Date: 4 Jul 90 16:03:39 PDT (Wednesday)
Subject: Life 6.G
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When in doubt, think
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There is a sign outside a restaurant that I pass frequently that
says " Now Serving Food " . It makes me wonder what they used to serve.
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You know you're old when... you go to the Wherehouse,
and all of your favorite groups have "The Best Of..." CD's.
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My brother is a Nuclear Engineer that graduated from A&M in 1985 and now
works for Brown's Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama.
My dad was discussing with a coworker (I actually think it was his boss) the
fact that my brother and his wife were going to be visiting over the Memorial
Day weekend.
His coworker said, "I don't really understand why we need nuclear power. We've
got electricity."
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Two guys in a Yugo were arrested last night in
Oakland following a push-by shooting incident.
The new Yugo has an air bag. When you sense an
impending accident, start pumping real fast.
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In response to hating:
STATE POLICE CLOCK SPEED BY AIRCRAFT
Perhaps more alarming are the signs posted along the PA Turnpike
and elsewhere in Pennsylvania: SPEED LIMIT ENFORCED FROM AIRCRAFT.
Of course, most savvy PA motorists equip their cars with ECM and
flare ejection systems to confuse the radar and heat seeking
missiles so it's really pretty much of a standoff...
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The fellow in the office next to mine recently acquired an office accessory
(a rather large letter holder) which came in a cardboard box on which was
printed, in inch-high capital letters,
"THANKS FOR BUYING AN AMERICAN-MADE PRODUCT."
To underscore the point, the unmistakable silhouette of the Statue of Liberty
was printed just to the left of the slogan.
Do you think the folks who chose the Statue of Liberty for this appeal to
patriotism remembered where the Statue of Liberty itself was made?
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A relative claims to have seen this one: After driving a few
hundred miles of desert, with nothing much to break the
horizon, a sign began to loom ahead. It read:
MONOTONOUS, ISN'T IT?
She says that it took another hundred miles to wipe the
grin off her face. Has anyone seen this? (It was a US
desert, presumably in the CA/UT/NEV area, eh?).
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While driving across the salt flats in Utah a few years back
(pretty dull scenery after a while), I noticed that someone
had stuck a little handmade sign into the white-topped ground
next to the highway, declaring "SALT."
That's nice, I think, and continue for another couple of miles,
where I see a little (say 10' x 10') area that somebody has
hoed, so that the white-top is mixed in with the dirt below.
In the middle of this patch is another sign: "PEPPER"
I laughed all the way to Nevada!
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On the island of Maui, Hawaii, if you follow (I think) Kehei Rd. past
Makena, you start driving over an old lava flow. On the side of the
road, in front of someone's house, there is a sign which reads:
CAUTION:
LUNAR SURFACE
AHEAD
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Heard in an East German department store:
Customer: Don't you have any shoes here?
Salesman: No, we don't have any furniture, here.
No shoes is one floor down.
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A man goes out one night and drinks bourbon and water. The next day
he has a terrible hangover. The next time he goes out drinking, he
drinks scotch and water. The next day he has a terrible hangover.
The third time he goes out drinking, he drinks vodka and water. The
next day he again has a terrible hangover. He relates his problems
to a statistician who promptly advises him that the cause of his
problems is clear. Stop drinking water!
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One night in late October,
When I was far from sober,
Returning with my load of manly pride,
My feet began to stutter,
So I lay down in the gutter,
And a pig came near and lay down by my side;
A lady passing by was heard to say:
"You can tell a man who boozes,
By the company he chooses,"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away.
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He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then, when
sentence was about to be pronounced, pleaded for mercy on the grounds that
he was an orphan.
-Abraham Lincoln
Own Stories
Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.
-Lord Halifax
Works
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares
not is a slave.
-Sir William Drummond
Academical Questions
The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than
the destruction of millions of our fellow human beings.
-William Hazlitt
Works, Vol.X
He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly
delightful.
-Sydney Smith
referring to Macaulay
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is
not hereditary.
-Thomas Paine
Common Sense
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Once there were these two (2) archeologists who had experienced most of the
world's excitement (as far as archeology goes). However, there was one
item of interest they had not yet discovered. It was rumor, mostly. It
was the Green Gorilla. After some research, they took off in a plane
from New York City for Africa. Landing in a major city, they asked
of the natives if he had heard of the green gorilla. He said yes, and
could give them directions, only if they promised that if, by some
chance they found the green gorilla, not to touch it. They agreed and
drove off to another, more remote town.
Upon arriving, they asked a native if she had heard of the green
gorilla. She said yes, and could give them directions to a supposed
hidden village, if they promised not to touch the green gorilla if
they found it. They agreed and headed out. After some walking
they found the village, and, after asking a villager, were given
directions to it's habitat only after swearing they would not touch
the green gorilla if they were lucky enough to find it.
Well, believe it or not, our 2 archeologists actually came across a
clearing, and sure enough there sat the green gorilla. It seemed to
be asleep. In the shock and the excitement of actually finding it,
one of the archeologists must have forgotten his promises, for he
walked up and touched the green gorilla.
Words alone could not describe the result. The green gorilla awoke
and roared in anger. Immediately the 2 archeologists started to run,
but the green gorilla followed, leaving destruction in it's path!
They managed to make it back to the village, found their truck and
started to drive away. They thought they were safe, but as they
looked behind them the gorilla was keeping chase (not leaving much
of the village standing)! They made it back to the city, the green
gorilla still in pursuit, drove to the airport, found their plane and
tried to make an emergency take-off. Just as they got their plane off
the ground the green gorilla grabbed hold of the tail and hung on!
They thought they could shake it off, but the green gorilla would not
let go and worse yet, was slowly making it's way to the front of the
plane! They landed back in New York City and ran for cover, the green
gorilla right behind leaving a wreck trucks, planes--whatever got in
it's way!
They ran to the air traffic tower (the only safe looking ediface).
Their hopes of safety were soon lost when green gorilla came crashing
through the wall! They went up to the top, still being chased. Once
there they realized they were trapped. The green gorilla continued his
stalk, tearing equipment out of the wall and floor in his frenzy. As
the two huddled in the corner afraid for their lives, the green gorilla
got closer. As the end neared, the green gorilla lifted one of it's
mighty arms, reached out and touched the archeologist saying
"Tag. You're it!"
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------- Forwarded Message (origin lost in the mists of time)
Once upon a time, in a kingdom not far from here, a king summoned two
of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with
two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. "What do you think
this is?"
One advisor, an engineer, answered first. "It is a toaster," he said.
The king asked, "How would you design an embedded computer for it?" The
engineer replied, "Using a four-bit microcontroller, I would write a
simple program that reads the darkness knob and quantizes its position
to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The
program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element
table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the heating
elements and start the timer with the initial value selected from the
table. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and
pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show you a working
prototype."
The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the
danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just
turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What
you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects
of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand more
capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also
cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only
makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don't look to the future, we
will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years."
"With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the
problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this
class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The specialization
process should be repeated with grains divided into toast, muffins,
pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage, links, and bacon; and
poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs,
fried eggs, and various omelet classes."
"The ham and cheese omelet class is worth special attention because it
must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry
classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved
without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create the
proper object and send a message to the object that says, 'Cook
yourself.' The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the
kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast
than to scrambled eggs."
"Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has
revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast
food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived
requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with
multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold
while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too."
"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food
lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't buy
the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When
the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on
the screen. Users click on it, and the message 'Booting UNIX v. 8.3'
appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product
gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods
they want to cook."
"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the
design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform
for the implementation phase. An Intel 80386 with 8MB of memory, a
30MB hard disk, and a VGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select
a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple
inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a
snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had foolishly
allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a four-bit
microcontroller!)."
The king had the computer scientist thrown in the moat, and they
all lived happily ever after.
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HOW TO GET BETTER SERVICE ON YOUR MACHINE
1. Do not call for service until everyone concerned has had time to form an
opinion as to what is wrong; allow each person the chance to correct the
problem. Whenever possible, all controls and adjusting screws should be
turned.
2. After several days, when the machine malfunction has become a major
emergency, place an urgent call for service. Fridays are best, but anytime
after 4PM is OK.
3. Alert all personnel so that each can give their version of what is wrong.
Suggestions of how to fix the machine will be welcomed bye the serviceman.
4. Hide the service history log that is found inside the machine. Make
several references to the man who was here for the same problem last week.
5. Have at least eight graduate engineers present to ask highly technical
questions which are in no way related to the immediate problem.
6. The minute the serviceman arrives, ask what caused the delay. Make it
clear that he was to arrive two days ago. Before he can answer, ask him when
the machine will be back in service.
7. The machine should be as dirty and greasy as possible. A mixture of oil
and pencil sharpener shavings work well. If the machine has electrical
components, add staples and paper clips.
8. Assign someone to supervise the repair. A person who has never seen the
machine before is preferred. Bad breath is a big plus.
9. Ask again when the machine will be ready for use.
10. Be sure that the lights are off in the room where the machine is to be
repaired. A good serviceman can fix them blindfolded.
11. Ask if the machine is ready yet. If the serviceman is looking at a
schematic diagram, ask if he knows what he is doing.
12. When the repair is completed, tell him what a swell job he did. Tell him
that the job should be swell, it took long enough.
13. Try to talk the serviceman down on the bill. Those big companies make too
much money anyway.
14. After the serviceman has gone, call his supervisor and tell him the
machine is now worse than it was before. Follow up with a letter and send a
copy to the company's home office.
15. Follow the above rules on every service call, no matter how small the
problem
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