Date: 2 Jun 88 17:33:32 PDT (Thursday)
Subject: Life 3.4
From Herb Caen's column ...
A single lane bridge in Marin County has a sign which reads:
Unsafe to cross bridge when water covers this sign.
----------------------------------------------------
This is the conversation that will take place many years from now when
the crew of Starship Enterprise returns to earth and discovers your
newly acquired ti computer.
"Can you operate it, Spock?"
"Well, Jim, this computer was designed and constructed 300 million
years ago by a totally alien race of methane-breathing, squidlike
beings who built it using technologies unknown to us and used it
for purposes we cannot conceive of and then mysteriously vanished
leaving no shred of documentation as to its operation. It may
take a few moments."
----------------------------------------------------
This is mostly a human interest story, but in the loads of junk mail I receive
daily one inparticular caught my attention. I received an application for
a Star Trek Visa! On the card is the title "Star Trek - The Enterprise Card"
along with a very nice picture of Enterprise from TNG and the typical holographic
dove and Visa symbol in the corner. The interest rate is an absurd 21.9%
with a yearly fee to boot. But the way this thing is sold in the brouchure
is haliarious. To quote a few:
"Easy to apply..easy to qualify. Stand-by for lift-off..to welcome you to
STAR TREK VISA!"
"Use you card where ever you go...across town or across the galaxy!"
"Get cash when you need it...You'll encounter no time warps with STAR TREK
VISA. You can use you card to get cash at over 102,000 banks and... " blah, blah, blah
"Journey to new frontiers...The next gerneration...your generation...is coming of age!"
What will they think of next?
----------------------------------------------------
True story, don't think it will offend anyone.
On a local radio station the Mental Health Association had this message:
"Does someone in your family suffer from schizoid?
You are not alone..."
(No kidding!!! Neither are they!!!) Guess the writer's strike has gone
further than we thought!
----------------------------------------------------
I found this in a catalog for Public Brand Software. They sell software
for IBM PCs. From their tone, I suspect they won't mind my quoting them. -- D.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note that we used to refer to our phone number as 1-800-IBM-DISK. We have
been told by IBM Corporation that we can't do this anymore. While it is
tempting to represent IBM as a bully picking on the little guy, we do see
their point. The use of their trademark in such a generic sense can lead
to a dilution of their identity. (Besides, they have more lawyers than we
have disks.) So, in the future, please think of our phone number as:
For the amateur radio crowd: 1-800-HAM-DISK
For all you couch potatoes: 1-800-HBO-DISK
For purists: 1-800-426-3475
Even: 1-800-I-AM-DISK (hear me roar)
But not, we repeat, NOT as: 1-800-IBM-DISK
We thank you for your support in this matter.
----------------------------------------------------
Two bums were seated on a park bench stealing food from the pigeons.
"Say," said one. "If you suddenly found a million bucks would you lend me
one hundred?"
"That depends," said the second. "What security you got?"
----------------------------------------------------
Well folks. It is Wednesday May 11 in Seattle and the weather forecast
is for 80-85 degrees and sunny! Since this is a rare event in the area,
one of the local radio stations asked listeners to call in excuses for
playing hooky today.
Some of the ones I remember:
"The extension cord isn't long enough for my electric car"
"With all the sun we've been having, the blackberries have grown across
my front path and I'm trapped."
"Religious reasons. I'm a sun worshipper"
"I just forgot" (Told on the next day)
"The air conditioner (at work) is broken."
----------------------------------------------------
Last week while the House of Representatives was voting on a funding bill for
the Strategic Defense Initiative, the House vote-tallying computer broke down.
The computer reported a vote of 358 ayes and 237 nays on an amendment to kill
the SDI program offered by Reps. Ron Dellums and Barbara Boxer. The House only
has 435 members.
The irony was not lost on the opponents of the SDI. Nevertheless, the "manual"
count of voice votes revealed defeat of the amendment 299-118.
----------------------------------------------------
Beetle is talking to Zero, says something like, "Hey, Zero. If you
can tear this piece of paper in half, I'll give you a quarter." Zero
then proceeds to tear the paper in half. Beetle takes one of the halves,
tears it in half, and gives it to Zero, saying, "Here's your quarter!"
Zero wanders off, saying how neat that is and wouldn't it be great to find
someone else to pull this on. He comes across Sarge and says, "Hey,
Sarge! If you tear this paper in half, I'll give you 25 cents..."
----------------------------------------------------
Subject: Blame it on the computer -- lost homework!
MODERN TIMES: When you were a kid, did you ever tell the teacher ``My dog ate
my homework?'' Update: Navy Lt. John Ratkovich, a student at Naval Postgrad
in Monterey, tells me that when homework was called for the other day, Lt.
Comdr. Al Jones said ``May DOS ate it.'' Right. His disc operating system
erased it all, and would a commander tell a fib? [Herb Caen, SFChron 28Apr88]
----------------------------------------------------
For the interested (and the record) these are mainly taken from THE LITTLE
BROWN BOOK OF ANECDOTES, edited by Clifton Fadiman.
------------------------------------
In his legal practice, Abraham Lincoln was never greedy for fees
and discouraged unnecessary litigation. A man came to him in a passion,
asking him to bring a suit for $2.50 against an impoverished debtor.
Lincoln tried to dissuade him, but the man was determined upon revenge.
When he say that the creditor was not to be put off, Lincoln asked for
and got $10 as his legal fee. He gave half of this to the defendant,
who thereupon willingly confessed to the debt and paid up the $2.50,
thus settling the matter to the entire satisfaction of the irate
plaintiff.
------------------------------------
In Paris for the funeral of French president Georges Pompidou in
1974, Nixon remarked, "This is a great day for France."
------------------------------------
Shortly after John F. Kennedy blocked the hike in steel prices
in 1961, he was visited by a businessman who expressed wariness about
the national economy. "Things look great," said JFK. "Why, if I wasn't
president, I'd be buying stocks myself."
"If you weren't president," said the businessman, "so would I."
------------------------------------
Dr. Creighton, the Bishop of London many years ago, once removed
his cigar case while watching an opera production and inquired of the
fellow in the next seat, "Will my smoking bother you?"
"Not at all, your Lordship," the man responded, "so long as my
getting sick won't bother you."
------------------------------------
After James Whistler did a pencil sketch of Oscar Wilde, Wilde
characterized it as a "pretty poor work of art."
"I quite agree," said Whistler, "and you're a pretty poor work
of nature."
------------------------------------
Following the death of a United States Senator who was a close
friend, Woodrow Wilson received a telephone call from an ambitiour
politician who said that he wanted to take the Senator's place. Wilson,
shocked by the man's crassness, replied, "That's perfectly agreeable
with me, but you'll have to speak with the undertaker about it."
----------------------------------------------------
Here at Lehigh University, about three years ago, a CLUD (CLueless User Device)
came up to the consultant's window and asked to borrow a stapler so that
he could attach his floppy disk to his term paper. After telling him that
it would probably not be a good idea, he decided to use tape. He then proceeded
to pull his disk out of his back pocket and unfold it.
----------------------------------------------------
My best novice user story comes from way back in tenth grade. At this point,
my high school had just invested a fortune in the latest technology: a half-
dozen Apple II Pluses. Now, my math teacher was also the sole computer teacher
in the school, and wanted to make sure that we were all properly literate.
So, the first week of classes, we are all trooped over to the computer room,
given one disk each, and given explicit directions on how to format the
disk. The first step, of course, was to take the floppy out of its envelope,
not to stuff the whole contents in.
A few minutes later, Erica (a good friend who, fortunately, probably isn't
on the net) comes over to the teacher, saying that she can't get it to work.
"Well, what's happening?" asks Mr. Romer (the teacher).
"I can't get the floppy disk into the drive. It keeps flopping all over,
and bends when I try to put it in."
Sure enough, she had carefully removed the magnetic part of the floppy from
the paper enclosure...
----------------------------------------------------
(from a list in the consultant office on the bboard)
User calls stating that monitor has just gone blank, and is
told by consultant to check behind the machine to make sure the monitor
cable hasn't come loose. "I can't see anything back there. We just had
a power failure and it's too dark to see anything in my office."
----------------------------------------------------
We've all heard stories about users who have stuffed 5 1/4" disks into
3 1/2" drives. A couple of weeks ago, someone called the computing
center here complaining of trouble running a PC program. After some
interrogation, she revealed that she was trying to run it on a Mac.
But she hadn't had any qualms about folding the 5 1/4" disk to put
into the Mac's drive. After all, she reasoned, disks operate on
magnetic fields, which aren't altered by folding the disk.
A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
----------------------------------------------------
A long time ago UNIVAC (now UNISYS) had a mainframe computer called an
1106. They used rotating drum memory. For those of you not familiar
with drums, they are massive rotating cylinders. They also tend to
possess a great deal of rotational inertia.
Anyway, a UNIVAC customer engineer told me that they tried to install
these machines in naval vessels, rotating drum and all. The story goes
that everything was fine until the ship executed a hard turn to port.
The drum, resisting this course alteration, merrily broke loose
from its mountings and crashed through the side of the ship. WHOA BOY!
----------------------------------------------------
Sorry to change the subject a little, but this priceless
little anecdote occurred while I was working for a hardware
store while in college.
I'm standing behind the counter, wearing my little scratchy
polyester uniform shirt, and this big huge guy walks up to
me carrying two rolls of shelf paper and says "Is this going
to be enough to cover my shelves?"
I stare at him for a moment, and then say "Well, that depends
how long your shelves are." Silence. "How long are your shelves?"
"Oh," he says, "Three feet each."
Silence.
"Ok," I say, "How many shelves do you have?"
"Four per cabinet."
Again silence.
"Allright, I'll bite," I say in raw disbelief, "How many cabinets,
indeed, do you have?" (I fully expected to hear "Three per room.")
"Two."
"Fine, so it sounds like you have two cabinets with four shelves
each that are three feet long."
"Yeah?"
"So that sounds to me like 2 * 4 * 3."
"Yeah?"
"That's 24."
"Yeah?"
"Those rolls are ten feet each."
"Yeah?"
This time, ¬I¬ went silent.
Long pause..................
Then, with a look of pure enlightenment generally displayed
only by Zen masters: "I think I better get another roll."
"There is a God." I thought.
----------------------------------------------------
When I was taking a 300 level computer science class in college
there was a girl in the class that was a good friend of mine, she
was one of those people that was accademiclly briliant with zero
common scence. Durring the first week of class the prof always
gave every one in the class an account on the system and a common
password for everyone in the class. I logged into Karen's
account before she did and created a ".profile" which printed
out a message to the effect:
Karen,
I'm having a very bad day today, the freshman are
driving me crazy with there stupid errors and the System
Administrator was very rough when he mounted the backup
tapes. So I suggest, if you want your homework programs
to compile correctly, that you log off now and try again
when I'm feeling better!
Love,
PDP/11
I'd forgotten all about my little prank until one day, right before
a homework was due and we were talking in the cafateria, she said
she had gotten an extention from the prof because "Every time I
logged into the computer it gave me a message to loggout imediatley!"
She never knew that someone played a joke (alright it really wasn't
that good) on her. I decided it would be better not to tell her.
----------------------------------------------------
A few years back, the CS100 class (Computer Science for semi-sentient beings)
was given their first Machine Problem (MP 0). For this one, students were
given the program listing so the only thing the student had to do for the
grade was to conquer the card punch and card reader. To be cute, the TA's
punched the program (~60 card), lined up the cards one below the other in
sort of a listing style, and zeroxed the "listing" which was handed out so
that the students could see what the cards should look like. The language
was FORTRAN so this helped show the proper columns.
One particular student managed to punch her deck of cards just fine but was
having some problems with the card reader. After a few dozen tries, she
asked the operator on duty if he could help her with the reader. The op
went over and tried the deck once. Only the first card read. Opon closer
observation, the first card was the /EOJ (End Of Job) card. She had reversed
the order of the cards so that they would match the order of the handout if
fanned out. The op explained that the cards were arranged that way just so
they could make the handout and that her problem was just that she was trying
to read the deck in backwards. The topper: She went back and punched a new
deck in the proper order!
-----
Then there was the one about the user or (ab)user as we used to call them who
stood waiting by the printer for his printout for about 15 min. He then
proceeded to ask the operator if the op could check to see what was taking his
printout so long. The op checked the queue a number of times during the next
10 or 15 mins and finally told the user, "I don't see it on the queue. Why
don't you just send it again." To which the user replied, "Send?"
----------------------------------------------------
Reminds me of the Department Chairman(!) at Seton Hall who last week wouldn't
let me copy a book on the Copier because you can't close the lid on a book,
and so it 'lets the light in' and breaks the copier.
The pages of the book were the same size as the papers I was copying onto,
so it wasn't a problem of extra toner being wasted. I also offered to
close my eyes while making the copies (in case he was worried about my safety),
but he told me that this wouldn't help, since the light would still get into the
copier and "Break It".
I can just imagine the copier repairman's chuckle when he blamed the broken
copier on light 'getting in'. "you let light into the copier, so its your
fault it broke".
I was tempted to tell this professor that he should also watch out for
burned out light bulbs, since if you leave a light socket without a working
bulb (or worse, no bulb at all), the electricity escapes into the air and
can make you very sick.
And of course the 'smoke theory of electronics' (smoke makes electronic
circuits work, since circuits stop working once the smoke escapes) came
to mind as well...
----
So as not to offend anyone, I should say that this Department Chairman
was not from an Engineering Department, and thus was dealing outside of
his specialty.
----------------------------------------------------
One customer at a computer store (or perhaps a computer faire) asked a salesman
a number of questions about a given model of computer. Does it do this? Yes,
it does this. Can it do that? Yes, it can do that. Does it have these?
Yes, it has these. Finally he began to become somewhat suspicious of the
amazing capabilities of this machine, and asked in as serious a tone as he
could muster:
Does it have flim-flam flip-flops?
Yes, yes, it has flim-flam flip-flops!
----------------------------------------------------
One day I happened to be in our local "mom and pop" computer store,
scanning the new magazines, when a fellow came in to buy some floppies
for his home computer. The proprietor happened to be behind the counter
and asked the man which computer he had. He then took a box from the shelf
behind him, and opened it. "How many disks do you need?" he asked.
"Oh, two I think" came the answer. The proprietor then rang up the sale,
and gave the man his change. With that, the man said "Thanks very much",
picked the disks up off the counter, carefully folded them into quarters,
and stuffed them into his shirt pocket as he strolled out the door.
The experience left me speechless, but I noticed that the owner didn't
even flinch. (No doubt because he knew the fellow would be back for some
more disks!)
----------------------------------------------------
Jesse Jackson: "We have guided missles but we have misguided leaders,
and that's why I want to be your president." (I almost fell onto the
floor. Does he write his own stuff?)
--
Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com]
The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in
overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison
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