:07:06 PST
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: Billy Jack for prez. No, this isn't a movie; it's the real thing
To: yucks-request
By Ray Huard Copley News Service Billy Jack is back and he's
out to kick butt.
Except this time, it's not the small-town hoods the
karate-kicking ex-Green Beret bashed in the 1971 Billy Jack movie
after they threatened school children on an Indian reservation.
This time he's after the big boys.
Billy Jack's real-life persona, Tom Laughlin, is running for
president. That's right, president of the United States.
And this is no movie.
Laughlin, the actor/producer who made Billy Jack a
counterculture cult-hero of the 1970s, is off to New Hampshire to
campaign in the nation's first presidential primary.
Sound bizarre?
It gets better.
Laughlin's quest for the White House started out to be a movie.
Then Laughlin figured, the heck with the movie; why not run for real?
The movie plot was that a general returns from war in the
Persian Gulf, is angered by the corrupt politics he sees at home and
runs for president.
Laughlin was preparing to shoot the movie in Iowa, scene of the
February caucuses that mark the official opening of the race for
president.
"Suddenly, all sorts of people said, `Look, these ideas are too
good, they're too major. No professional politician would ever
advocate them, but we need them. You can't just do a movie. You've
got to run. "'
Laugh if you like, but Laughlin says he's dead serious, just
like Billy Jack was in the movies.
"Look, I'm the least qualified guy I know of to be president,
except George Bush," he said.
Laugh at Billy Jack in the movies and you were liable to get a
foot in the face.
Before Rocky, before Rambo, before the Terminator, there was
Billy Jack, who came to the rescue of a schoolmarm, played by
Laughlin's wife, Delores "Dody" Taylor, whose multiracial school on
an Indian reservation was threatened by bigoted bullies.
The Billy Jack movies were an odd mix of violence and pacifism.
While Laughlin as Billy Jack pounded the bad guys with his feet and
fists, Delores Taylor, as the school owner, told Billy Jack that a
real man knows how to control his anger and use his head.
A Democrat, Laughlin said what takes him beyond the fringe as a
candidate for president are his ideas, which he said are already
starting a voter revolt in Iowa.
"The people have no voice anymore," Laughlin said.
Laughlin's platform is simple:
Provide free health-care insurance to everyone but permit
private health insurance for those who want to pay for it. Let
everyone earmark on their federal income tax forms where 25 percent
of their tax money will be spent. Limit the terms of U.S. senators
and House members. And cut federal income taxes by up to 10 percent.
Laughlin also wants to free the CIA, FBI and Justice Department
from control by Congress and the White House and put them under an
independent board that could be either elected or appointed.
Laughlin, 60, said he has pretty much abandoned the Billy Jack
character and thinks less and less of making more movies.
As an independent producer, Laughlin revolutionized the movie
business when he wrote, produced and starred in his Billy Jack movies
and marketed them on his own by renting theaters and publicizing the
films with massive television advertising campaigns.
After introducing the Billy Jack character in the 1967 biker
movie "Born Losers," Laughlin made three Billy Jack films: "Billy
Jack" in 1971, "The Trial of Billy Jack" in 1974 and "Billy Jack Goes
to Washington" in 1977. The latter was only released in a few test
markets.
Laughlin tried to resurrect his star character in 1985 with "The
Return of Billy Jack," but he ran out of money before he could finish
the movie.
As a presidential candidate, Laughlin talks of revolutionizing
American politics.
For starters, he's beginning his campaign for president just as
he did his movie career, with his wife and a longtime associate as
his entire campaign staff.
Laughlin said he tried to find someone else who shared his ideas
to run for president but couldn't.
"My whole theme is just Ronald Reagan's," Laughlin said. "I
stole it from him. Are you better off than you were four years ago?
I'm just asking people, are you better off in your job, in your
insurance, in your pension fund ... if you are, then don't bother
with me. But if you're not ... then you've got to get out and do
something about it."
Yep, Billy Jack is back.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 91 05:29:07 EST
From: dscatl!lindsay@gatech.edu
Subject: cutie
Contributed by: ihps3!harpo!decvax!ucbvax!G:inp
The Case of the Missing Joules
Inspector Sherlock Ohms, of the Standard International Yard, was
driving across the Wheatstone bridge in his '09 Maxwell on one of his
periodic law enforcement inspections. He was trying to remember Ava
Gadro's number so he could call and data for the policeman's ball, when
suddenly he blew a tire. "OH-, Nernst!" said Sherlock, "I don't have a
tire ion with me, but luckily ammonia short distance from the Ideal Gas
Station." This business was run by Saul Vent annd his cousin Saul Ute,
who, at the moment were freon bail. They had gone fission, however, and
their girl assistant Ruth Erford, waited on Sherlock.
Just as the inspector emerged from the station, a rubber policeman
whizzed by on his '60 cycle. Ohms knew he was deuteride by, but he
wondered Watt made him rush so. He shouted atom, but the policeman was
gone. Ohms' reaction was instantaneous. By radio activity the inspector
learned that Micro Farad, Recipro City's top-ranking rookie was chasing
a joule theif. Ohms threw his car into inverse, spun a gyro, and took
off down Elect Rode, around the Elastic Modulus, back over the Salt
Bridge, and up into Ferren Heights. He went past the Mono Clinic, the
Palladium, and all the way to the liquid junction at the endo Thermic
Street. He was almost to the city limits when his car hit a slip stick
and crashed into a Van der Waal. The impact splintered the Plancs, and
punched a big hole in the car's hydrolysis system. This upset Ohms'
equilibrium and for a moment he was just plane polarized, but he
recovered quickly. "I node that was bound to happen," said Sherlock,
"but I'd beta catch up with Micro." Quickly he volted out of his rect
ilinear and took up the chase on a bicyclic which he borrowed from a
small boy nearby.
He soon came across Micro standing in a magnetic field of alpha
alpha. The policeman had his electron gun on Ray Dium and Ann Hydrate.
"Watts the meaning of this?" asked the inspector, and the copper was
quick to explain. "Well, Sir, awhile ago I stopped in at the Iso Bar,
a local dyne and dance spot, out on the Mobius Strip, and had a couple
of quartz of Lambert Beer when I noticed Ann Hydrate sitting alone at a
two-place log table. I knew some joule thieves had made a radon Ethyl
Benzene's country estate, and I spotted one of the Benzene rings on
Ann, along with a para Ethyl's ear-rings. Anode an explanation of this
but before I could torque to her, she ran out of the bar. Being true
to the Kopp's rule, I was quick to follow, but when she got into her
Monochromatic-8, I knew I was infra tough chase. I Pasteur once, but
she ran a stop sine and escaped by turning down a side road. Fortunately
her engine started Fehling just beyond the city limits and I caught her.
She led me to the missing joules and to her accomplice Ray Dium, who
was about to barium in a hollow common log, which lay under the square
roots of a tree in this deserted magnetic field. I was about to cesium,
but then their partners Cal Orie and Quanta Lopez tried to run me down
with their Mercury. Did that make my blood Boyle! I dodged and hit
them with a bag of Boltz--man, did that change their molar concentration!
But really inspector, I didn't mean to Bragg or sound like a Bohr,
because there wasn't any trig in catching these joule thieves. I just
Van 't Hoff on a 0.5 Normal lead. Don't you zinc that explains it?"
Inspector Ohms beamed, "Son, you'll go on nights for this."
In effect this was a promotion, for in Recipro City, nitrates are
much Mohr that those Faraday man.
This story is recounted as I found it while studying Physics at Reed
College in 1966. Hope you enjoyed it! Bob Tidd ucbvax!g:inp
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1991 17:24:50 -0900
From: Muffy Barkocy <muffy@mica.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Falwell says California gays sought to kill him
To: sexual-politics@mc.lcs.mit.edu
LYNCHBURG, Va. (UPI) -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell says in a newsletter
that a group of homosexuals sought to kill him at his hotel during a
recent visit to the Los Angeles area, but his son hid him in the kitchen
and enlisted authorities to get them out.
Police, however, disputed the evangelist's story.
In a fund-raising letter sent this week asking for donations of $35
and $25 to fight homosexuality, Falwell said, ``It is truly a miracle
that I am alive today. This is not an exaggeration. I sincerely believe
that certain persons fully intended to take my life.''
Falwell was in Los Angeles with his son, Jonathan, for appearences on
the Ron Reagan talk show and the Tom Snyder Show.
On the programs, the Baptist minister said he defended California
Gov. Pete Wilson's veto of a gay rights bill and debated a lesbian
pastor of a gay church group.
Afterwards, Falwell, pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church and
founder of the now defunct Moral Majority, and his son went back to the
Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel for dinner.
Few people knew where they were staying out of concern for security,
he said, but the local media or a talk show staff member told members of
two gay activist groups where they were.
``At about 9:30 p.m., approximately 2,000 homosexuals from Queer
Nation and Fighting Fairies crashed the front door of the hotel shouting
in unison, 'We want Falwell, we want Falwell,''' he wrote.
His son saw the homosexuals running toward the hotel and moved him
behind a partition in the kitchen, he said, and a waiter came over and
prayed for the minister's protection.
Falwell's son contacted riot police and security officers, who got
them out of the hotel and to the airport.
But Sgt. Frank Guarino of the Hollywood Precinct said Wednesday that
Falwell had left the hotel before the gay activists entered.
``There was a very large gay demonstration and a number did charge
into the hotel,'' said Guarino, who was on duty that night. ``But before
they could come in, we got him out of there.''
The incident convinced Falwell ``that our nation has become a modern-
day Sodom and Gomorrah,'' Falwell wrote.
``Your $35 or even $25 gift will enable me to speak out on your
behalf day and night,'' he wrote to followers.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 91 09:10:25 PST
From: eli@cisco.com
Subject: funny-oid
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
From: David Chapman <zvona@sail.stanford.edu>
Message-Id: <9110292338.AA26721@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
To: unix-haters@mc.lcs.mit.edu
My sys admin explains that the reason I can't telnet to MIT is that it
is in the wrong time zone.
I'm not making this up.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 91 18:06:18 PST
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: Letterman Lists Take Off
NEW YORK (AP)
Nike just did it; so did Nissan and the National Dairy Council.
They've co-opted the "Late Night With David Letterman" Top 10 list
for ad campaigns, a flagrant rip-off that has writers at the program
... well ... kind of amused.
"It's just a sad commentary on the state of American culture that
such gimmickry would catch on," says head writer Steve O'Donnell, who
was unsure the idea would connect with "Late Night" viewers when he
pitched it several years back.
It has. These days, Nike uses such a list to sell cross-training
sneakers; Nissan can give you the top 10 reasons to buy Japanese; thee
national Dairy Council has an index pitching milk.
Sports Illustrated runs a top 10 now in each issue. Columnists,
politicians, TV viewers seems like everybody's whipping up a list.
"It's a thin line between homage and thievery," says O'Donnell.
"The only thing that really bothers me is if they're not funny. Take
the Dairy Council now, those are pretty funny. The Nike ads not so
good."
O'Donnell and company's lists: very good. The second volume of top
10 lists from "Late Night" dubbed "Roman Numeral Two, An Altogether
New Book of Top Ten Lists" (Pocket Books) was just released.
Its predecessor, advertised as "like watching TV in convenient
book form," was a rousing success. It sold nearly 500,000 copies and
spent 16 weeks atop the Publisher's Weekly best-seller list.
"Another sad commentary," says O'Donnell.
Four times a week, O'Donnell and the NBC show's eight other
writers sit down and hash out the nightly list their last task
before Letterman goes on. The lists, which often include
contributions from Dave, run the gamut from really bizarre to
patently stupid.
Among the 169 lists included in the second edition:
"Top 10 Most Common New York City Health Code Violations." No.
10: "Hot dogs kept warm in street vendor's pants."
"Top 10 Little-Known Facts about Clarence Thomas." No. 8: "Sees
appointment as stepping stone to meeting Paula Abdul."
"Top 10 Pete Rose Prison Activities." No. 5: "Discussing George
Will's fascinating baseball book with members of the Manson Family."
"Dan Quayle's Top 10 Complaints about France." No. 1: "Everyone
keeps referring to him as `Le Bonehead."'
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 91 23:44:03 PST
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: Nicaragua Witches Oppose Taxes
To: yucks-request
DIRIOMO, Nicaragua (AP)
Vexed by taxes, doctors, and fly-by-night impostors, the witches
of Nicaragua are hoping to conjure up some political clout with
protest marches and a union of their own.
A labor union for witches?
"People hardly come to me now because there are new so-called
witches popping up everywhere," said Andrea Pena, the unofficial
queen of witches in Diriomo, a witchcraft center of Nicaragua.
"And now I have to pay 60 cordobas a month ($12) in taxes for my
business," she said. "I'm four months behind on my taxes."
Pena led a coven Wednesday in a discussion of the plight off
Nicaraguan witches, bedeviled by rising taxes and unfair competition
from greedy newcomers and physicians.
The witches, who mostly use herbs, lotions and other natural
recipes for their spells and cures, considered holding a protest
march against high taxes, as well as forming a witches' labor union,
but no definite plans were made.
The practice of using unconventional healing methods is popular
throughout Latin American. People often look to witches to cast
spells or conjure up a potion that will bring them love, money, or
better relations with their relatives.
Ms. Pena, 42, said doctors have made begun a campaign against
witchcraft.
"It's because we take business away from them," she said. "The
people I get here already have gone to many doctors who don't do
anything for them. I cure them and I'm cheaper."
Ms. Pena who cooks her family's meals and magic potions in an
open hearth in her home said she starting her apprenticeship at age
12.
Ms. Pena now supports her family with her patches of corns and
beans, and by treating those seeking her assistance. Because business
is down, Ms. Pena and a local warlock are planning to open up a
naturalist pharmacy near Diriomo, about 25 miles southeast of Managua.
"I cure illnesses with leaves, herbs, roots. It's white magic,"
said Ms. Pena.
What about the love potions that are in such demand?
"I make them, but I don't like it. Those are dark things," she
said.
"Besides," she added with a smile, "if they turn out wrong, the
police will come looking for me."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 91 23:44:59 PST
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: Nynex Lands Czech Yellow Pages
To: yucks-request
MIDDLETON, Mass. (AP)
Nynex Corp. is learning how to say "let your fingers do the
walking" in Czech. A division of the phone company will start
providing a yellow pages telephone directory for Prague.
"Long-term, we think it's a pretty good opportunity," Harold
Dakin, vice president for new business operations at Nynex
Information Resources Co., the publisher of the Nynex yellow pages in
New England and New York, said Tuesday.
Prague has a population of about 1.3 million, and 460,000
telephone lines. Dakin said it's hard to tell how many businesses
would be in the Prague yellow pages, but that new businesses have
been forming in the Czech capital constantly since the end of the
Cold War.
To publish the new directory, Nynex purchased from Belgium-based
DEFICOM a majority interest in Madiatel, the Prague-based company
that owns the exclusive publishing rights to the telephone listings
of Telecom Praha, the city's phone operator. Telecom Praha will
continue to publish the white pages telephone directory for the city.
As in the United States, the yellow pages will be distributed to
telephone users free of charge. Businesses also will be listed for
free, but will be able to purchase advertising space in the book as
well.
Prague represents Nynex Information Resource's second
international publishing venture. The company published the Gibraltar
telephone director in May.
Nynex Information Resources, based here, is a subsidiary of Nynex
Corp., one of the seven regional "Baby Bell" phone companies.
[Now, if only they could get the phones to work reliably... --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 91 19:55:27 GMT
From: gkn@Sdsc.Edu (Gerard K. Newman)
Subject: SPR on the year 2000 (long)
To: spaf
******DEC INTERNAL USE ONLY******
SPR NUMBER: 11-60903
ANSWER CATEGORY: UE
MAINTENANCE HOURS: 1
DUPLICATE PROBLEM: N
DUPLICATE SPR NUMBER(S):
OPERATING SYSTEM: VAX/VMS
O.S. VERSION: V3.2
PRODUCT: VAX/VMS
PRODUCT VERSION: V3.2
COMPONENT: Run-Time Library
SUB-COMPONENT: LIB$ routines
DATE ANSWERED: 13-Oct-1983
MAINTAINER: Stanley Rabinowitz
ATTACHMENT: N
PUBLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: N
SPR PROBLEM ABSTRACT: User claims year 2000 should not be a leap year.
TITLE: -
PUBLICATIONS: -
ADDITIONAL O.S. VERSIONS:
ADDITIONAL PRODUCT VERSIONS:
COMPONENT SEQUENCE NUMBER:
SUPERSEDES:
TYPE OF ARTICLE:
ANSWER CATEGORIES
CG=1=CORRECTION GIVEN RS=5=RESTRICTION SG=9=SUGGESTION
FN=2=FIXED IN NEXT RELEASE CS=6=CUSTOMER SUPPORTED IQ=10=INQUIRY
DE=3=DOCUMENTATION ERROR NR=7=NON-REPRODUCIBLE HW=11=HARDWARE
UE=4=USER ERROR II=8=INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION
TYPE OF ARTICLE
F=OPTIONAL FEATURE PATCH N=NOTE
M=MANDATORY PATCH R=RESTRICTION
FOR MAINTENANCE USE
******END OF DEC USE ONLY******
D I G I T A L
SPR ANSWER FORM
SPR NO. 11-60903
SYSTEM VERSION PRODUCT VERSION COMPONENT
SOFTWARE: VAX/VMS V3.2 VAX/VMS V3.2 Run-Time Library
PROBLEM:
The LIB$DAY Run-Time Library service "incorrectly" assumes the year
2000 is a leap year.
RESPONSE:
Thank you for your forward-looking SPR.
Various system services, such as SYS$ASCTIM assume that the year 2000
will be a leap year. Although one can never be sure of what will
happen at some future time, there is strong historical precedent for
presuming that the present Gregorian calendar will still be in affect
by the year 2000. Since we also hope that VMS will still be around by
then, we have chosen to adhere to these precedents.
The purpose of a calendar is to reckon time in advance, to show how
many days have to elapse until a certain event takes place in the
future, such as the harvest or the release of VMS V4. The earliest
calendars, naturally, were crude and tended to be based upon the
seasons or the lunar cycle.
The calendar of the Assyrians, for example, was based upon the phases
of the moon. They knew that a lunation (the time from one full moon
to the next) was 29 1/2 days long, so their lunar year had a duration
of 364 days. This fell short of the solar year by about 11 days.
(The exact time for the solar year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours,
48 minutes, and 46 seconds.) After 3 years, such a lunar calendar
would be off by a whole month, so the Assyrians added an extra month
from time to time to keep their calendar in synchronization with the
seasons.
The best approximation that was possible in antiquity was a 19-year
period, with 7 of these 19 years having 13 months (leap months). This
scheme was adopted as the basis for the religious calendar used by the
Jews. (The Arabs also used this calendar until Mohammed forbade
shifting from 12 months to 13 months.)
When Rome emerged as a world power, the difficulties of making a
calendar were well known, but the Romans complicated their lives
because of their superstition that even numbers were unlucky. Hence
their months were 29 or 31 days long, with the exception of February,
which had 28 days. Every second year, the Roman calendar included an
extra month called Mercedonius of 22 or 23 days to keep up with the
solar year.
Even this algorithm was very poor, so that in 45 BC, Caesar, advised
by the astronomer Sosigenes, ordered a sweeping reform. By imperial
decree, one year was made 445 days long to bring the calendar back in
step with the seasons. The new calendar, similar to the one we now
use was called the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar). It's
months were 30 or 31 days in length and every fourth year was made a
leap year (having 366 days). Caesar also decreed that the year would
start with the first of January, not the vernal equinox in late March.
Caesar's year was 11 1/2 minutes short of the calculations recommended
by Sosigenes and eventually the date of the vernal equinox began to
drift. Roger Bacon became alarmed and sent a note to Pope Clement IV,
who apparently was not impressed. Pope Sixtus IV later became
convinced that another reform was needed and called the German
astronomer, Regiomontanus, to Rome to advise him. Unfortunately,
Regiomontanus died of the plague shortly thereafter and the plans died
as well.
In 1545, the Council of Trent authorized Pope Gregory XIII to reform
the calendar once more. Most of the mathematical work was done by
Father Christopher Clavius, S.J. The immediate correction that was
adopted was that Thursday, October 4, 1582 was to be the last day of
the Julian calendar. The next day was Friday, with the date of
October 15. For long range accuracy, a formula suggested by the
Vatican librarian Aloysius Giglio was adopted. It said that every
fourth year is a leap year except for century years that are not
divisible by 400. Thus 1700, 1800 and 1900 would not be leap years,
but 2000 would be a leap year since 2000 is divisible by 400. This
rule eliminates 3 leap years every 4 centuries, making the calendar
sufficiently correct for most ordinary purposes. This calendar is
known as the Gregorian calendar and is the one that we now use today.
(It is interesting to note that in 1582, all the Protestant princes
ignored the papal decree and so many countries continued to use the
Julian calendar until either 1698 or 1752. In Russia, it needed the
revolution to introduce the Gregorian calendar in 1918.)
This explains why VMS chooses to treat the year 2000 as a leap year.
Despite the great accuracy of the Gregorian calendar, it still falls
behind very slightly every few years. If you are very concerned about
this problem, we suggest that you tune in short wave radio station
WWV, which broadcasts official time signals for use in the United
States. About once every 3 years, they declare a leap second at which
time you should be careful to adjust your system clock. If you have
trouble picking up their signals, we suggest you purchase an atomic
clock (not manufactured by Digital and not a VAX option at this time).
END OF SPR RESPONSE
Mon 17-Oct-1983 11:15 EDT / Nina Eppes, R2ME2::EPPES, 381-2175, ZKO2-3/K06
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 91 09:31:16 -0800
From: bostic@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Take off, you hosers!
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU
>From the October 14, 1991 *Computerworld*'s end page:
FROM OUR READER FILE:
A Canadian PC user was driving a vendor's support desk crazy. No matter
how many times the user typed what the support person advised, the
machine was not responding in the appropriate way. It took awhile for
the support person to figure out that the user was hearing "Press
control, eh?" instead of "Press Control-A".
-- John Orr, Midas International, Chicago
------------------------------
End of Yucks Digest
------------------------------