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Yucks Digest V2 #42 (shorts)
Yucks Digest Thu, 30 Jul 92 Volume 2 : Issue 42
Today's Topics:
and the Foonley Award for Most Multiple Authors goes to...
atlanta
Bush's Recession
Colonic irrigations
Company PMS
Don't Believe Everything You Hear
Flies and Von Neumann
Funny for Yucks
How do porcupines mate?
Gentle Sex and the Franklin Mint
Gibson's Agrippa
HELP! Usenet testing
Male Models
News of the Weird, 25 July 1992
Ode on a Grecian Spleen
People with disabilities (mental division)
second-hand news
Stupid e-mail...
Top Ten Reasons for P5 delays
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: Tue, 21 Jul 92 15:49:47 -0400
From: Patrick Tufts" <zippy@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu>
Subject: and the Foonley Award for Most Multiple Authors goes to...
>Newsgroups: comp.parallel
>From: vu0208@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu (!)
>Subject: need these papers
>Organization: State University of New York at Binghamton
>Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1992 21:16:37 GMT
[....]
Title: "The Network Architecture of the Connection Machine CM-5"
Authors: C. Leiserson, Z.S. Abuhamdeh, D. Douglas, C.R. Feynmann, M.
Ganmukhi, J. Hill, W.D. Hillis, B. Kuszmaul, M. St. Pierre, D. Wells,
M. Wong, S-W Yang, R. Zak, TMC.
[....]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 00:20:42 -0700
From: James Landay <landay@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: atlanta
To: various
* Among the information that came to light in April as
a result of Atlanta's new government officials'
financial disclosure law was the existence the city's
not-well-known "Board of Astrology." The Associated
Press could find no records of the board at City Hall
but concluded after interviewing its three smoked-out
members that the board administers tests to, and
licenses, prospective astrologers. [AP wirecopy, 4-27- 92]
------------------------------
Date: 25 Jul 92 08:30:03 GMT
From: IRVINMJ@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU (Michael J. Irvin, WSU, 509/335-0437)
Subject: Bush's Recession
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Source: Jay Leno
All the presidential candidates agree that President Bush is responsible
for the recession -- which is unfair. Come on, he wasn't even in the
country when it was going on.
------------------------------
Date: 22 Jul 92 22:37:02 GMT
Subject: Colonic irrigations
Newsgroups: sci.med
In article <j4cm#df@lynx.unm.edu> bhjelle@triton.unm.edu writes:
>
>So for just $49.95 I will send you a package of "colon floss" and
>a "colon brush" designed to keep your colon free of lint, plaque,
>decaying matter, beer bottles, televisions, etc.
One of my favorite xrays from medical school showed a quart
bottle of mayonaise in the transverse colon. The patient claimed
to have accidentally sat on it and the laws of physics had done
the rest. We didn't quite belive him. The bottle was full and
unopened. We don't know if the surgeon who removed it took it
home or what....
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 23:34:52 CDT
From: meo@pencom.com (Miles O'Neal)
Subject: Company PMS
To: spaf (Yucks List)
Mail Delivery Subsystem said...
|
| ----- Transcript of session follows -----
|421 pms020.pms.ford.com: Host pms020.pms.ford.com is down
Ford's network has PMS and won't have anything
to do with me today...
"Not right now, I have a terrible nodeache."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 12:43:57 -0500
From: brennan@hal.com (Dave Brennan)
Subject: Don't Believe Everything You Hear
To: spaf
Condensed from Reader's Digest :-)
The full moon makes people crazy.
There have been numerous attempts to charge the moon with inciting murder or
suicide. Most research studies, particularly the recent ones, find no
significant relationship whatsoever.
Some writers have looked at the number of injured people showing up at a
hospital emergency rooms, at assassinations and railroad disasters, and even at
the number of penalties in hockey games. The results: nothing. In a systematic
review of 37 studies, James Rotton of Florida International University and Ivan
Kelly of the University of Saskatchewan, two tireless investigators of lunatic
claims, couldn't find evidence of a special lunar effect. The only meaningful
correlation they came up with was between belief in a moon effect and belief in
things like reincarnation.
Says Kelly, "There's a build-in bias. If a person already believes that the
full moon has an effect, he will be more vigilant and notice what happens then.
But no one says, `What an uneventful night -- and it's a full moon!'"
[You mean I have to find another reason for chasing cars and peeing on
fire hydrants? --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: 21 Jul 92 23:30:03 GMT
From: wchaga@vela.acs.oakland.edu (William C. Haga)
Subject: Flies and Von Neumann
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
A true story:
I was discussing brain teasers with Professor N (of the
Math Department) and Mr. Smith (a computer science student
and hacker) in my university office. We had just discussed
the problem of the house fly that travels back and forth
between two bicycles that are approaching each other until
the fly can travel no more. The hard way to figure out how
far the fly travels in total is to solve an infinite
series. The easy way is to figure out how much time it
takes for the bikes to crash into each other, then multiply
that by the speed the fly had been traveling.
After that discussion, I told the story of how a student
had approached John Von Neumann, the brilliant
mathematician and computer scientist, with this same
problem. Von Neumann gave the correct answer almost
immediately. The embarrassed student started to say how
most people don't realize that there is an easier solution
than to solve the infinite series, when Von Neumann
interrupted him to say, "What do you mean? That is how I
solved it!"
Mr. Smith looked confused. "Who is this Von Neumann guy?"
he asked.
Professor N, absolutely appalled that a computer science
student wouldn't know the legend of John Von Neumann,
exclaimed, "Who is Von Neumann! Why, he's the person most
responsible for what you've been playing with these past
several years!"
Whereupon Mr. Smith's jaw dropped in amazement, as he
looked down at his crotch.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 10:02:09 -0500
From: heaphy (Kathleen A. Heaphy)
Subject: Funny for Yucks
To: spaf
from AG a.m., Monday, July 27, 1992
NEW PURDUE CHAIRMAN PROFILED (New York Times, 7/26) -- Frank
Purdue's [sic] son James, who is completing his first year as
chairman of the poultry giant, is reported building on his
father's groundwork by focusing on quality and strategic
planning.
[Well, he's made a big first step -- he's started spelling his name
as Purdue instead of Perdue, thus confusing the NY Times. --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: 21 Jul 1992 14:21:06 U
From: "Chuq von Rospach" <chuq_von_rospach@gateway.qm.apple.com>
Subject: FWD>How do porcupines mate?
To: "Gene Spafford" <spaf>
THE STRAIGHT DOPE
Cecil Adams
9/15/92
So how do porcupines mate?
Well, one account of porcupine romance (in North American Porcupine, Uldis
Roze, 1989) does begin this way: "Somewhere ahead, a porcupine is screaming."
But it's not what you think. The screaming porcupine is a female letting an
ardent male know she's not in the mood. Male porcupines may give vent to the
occasional scream as well, but it's from frustration, not pain: the female is
only sexually receptive 8 to 12 hours a year.
Porcupine sex is not the exercise in S and M you might imagine, but it does
have its kinky aspects. I quote from Roze: "Perhaps the strangest interaction
is the male urine-hosing of the female. The male approaches on his hind legs
and tail; grunting in a low tone. His penis springs erect. He then becomes a
urine cannon, squirting high-pressure jets of urine at the female. Everything
suggests the urine is fired by ejaculation, not released by normal bladder
pressure... In less than a minute, a female may be thoroughly wetted from nose to
tail."
So much for foreplay. If the female decides now is the time, she hoists up her
rump a bit and raises her tail, the underside of which is quill-less, and
curves it up over her back, covering the quills and exposing her genitalia. The
male then approaches gingerly from the rear, walking on his hind legs and
taking care to touch nothing with his forepaws but the safe part of the tail.
The relevant apparatus having been lined up, docking occurs, followed by
"violent orgasm" as the male unloads a year's worth of jism. The act lasts two
to five minutes and may be repeated several times during the half-day window of
opportunity.
All in all, it makes me think my first time wasn't so bad. But the porcupines
probably like it just fine, Ms. Porcupine especially. As our author notes, "the
female cannot be raped." If she doesn't like the look of one of her suitors, a
swipe with her tail will cool his ardor fast.
It's also worth noting that the tip of the porcupine penis is covered with
small spines or bumps, something humans can duplicate only through the use of
certain brands of prophylactic. "Undoubtedly the structures add something to
the female's sensation during coitus," says Rose, "but it is not known whether
they help induce orgasm." Maybe it's not. But I find it interesting that once
things get rolling the female is insatiable and will mate until the male is
sexually exhausted.
The real problem for the male porcupine isn't getting intimate with the female
but surviving the bar fights with his male rivals beforehand. Roze reports
coming upon the scene of an interporcupine slugfest where three males had
fought it out for the favors of one female. The ground was littered with nearly
1,500 quills, and a few more could be seen in the nose of the apparent victor.
How much easier to be a male human, where all you have to do to ensure
reproductive success is buy a Mercedes. [or BMW]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 92 7:34:05 EDT
From: our man in the field
Subject: Gentle Sex and the Franklin Mint
[....]
One of my co-workers [...] once worked for PENTHOUSE. Apparently, the
letters sent to PENTHOUSE and to PENTHOUSE FORUM are *really* unsolicited
manuscripts. And they're full of the cliches of the genre. At one point,
[he] tells me, he and other PENTHOUSE editors were sitting around
reading through the Forum submissions, and suddenly they all looked up at
each other. In unison, they quoted: "Needless to say ...."
["...it was the best of lines, it was the worst of lines...."
Editor's comments on the opening sentence of "Tale of Two Titties."
(Yes, that was awful, but I couldn't restrain myself. Must be a full
moon.) --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 12:35:13 PDT
From: landman%xpoint@uunet.UU.NET (Howard Landman)
Subject: Gibson's Agrippa
To: eniac
I just saw a description of William Gibson's latest work, Agrippa, which is
billed as a "read-once" novel. It comes on a floppy disk, encrypted, and the
decryption program erases the text after it has been displayed on the screen.
(Presumably there must be some sort of copy-protection as well?)
It is packaged with a set of etchings which, if I understood correctly, are
printed in a light-sensitive manner so that they decay with exposure to light.
In short, the whole work is designed as far as possible to be usable once or
a few times and then self-destruct. It comes in two versions: the "cheap"
version is $450 and the "fancy" version (comes with metal box) is $1500.
I think I'll wait until I can get it at a used book store. :-)
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jul 92 18:31:33 GMT
From: towolt@bunsen.lerc.nasa.gov (John Wolter)
Subject: HELP! Usenet testing
Newsgroups: alt.drugs.usenet
I've heard that if you read a newspaper in front of a computer screen
you will register a false positive for USENET usage. Is this true?
Does anyone know of ways to beat USENET testing?
"I had it up on the screen, but I didn't read it."
[Yet another odd Usenet newsgroup.... --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 15:23:33 -0400
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Male Models
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
One particularly humorous moment on USENET was when someone created
alt.models and about 24 hours later the subjects looked sorta like
this (if you ate around the noise):
Subject: Kathy Ireland pics?
Subject: Messerschmidt G47 Released!
Subject: Christie Retiring?
Subject: Anyone have wind/current data for Adriatic (1988-90?)
Subject: USS Enterprise 1::250, why multiple decal sets?
Subject: Opinions on CM-5 Data Visualization packages?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 15:53:56 GMT
From: Bill.Wisner@EBay.Sun.COM (Bill Wisner)
Subject: News of the Weird, 25 July 1992
To: eniac@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Japan Efficiency Headquarters, an "entertainment business company" in
Chiba, Japan, rents "family members" out to senior citizens who would
like to enjoy the benefits of a close-knit family from time to time.
Typically, a husband, wife and child are requested, and have been trained
by the company to engage in family-type activities as if everyone in the
room were related. The typical cost for three hours is $1,100.
--
At the recently opened Talamore golf course in Southern Pines, N.C., golfers
have the choice of renting a golf cart to transport their clubs -- or a
llama. A representative said the club gets about two requests a month
for llama service -- at $400 per foursome.
--
Ring magazine reported that boxer Daniel Caruso, moments before the bell
to begin his New York City Golden Gloves fight in January, tried to psyche
himself up by using the method employed by former champion Marvin Hagler --
pounding his gloves into his face. Caruso broke his own nose, forcing
cancellation of the fight.
--
Researchers at Merck, Sharp & Dohme pharmaceutical house, seeking a powerful
blood coagulant, are studying a "provocative and interesting" new substance:
vampire-bat saliva. Preliminary research on rabbits showed the saliva to
be several times more effective than the next best substance.
--
In April, the daily Nashville Tennessean newspaper disclosed that Domino's
pizza dealers in the area had a policy of refusing to deliver pizzas to
certain predominantly black neighborhoods. As the weekly Nashville Scene
newspaper reported two weeks later, the Tennessean, itself, has a policy of
discouraging home delivery subscriptions of the paper to the very same areas.
--
Willie R. Love was charged in May with the stabbing death of apartment-house
neighbor Karen Jaster, 39, in Madison, Wis. The two had been feuding over
each other's loud music, and Jaster had kept her stereo on full blast for 36
straight hours to annoy love.
--
A keynote speaker at a November international lung cancer conference in
Melbourne, Australia, reported that as many as a fourth of the 1,200 delegates
spent their time during breaks in the program by smoking.
--
In May, Peru billed the United States for $20,000, which it says were the
costs incurred while cleaning up the remains of a U.S. Air Force Plane that
crashed in the country and for medical bills for the injured crew.
The aircraft, a U.S. drug surveillance plane that was unarmed, was shot down
by Peruvian air force fighter jets. One crewman was killed and four were
wounded.
--
Researchers in Connecticut, writing in the February Hospital and Community
Psychiatry, reported that patients in psychiatric wards who constantly
watched MTV suffered psychological deterioration. Signs of deterioration
were increased hallucinations, belligerence and hostility toward staff
(especially female staff). When MTV was banned, patients' frequency of
aggressiveness was reduced.
--
Joe Chagra filed in April for readmission to the Texas State Bar. He faces
long odds. Chagra resigned from the bar in 1983, just in time to avoid being
disciplined, after he had been found guilty of conspiracy in the death of
the federal judge who was scheduled to hear a drug charge against Chagra's
brother.
------------------------------
Date: 21 Jul 92 20:03:29 GMT
From: crick@tsp.med.umn.edu (Ed Crick (CD))
Subject: Ode on a Grecian Spleen
Newsgroups: alt.spleen
Shall I compare thee spleen, to a summer's day?
Thou art more red and vascularized than my mother's leg.
Fair winds do shake the darling cells of spleen,
and summer's spleen hast too short a sheen.
Spleen, spleen burning bright in the body out of sight,
what immortal cytokine dare frame thy fearful lymphocyte?
[Are the newsgroups getting stranger and stranger, or what? --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 09:28:23 -0400
From: Joel B Levin <levin@BBN.COM>
Subject: People with disabilities (mental division)
To: eniac
NPR did a story yesterday about how people with mental disabilities of
various sorts are being rehabilitated at Lotus. They brought
manufacturing of software packages in house and staffed it, with the
help of the Greater Boston Rehabilitation Services, with people with,
among other things, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and severe
learning disabilities (those with severe mental illness were
recovering). It sounded like a good program, helping a lot of people
who previously couldn't work or who lost their jobs because of illness
get back on their feet.
They did quote the woman from GBRS as saying that one of her jobs was
to make sure people with compatible problems worked together.
It's not a good idea to place a person who hears voices next to a
person who mumbles.
[Lily Tomlin suggested some years ago that NY City ought to pair up all
the street people who mumbled to themselves so they'd look like they
were having conversations.... --spaf]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 11:28:43 EST
From: Christopher <CHWALKER@ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: second-hand news
To: eniac@eniac
I'm cataloging an incompluete run (on microfilm, ugh) of
the Charleston, S.C. CITY GAZETTE for 1787-1797, and just
noticed that they've passed on to subscribers a notice they
found in the London papers that the Scots have passed an
ordinance forbidding clergymen to wear wigs, on the grounds
that the persons from who the hair came might be in Hell.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 15:59:32 EDT
From: Brian 'Doc' O'Neill <oneill@cs.ulowell.edu>
Subject: Stupid e-mail...
To: spaf
After a really bad day, sometimes the less clueful users can help alleviate
some of the tension with their e-mail...there is occasionally something good
that comes out of being on the root mailing list...the following was just
received by me...the older UNIX hackers will recognize the subject as being
the automatic message generated by vi when it gets terminated...
>To: root
>Subject: Re: editor saved ``prog4''
>
>Thats ok I dont need it, thanks anyway - [name removed]
------------------------------
Date: 28 Jul 92 07:20:09 GMT
From: risky.Convergent.COM!israel@unislc.slc.unisys.com (Paul Israel)
Subject: Top Ten Reasons for P5 delays
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
This is an original from me. Honest.
Top Ten Reasons Why Intel Delayed Announcing the P5
10. Ad managers wanted time to think up a better name
for "MESI" cache coherency.
9. Hoped to outfox AMD this time by waiting for them to
release their 'P5' first.
8. Still trying to figure out how to mount a 3 foot high
cooling tower on a 2" square package.
7. Marketing's prediction that all of IBM's top executives
would be killed by space aliens, followed by IBM engineering's
insistence on a return to an Intel strategy, did not appear
to pan out.
6. Sales force needs to be retrained to sell a processor
that doesn't end in "86".
5. Can never seem to squeeze in enough byte enables.
4. Military insisted at the last minute on 8080 compatability
mode.
3. New "Break on stupid code" exception not popular with
programmers.
2. All those millions of dollars in processor R&D were
cutting into the CEO's Christmas bonus.
1. Needed to hire more lawyers first.
------------------------------
End of Yucks Digest
------------------------------