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Yucks Digest V4 #1 (shorts)
Yucks Digest Sun, 2 Jan 94 Volume 4 : Issue 1
Today's Topics:
Administrivia
"Stating the Obvious" Award (Computer Science division)
[InfoWorld clip] Chicago, Chicago...
Accu-Scan inaccuracies
And, of course, the claim that it comes from "sonus" must be a lie...
ascii zapfruder...
Can you tell these people have too much time on their hands?
cutie
Dentists mortality
Douglas writing his name in books Was Re: Douglas Adams Signing
DUTCH TACKLE DUNGHILL DILEMMA
Farsighted
Flower Delivery from the Internet
Foreskin - Prices
Gerbils Up The Bungho
hilton/usenix top 10
I Broke Malloc
I Love Lorena
Inflatable Lava lamp for sale. =)
Lucky: recurring nightmare ["Weird News" Yucks category ]
medical malapropisms
Microsoft lightbulb joke (A new one, not "making darkness standard")
New Parts of Human Body Discovered
Quote of the day (3 msgs)
Santa & System Administrators
Say what? (a yucks submission)
shark cartilage, cf gummy bears
tasteless
techno-terrorism
Who is Santa Claus?
YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TECHNO-DWEEB WHEN...
Yucks: Get your Montblanc highlighter before Christmas
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 and subscriptions can be obtained using a mail server. Send
mail to "yucks-request@cs.purdue.edu" with a "Subject:" line of the single
word "help" for instructions.
Submissions and problem reports should be sent to spaf@cs.purdue.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun Jan 2 11:44:49 EST 1994
From: spaf
Subject: Administrivia
To: Yucks
Welcome to Volume 4 of Yucks.
It's a sign of how busy a year 1993 has been to see that there were
only 37 Yucks digests distributed. Several of the things I wanted to do
in 1993 with Yucks didn't get done: fixing the mail server, shrinking my
backlog of big articles, getting a WAIS index working....
This year is also going to be a busy one, but I hope to be able to get
a few more digests out the "door." I may even do 2 a week for the next
few weeks, time permitting. Then again, this may be the only one for a
few weeks! All things are possible.
Best wishes for a happy and prosperous new year to you all.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 15:29:37 PST
From: spl@szechuan.UCSD.EDU (Steve Lamont)
Subject: "Stating the Obvious" Award (Computer Science division) [Yucks submission]
To: spaf
While thumbing through the current Journal of the ACM, I stumbled
across the following abstract:
"An important function of communication networks is to implement
reliable data transfer over an unreliable underlying network. Formal
specifications are given for reliable and unreliable communication
layers, in terms of I/O automata. Based on these specifications, it
is proved that no reliable communication protocol can tolerate crashes
of the processors on which the protocol runs." (Feteke, A., Lynch,
N., Mansour, Y., and Spinelli, J., "The Impossiblity of Implementing
Reliable Communication in the Face of Crashes", J. ACM 40, 5 (Nov.
1993), 1087-1107)
Be on the lookout for my upcoming paper submitted to the Society of
Automotive Engineers proving that an internal combustion engine will
not run without fuel.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 02:23:02 -0600
From: werner@cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig)
Subject: [InfoWorld clip] Chicago, Chicago...
To: yucks
There is an amusing column in this week's InfoWorld on Chicago and
NextStep (p. 52). In it is a memorable quote about Chicago:
"We've just seen an alpha copy of Chicago, and so far it looks more
like Trenton, N.J."
But wait; it gets better:
"Chicago supposedly updates Windows to have a hierarchical, object-oriented
interface like the OS/2 Workplace Shell. You can finally nest folders within
folders, for example. Sure, and when you do, Chicago copies the contents of
one into the other and then deletes the originals. Hello, Microsoft, anybody
home? If you check your C language library, guys, you'll find a function
that moves files by changing those cute little file pointers."
[Use someone else's time-tested good idea? Heck no, that's not the
Microsoft Way! --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 88 14:52:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Robert Steven Glickstein <bobg+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Accu-Scan inaccuracies
To: bb-opinion@pt.cs.cmu.edu
I once bought a little container of Minced Garlic at the Food Gallery on
Centre Ave., Shadyside. The shelf price was something like $1.89, I don't
really know. The scanned price, however, was $5287.44.
I was with a bunch of my friends, all of whom were very very amused by this.
Unfortunately, the checkout clerk and the manager were both fairly humorless,
and didn't appreciate our comments.
"Bad garlic crop this year?"
"Gee, I better really enjoy this garlic bread tonight."
"Do you take the American Express Gold Card?"
"Only fifty-two hundred? I'll take two."
"Reaganomics."
"Do you have change for a ten thousand?"
"Hmm. Garlic bread tonight, or a new car?"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 14:32:20 PST
From: guy@auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Subject: And, of course, the claim that it comes from "sonus" must be a lie...
We shall also ignore the fact that the Standard Oil Company of New York
went under the name of "Socony", then later "Socony-Vacuum" when it
bought the Vacuum Oil Company, then later "Socony-Mobil", then later
"Mobil"....
(The smarmy "unverifiable but nevertheless yummy" tone certainly grates
on my ears. One is tempted to post an "unverifiable but nevertheless
yummy" claim that Mr. W. has been known to have carnal knowledge of
squirrels....)
From: financial.opportunities@canrem.com (Financial Opportunities)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Rocky and Friends
Date: 17 Dec 93 01:43:00 GMT
Hi, Neil:
This is one of those yummy little packages that history sometimes washes
up on our shore and which, after we've snacked on it, leaves us longing
for more......
This is completely, and obviously, *unverifiable* but Laurence
Rockefeller, when he was in Japan during MacArthur's reign there, is
*reputed* to have been the instrumental conduit by means of which the
Rockefellers set up their own, soon to be highly profitable, Japanese
conglomerate [either wholly-owned but "fronted" with Japanese
management, or in partnership with the Japanese trading house "mafia"].
They are *reputed* to have named it after another of their famous
enterprises, Standard Oil, New York. Now what famous Japanese trading
name do *those* initials form?
As I said, just an unsubstantiated rumour.....!
Cheers!
John W.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 93 09:12:43 CST
From: rex@iquery.iqsc.com (Rex Black)
Subject: ascii zapfruder...
To: spaf
> From: "The Rt. Rev. Wor. Dr. Y. Foo" <dryfoo@mit.edu>
> Subject: Nice to hear from you
> ...[Various sarcastic flamage deleted]...
>
> Since you like that sort of thing, here, in the spirit of the holidays,
> is, in ascii, a cropped closeup from frame 749 of the Zapruder film:
>
> .......................................................
> . \ .
> . * -----___ .
> . (\__..) \ .
> . ** \ ....*.....) \ .
> . \* \ (......\._._.) ___ | .
> . \**\ ....(*.... <O) | .
> . ..\*.....\..__.) \ .
> . (...(\*..*.*..) \ .
> . **----*-**-*-**--*-*-*-**.**...) \ .
> . ..(./..*.*._.) (_/ .
> . (./**..|.... | .
> . /*/.(.(..*__.) ____) .
> . / /*/ ......|.. ) .
> . /* (.__.*__.) / .
> . / * _____ | .
> . /** | ----___) .
> . * * .
> . .
> .......................................................
>
Is this really what the Vice President likes to call the "Information
Superhighway" is all about?
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1993 15:22:48 -0500
From: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Can you tell these people have too much time on their hands?
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
SHOOTINGS AT CYGNUS SUPPORT
[PRESS RELEASE]
Dec. 14, 1993 - Employees of Cygnus Support in Mountain View,
California, now regret that they developed the means to control the
company Christmas tree via software on the company's Unix
workstations. Today the receptionist at Cygnus Support lost control
and shot the company Christmas tree to itsy bitsy pieces. Upon being
asked what caused her violent outbreak, Ms. Zuzu Bailey answered, "I
just couldn't stand the decorations going on and off, on and off, on
and off, on and off, on and off, ... and if I ever get my hands on
those jokers who did this, they'll regret what they've done to my
life."
The developers of the so-called "xmastree" software, Jason
Molenda and Brian Smith, could not be reached for comment. The last
time either of the two were seen, they said that they were headed to a
place "Where no one can even pronounce 'Christmas tree'" say fellow
Cygnus employees.
Executives at Cygnus also released a new policy today
regarding the corporate philosophy on "The Intermixing of Work Related
Tasks and Holiday Festivities", which condones doing anything
involving both activities in the same day. Cygnus has also pledged to
provide "whatever help we can so that Ms. Bailey can get her life back
to normal."
------------------------------
Date: 27 Dec 93 04:31:36 EST (Mon)
From: dscatl!lindsay@news.gatech.edu (Lindsay Cleveland)
Subject: cutie
To: gatech!cs.purdue.edu!spaf
Contributed by: "Dean Gottehrer" <FFDMG%ALASKA.BITNET@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu>
A California couple discovered the wife was pregnant, but the family simply
couldn't afford more children. They looked around and found an excellent
Hispanic family to adopt the child. Then...they found out she was going to
have twins. Fortunately, a family of Arab-Americans agreed to adopt the other
child. Twin healthy boys were born and passed along to the families, who named
them Juan and Amal.
The biological parents kept in close touch with the adoptive parents in a
very amicable relationships. One day, Juan's family sent a picture of the
youth in his baseball uniform. The biological mother was so proud of her son.
She said to her husband "He is so handsome! I wish we had a picture like this
of our other son, too." He replied "Dear, they are twins. When you've seen
Juan you've seen Amal."
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1993 10:01:15 +0000
From: peter@psyche.demon.co.uk ("Peter H. M. Brooks")
Subject: Dentists mortality
Newsgroups: sci.med,soc.culture.british
Does anybody know why Dentists have the highest mortality rate of all
medical professions? I was at my new Dentist yesterday and noticed that, in
common with most he was remarkably hirsute and sinister. These factors could,
perhaps contribute. There may have been a study somewhere.
[Dentists have such a high mortality rate because they have a very high
suicide rate (really). Of course, suicide is often caused by severe
depression. Why would dentists be depressed? Something about spending
their whole careers looking down at the mouth... --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: 11 Dec 1993 15:48:39 -0000
From: (lost in editing)
Subject: Douglas writing his name in books Was Re: Douglas Adams Signing
Newsgroups: alt.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.books,alt.fan.douglas-adams,alt.galactic-guide
I'd really appreciate it if you guys could extend a little sympathy to
those of us who suffer from mild dyslexia and change this subject line.
The thought of Douglas launching into Nessum Dorma affects me in a way in
which his writing his name in books doesn't.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 1993 16:06:17 -0500
From: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: DUTCH TACKLE DUNGHILL DILEMMA
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
The Hague (Reuter) - A huge mountain of manure threatening
a national crisis topped the agenda on monday for the Dutch
parliament. Deputies passed a law slashing the amount of
animal waste that farmers can produce by a third.
Animal dung is a massive problem in the Netherlands, where
it pollutes the country's rivers and canals, encouraging the
growth of algae that starve the water of oxygen.
Under the legislation, pig and poultry farmers, the worst
polluters, will have until 1995 to reduce by 30 percent the
amount of phosphate nutrient produced in manure compared to
1986. They hope to do this by changing the animals' diet.
["...the amount of animal waste that farmers can produce..." There's
the problem -- the farmers are producing the waste instead of the
animals. I suspect that the politicians are also producing too much
manure. --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1993 09:25:32 +1000
From: Bruce Litow <bruce@cs.jcu.edu.au>
Subject: Farsighted
To: eniac
Jeffw remarks:
I tried to master Farsi once, but my telescope was full of rubble.
It is possible that Jeffw is confused about rubble telescopes. I can
help out here. Avicenna once told me a story about pistachio nuts,
but that's not germane, it's persian. Anyway, rubble in telescopes
is an optical contusion (see,e.g., the optickle dept. at shears)
caused by three sheets of a Riemann surface flapping in the solar
wind. Early medieval opticians found all this out, and then
characteristically forgot about it. This may have something to do
with the four farces of a polka-calypso (four episodes of the
Andy Griffith show set in Sofia in the 12th century.)
Hope this hellps.
Santas kleine Hilfskraft.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 11:45:16 GMT
From: dhesi@rahul.net (Rahul Dhesi)
Subject: Flower Delivery from the Internet
[ Discussion of flower delivery deleted ]
What *I* want to know is why only flowers. Oftentimes I need to get
milk delivered, or sugar, or some such thing. And I ask myself: "Now
what is the IP address of that Telelactose company, or was it called
Intersucrose?" And then I realize how foolish I am to even dream. But
dreamer I am, and shall remain. I can see it now:
% sendmilk joe@hungry.org
usage: sendmilk [-sca] amount person (or -h for help)
% sendmilk -h
Sends 'amount' gallons of whole milk to specified 'person',
who should be currently logged in. Options:
-s skim
-c cultured buttermilk
-a containing live Lactobacillus Acidophilus
% sendmilk -c -a 4.5 joe@hungry.org
sendmilk: error: Lactobacillus cannot survive in buttermilk culture
% sendmilk -s 4.5 joe@hungry.org
sendmilk: error: joe@hungry.org is not logged in
% sendmilk -a 4.5 jim@thirsty.com
sendmilk: error: dial-up SLIP connection to thirsty.com would
destroy Lactobacillus culture
% sendmilk -s 4.5 john@famished.net
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening FLUID mode data connection to famished.net
sendmilk: sending type 'skim' to famished.net
......^T
sent 1.2, 3.3 to go
..........................^T
sent 3.0, 1.5 to go
.........^C
sendmilk: aborted by user: 4.1 sent
%
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 17:07:02 GMT
From: fzjaffe@othello.ucdavis.edu (Rory Jaffe)
Subject: Foreskin - Prices
Newsgroups: sci.med
PKJAMES@ukcc.uky.edu wrote:
> My question is, and I'm serious, how much do foreskins cost? The
>reason I'm curious is that, I was wondering who, if anyone does profit
>from it. Are families free to choose their own buyer and contract
>with that institution?
Luggage companies give the best prices. They make 'em into wallets.
Then if you need to take a long trip, you just rub the wallet--it
enlarges into a suitcase. ;-)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 23:29:00 -0800
From: paul.moor@pcgfx.com (Paul Moor)
Subject: Gerbils Up The Bungho
Newsgroups: alt.sex.motss
[...article deleted. The signature's the thing. --spaf]
* OLX 2.2 * A Texas bisexual is a cowboy who likes cattle & sheep.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 09:40:21 -0500
From: Fred Douglis <douglis@MITL.Research.Panasonic.COM>
Subject: hilton/usenix top 10
To: spaf
The San Francisco Hilton sent a brochure to USENIX members for the
upcoming conference -- custom-made front page with the rest
boilerplate. The back had the following "Top 10 things *not* to do in
San Francisco":
--Bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge
--Order French wine in Napa Valley
--Refer to the city as "Frisko"
--Swing from the chandeliers at the Hilton
--Attempt to buy the S.F. Giants
--Chop down a Redwood in Muir Woods
--Pet the sea lions at Pier 39
--Ignore the view at Cityscape Restaurant
--Tell a cable car operator to "step on it"
--Order fishsticks at Fisherman's Wharf
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 14:34:14 -0800
From: phz@cadence.com (Pete Zakel)
Subject: I Broke Malloc
To: spaf
I don't remember having seen this before, so hopefully I'm the first to point
out yet another meaning for the infamous TLA, IBM (see subject line).
It seems that in AIX version 3 (IBM's so-called Unix), the pointer returned
by malloc does not point to memory that has been allocated ... (big pause) ...
yet (maybe it should be called malloc_not_really?). The memory supposedly
allocated by malloc doesn't really get allocated until you actually try to
touch it, which is a big boon if you are using very large very sparse arrays,
but not very useful otherwise.
If, when you try to access the memory that you have supposedly allocated, the
allocator can't really give you the memory, the operating system kills you off
and outputs the cryptic and spectacularly unuseful message: "Killed".
But wait! All is not lost!
In their infinite wisdom, IBM has provided an interrupt that warns you that
you can't really access the memory that malloc_not_really said it gave you,
so that you can implement your own memory allocation scheme to do what
malloc normally does on any real Unix system (they even provide an example),
and the name of the signal is SIGDANGER.
I hereby decree (if I may be so bold) that this signal be henceforth and
forever known as SIGDANGER_WILL_ROBINSON -- for obvious reasons.
[And people sometimes ask me why I don't like AIX... --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 12:20:04 EST
From: funny@clarinet.com (Maddirator)
Subject: I Love Lorena
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
From: pimlottc@shadowso.com (Chris Pimlott)
Heard this on a local morning radio show in Cleveland:
Hey, I hear they're going to make the whole thing with Bobbitt into
a made-for-TV movie.
What are they going to call it?
Indecent Disposal?
Loretta Scissorhands?
Cocktail?
Save Willy?
=============
From: bayern@isis.cshl.org (Shawn Bayern)
There's new evidence in the Bobbit trial, but unfortunately, it won't
stand up in court.
=============
From: keith@tct.com (Keith Bogart)
Did you know that Lorena Bobbitt works with computers?
She hacks eunuchs for a living.
=============
From: polowin@chem.queensu.ca (Joel Polowin)
Was the woman *named* "Bobbit", or does that just describe what she *did*?
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1993 14:08:53 -0500
From: "amy lynn young-leith" <alyoung@cherry.ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Inflatable Lava lamp for sale. =)
Newsgroups: in.general
Hi all! I have a 4ft inflatable lave lamp for sale. It's a Lava
Simplex product, and I paid $30 for it the moment I saw it. The only
problem is he's a bit too big for my small apartment. I blew him up
and had him sitting around for about a week and got sick of having to
move him every five minutes.
You can take him home for $20. Please give Larry (Larry Lava) a good home!
[I have blown up lava lamps, but never seen an inflatable one. All
things considered, I'd rather not see one any time soon. Especially
one named "Larry." --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 00:13:35 -0600
From: werner@cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig)
Subject: Lucky: recurring nightmare ["Weird News" Yucks category ]
To: spaf (Yucks submission address)
"We will not have him put down. Lucky is basically a damn good guide
dog," Ernst Gerber, a dog trainer from Wuppertal told reporters. "He
just needs a little brush-up on some elementary skills, that's all."
Gerber admitted to the press conference that Lucky, a German shepherd
guide-dog for the blind, had so far been responsible for the deaths of
all four of his previous owners. "I admit it's not an impressive record
on paper. He led his first owner in front of a bus, and the second off
the end of a pier. He actually pushed his third owner off a railway
platform just as the Cologne to Frankfurt express was approaching and
he walked his fourth owner into heavy traffic, before abandoning him
and running away to safety. But, apart from epileptic fits, he has a
lovely temperament. And guide dogs are difficult to train these days."
Asked if Lucky's fifth owner would be told about his previous record,
Gerber replied: "No. It would make them nervous, and would make Lucky
nervous. And when Lucky gets nervous he's liable to do something silly."
Europa Times. October 1993.
[It sounds like being around blind people makes Lucky nervous.... --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 13:49:03 GMT
From: Andy Goldfinger <Andy_Goldfinger@SPACEMAIL.jhuapl.edu>
Subject: medical malapropisms
Newsgroups: sci.med
How about "flowers in Virginia?"
A friend of mine was on call in an ER, and he as he went in to see a
patient, he recieved a sheet of paper saying that her complaint was
"flowers in Virginia." He then asked her what the problem was, and she
said "I have flowers in my Virginia." It took a short while to determine
what the problem really was. She had a prolapsed uterus, and in an
attempt at a home-made pessary she had inserted a potato, which was
sprouting.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 14:58:02 -0500
From: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Microsoft lightbulb joke (A new one, not "making darkness standard")
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
Forwarded to me:
Another MS lightbulb joke today taken from the GUI Computing's
"Visual Developer's Forum" magazine.
Question:
=========
How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a lightbulb?
Answer:
=======
Eleven -
One programmer to write a BIOS to make the lightbulb look just
like a candle,
One tech writer to document that calling _CANDLECHANGE (INT0006H)
with 8AH in Register A will change not the candle but the lightbulb
[protected mode only]
Two systems analysts to define an industry standard Very-Bright-Candle
[VBC] interface that extends to include acetylene torches and tactical
nuclear blasts but is completely incompatible with the IBM
Xtra-Bright-Candle [XBC] interface
Three customer support people to promise that lightbulbs will work in
the next release (really)
Four DEC employees to design and code the new Lightbulb Kernel for NT
which looks remarkably like the antiquated UNIX command `lb -change'.
------------------------------
Date: 14 Dec 1993 21:06:56 GMT
From: alphonse@uclink.berkeley.edu (Suzanne Patricia Johnson)
Subject: New Parts of Human Body Discovered
Newsgroups: sci.med
A research program spanning three decades provides evidence for believing
that human evolution has resulted in fascinating physiological alterations
in some urban Westerners. Clinical studies (N=1) suggest that one sub-
species of homo sapiens as acquired a new, removeable set of organs:
keys, wallet, and, in the population studied, laptop computer.
Although fecundity data for this population are not available, no evidence
suggests that interbreeding with other subspecies would result in infertile
offspring. However, the extensive case history taken suggests that mate
selection may be affected in some way by potential mates' presence/
absence of similar organs.
Preliminary data analysis tentatively identified a fourth removeable organ,
the car radio. However, an "absolute removal" manipulation revealed that,
while absence combined with unknown whereabouts of keys, wallet and
laptop produced severe physical and psychiatric symptoms, absolute removal
of the car radio resulted in only a shrug and the statement "Well, it
didn't work right anyway." We therefor theorize that the car radio is, in
fact, a vestigal organ.
References: Johnson, Suzanne P. (1993) "Removeable Organs: New Directions in
Human Evolution?" Internat'l J of App Misunderstanding 1(1):1-2. (Ms.
Johnson is a doctoral candidate at the California Institute of Inane
Studies, specializing in auto-hypnosis (domestic models only). She is
currently working on a critical experimental comparison of punctuated
and continuous models of evolution, utilizing past-life regression
methodology.)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 05:50:02 MST
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
Subject: Quote of the day
To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca
"Virtual reality will give rise, for example, to Virtual Stooge,
where you can call up any episode of The Three Stooges and become
the Fourth Stooge - actually experiencing the sensation of being
whacked on the head with a plank by Curly. (This will be a hit
primarily with men)."
- Diane English's prediction for the year 2053. English is one of
the creators of the sitcom Murphy Brown
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 05:50:01 MST
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
Subject: Quote of the day
To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca
"My fire was smoking yesterday afternoon at dusk, as I sat
reading the precis of a M.A. thesis. My nerves would have
been quieter had I been reading a ghost story; thesis abstracts
are, with very few exceptions, the least credible and most
horrifying productions of imaginative literature."
- Robertson Davies, _High Spirits_
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 93 05:50:02 MST
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
Subject: Quote of the day
To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca
Picture of (4) little kids looking up the chimney, past their christmas
stockings.
Child 1: "Santa's coming."
Child 2: "Santa's coming."
Child 3: Just looking up the chimney.
Child 4: (Looks to be the youngest of them all) "Even if reindeer could
create the necessary velocity to propel a 300 pound man over 240 million
houses in one evening, everyone knows the heat generated by the atmospheric
friction would immediately vaporize his molecules."
The ad continues to say "There comes that rite of passage of every
childhood - the realization that Santa Claus violates the principal rules
of physics and aerospace engineering."
Family Fun (Ad for Knowledge Adventure Software) - Sept/January 1994
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 93 3:20:02 EST
From: ron@devnull.mpd.tandem.com (Ron Boerger)
Subject: Santa & System Administrators
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
> From: joe@trinity.mpd.tandem.com (Joe Senner)
> >From ables@austin.wireline.slb.com Fri Dec 17 09:54:57 1993
Forwarded to me by Joe Senner, who got it from King Ables (addresses above),
who got it from someone else ...
---
I was musing on similarities between Santa Claus and system
administrators. Consider:
1. Santa is bearded, corpulent, and dresses funny.
2. When you ask Santa for something, the odds of receiving what you wanted are
infinitesimal.
3. Santa seldom answers your mail.
4. When you ask Santa where he gets all the stuff he's got, he says, "Elves
make it for me."
5. Santa doesn't care about your deadlines.
6. Your parents ascribed supernatural powers to Santa, but did all the work
themselves.
7. Nobody knows who Santa has to answer to for his actions.
8. Santa laughs entirely too much.
9. Santa thinks nothing of breaking into your $HOME.
10. Only a lunatic says bad things about Santa in his presence.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 10:49:47 PST
From: armand@wickham.West.Sun.COM (Armand Aghabegian)
Subject: Say what? (a yucks submission)
To: spaf
Fearing the holiday blues which usually strikes me every year
after the festivities are done and I look like a 400 lbs
bloated hog, I walked into a sporting goods store and
purchased a stepper/climber machine. The machine required assembly.
Having assembled several similar systems and then never used
them, I was quite skilled at it. The machine was put together
in 15 minutes. Then came using the little computer which comes
with it and tells you various vital information about your
exercise. The following is a verbatim reproduction of the instructions
which were supplied by the manufacturer down to every single
spelling error and typos. The scary part is I understood every
single paragraph without the need to reread it. Here it goes:
FUNCTIONAL BUTTONS
MODE Press down to select functions
SET To set up the values of timer, counter, distance, tempo
calories, pulse (if have).
RESET To set up the values of timer, counter, distance, tempo
calories, pulse (if have) to zero.
ST/STOP To start or stop functions of timer, counter, distance, tempo
calories, pulse (if have).
FUNCTIONS
1.SCAN Automatically scans functions of timer, counter, distance,
tempo, calories, pulse (if have in sequence for you to
update your progress without pushing [mode] button each time.
2.TIMER
Count-up: Electronically counts up to 99:59 from zero in one
second increasement.
Count-down: To set the desired value is in one minute up
by functional button.
Interval Beeps for 8 seconds (four beep beep beep beep short
sounds) when the desired value counts back to zero.
When [Timer] value returns zero, push [St/Stop] button
again to count up once more.
3.COUNTER
Count-up:Accumulates the total workable number up to 9999
from zero.
Count-down:Computes backwards the step number from the desired
number.
Interval beeps for 8 seconds (four beep beep beep beep short sounds)
when the desired value counts back to zero.
The desired number can be set by 10 increase by functional buttons.
4.DISTANCE
Count-up:Accumulates the total workable distance up to 99.99 Km
or mile from zero.
Count-down:Computes backwards the distance value from the
desired value.
Interval beeps for 8 seconds (four beep beep beep beep short sounds)
when the desired value counts back to zero.
The desired number can be set from 0.1 KM or mile by functional buttons.
5.TEMPO
Pack you with an audible signal when the desired interval is
registered in computer by functional button.
Tempo number from 0.125 second to 9.875 seconds can be chose and set.
6.CALORIES
Calories consumption computation varies according to user's exercise
ratio during work time. Suggest user it helpful if you make
comparison between to calories values whsich were obtained in
two different occations.
Calories burned-up figure provide a rough value for user's
reference only, during workout.
7.PULSE (IF HAVE)
Accumulates the current hart beating per minute by using ear cliper.
To secure your safety, you may input high mimit of you hart rate
from 40 - 199 by 1 increasing by functional buttons. Each time,
if the hart beating over the value you input, will have a long
beep sounds to warn you to slow down your exercise. In this case,
when you push stop button, the preset value will be recall.
Please rub your earlobe 15 times before clipping the sensor
in order to get the best result of pulse.
When use scan to read the pulse, sometimes it will show "00",
please wait next turn to read the value.
CHow many people without a pulse are likely to use this machine, I
wonder? --spaf]
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Date: Wed, 22 Dec 93 13:07:02 EST
From: CHWALKER@ucs.indiana.edu
Subject: shark cartilage, cf gummy bears
To: eniac
The list of newly forged LC subject headings in the
Library of Congress's CATALOGING SERVICE BULLETIN
provides an interesting way to track topical shifts
in what our culture, or at least publishers, are
interested in. The one that crossed my desk today
includes new headings for:
AIDS activists
Beach nourishment (* what does that MEAN? and what
COULD they have been cataloging?)
Bisexual men
Bisexual women
Bisexuals
Body piercing
Child sexual abuse by clergy
Children of AIDS patients
Drowsiness
Eurocentrism
Gay activists
Gay teachers
Gummy bears
Hate speech
Heterosexual men
Heterosexual women
Heterosexuals
Holistic veterinary medicine
Lesbian music
Lesbian teenagers
Narcissistic injuries (*what's that?)
Overpopulation
Shark cartilage
Underground homeless persons
Voguing (Dance) and
Waco Branch Dravidian Disaster, Tex., 1993
(did they qualify it in case there's going to be another one?)
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Date: Tue, 14 Dec 93 15:43:20 PST
From: Lisa Chabot <Lisa.Chabot@Eng.Sun.COM>
Subject: tasteless
To: spaf, Diana_L_Chabot@ccm.hf.intel.com, jeanne@chryse.Eng.Sun.COM
and oddly posted to r.a.books
------- Forwarded Message
From: snorris@stout.atd.ucar.edu (Scott Norris)
Subject: Micheal Jackson
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 20:28:56 GMT
What do Micheal Jackson and Walmart have in common?
.....They both have small boys pants at half off!
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Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 18:40:34 -0800 (PST)
From: randy@psg.com (Randy Bush)
Subject: techno-terrorism
To: spaf (Gene Spafford)
Well, although one might sympathize, I think techno-terrorism is here.
A group of 'concerned parents' switched the voices on hundreds of GI Joe
and Barbie dolls, and they made it to the stores for Xmas. Evidently, they
were sufficiently sophisticated to make an animated videotape presention as
well, and shiped it to media studios.
[If you missed the news stories on TV, you missed a fairly amusing
bit. I saw interviews with a couple of kids who got the mixed-up
toys. One girl commented something to the effect that she kinda liked
her Barbie that way -- either she could pretend the doll was posessed,
or had bad PMS. Pretty funny scene to see a GI Joe in battle garb say
in a high-pitched voice "Let's go to the mall!"
Did somebody on this list have a hand in this? If so -- congrats.
--spaf]
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Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1993 19:37:28 -0500
From: "Bill Dueber" <wdueber@cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Who is Santa Claus?
Newsgroups: in.bizarre
In article <JKONRATH.93Dec15181757@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>,
Jon Konrath <jkonrath@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>[north.pole.org]
>Login name: santa In real life: Kris Kringle
>Directory: /u/santa Shell: /usr/local/bin/bash
>Kris Kringle (santa) is not presently logged in.
>Last seen at sleigh on Wed Dec 15 11:10:02 1993
>Mail forwarded to president@whitehouse.com
Yep. I would have figured Mr. Kringle as a bash user. Makes
sense to me.
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Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 10:47:43 -0500
From: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TECHNO-DWEEB WHEN...
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
From: ivar@fid.morgan.com (Ivar Petersen)
Date: Sun, 5 Dec 93 10:30:18 JST
YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TECHNO-DWEEB WHEN...
When your friend tells you all about his Chevy V8 and you reply "Yeah,
I had V7, and it was full of bugs!"
When driving you see a license plate with the letters DSR, and you feel
compelled to touch your bumper to the other car to see if you can raise
CD.
When you are counting objects "0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D...".
When you lay down in the afternoon for a short rest, end up sleeping 4
hours, and call it a "mega-nap".
When your friend is going to Essex for vacation and you tell her, "You
really should go for the DX, it has the built in co-processor."
When you dream in 256 pallettes of 256 colors.
When asked about a bus schedule, you wonder if it is 16 or 32 bits.
When you convince yourself that Tetris really does improve eye-hand
coordination.
When the radio traffic reporter talks about a backup caused by a crash,
and you correct her that a backup is good protection in case of a crash.
When you call "*.*" star-dot-star.
When you can do hexadecimal arithmatic in your head.
When your wife goes to the market for some macintosh apples, and you
correct her, "No, dear, it's 'Apple Macintosh'."
When your wife says "If you don't turn off that damn machine and come
to bed, then I am going to divorce you!", and you chastise her for for
omitting the else clause.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1993 13:55:34 -0500
From: Kevin Lahey <kml@sware.com>
Subject: Yucks: Get your Montblanc highlighter before Christmas
To: spaf
[From the NYT (really, I swear I saw it!):]
Finally, a document marker that's a Montblanc.
It's not the same highlighter you used in college, but then, you're
not the same either.
The latest interpretation of a classic, the new Montblanc Document
Marker emphasizes essential words and phrases with unmatched
style and sophistication. Comparable in size to the large
Meisterstuck fountain pens, it's available in both black and
bordeaux. Because now that your priorities of changed, it's only
fitting that your document marker change, too.
For more information call Montblanc USA: 800 251-4810
[Paying huge sums of cash for a hi-liter does indeed make a
statement. --spaf]
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End of Yucks Digest
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