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Yucks Digest V1 #41
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To: yucks
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Subject: Yucks Digest V1 #41
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From: spaf (Gene "Chief Yuckster" Spafford)
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Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 23:05:28 EST
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Reply-To: Yucks-request
Yucks Digest Wed, 10 Apr 91 Volume 1 : Issue 41
Today's Topics:
9700 folklore
A Bit-O-Humor
Auto Reply from Watch_Mail for 9-APR-1991 11:30 to 11-APR-1991 00:00
Engineer Jokes
Forwarding: Obituary for wings inventor
Madonna 101
Madonna 102
REVIEW: WARLOCK
Sex and the Spotted Hyena
Spanish spoof draws ire from Soviets
vasectomy
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.
Submissions and subscription requests should be sent to spaf@cs.purdue.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu (Joseph M. Newcomer)
Subject: 9700 folklore
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
{This is folklore. It is out here as legend. It may or may not be
true. Usual disclaimers.}
Xerox wanted to build a 2page-per-second laser printer. They evaluated
the technology. The group designated to do the design came up with an
answer. "We have some good news and some bad news". The Good News was
that the project was technically feasible. The Bad News was that it was
feasible only if they could image fast enough onto the drum, and since
the Xerographic effect is based upon the energy hitting the drum, this
would be only possible with a blue laser of appropriate power. And
there were no blue lasers of appropriate power.
Now, Xerox PARC, in spite of what most CS people might believe, is
actually a very large organization with divisions worrying about
physics, chemistry, and many non-CS issues. So Xerox went to the
physics group at PARC and said "we want a blue laser of thus-and-such
energy". The physics group went away for a while and studied the
problem, and reported: "Well, WHSGNASBN". The GN is "we think we can do
it". The BN is that we think "it will take 18 months and cost umpty-tum
dollars". Xerox printer people said "OK, that's within our operatring
parameters, go for it".
18 months pass. The printer people come back and say "uh, guys, about
that blue laser...?" Well, WHSGNASBN. The GN is that it works. The BN
is that it only works for about 10 minutes and then its useful life is
over. "How much would it cost to fix this?" Well, about six months and
umpty-delta dollars. At this point, the product was essentially
committed, so they didn't really have a choice.
This was given as the reason that the 9700 was as expensive as it was;
the additional development cost of the blue laser.
The politics of why it had its own printer language and not Interpress
is very ugly and cannot be told on a bboard that might be read by
innocent minds.
This story was told to me by a CMU technician who was trained by Xerox
to service the 9700, and he claims that this was the story that was told
to him (FOAF). He also pointed out that the laser classification of the
laser was a "Class 3 laser". "What's that mean?" I asked. "Well, class
1 lasers can be used in high school labs. Class 2 lasers usually appear
in University labs in experiments on industrial laser technology. Class
3 lasers are used to punch holes in concrete walls and shoot down
missles".
This history may or may not be apocryphal, but it makes a good story...
------------------------------
Date: 4 Apr 91 16:08:41 GMT
From: debx@ellis.uchicago.edu (Deborah J. Cooper)
Subject: A Bit-O-Humor
Newsgroups: rec.pets.dogs
Jamey Graham sent me the following message and thought we'd all enjoy
it. I'm posting it on her behalf:
Here's something for the PETA/breed legislation thread...
====================================================================
FROM: CONNECTION SCIENCE: Journal of Neural Computing, Artificial
Intelligence and Cognitive Research, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1990.
====================================================================
HUMOUR
Understanding Dogs and Dognition: a New Foundation for Design.
GARRISON W. COTTRELL
There is a crisis in dog-human relations, as has been evidenced by
recent attempts to make dogs more 'user-friendly' (see 'Programming
the use-friendly dog', Cottrell, 1985). A new approach has appeared
(Whineandpoop & Flossy, 1986) that claims that previous attempts at
dog-human interfaces have floundered on a basic misunderstanding of
the dog. The problem has been that we have approached the dog as if he
was one of us--and he certainly is not. Their perusal of the
philosophies of Holedigger & Mateyourauntie has led them to a new
understanding: A West Coast Understanding. There is no objective
reality(1) that we form internal representations of, rather,
organisms are structurally coupled (2) to their environment, the
so-called 'seamless web' theory of cognition. Thus the
inside/outside dichotomy that has plagued dognitive ;; scientists and
dogs for years is a false one(3). This has led them to a whole new way
of understanding how dogs should be programmed.
In the past we have assumed some internal representation in the
dog's head (see 'A hybrid model of the intentional behavior of the
dog, Cottrell, 1989). In this new view, the reason dogs are so dense
is not that they have impoverished internal representations, but
that they don't have internal representations. Instead, the dog is
structurally coupled to the world--he moves about embedded in the ooze
of the environment, and naturally, it slows him down. Not only that,
but it is the wrong environment--the 3 human one, leading to continual
breakdown(4). Thus our problem is in forming a consensual domain
with another species. We have to place ourselves in their domain to
hear them--this is termed 'listening in the backyard'.
We feel that there is much to be gained from combining their view
with the connectionist approach(5). The problem is combining the
intentional programming of I' evolution with extensional programming
by the owner. Connectionist theories of learning combined with
considerations of 'listening in the backyard' suggest that if we
simply present the dog with many examples of the desired input-output
behavior within the backyard, we will get the desired result.
Notes
1. Actually, Californians have known this for years.
2. Note that this is to be distinguished from the structural coupling
that produces new dogs from old ones.
3. Dogs have often followed Mateyourauntie in this, ignoring the
inside/outside dichotomy. These considerations may eliminate the
basis for the continence-performance distinction (Hutchins, 1986).
4. The field of dog-machine interfaces attempts to deal with such
problems as the poor design of the doorknob--a lever would help
reduce the inside/outside barrier. Others feel that this research
is misdirected; the doorknob is designed that way precisely because
it acts as a species filter, keeping dogs out of restaurants and
movie theatres.
5. Their work also suggests applying the theory of speech acts to the
command interface, Thus, we can classify much more than simple
Directives. For example, 'You've had it now, Jellybean!' is a
commissive --the speaker is committed to a future course of action.
The dog will usually respond with an attempt withdraw from the
dialogue, but the speaker rejects his withdrawal. 'You're in the
doghouse, Bean' is a declarative--the speaker brings about a
correspondence between the propositional content of this and
reality simply by uttering it.
Garrison W. Cottrell, Department of Dog Science, Condominium
Community College of Southern California.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 14:04:01 PDT
From: "I'd rather be pounding nails into my head 09-Apr-1991 1603" <dipirro@star.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Auto Reply from Watch_Mail for 9-APR-1991 11:30 to 11-APR-1991 00:00
To: yucks-request
Steve is unable to respond to your mail right now. Believe it or not,
he's on a business trip! This doesn't happen very often anymore. So you caught
me with my pants down...so to speak. Don't worry, they're not sending me
anyplace you'd want to go. I hear that Cancun is really dismal this time of
year.
If you weren't worried before, consider that I'm not only representing
Digital, but I'm representing the VMS group at a customer site. Good...I can
sense the apprehension. Depending on when you're reading this, however, there
may still be time to sell your stock.
I'll be back in the office Thursday (4/11) morning. So if this is what
I think it is, a STAR::EXTENDED-VAX membership request, you'll have to wait a
day. I realize this is longer than it takes to purchase an AK-47 automatic
weapon in this country, but you have to have your priorities.
Lisa Lopilato (STAR::LOPILATO) and Chris Petrovic (JARETH::PETROVIC)
will have numbers where I can be reached in emergencies...In my absence,
Richard Sayde (STAR::SAYDE) can answer questions about the Debug Tools project.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Apr 91 00:30:05 GMT
Subject: Engineer Jokes
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Real Engineers...
Real Engineers consider themselves well dressed if their socks match
Real Engineers buy their spouses a set of matched screw- drivers for their
birthday.
Real Engineers wear moustaches or beards for "efficiency". Not because they're
lazy.
Real engineers have a non-technial vocbulary of 800 words.
Real Engineers think a "biting wit" is their fox terrier.
Real Engineers know the second law of thermodynamics - but not their own shirt
size.
Real Engineers repair their own cameras, telephones, tele- visions, watches,
and automatic transmissions.
Real Engineers say "It's 70 degrees Farenheit, 25 degrees Celius, and 298
degrees Kelvin" and all you say is "Isn't it a nice day"
Real Engineers give you the feeling you're having a con- versation with a dail
tone or busy signal.
Real Engineers wear badges so they don't forget who they are. Sometimes a note
is attached saying "Don't offer me a ride today. I drove my own car".
Real Engineers' politics run towards acquiring a parking space with their
name on it and an office with a window.
Real Engineers know the "ABC's of Infrared" from A to B.
Real Engineers rotate their tires for laughs.
Real Engineers will make four sets of drawings (with seven revisions) before
making a bird bath.
Real Engineers' briefcases contain a Philips screwdriver, a copy of "Quantum
Physics", and a half of a peanut butter sandwich.
Real Engineers don't find the above at all funny.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1991 10:58:57 PST
From: wegeng@arisia.xerox.com
Subject: Forwarding: Obituary for wings inventor
It is a sad day in Buffalo. :-)
Originally-From: Gocek.Henr801C@Xerox.com
I saw this in the paper a few days ago:
Dominic G. "Don" Bellissimo, 68, whose late-night craving for a snack inspired
Buffalo chicken wings, died unexpectedly Saturday (3/23) at his home in
Buffalo. Although his mother perfected the recipe for the hot sauce that added
zing to scrawny chicken parts, Bellissimo promoted the Buffalo dish into a
world-famous entree. Chicken wings, with blue (sic) cheese and celery on the
side, were first offered in Bellissimo's Anchor Bar at Main and North streets
in Buffalo. The homespun quisine is now sold in hundreds of restaurants around
western New York - and throughout the nation.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 91 13:19:36 PST
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Madonna 101
To: spaf
Professor Touts Madonna's Role
NEW ORLEANS (AP)
A Loyola University history professor thinks Madonna and other pop
culture icons offer a key to understanding the times in which they
live and, by contrast, other eras.
For example, asks Jesse Nash: "Would the early Greeks have liked
Madonna?"
Nash, 38, who promotes a markedly feminist view of Western
civilization, contends in his classes at the Jesuit university that
studying the Material Girl may be more valuable than reading
Shakespeare.
Her tongue-in-cheek disregard for traditional gender roles defies
rules set by the early Greeks, and her style flouts the Romans'
standards, he tells his class.
For historians, Nash said, Madonna's obsession with sexuality is
an indictment of the traditional view of how men and women should
behave.
"I don't really like her music, but I like her critique of
society," Nash said. "She has a real historical sense with her
costuming and videos that other pop stars don't have."
The scandal that Madonna creates, he said, proves that Westerners
still uphold values that subjugate women.
The early Greeks established cultural gender roles more than 2,000
years ago to distribute social power among men, Nash said. He said
the Greeks venerated men and considered women little more than
child-bearing workers.
The Romans took the rules of protocol a step further, Nash said,
creating laws that reduced women to personal property and ordered
them to dress and behave in ways acceptable to men.
Nash's class recently considered Madonna's "Justify My Love"
video. The video, banned from MTV, depicts a woman fulfilling her
sexual fantasy with both a male and a female partner. The two suitors
look alike, wear similar clothes and often appear indistinguishable.
Madonna makes people uncomfortable because she refuses to be bound
by convention, Nash said. Men are especially unnerved by a video such
as "Justify My Love," he said, because they see a male character who
is not allowed to take the dominant role in a sexual encounter. The
woman Madonna is obviously in charge.
Madonna plays all of the masculine roles in the video, Nash noted,
while the male characters take on traditionally womanly images as
disenfranchised workers.
By expressing and exposing herself, "Madonna, in a kind of gross
and crude fashion, is a notion of self-ownership," Nash said. "She
said, `I own myself, I will not be anyone's property.' The Romans
would have understood this immediately and locked her up. The Greeks
would have been intrigued."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 13:03:04 PST
From: one of our correspondants
Subject: Madonna 102
To: spaf
By George Varga Copley News Service In a development that
could rival Barbie doll's recent pop music album debut as the most
revolutionary marketing move of the year, the Pro Set company of
Dallas is adding pop music artists to its roster of National Football
League, National Hockey League and Pro Golf Association trading cards.
Should Pro Set succeed, kids across the nation may soon be
exchanging their Joe Montana and Wayne Gretzky trading cards for Pro
Set MusiCards featuring Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne, M.C. Hammer, the Who
and nearly 200 other pop, rap, heavy metal and classic rock stars.
More than 150 million MusiCards are being shipped to convenience
stores, supermarkets, discount stores and other outlets across the
country, according to Pro Set representative Ira H. Silverman.
Founded in 1988, Pro Set is the nation's second-largest trading
card manufacturer. It recently released a 250-card set of
"educational" Desert Storm cards inspired by the Persian Gulf War.
To be sold in sets of 10, the full-color MusiCards will retail
for 50-69 cents per pack. The front of the cards feature artist
photos, while the back contains a brief biographical sketch.
Categories include pop, hip-hop/rap, heavy metal, rock legends and
historic concerts (featuring classic rock concert posters from the
1960s).
All MusiCard artists were chosen by Pro Set's marketing
director, Victor Shaffer, in conjunction with San Francisco's
Winterland Productions. Winterland is the nation's leading
manufacturer of pop music T-shirts, posters and related merchandise.
"While there have been trading cards in the past for specific
performers, such as Elvis, the Beatles and New Kids on the Block,
this is the first time we know of that packs of cards featuring
multiple acts are available," Silverman said from his New York office
Tuesday (April 9).
MusiCard's target audience is kids 7 to 15 and their parents,
Silverman said. Accordingly, the cards feature current pop stars such
as Paula Abdul, Vanilla Ice, George Michael and Nelson, as well as
defunct or deceased artists such as the Doors, Jimi Hendrix and Bob
Marley.
"We wanted to bring the whole family in, so we added a `rock
legends' category," Silverman said. "The other interesting thing
about this is that, except for the New Kids, young girls really
didn't have any pop music cards to collect until now."
While the inclusion of Madonna, New Edition, INXS and Janet
Jackson in MusiCard packs are obvious choices, others seem
surprising, especially such relatively obscure acts as 24-7 Spyz, 3rd
Bass, Voivod, Michael Penn and Giant, a band of Los Angeles studio
musicians whose 1990 debut album made little impact.
"Since Winterland in San Francisco is our partner, a lot of
these acts come from Winterland's roster," said Silverman. "But we
also did our own research and added any non-Winterland artists we
felt we needed to make a complete set."
Silverman offered a sports analogy when asked if kids seeking an
M.C. Hammer or Joe Satriani MusiCard might not be disappointed to
find a Giant trading card instead.
"No one will get 10 cards they want in each pack," he said.
"It's the same thing as with our set of 800 NFL cards; a
second-string tackle from the Minnesota Vikings will be in a set with
a Joe Montana card. So maybe you'll have to trade a Giant and a
Tone-Loc card for a Janet Jackson."
MusicCard spokeswoman Enid Lewin said the Sex Pistols, 2 Live
Crew and other controversial acts would not be in the sets.
"There aren't too many notorious groups included, because [...]
certain age groups and parents," Lewin said. "So the Sex Pistols is a
group we'd look at twice because we want kids and parents to interact
with our cards, and because we have people who will buy these cards
in the Bible Belt and these people wouldn't like the Sex Pistols."
Apparently, the long-defunct Sex Pistols are considered more
controversial than such current "death metal" bands as Annihilator,
Death Angel, Sacred Reich, Suicidal Tendencies and Savatage, all of
which are in MusicCard's collection.
Will MusicCards eventually command the high fees now paid for
prized football and baseball trading cards from past decades?
"Everything Pro Set has put out so far has gone up in value,
especially cards that had a limited production," Silverman said. "For
instance, at Christmastime in 1989 and 1990, we put out special Santa
Claus cards, and those have sold for between $500 and $1,000. And our
limited-edition hologram cards of the Vince Lombardi Super Bowl
trophy are also in big demand. So, these MusiCards will definitely be
going up in value."
[Hmm, but no Wirth or Dijkstra cards yet. Maybe next year.... --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: 10 Apr 91 12:32:17 GMT
From: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (The Phantom)
Subject: REVIEW: WARLOCK
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews
[If you don't read the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup, you probably
don't see the marvelous reviews by someone with the nom de plume
"Phantom." These are usually quite wry, and worth wading through
some of the other more pretentious reviews to find.
What follows is an extracted paragraph from one of his reviews -- the
one for the new movie "Warlock." I found it extremely funny, but then
I'm not a well Vegan. The rest of the review is pretty good, but not
reproduced here. --spaf]
...Redferne had last tangled with the Warlock in the film's opening
scenes (set in late 17th century Massachusetts), and it was only by the
narrowest of margins that the Warlock escaped public execution.
Curiously, he was sentenced to be hung and then burned over a basket of
live cats. The Phantom isn't sure what effect this last part of the
sentence is supposed to have had -- perhaps baskets of live cats were
used regularly as part of the complex criminal justice system of the
late 17th century -- but as our Constitution now clearly prohibits
allowing cats anywhere near a public execution, the Phantom suspects
that such a sentence will come as quite a shock to some of the more
liberal members of the audience. Frankly, the Phantom would consider
even 100 hours of community service with a basket full of live cats to
be cruel and inhuman punishment, and so he was once again reminded of
just how lucky he is to be living in these more enlightened times.
------------------------------
From: jespah@milton.u.washington.edu (Kathleen Hunt)
Newsgroups: alt.sex
[The following is not for the faint of heart.... --spaf]
I went to an endocrinology conference last week, and one of the talks was
about the bizarre hormones and sexual behavior of the spotted hyena, and
I just *knew* everyone on this group would be interested.
It turns out that in a pregnant spotted hyena, the placenta churns out
amazing amounts of androgens (male hormones, to oversimplify a bit), such
that no matter what sex the fetus is, it ends up with totally masculine
external genitalia. This means that all female spotted hyenas have penises,
just the same size and almost the same shape as the males (tiny difference
in the head shape -- in fact, that's the only way to figure out what sex
your spotted hyena is. Penis with pointed head = male. Penis with squarish
head = female). This is an impressive penis, too -- looked about a foot long
or so from the photos. The hyenas are constantly having erections and waving
their penises around in bizarre social dominance displays. As it happens
the females are larger and more dominant. The females also have a scrotum,
but it's empty -- their ovaries are up in their body as usual. The ovaries
apparently don't mind the massive androgen-dosing during development, and
in fact the ovaries happily churn out even more androgens throughout the
female's entire life, keeping her nice and masculinized.
Okay, here's where it gets fun. You've got a female whose uterus connects
to the urethra, which goes down through the penis. See the problems?
Problem #1: When spotted hyenas have sex, the male has to put his penis
*through* the female's penis. Luckily hyenas have those retractable-type
penises, like horses, but still it's pretty awkward. We saw a video of
a male hyena attempting to have sex with a virgin female, and he had to
sort of squat down between her hind legs and thrust upwards at a really
weird angle, until suddenly she yelped, spun, and nearly bit his nose off.
Problem #2: (the biggie) When a female gets pregnant, she has to give
birth THROUGH HER PENIS. We saw another video (really, this was a *great*
talk!) of a female giving birth for the first time. First-time mothers
only have one cub, and the cub comes out of the vagina, gets shoved
around the pelvis, between her hind legs, and into the penis, and then
gets *jammed* up against the inside of head of the penis. A newborn cub is
the size of a Coke can. (Compare to the normal erect penis, which looked
about 1-2" diameter.) This poor female was crawling around miserably,
licking at her grotesquely swollen, almost black penis, until suddenly
POP! the head of the penis *ripped* *open* and the cub came out. YOWZA!
(The whole audience sort of whimpered at this point.) Many first-time
mothers die of infections and other complications; many first-time mother's
cubs are stillborn or die soon after birth, apparently from being jammed up
for too long. Apparently the penis heals with the head still ripped open,
making subsequent births a lot easier. Subsequent births are usually 2
or 3 cubs, and newborn cubs of the same sex immediately try to kill each
other, by biting each other on the neck and back (we saw another video)...it's
a strange species, what can I say?
All this is only true of the *spotted* hyena, not of other hyena species.
The work was primarily done at Berkeley, which maintains a colony of spotted
hyenas. [ Figures. --spaf]
I *knew* you'd be interested! (And you probably thought scientific
conferences were always boring.)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 91 07:37 EDT
From: rutgers!pdn.paradyne.com!reggie (George Leach)
Subject: Spanish spoof draws ire from Soviets
To: spaf
>From The Sunday, April 7 edition of The St Petersburg Times (Reuters)
Madrid, SPain -- April Fool's Day came late on Spanish television this
years, and the Soviet consul in Barcelona was not amused. The state-run TV2
network in the northeastern Catalonia region ran a mock news program Friday
saying Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had been killed in a military coup,
bringing thousands of calls from worried viewers and a complaint from the
Soviet consul who called it "a joke in very bad taste."
State television said it would investigate who was responsible for
the hoax braodcast in the first of a new satirical series, Camaleo (Chameleon).
The program, aired after the main evening news, featured pictures of tanks in
the streets of Moscow and of White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater announcing
-- in a fake voice-over -- that Washington would break diplomatic links with
the Kremlin.
A popular newscaster and the network's New York correspondent lent
credibility to the hoax, as did footage said to come from "CNM" -- a spoof
on the U.S. Cable News Network.
To add to the confusion, several radio stations including the
state-run Radio 4 thought the report was accurate and picked it up without
further checks. State television later apologized, saying the hoax had
"caused unjustified concern to public opinion and may have damaged the
image of the Soviet Union while it is going through a difficult process
of democratization."
------------------------------
Date: 8 Apr 91 23:30:05 GMT
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: vasectomy
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Just heard on the radio, purportedly factual:
A West Virginia man, considering getting a vasectomy, decided to discuss
it with his priest.
The priest gave him various bits of advice, and suggested that he discuss
it with his doctor.
The doctor likewise advised him on various aspects, and on discovering
that he hadn't talked to his family about it yet, urged him to do so.
His family voted 14-4 in favor of it.
------------------------------
End of Yucks Digest
------------------------------