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Yucks Digest V2 #30 (shorts)
Yucks Digest Thu, 4 Jun 92 Volume 2 : Issue 30
Today's Topics:
american culture
An Eighth Grader On Dan Quayle
Austin radio
bell's theory
Definition
Fashion Police
for yucks
found in someone's .sig file:
found in the back of Open Systems Today
Guard frogs
In brief
How to *really* abuse a language
LA RIOT Bumper Stickers/T-SHirts.
Men Cut Up Bar With Chain Saws
no pass orals ... (or the not so mythical man ...)
NOTW
now jointly: a bug is just another virus!
Occult practices survive in the land of the Delphic oracle
Pairs Of Twin Soldiers To Wed
Probably unsuccessful but novel use of the net...
Some funnies for Yucks
What's a dollar worth? - check the Big Mac index, says institute
Where the name "Windows NT" comes from
Will COBOL save SUN?
You can get a degree in that?
yuck
Yucks submission
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: Wed, 20 May 92 21:03:06 -0700
From: rissa@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Patricia O Tuama)
Subject: american culture
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
today i was accosted by a Consumer Opinion Survey taker who
asked me three questions:
1) how often do you eat ice cream?
2) how often do you eat frozen yogurt?
3) which of the following have you used in the past six months:
a) condoms
b) lubricated condoms
c) spermicidal foam
d) spermicidal jelly
e) spermicidal foam with a condom
f) spermicidal jelly with a condom
g) spermicidal foam with a lubricated condom
h) spermicidal jelly with a lubricated condom
i) diaphragm with spermicidal jelly/foam
j) diaphragm with spermicidal jelly/foam and a
condom
k) diaphragm with spermicidal jelly/foam and a
lubricated condom
l) intra-uterine device
m) birth control pills
n) other
clearly you can see where these people's priorities lie...
[Hmm, I hope I'm not in the test market when they come out with the
lubricated waffle cone with nuts and spermicide. --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 May 92 09:43:41 CDT
From: shoe@zempoaltepetl.tivoli.com (Mark Shoemaker)
Subject: An Eighth Grader On Dan Quayle
To: bob
As reported by the Los Angeles Times Service, eighth grader Vanessa
Martinez had this to say about Dan Quayle after his visit to her L.A.
school:
He seems like an average type of man. He's not like, smart.
I'm not trying to bag on him or anything, but he has the same
mentality I have -- and I'm in the eighth grade.
Makes me proud to be a Hoosier....
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 May 92 23:22:46 CDT
From: meo@pencom.com (Miles O'Neal)
Subject: Austin radio
To: spaf (Gene Spafford)
A local radio station noted this morning that Louisiana was
upset "that Texas ranked higher in the recent Police Brutality
Poll. So some of the slighted communities have decided to
hold a Police Brutality Olympics. Potential particpants
should be males with long hair, and all they have to do is
drive through Louisiana in a VW Microbus."
Same radio station, promo spot, this evening (VERY serious
voice):
"Let's face it. Morning radio SUCKS... Our guys just suck
a little less."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 May 92 12:20:18 PDT
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Subject: bell's theory
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>or are we? since there is no such thing as local causality, does
>this mean that we're all in effect each other? and does this effect
>propogate across time as well as space?
David Mermin (who just last year punctuated an equation with a question
mark and then got it published, as mentioned in the May 92 PHYSICS TODAY)
has several wonderful and comprehensible articles on Bell's theorem, now
reprinted in his BOOJUMS ALL THE WAY THROUGH collection. Among them is
his answer to the question of whether quantum mechanics says you can, in
principle, affect your favorite baseball team by watching it. The answer
is a rather mystifying yes.
He has other essays, my favorite being the lead article "E pluribus boojum",
the saga of how he did brave and righteous battle against those evil journal
editors to get `boojum' into the technical literature on liquid helium.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 May 92 09:59:26 PDT
From: akin@tuolumne.asd.sgi.com
Subject: Definition
To: spaf
Eschercise: Working out on a StairMaster machine.
[Attributed to Kurt Akeley]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 May 92 16:49:48 -0400
From: paul%dblegl.atl.ga.us@mathcs.emory.edu (Paul D. Manno)
Subject: Fashion Police
To: yucks
From our news services...
Short skirts are out at Houston's courthouse. Harris County Clerk
Katherine Tyra, who already had banned pants worn by female employees
earlier this year, now has targeted short skirts. "We have a dress
code and they [skirts] need to be modest in length," said Ms. Tyra, a
conservative Republican who took office in January 1991. She said too
many clerks were wearing tight pants in the office.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 92 11:59:53 -0700
From: brian@UCSD.EDU (Brian Kantor)
Subject: for yucks
To: spaf
Found during a discussion on censorship of emedia...
From: dos@major.panix.com (Dave O'Shea)
THE KENNEDY-DWORKIN-BRADY COMPUTER CONTROL ACT OF 1992
I. No person shall transfer to another person a blank computer disk,
memory chip, or other storage media without a seven-day waiting period
and a background check.
II. No person shall attempt to communicate anything offensive to anyone
posessing the ability to scream at over 120dBm.
III. No foolin' around.
IV. No person may posess a dial-up, leased, or switched data line unless
such transmission equipment attached to it has been inspected by the FBI,
BATF, CIA, WWIH (weenies with inflamed hemhorroids), and local police.
V. No Chappaquiddick jokes. We're serious about this one.
VI. Factual information which would tend to discount any inflammatory
accusations made by the media is hereby irrelevant.
VII. Sneezing, which has been shown to be related to the common cold, is
a felony. This should cure all colds.
VIII. Make a Chappaquiddick joke and the secret service will shoot you.
IX. In any civil case resulting from this law, all fines will be paid by
the person with the most money, regardless of whether they had anything
to with the case.
X. Posession of clothespins shall be a class B felony.
XI. Averti must get rid of the beard.
XII. Playing "cops 'n robbers" is hereby declared Politically Incorrect,
as it encourages kids to play with handcuffs. And guns. And also leaves
the mistaken impression on our youth that people should be held
responsible for their own acts. The new, State-approved game shall be
called "oppressors and victims". The victim can be anybody at all. The
oppressor must, as per this statute, be a white male. Preferably related
to Columbus.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 May 92 12:01:52 EDT
From: smb@ulysses.att.com
Subject: found in someone's .sig file:
To: spaf, dan.farmer@corp.sun.com
Try Internet brand Tequila - "A worm in every bottle"
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 May 92 20:17:46 EST
From: "Steve Chapin" <sjc>
Subject: found in the back of Open Systems Today
To: systems
In response to the questions, "Will Windows NT be the death of Unix,"
Dan Zimmerman, a sophomore at Vanderbilt wrote:
"I would rather gnaw my leg off, pack the bleeding stump with salt,
and run in a circle on broken glass than have to deal with any
Microsoft product on a regular basis."
Such wisdom in one so young.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 30 May 92 11:49:07 -0400
From: paul%dblegl.atl.ga.us@mathcs.emory.edu (Paul D. Manno)
Subject: Guard frogs
To: yucks
As published in the Earthweek column by Steve Newman ...
An English pet-shop owner has offered a solution to homeowners looking
for the security of a guard dog without the responsibility - a frog
that barks. The tiny green and yellow amphibian, from Kirbati and
Tuvalu, the former Gilbert and Ellice islands in the Pacific, has been
a sellout for a shop in Sunderland, northeast England. "They bark as
loud as a dog, but cost a lot less to feed," the shop owner insists.
"A two pound bag of crickets will last them a whole month."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 May 92 17:14:15 -0400
From: paul%dblegl.atl.ga.us@mathcs.emory.edu (Paul D. Manno)
Subject: In brief
To: yucks
Arizona - A prison reform group is objecting to the state's policy
of making condemned criminals strip to their underwear before being
executed in the gas chamber. Family members told of the underwear
policy "felt that it was a completely unnecessary form of humiliation,"
said Donna Hamm, head of Middle Ground, a prison-reform group. The
dress is a matter of safty because cyanide gas can collect in clothing
and create a hazard to the prison crew that removes the body, said
Mike Arra, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections. He said
the procedure would not change.
------------------------------
From: philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: How to *really* abuse a language
Date: 26 May 92 22:54:49 GMT
Organization: Stanford University
In article <1992May26.145746@IASTATE.EDU>, kv07@IASTATE.EDU (Warren Vonroeschlau
b) writes:
|> In article <1970@nic.cerf.net>, mullin@nic.cerf.net (Mark Mullin) writes:
|> > Gee, I like this. Let's start a thread on how to really abuse
|> > an application, by mixing the language and application metaphors
[examples deleted]
|> I think 6 should be
|>
|> 6) Military system software in LISP
This reminds me of the story about the person who cracked security
on the Star Wars project and to prove it produced the last 10 lines
of the LISP code:
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
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)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
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)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 92 08:30:03 GMT
From: prb@access.digex.com (Pat)
Subject: LA RIOT Bumper Stickers/T-SHirts.
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Matt Groening had some T-SHirts for the LA Riot in his column Life in Hell.
The better ones included:
My other car is on Fire.
Thank you for not killing me.
My parents benefited from a 60's style welfare program
and all i got was this lousy T Shirt.
I used to love LA.
A few of us were discussing possible bumper stickers.
Honk, if you want to be dragged out of your car and beaten.
LA, Its a riot.
That's not smog, that's your house.
{ i dont know if these were repeats from late night comedians, or if they were
original, i thought they were}
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 92 23:03:10 PDT
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: Men Cut Up Bar With Chain Saws
To: yucks-request
TORRINGTON, Conn. (AP)
Two men who were denied drinks at a tavern because they had missed
last call returned a few minutes later and cut the wooden bar in half
with chain saws, police said.
John Haddon and William Fitch, who also cut out part of a
staircase railing at the Midway Cafe, surrendered when police arrived
early Sunday.
The two were charged with breach of peace, reckless endangerment,
carrying a dangerous weapon, criminal trespass and criminal mischief.
They were released on promises to appear in Bantam Superior Court;
court officials did not know Monday when their court dates would be.
The gash in the Midway's bar was sealed with duct tape Sunday.
Damage was estimated at $250.
Midway patrons said Haddon and Fitch, both 23 and from Cornwall,
were regulars at the bar.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 May 92 05:52:57 EDT
From: bala@ulysses.att.com
Subject: no pass orals ... (or the not so mythical man ...)
To: systems
------- Forwarded Message
From: peter honeyman <honey@citi.umich.edu>
To: fun-people@research.att.com
Date: Thu, 21 May 92 00:13:04 -0400
Subject: Re: If it quacks like a duck...
From: Lee Pearson <lee@citi.umich.edu>
Subject: grad students
Date: Wed, 20 May 92 17:39:01 -0400
From: "Eric A. Haines" <erich@eye.com>
Subject: If it quacks like a duck...
Date: Mon, 18 May 92 17:27:56 EDT
Man Strips, Quacks After Committee Denies His Orals
The Associated Press
CHAPEL HILL -- An upset graduate student was arrested after he stripped
off his clothes and quacked like a duck when his orals application
was denied.
"It was a first for us," Department spokesperson Fred Brooks said.
The unidentified almost 30-year-old man was seated naked in a
professor's office in the graphics department when police arrived
Thursday. Officials said he replied with duck quacks when questioned
by police.
After his arrest, police said he caused $1,000 damage to a police
vehicle by butting his head into a window frame and kicking a door.
Magistrate Gabe Quintanilla ordered the man held for psychiatric
evaluation.
Committee officials would not disclose why the man's orals were rejected.
------- End of Forwarded Message
[A later posting noted that this was a hoax, made as a joke at UNC
after a student there failed to pass quals. Still, believable. --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 92 11:04:51 PDT
From: wisner@abulafia.EBay.Sun.COM (Bill Wisner)
Subject: NOTW
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us, tanstaafl@colossus.apple.com
In Atlanta's Fulton County Jail in November, inmates were watching one of
their favorite shows, "America's Most Wanted," when a photo came on the
screen of a man wanted for murder and arson. Several heads turned around to
Jessie Lee Baker, 27, and one inmate said, "Hey, that's you!" Inmates
notified authorities, who called the show's producers to report Baker's
whereabouts and put the inmates names in for the reward.
--
John Dawson, 26, was arrested in South St. Paul, Minnesota, in February
after the failure of his alleged elaborate scheme to have sex.
Police say he broke into a young woman's apartment just before she arrived,
left her a note on the kitchen table, then undressed, put duct tape over his
eyes and handcuffed himself to her bed. In the note were instructions that she
was to go into her bedroom immediately and have sex with him because a man with
a gun had kidnapped him and was waiting to kill yet another person if she
refused.
Instead, she ran to the police, and Dawson, who had left the key to his chains
on the kitchen table, could not free himself before they arrived.
--
Colombian garbage collector Oscar Hernandez claimed in March that he was
kidnapped by security guards during Carnival in Barranquilla and taken to a lab
at the Free University of Barranquilla, where a syndicate planned to kill him
for his body parts. A police investigation then turned up 11 bodies and parts
of 22 others, and a report that body bounty hunters received $200 per person.
Police identified most victims as garbage collectors.
--
A rush-hour traffic jam in Kansas City, Missouri, was caused when a truck
carrying pornographic magazines to a recycling center overturned on a busy
street. About 2,000 magazines were scattered about, and drivers stopped their
cars to gather as many as they could before moving on.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 29 May 92 7:44:14 CDT
From: Werner Uhrig <werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu>
Subject: now jointly: a bug is just another virus!
To: to-likely-interested-parties:@rascal.ics.utexas.edu@cs.purdue.edu;
From: Peter Newton <newton@cs.utexas.edu>
This from the front page of May 25 Info World regarding running Windows
apps under OS 2/2.0.
Another serious problem occurs when the clipboard is used to cut
and paste between Windows applications or between Windows and
OS/2 applications. The file allocation table gets destroyed and
users experience a loss of data and subsequently have to reformat
their hard drives...
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 May 92 21:51:02 PDT
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: Occult practices survive in the land of the Delphic oracle
To: yucks-request
By Hildegard Huelsenbeck
Athens, May 28 dpa - Under the heading "medium" weekend issues of
the Greek press are overflowing once again with the classified
advertisements of witches, magicians, and fortune tellers.
This is one of the few sectors of the Greek economy where the laws
of supply and demand are still functioning.
It is not unusual for young women to wear tiny satin pouches
stuffed with gruesome artefacts such as cats claws, herbs, scraps of
parchment inscribed with hieroglyphics, pieces of snake skin or gold
dust to ward off evil and bring good luck.
If the satin pouch doesn't help the young ladies resort to even
eerier methods. They will select a witch from the small ads, to
enchant another woman's husband, or cast spells on their boss or their
mother-in-law.
Many Greeks swear by it, insisting that often only occult forces
can help and indeed frequently have.
Even those who do not believe in witches and doubt that they can
affect their lives risk taking a peek into the future.
Men and women, young and old alike get goose pimples when they
share a Turkish coffee with friends that know how to read the residue
that collects at the bottom of their coffee cup.
The residue is swirled around when the cup is nearly empty and
tipped out. Some claim to have found out about a winning lottery
ticket, a romantic affair, a journey or a message that was awaitng
them in this way.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 92 09:28:53 PDT
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: Pairs Of Twin Soldiers To Wed
To: yucks-request
JERUSALEM (AP)
Twin Israeli soldiers will marry twin Israeli soldiers next week,
an Israeli newspaper reports.
Ayelet and Galit Tal, 20-year-old sisters, will marry Ofir and
Ronen Goldstein, 24, on June 11 in Tel Aviv, Maariv said Sunday.
The brothers serve in the army as electronic engineers, and the
sisters as mechanical engineers, the newspaper said.
It said Ronen met Galit at a soldiers' hitchhiking station, hit it
off, and introduced their respective twins, who also fell in love.
The prospective brides, who are fraternal twins, sometimes can't
tell apart their intended bridegrooms, who are identical, Maariv
said. "We haven't taken advantage of the confusion yet," Ofir was
quoted as saying. "Maybe after the wedding."
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 May 92 03:53:15 -0400
From: bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Probably unsuccessful but novel use of the net...
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Newsgroups: alt.true-crime
From: an imposter
Subject: help!
Nntp-Posting-Host: camelot.bradley.edu
Organization: Bradley University
Distribution: na
Date: 19 May 92 02:19:14 GMT
Nick, Pete, Jared come quickly!
There's a fire in the barn!!!
-b, as in "cat /dev/water > barn"
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1992 16:28:20 -0500
From: heaphy (Kathleen A. Heaphy)
Subject: Some funnies for Yucks
To: spaf
I found these in the April 1992 issue of "The Working Communicator"
Headlines from the ou've-got-to-see-it-to-believe-it' department:
>From the Salt Lake City Deseret News:
Juvenile Court to
Try Shooting Defendant
>From the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger:
Suicides asked to reconsider
>From the Sacramento Bee:
Drug firm ordered to supply women
>From the San Francisco Examiner:
New Autos to Hit 5 Million
>From the Honolulu Pacific Business News:
Office Building Permits Plunge
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 May 92 18:55:54 PDT
From: one of our correspondents
Subject: What's a dollar worth? - check the Big Mac index, says institute
To: yucks-request
Cologne, May 27 dpa - The U.S. dollar is undervalued against the
D-mark - based on how many "Big Mac" hamburger sandwiches the two
currencies can purchase, said one of Germany's leading institutes.
The Institute of the German Economy (IW) in Cologne noted that the
popular sandwich by the McDonald's restaurant chain is increasingly
being used by economists around the world as a measure of currencies'
relative purchasing power.
The institute said that currency exchange rates are often
unreliable as an instrument to measure purchasing power. At the same
time, "baskets" of products used to arrive at comparative purchasing
power are complicated to compile.
A simple alternative, now that McDonalds has spread to virtually
every country on earth, has become to look at what a Big Mac costs,
the IW said.
"A particularly hungry American can buy five Big Macs for 11
dollars. If he exchanged the money into D-marks, his 18 marks in
Germany can just barely obtain four Big Macs," the IW said.
Conclusion: based on the Big Mac index, the dollar is undervalued,
the institute said.
Americans can get their best Big Mac buy these days in Moscow,
where one sandwich costs only about 59 cents.
But Russians must "work nearly two days in order to afford this
meaty capitalist achievement - longer than people in any other
country", the IW said.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 28 May 92 10:06:33 -0700
From: bostic@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Where the name "Windows NT" comes from
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU
From: an288@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark Hittinger)
For some time now I've been puzzled by the named "Windows/NT" and how it
was derived.
Oh I know that supposedly it stands for "new technology".
Recently a new conspiracy theory was brought to my attention. Do you remember
the mess with the choice of "HAL" in the movie 2001? If you incremented each
letter forward one you came up with "IBM". Of course they denied everything.
Well someone pointed out today that if you took "VMS" and incremented each
letter forward by one you get "WNT".
Chalk one up for Dave Cutler. I hate to blow the cover on this one so early.
I'm certain that everyone involved will deny this and claim this is just a
coincidence.
This is why the Unix guys all hate it so much. Clearly their subconscious
is flashing alarm signals at them, but they don't really understand why.
Well now you know.
And I thought they just wanted to dump out corrupted superblocks and inodes
for the rest of their lives.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 92 10:37:04 PDT
From: osc!strick (henry strickland -- strick@osc.com)
Subject: Will COBOL save SUN?
To: spaf
Blurb on the front of SunWorld magazine, April 1992 issue:
Will COBOL save SUN?
I looked; it's not an April Fool's joke. --strick
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 May 92 14:03:18 -0700
From: bostic@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: You can get a degree in that?
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU
>From the San Francisco Chronicle, page E3, 22 May 1992:
The Center for Media and Public Affairs studied [the Carson show]
from 1989 through this month and found that Leno averaged 9.6
political jokes per night compared with Carson's 6.4.
And Carson monologue scholar Herb Press says, "When Leno's on
every night, the jokes will carry even more weight because
frequency and continuity amplify controversies around particular
personalities or issues." Press, of the University of Florida
Information and Publication services, earned his master's
degree for a 1982 study of Carson's monologues.
------------------------------
From: lyndon@ampr.ab.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc
Subject: Re: Charging HT Nicads in Canada
Date: 28 May 92 01:20:25 GMT
kriss@austin.lockheed.com (R M Kriss) writes:
> I am planning a vacation to Calgary and would like to take my
> Icom 02AT with standard wall charger. Since I have never been
> to Canada I wonder if they use the same electrical outlets that
> will fit the Icom nicad charger?
No. You will require the track assembly from a snowmobile and a small
generator, plus a DC rectifier and some filter capacitors. To homebrew
up a charger that will work, attach the generator to the snowmobile
track using a pulley. The output from the generator runs through the
rectifier bridge and filter cap's, then to the battery pack. Current
regulation is accomplished by running a lead from the positive terminal
of the rectifier, via a variable resistor, to a suitable attachment
point on the sled dog. Decreasing the resistance will cause the sled dog
to run faster, thus increasing the charging current.
Don't forget your parka and a toque - it's gets down to 5-10 degrees
at night in Calgary this time of year.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 16:09:53 PDT
From: ames!scubed!megatek!fritzz (Friedrich Knauss)
Subject: Yucks submission
To: spaf
> From: Joe Wiggins <JWIGG@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU>
> Subject: One hundred sows and bucks.
>
> I'm told these are oronyms (not in my Random House unabridged).
> Only mildly amusing until you look at them in the context of
> voice recognition software/hardware.
Not included was one of my long time favorites:
You have an ice chest.
You have a nice chest.
------------------------------
End of Yucks Digest
------------------------------