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Yucks Digest V2 #59
Yucks Digest Mon, 7 Dec 92 Volume 2 : Issue 59
Today's Topics:
administrivia
"ZEN AND THE ART OF SLACK" (repost)
Favorite College Practical Jokes...
from the latest mondo 2000
how to succeed in business without really washing
Karnivore Krusaders
Life With Mr. Wizard
Longest word (was Filesystem vs file system)
OK, OK, some new ones...
Laws of the Land
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: Mon Dec 7 00:11:20 EST 1992
From: spaf
Subject: administrivia
To: Yucksters
Over the next few weeks, I will be trying to reduce my backlog of
submissions. I have things that were sent to Yucks over the last year
that were either too long or needed some editing to put into the
digest, so I archived them for later use. The archive is now so large
I need to reduce it some. Thus, this digest and some of the ones
following.
Keep sending your submissions!
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1992 22:46:06 GMT
From: kibo@world.std.com (James 'Kibo' Parry)
Subject: "ZEN AND THE ART OF SLACK" (repost)
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,alt.slack
ZEN AND THE ART OF SLACK
========================
by James "Kibo" Parry
My mantra is "mantra, dammit".
As I sit here on my zafu (that's a Zen meditation pillow stuffed
with tofu), I reach satori even though I live downstairs from the
demolition derby rink.
I feel a oneness with the itch in my first chakra. I feel a oneness
with the Pet Rock I used to own. I feel a twoness with myself.
I realize that everything is either something or a hole in
something. Or, perhaps, everything is one big hole and the somethings
are holes within the hole. I shift my weight imperceptibly and the zafu
makes a fart noise.
Upstairs, two old Trans Ams, surplus from "Knight Rider", collide.
I can hear the sound of my blood moving through my inner ears. I
realize that everything which exists is made up of little dots arranged
in diagonal rows. A cockroach runs across the floor and into my zafu.
I realize that "Bob"'s teeth are clenched and his Pipe is not
between them. The teeth are joined and the Pipe ends in front of them.
His nose casts a shadow on the Pipe and the Pipe casts a shadow on his
chin but they do not touch. I have reached enfuckinglightenment!
As I nearly fall off my zafu, it farts again, blowing the cockroach
into the next room.
There once was a novice monk named Bho Zho who asked the master,
"Does a house burn up or burn down?"
The master set fire to the novice's house, after taking all his
money. As the house burned both up and down, the novice was
enlightened.
I bow to the Sacred Halftone Print of "Bob" to thank him for the
enlightenment. As I do so, "Bob"'s face shimmers and blurs before my
face. All I see is the Dots but not the Smile. All I see is the Smile
without the Dots. I see both. I see neither. I see the hair of Desi
Arnaz, the eyes and mouth of Pee-wee Herman, the jaw of Jay Leno all
combined in a blender: "Bob".
"Bob" is before me and I am "Bob" and yesterday is tomorrow and I
am the walrus mama dada googoo chihuahuahuahua ommmmmmmmm
"Yo! Yo! Stop with the satoiri already!" "Bob" steps out of the
picture, slaps me, and pours himself a Dr Pepper. He sits on my zafu,
which makes a sound like a tuba. I sit on a tatami which is beginning
to sprout. "Bob" looks me in the eye.
"Cool it with the meditation, guy, it's dull. It's `Bosom Buddies'
without the laughtrack. It's the sound of one lip chapping. It's a
bicycle riding a fish, a steamroller being run over by a birthday cake.
It just doesn't compare to the fun stuff, especially sex."
I avoid meeting "Bob"'s gaze as I whisper, "He who claims someone
does not have Buddha-nature has no Buddha-nature."
"Hey, it's easier to say `Slack' than `Buddha-nature', you know. Or
`swellness'. They're all the same thing. You're on a true path to
enlightenment, but true paths have true dirt and true mosquitoes... false
paths are much better. Give me your money now."
"I have no money, just one zafu, one tatami, my oryoki, this setsu
stick, an inflatable Buddha, a tofu log, all three "Sweatin' to the
Oldies" tapes, a disposable zabuton, a pile of bulk miso, my
Zen-to-English dictionary..."
"AND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE!" "Bob" waggles his eyebrows and
smiles. "But seriously, pal, I'll take it all and pretend it's cash
equivalent. Hey, after I take your zafu, I'll even give you a receipt.
Get it? Re-seat!"
"Bob" packs all my worldly possessions into his seemingly
bottomless pockets and he leads me out of the monastery. Milliseconds
later, a black Trans Am falls through the ceiling, crashing right where
we had been sitting. It yells insults at us as we walk to the pebble
garden.
"This eggplant in my pocket is like an elephant," said Bhoddyohdor.
"Yet this elephant in my pocket is like a pair of wax lips,"
replied Tai Dhee Bhoul.
Just then, Master Rhais Ahroni strolled past. "Tell us," begged
Bhoddyohdor and Tai Dhee Bhoul, "Is the eggplant like the elephant
which is like the wax lips, or should we just go watch sitcoms all
day?"
The master ate the eggplant, shot the elephant, and got germs on
the wax lips. The novices were not enlightened. The master laughed.
"Bob" is using my rake to draw Snoopy in my pebble garden. "So,
Kibo, why the heck do you have all these pebbles filling up a perfectly
good wading pool?"
"Raking the pebbles is a task which accomplishes nothing. The goal
is to clear the mind by doing nothing."
"Um, hey, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't `doing nothing' doing
something? So by doing nothing, you're doing something, therefore
you're not accomplishing the nothing in the first place! You can't not
do anything."
He is clearly suffering from Buddha called dhiarrhea of the mouth.
I say, "You have Bozo-nature."
"Of course. Because if I said I were not a bozo, I would be proving
myself to be a bozo! Now, are you a bozo?"
At that moment, the enlightenment clears from my mind and I devolve
to a lower plane of being. "Bob" congratulates me by giving me a wig
like his. We go out for a beer.
"What is the meaning of this story?" asked the novice. "Also, what
is the sound of one hand clapping, and what's a zabuton? Why does Fox
cancel all its shows every season? And why the hell does your Pipe's
stem hover a quarter-inch in front of your mouth?"
"Slack," said the master. "Pure, unadulterated slack. But I lie."
At that moment, the novice dropped dead before finishing this sto
------------------------------
Date: 12 Mar 92 22:23:54 GMT
From: wayner@cs.cornell.edu (Peter Wayner)
Subject: Favorite College Practical Jokes...
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.college
At my undergraduate institution (not Cornell) the campus security was
pretty fun group of guys who like a good prank as much as the next.
We would usually call up the campus emergency number and try the old
faithfuls. (Asking if there is a Dick Hurtz registered there, etc...)
The guys would always laugh along with the gag. The especially liked
it when we ordered them a pizza, but we stopped that gag after we
received a $9.95 entry on our bursar bill for "Security Services."
They had tracked us down.
One time, though, they almost lost their sense of humor. It turned out
that a big wig foreign diplomat was coming to give a speech on the
state of world affairs or something like that. The Vice-President was
going to come along and say something important. Of course we were
planning to go, but we wanted to pull a big gag on Bill, the Assistant
Head of Security. He was going to be sitting on the stage between the
two.
Well, to make a long story short, my roommate Bob and I got all
dressed up in our camoflage fatigues and set out through the campus
steam tunnels. (We had mapped these out early in our Freshman year and
we knew them like the back of our hand. They were a great place to
bring a date.) The campus had set up an ersatz stage in the middle of
one of the quadrangles. The security forces had cordoned off the
quadrangle and they had even locked up all of the offices with windows
overlooking the quad. They forgot about the steam tunnel manhole that
opened up under the stage. We popped out very quietly and we
wiggled to the edge of the stage where Bill was sitting listening the
police radio with his earphone. The next thing we knew, three secret
service guys jumped on top of us and started wrestling us to the
ground. We were yelling, "Bill. It's us. Save us. It's okay. We're
friendly." They had us in hammerlocks immediately and they ripped open
the pizza box expecting to discover an uzi or something. Unfortunately
all of the scuffling had knocked the cheese off the pizza. (They
always use too much sauce at our local za factory. Great crust
though.) The Secret Service guys didn't take too kindly to our
shenanigans and it probably took Bill a half hour of talking before
they unhooked the cuffs.
You would think it would end there, but no. They took us back to our
dorm room and started questioning us. Unfortunately, Bob and I were
taking Introduction to Communism that semester from one of the
Left-wing professors in the Politics department. We had decided that
just reading Marx wasn't enough. We were going to "live it." So when
they came over to the dorm room they didn't find just the usual
stereos and Hot Steaming Babe posters. We had ripped out all the
furniture and there were just two matresses on the floor and a pile of
black turtlenecks and black jeans in the corner. Bill had three great
posters of Che' Grevera, Fidel Castro and Karl Marx on the wall. To
make matters worse, we had gotten drunk last weekend and taken a can
of red spray paint and written "Die you scum sucking, Capitalist
Leeches" on the wall. This did not go over too well with the big guys
from Washington. We tried to explain, but it took a long time to
convince them that we were just red blooded American boys who voted
for Reagan.
But no, they had to dig further. They called up the Professor of the
class and dragged him down to our room. You would think he would say,
"Oh those crazy kids. They just took my lessons a bit too seriously.
But they're okay. It's all in fun. Peristroika reigns now." Nope. He
was a real radical who had never really recovered from the 60's. When
he saw our room, he said, "Magnificent. It is about time that someone
listened to my lectures. These boys are some of my best students and
this is the worst case of police brutality I've ever seen." He went on
and on and made things even worse by talking about Kent State and that
sort of thing. This made the government guys even more nervous because
they weren't sure if they had stumbled onto a ring of communist wackos
who really were to do more than deliver a pizza. We tried to distance
ourselves from him, but it was going no where fast.
Then things got really bad. Roger, my other roommate, was a physics
major who took great pride in his work. He wasn't a geek, though,
because he liked to experiment on his own. We thought this was great
fun because he took us along when he made exploding jello and stuff
like that. But lately he had been taking a nuclear physics class and
apparently he had been swiping some of the samples from the lab class.
One of the Secret Service guys had a geiger counter built into his
James Bond issue watch. When he walked by Roger's room it just went
crazy. We were pretty pissed off at Roger because he told us that he
wasn't going to do anything that might hurt our potential progeny.
(Even though we were doing everything in our power to avoid having them
right now.) Suddenly we were a really dangerous communist cell that
was building an atomic bomb in our dorm room.
I wish I could tell you how we got out of it, but I just don't have
time. The Professor had called his buddies at the Law School who were
in the ACLU and they were yammering about the 5th ammendment. The
Secret Service decided that nuclear bombs were just too big for them to
handle and they sent back the local bomb squad and called in the
super-secret anti-terrorist squad from the local army base. Meanwhile,
campus security discovered that we had an illegal toaster in our room.
Ack...
------------------------------
Date: 29 Apr 1992 13:10:33 -0500 (EST)
From: the aspiring guru of all creation <EGLI_PAUL_A@LILLY.COM>
Subject: from the latest mondo 2000
To: eniac
from "talk nerdy to me" in mondo 2000 n3...
Big Room, the: n. The one with the blue ceiling and intensely bright light
during the day and black ceiling with many tiny night-
lights at night, found outside all computer installations.
"He can't come to the phone right now; I think he's out
in the Big Room."
bit rot: n. also bit decay. Hypothetical disease whose existance has been
deduced from the observation that unused programs or features
will often stop working after sufficient time has passed,
even though in the interim nothing has changed. The theory
posits that bits decay randomly, as if they were radioactive.
casters-up mode: n. Yet another synonym for broken or down.
cruncha cruncha cruncha: interj. An encouragement sometimes muttered to
to a machine bogged down in a serious grind.
documentation: n. The multikilos of macerated, pounded, steamed, bleached,
and pressed trees that accompany most soft- or hardware
products. Hackers seldom read paper documentation and often
resist writing it; they prefer it to be terse and online.
A common comment on this is "You can't grep dead trees."
drool-proof paper: n. Documentation which has been obsessively "dumbed-
down", to the point where only a cretin could bear to read it,
is said to have been "written on drool-proof paper". For
example, this is an actual quote from Apple's LaserWriter
manual: "Do not expose your LaserWriter to open fire or
flame."
feature shock: n. A user's confusion when confronted with a package that
has too many features and poor introductroy material.
flame war: n. An acrimonious dispute conducted by flamers who are flaming
each other with flamage, especially when staged on a public
electronic forum such as USENET.
fuggly: adj. Emphatic form of ugly -- funky + ugly. Unusually for hacker
slang, this may actually derive from black street jive. To
say it properly, the first syllable should be growled rather
than spoken. Usage: humorous. "Man, the ASCII-to-EBCDIC
code in the printer driver is fuggly."
geek out: v. To temporarily enter techno-nerd mode while in a non-hackish
context, for example at social gatherings held near computer
equipment.
godzillagram: n. 1. a network packet that in theory is broadcast to every
machine in the universe. The typical case of this is an IP
datagram whose destination IP address is [255,255,255,255].
Fortunately, few gateways are foolish enough to attempt to
implement this. 2. A network packet for maximum size. An
IP godzillagram has 65,536 octets.
hamster: n. A particularly slick little piece of code that does one thing
well; a small, self-contained hack. The image is of a hamster
happily spinning its exercise wheel.
heisenbug: n. A bug that disappears or alters its behaviour when one attempts
to probe or isolate it. Antonym of Bohr bug. See also
mandelbug.
liveware: n. 1. synonym for wetware. 2. vermin. "Waiter, there's some
liveware in my salad."
lunatic fringe: n. Customers who can be relied upon to accept your release
1.0 versions of software.
mandelbug: n. A bug whose underlying causes are so complex and obscure as to
make its behaviour appear chaotic or even totally non-
deterministic.
marketroid [alt. marketing slime, marketing droid, marketeer]: n. A member of
a company's marketing department, esp. one who promises users
that the next version of a product will have features that are
not actually scheduled for inclusion, are extremely difficult
to implement, and/or violate the laws of physics (see vapor-
ware). Derogatory.
Microsloth Windows: n. Hackerism for Microsoft Windows, a windowing system
for the IBM PC which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility
with mess-dos (MS-DOS) that it is agonizingly slow on anything
less than a fast '386.
Mongolian Hordes technique: n. Development by gang bang. Implies that large
numbers of inexperienced programmers are being put on a job
better performed by a few skilled ones.
mouse droppings: n. Pixels, usually single, that are not properly restored
when the mouse moves away from a particular location on the
screen, making is appear that the mouse pointer has left a
trail of scat.
nyetwork: n. A network, when it is acting flaky or is down.
sagan: n. A large quantity of anything.
shelfware: n. Software purchased on a whim (by an individual user) or in
accordance to policy (by a corporation or government), but
not actually required for any particular use. It is installed
only on a shelf.
sneakernet: n. Term used (generally with ironic intent) for transfer of
electronic information by physically carrying tape, disks, or
some other media from one machine to another. "Never
underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with
magtape, or a 747 filled with CD-ROMs."
troglodyte mode: n. Programming with the lights off, sunglasses on, and the
terminal inverted because you've been up for so many days
straight that your eyes hurt (see raster burn). Loud music
blaring from a stereo stacked in a corner is optional but
recommended. See hack mode and larval stage.
wave a dead chicken: v. To perform a ritual over crashed software or hard-
ware which one believes to be futile but is nonetheless
obligatory so that others may be satisfied that an appropriate
degree of effort has been expended.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 14:37:04 BST
From: smith@canon.co.uk (Mark Smith)
Subject: how to succeed in business without really washing
To: eniac
Encouraged by a cover promising lots of bitchy whining from
highly-placed but anonymous sources, I recently waded through
a book about Bill Gates and Microsoft with the astoundingly
banal title of "Hard Drive". Presumably, this was the winner
from their computer-related-pun short list, although I would
have chosen "Scuzzy Drive" for all the right reasons.
On the whole, it was rather disappointing, marred by the usual
errors that seem to crop up regularly now that human proofreaders
have been replaced by programs with names like SpelChekk 4, the
confusion of "principle" and "principal" being a case in point,
although fortunately, the word isn't needed much. The reference
to the University of Waterloo as a "small college near Toronto"
also suggests a certain slackness in the research department.
Much of my disappointment was due to the fact that the authors
chose not to devote more of their financial and investigative
resources to the crucial issue of Bill's personal hygiene, surely
an industry standard in its own right. To save anyone else time
and money, here's the stinky bit:
On the day of the shoot, Gates was wearing a green sweater
with the Microsoft logo. He had been told specifically to
wear something casual for the photo session, which was to be
done in his office. While his office was being set up, Gates
left, telling one of his employees that he couldn't stand to
see so many people standing around with so little to do with
their time. An hour or so later, when everything had been
properly arranged, Gates was brought back in. He got into
position and held up the newspaper as directed. But there
was a very visible hole under the armpit of his sweater.
Rather than telling Gates he had a hole in his sweater, the
Wall Street Journal people said the shot wasn't going to work
from that angle and they needed him to hold up the paper with
the other hand. They explained that it would take a few minutes
to rearrange the lighting.
"By this time, Bill was very, very irritated. But he
came back in and held up the paper with his other arm, and
lo and behold there was an even bigger hole in his sweater
under that armpit. So they said, 'Bill, Bill, look, this
sweater is just too dark on the film.'" The shot had to be
done without the sweater, Gates was told. So he took off
the sweater and held up the paper and there was a huge, ugly
stain under the armpit of his shirt.
"The people from the paper told Bill there was something
wrong with the camera and they needed to have a meeting out-
side. By this time, Bill was really hacked off," recalled the
Microsoft manager. "Everybody went out into the hallway and
this one woman told me, 'We just had to get some ventilation
in that office! It smelled so bad I thought I was going to
be sick.' Well, for us that was pretty much par for the course."
Having done something like this once before, the handler
from Microsoft went down the hall to find someone about the
same size as Gates. The employee was brought back to Gates'
office, and Gates was told the color of his shirt was wrong.
He and the employee were asked to exchange shirts. Finally,
everything was set, and the shooting commenced. But after
only a couple of shots Gates had had enough, and he angrily
told everyone in the room to clear out. "Why don't you people
go make a better living and leave me to make mine," he said.
The session was over.
What I really wanted to know, and what the authors sadly failed
to discover, was: what's it like exchanging shirts with Bill Gates?
I mean, what did the hapless employee do? Did he go back to work?
Did he explain why he suddenly smelled like a tomcat's arse? Did
he stand around waiting for his shirt back? Did Bill stink up that
shirt as well? More importantly, if the "handler" had indeed "done
something like this once before", was it the same victim both times?
If you worked for Microsoft, and you knew Bill was doing a photo shoot
that day, what would -you- wear to the office?
Sadly, these questions and many more are left hanging in the air like,
well, like a bad smell.
------------------------------
Date: 18 Jun 92 10:25:55 GMT
From: francis@ircam.fr (Joseph Francis)
Subject: Karnivore Krusaders
Newsgroups: sci.med
In article <16807966A.LMEANS@cmsa.gmr.com> LMEANS@cmsa.gmr.com writes:
>I've been vegetarian for about 15 years. I have done very little
>to try to influence what others eat, except in my own home. When
>my husband and I were married, I insisted that we maintain a
>vegetarian home, which was my status quo before the marriage. The
>necessary consequence is that my husband is an at-home vegetarian,
>our two children are vegetarian, and guests eat vegetarian food
>in our home.
>
>I do expect to become somewhat more of a vegetarian activist over
>time. My reason for preferring that fewer people eat meat is not
>concern for other individuals' health or personal karma. It is
>concern for the planet's karma.
>
>Vegetarianism is a way of reducing the amount of violence in the
>world. Creating a more compassionate ambience worldwide benefits
>all mankind, as well as other creatures. The larger a portion of
>the world population is vegetarian, the smaller portion is meat-eating,
>and the fewer animals are bred to be enslaved, tortured, and
>slaughtered, all needlessly. The more people who recognize this,
>the less violent the human mindset. It is one possible path to
>world peace. I consider it a noble pursuit.
I've been a carnivore for about 29 years. I have done very little to
influence what other's eat, except to make sure that no one around me
goes without cooked flesh at every opportunity, along with my
wrinkling my nose and making rude remarks if they don't go along with
the game, and especially in my own home. I insist that everyone in my
home eat high-vitamin red meats. Guests often eat delicious meats in
my home, from delicious German sausages, exotic oriental concoctions,
to basic entrecotes and roasts.
I do expect to become somewhat more of a carnivore activist over time,
because of the number of people who confuse slaughtering animals with
slaughtering humans, that is to say, they see essentially no
difference between Sarajevo and a kosher deli. My reason for
preferring that more people eat meat is concern for other individual's
health and personal karma. They should cathect their violent
tendencies in a good plate of steak tartare instead of on the streets,
and also, they should reduce those bloating high-carbohydrate
high-vegetable diets with satiating vitamin and fatty-acid rich meats.
Carnivorism is a way of reducing the amount of violence in the world.
If everyone was satiated with enough vitamins and minerals, which
can't be ingested in a more concentrated, efficient form than red
meats, then strife and anger over resource competition will continue.
Creating a more generous, well-fed and healthy ambience worldwide
benefits all humankind, as well as other creatures. The larger a
portion a portion of the world population is meat-eating, and the
smaller portion is vegetarian, and the fewer people who are enslaved
and tortured because there isn't enough highly nutritious food to go
around, and others who are forced to grow inefficiently nutritive
foods like high-carbohydrate grain crops, all needlessly. The more
people who realize that contentment stemming from a delicious
high-vitamin, high-mineral, high-protein red meat dinner will reduce
violence and contribute towards greater world peace, the more quickly
this will become a better place for all of us.
Remember: most of the world is vegetarian out of scarcity, not out of
religious 'karmic' values. Do you want to identify yourself with
individuals from rich indulgent nations who mock third world poverty
by enforcing regimes of scarcity in the name of sacrifice to animals?
It is an insult to every starving Ethiopian, to every B-12 deficient
Ghanan, to every grain-bloated Eritrean who sees a nutritious meal of
beef as a once-in-10-year event.
Steak and a baked potato. Ham and eggs. Duck a l'orange. Roast
Chicken. Lambshanks and parslied rice.
I consider it a noble pursuit.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 92 12:46:24 PDT
From: What was the question again? <sfisher@wsl.dec.com>
Subject: Life With Mr. Wizard
To: eniac
or, How To Raise A Geek
So last night, we watched a videotape of Bartholomew and the Oobleck.
(Mainly someone reading the book while showing the pictures, with an
occasional video effect of a green blob moving diagonally down the
image area. BFHD. Next time we'll borrow the book instead of the
tape from the library and I'll read it to Torrey and Bronwen; the
magicians' voices were *really* wimpy.)
About midway through, I asked Kim if she'd ever played with oobleck.
"You're kidding, right?" she asked. So since the cornstarch was
already out on the countertop, I got out a little bowl and made up a
small batch of oobleck. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the blue
food coloring, so I had to settle for a pale yellow version (actually,
just about the color of fresh pus).
For those of you just joining, oobleck (in addition to the stuff that
King Derwin of Didd's magicians make for him in answer to his request
for a kind of weather that had never been seen before) is a thick
paste made from cornstarch and water, in not-quite-equal proportions
(heavy on the cornstarch).
"The cool thing about oobleck is that it's a non-Newtonian fluid,"
I explained, "in this case meaning that it reacts in a very odd manner
to pressure. When you squeeze it, it gets solid, and when you release
the pressure, it turns back into a liquid again." I proceeded to
demonstrate, all the while explaining how non-Newtonian fluids have
industrial applications where you want something that will flow below
a certain pressure and resist flow above that pressure, such as in a
limited-slip viscous coupling.
After the video, the three of us (Bronwen was asleep, and is still too
young to do anything but eat the oobleck) went into the bathroom and
played with the oobleck for a while. At first Torrey was reluctant
because it looked so slimy and sticky (as well as because of the bad
effect that the oobleck had in the story), but within a few minutes we
had her squeezing it and giggling as it would look dry and pasty when
she released it, only to turn back into a thick liquid in a few seconds.
It really is bizarre to open your hands on something that looks like a
lump of Play-Doh squeezed in your hand, with a grainy surface, the shape
of your fingers and embossed with the creases of your palm, then to watch
it quickly get shiny and then start to pour down your wrist and slide
through your fingers in a thick liquid form.
Good stuff. I recommend it as a fun, cheap toy. And if you get tired
of playing with it, you can add water and pour it on your stir-fry.
--Scott "Now watch me get this hardboiled egg into the milk bottle" Fisher
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 92 15:52:12 GMT
From: lah014@cck.coventry.ac.uk (Richard Marshall)
Subject: Longest word (was Filesystem vs file system)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.usage.english
In article <VeyoLB3w164w@mantis.co.uk> tony@mantis.co.uk (Tony Lezard) writes:
gmw1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Gabe M Wiener) writes:
> In article <1992May31.031950.17280@panix.com> jhawk@panix.com (John Hawkinson
> >
> >Isn't it:
> > pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses
> >and pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
>
> Yup. Miner's black-lung disease. Currently the longest accepted word
> in the language, though I'm sure any chemist could come up with names of
> chains that go on even longer. :-)
Indeed they could.
Allow me to introduce tryptophan synthetase A protein, an enzyme with
267 amino acids.
It is spelt thus <f/x clears throat>:
Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylalanylalany
glutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylal
anylvalylprolylphenylalanylyalylthreonylleucylgylcylasparttlprolylgly
cylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreony
lleucylisoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamy
lleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenylalanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalan
ylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylglutaminylasparaginylalanylthr
eonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonylpr
olylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucyalanyl
leucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucylp
rolylisoleucylglyclleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucy
lvalylphenylalanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphen
ylalanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcyteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylas
partylserylvalylleucyylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalyglutaminylglu
tamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanylarginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylar
ginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalanylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucy
lcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartylaspartylleucylleuc
ylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycylarginylglycyltyros
ylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycylvalylthreonylglyc
ylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylaspara
ginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagin
ylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisol
eucylserylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucy
laspartylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucyserylglycylserylal
anylisoleucylvalyllysylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylaspa
raginylisoleucyglutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylle
ucyllysylvalylphenylalanyivalyglutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalany
lthreonylarginylserine.
There's one problem with this. How do you fit it all on a SCRABBLE board? B-)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 92 19:43:49 -0700
From: bostic@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: OK, OK, some new ones...
To: /dev/null@vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU
A Cryptic Note... Light Bulb Jokes
Passing along these Light Bulb Jokes:
Q. How many product managers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. Let's get the marketers involved. I think we can sell this as a feature.
Q. How many staff managers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. Three. Two to hold the ladder, and one to screw the light bulb into a
faucet.
Q. How many senior managers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. We've formed a task force to study the problem of why light bulbs burn out
and to figure out what, exactly, we as managers can do to make the light bulbs
work smarter, not harder.
Q. How many PC repair people does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. PC repair has received your mail concerning your hardware problem and has
assigned your request Service Order Number 39712B-1. Please use this number
for any future reference to this case of trouble. As soon as a technician
becomes available, you will be contacted.
Q. How many technical support people does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. We have an exact copy of the bulb here and it seems to be working fine. Can
you tell me what kind of system you have. OK. Just exactly how dark is it?
OK. There could be four or five things wrong. Have you tried the light
switch?
Q. How many production editors does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. I'll have the documentation assistants do it.
Q. How many documentation assistants does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. I can't do anything unless you fill out a light bulb change request form.
Q. How many testers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. We just find the problems. We don't fix them.
Q. How many developers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. The light bulb works fine in the lamp in my office.
Q. How many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. That's a hardware problem.
Q. How many hardware engineers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. Tell software to code around it.
Q. How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. Two. One always quits in the middle of the project.
Q. How many Windows programmers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. 472. One to write WinGetLightBulbHandle, one to write
WinQueryStatusLightBulb, one to write WinGetLightSwitchHandle, ....
Q. How many C++ programmers does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. You're still thinking procedurally. A properly designed light bulb object
would inherit a change method from a generic light bulb class, so all you'd do
is send it a bulb change message.
Q. How many secretaries does it take to change a light bulb ?
A. One.
------------------------------
From Joe.Lurker@Corp Fri Jun 12 09:51:54 1992
To: jokers@roadhawg.Corp.Sun.COM
Subject: Laws of the Land
A bit of afterword on Boyd's Florida barrel-rolling law.
Thanks to Paula Balch.PA
"The Trenton Pickle Ordinance and Other Bonehead Legislation" by Dick Hyman
(The Stephen Greene Press, Brattleboro, Vermont) lists 114 pages of items similar
to "Florida law prohibits rolling a barrel down the street."
The California selection includes:
DID YOU KNOW. . .?
That San Francisco has an ordinance banning picking up used confetti to throw
again.
In Blythe, a city ordinance declares that a person must own at least two cows
before he is permitted to wear cowboy boots in public.
And Brawley passed a resolution forbidding snow within the city limits.
A Stockton law of 1926 makes it illegal to wiggle while dancing.
A Riverside health ordinance states that two persons may not kiss without first
wiping their lips with carbolized rose water.
San Francisco prohibits elephants from strolling down Market Street unless they
are on a leash.
But in Belvedere, a City Council order reads: "No dog shall be in a public place
without its master on a leash."
In Hanford, people may not interfere with children jumping over water puddles.
The California Paiute Indian Reservation's laws forbid a mother-in-law to spend
more than thirty days a year with her children.
Babies in Los Angeles are forbidden to ride in a grocery pushcart with food their
mothers have been buying.
Los Angeles law also forbids hunting moths under a street light, and says that
you can't drive more than two thousand sheep down Hollywood Boulevard at one
time.
L.A. also prohibits pickle-making at any point within the city's jurisdiction
where its aroma might offend the nostrils of passersby.
But an L.A. judge rules that "A private citizen may snore with immunity in his
own home, even though he may be in possession of unusual and exceptional
ability in that particular field."
In Berkeley it's against the law to be caught smoking, or with matches in your
possession, while out fishing. You also can't whistle for your lost canary before
7 a.m.
It is unlawful to plant vegetables in California cemeteries, or to pick feathers
from live geese, or to sell snakes on the street.
It's a misdeameanor to detain a homing pigeon in California.
A Glendale ordinance permits horror films to be shown only on Mondays,
Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
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End of Yucks Digest
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