Date: 11 Mar 92 17:22:29 PST (Wednesday)
Subject: Life 7.U
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From: David Olsen [dko@cs.wisc.edu]
Recently in alt.folklore.computers
I heard this story from someone who worked for a French company, they
had a problem with a program on punched cards written for them by a US
subsidiary. The programs never worked when loaded in France but the
US systems house swore blind that they did at their end. Eventually,
in exasperation, someone followed the working set of cards from the US
to France. At French customs, they observed a customs official remove
a few cards at random from the deck. Apparently, the french customs
are entitled to remove a sample from any bulk item (such as grain), so
a few cards from a large consignment shouldn't matter, should it?
[ Later posts by Joe Morris and Tom Rauschenback confirmed the story.
Mr. Moris said that the company was Oak Ridge National Labs, and the
cards contained unclassified data. Mr. Rauschenback said that the
story originally came from him. ]
- Roger MacNicol (uvmark!roger@merk.com)
Then there's a former supervisor who sat down to use a Mac in the
office. Put his floppy in. Didn't mount. Put another floppy in. Same
problem. Tried three or four times before asking for some help. You
guessed it. No floppy drive. All the floppies were just falling into
the Mac, where they had to be retrieved later by the guy the
supervisor called. They taped up the hole.
- Walter Hunt (walter@aimla.com)
On a related note, the MicroLab I work in has a weekly problem with
our Mac SE's. Some user will fail to notice that there's already a
boot disk in one of the two floppy drives, and manage to stuff their
disk in there with it. Sigh... Once a week. Not kidding.
- Joshua (jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca)
Users do not have monopoly on ignorance. About a year ago, I was in a
university computer lab that contained both SPARC Stations and
Macintoshes. I was working on a SPARC Station. Some non-computer
type came into the lab wanting to use a Macintosh (which he knew how
to use). There weren't any Macs available, so the lab monitor told
him to use a SPARC Station, claiming they were essentially the same
thing. The guy sat down at the SPARC Station, stuck in his disk (the
SPARC Stations there had 3 1/2 inch drives), and stared dumbfounded at
the login screen for a few minutes not having any idea what to do. I
had to get his disk out for him by logging in to the machine and
running the eject program, then I sent him back to the lab monitor to
demand a Macintosh.
- David Olsen (dko@cs.wisc.edu)
People who use a mouse for the first time are very puzzled : it's
moving too quickly, not acurately enough and there is never enough
space on the desk to reach the end of the screen. I even saw once a
secretary (yes : Yet Another Woman Narration) having not enough space
on her desk continuing dragging the mouse on the wall!
It did not happen directly to me but a friend who installed a computer
in a factory was once called because "that damm thing was not working
any more" and it appear that, as the computer was dirty they cleaned
it with a Karcher like other machines they had! (But yes, it was very
clean after!).
Another that did happend to me and I swear it's true : As a student I
was working in the computer shop nearby to make some pocket money. One
day came an old man who asked : "I dont know about computers but I'd
really like to learn. How do they work?" The vendor don't know where
to begin since there is so much to explain and says "Well... the
computer is a machine and you speak to it to make it do things, like
graphics, games.." The the man bend over the keyboard of the nearest
computer, examine it and says "Well?? Well??" and after a minute says
to us "Well i'm talking to it and it's not responding"!!! No, it was
not somebody who wanted to make a joke. He eventually came back a few
times and then bought a computer having learn the very few steps of
basic (how to insert a tape and type LOAD then press PLAY).
- Philippe Goujard (ppg@oasis.icl.co.uk)
There is a story that a few months after the British government
decreed that all schools should have a BBC micro, an engineer was
called out to one school that had just got a disk drive. They arrived
to find a tape cassette jammed in the drive and an eight-year-old
standing there saying "I told her not to do it" (of the teacher).
- Steve Linton (sl25@ely.cl.cam.ac.uk)
HOWEVER, let's be fair about this. I'd also like the 'stupid techie
tricks' as well. My own favorite is the time I spent all day training a
group of managers how to do advanced dbase programming then had to ask
the secretary for help because I couldn't figure out how to use her
phone to call my office. Just proves, everybody's stupid in something ...
- Jeff Zucker (blz1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu)
A friend who was in field service for Burroughs, and is currently at
Unisys, tells of the time he went to do some routine PM at a customer
site. As he was getting ready to button up the hardware, he asked the
girl who was the operator for the machine in question to queue up the
system status report to the printer so he would have it by the time he
was ready to leave.
The silence -- nothing printing -- was quite noticeable. Seeing that
the printer was off line, he asked again if she would run the report.
"Oh, yes," came the response, "it'll be printing in a moment. I'm
just waiting for the phone to ring."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I'm waiting for the phone to ring so the report will print."
Mildly curious, he inquired what arcane influence the telephone had
over the system printer, and piece by piece the story emerged. About
6 months previously, when she was a new hire, the DP manager had asked
her to queue up a report. He was going to another building, and for
some reason didn't want the thing to print until he got there, so he
told her to keep the printer off line so that he could phone her when
he was ready. "As soon as the phone rings, press the online button,
there, and let 'er rip." This she had duly done, and from that day
forward, whenever anyone had called asking for a report, she had taken
the printer off line, queued up the report, and waited for the phone
to ring.
No-one at the customer site realised what she was doing, because
whenever anyone would call the machine room to ask where a requested
report was, she would say, truthfully, "It's printing right now."
- Alan Gilbertson (Albert.Gilbertson@f230.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG)
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Got through SPAF:
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From: TLS@uvmadmin.bitnet
Subject: Programmer's Drinking Song
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
Here's a little song that was sent to me from a colleague in Rochester, NY:
PROGRAMMER'S DRINKING SONG
100 little bugs in the code,
100 bugs in the code,
fix one bug, compile it again,
101 little bugs in the code.
101 little bugs in the code.....
(Repeat until BUGS = 0)
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From: D. W. James [vnend@Princeton.EDU]
From the 27 January New Yorker Magazine, titled "Most Disappointing
Correction of the Week", and quoted from Blockbuster Magazine:
Trustworthy Olives
Dear Editor:
In the May issue of your magazine, the article J. P. Faber wrote called
"Bring On the Dragons" refers to John Phillip Law having a line which
reads: "There is an old proverb I choose to believe: trust an olive, but
tie up your camel." I believe that that line is supposed to be: "Trust in
Allah, but tie up your camel."
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From: [D.RHEE@CSI.compuserve.com]
Subj: From the U.S. Department of "Whoops": Gimme a Whopper
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Officers were surprised to find Thomas Hall at the
back door of the police station.
Hall was surprised himself. He thought he was at Burger King.
The 38-year-old man was arrested and charged with drunken driving
Monday after pulling up to what he thought was the drive-through window
and placing an order, authorities said. At the other end of the intercom
was a booking clerk.
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From: paul%dblegl.UUCP@mathcs.emory.edu (Paul D. Manno)
Heard on a local radio station:
]From the person who dropped a rubber band into his
computer and all it will do now is make snap decisions...
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From: bostic@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: QTD
politics, n:
From the Latin "poly", meaning many, and "tic", meaning
little bloodsucking insects.
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From: Don Bennett (408)922-2768 [dpb@frame.com]
]From the RISKS Digest...
Jean Paul Barrett, a convict serving 33 years for forgery and fraud in
the Pima County jail in Tuscon, Arizona, was released on 13Dec91 after
receipt of a forged fax ordering his release. It appears that a copy
of a legitimate release order was altered to bear HIS name. Apparently
no one noticed that the faxed document lacked an originating phone
number or that there was no "formal" cover sheet. The "error" was
discovered when Barrett failed to show up for a court hearing.
The jail releases about 60 people each day, and faxes have become
standard procedure. Sheriff's Sergeant Rick Kastigar said "procedures
are being changed so the error will not occur again." [Abstracted by
PGN from "Fraudulent Fax Gets Forger Freed", an item in the San
Francisco Chronicle, 18Dec91, p.A3]
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From: paul%dblegl.UUCP@mathcs.emory.edu (Paul D. Manno)
]From Earthweek column by Steve Newman in _The Atlanta Journal_ Dec 21.
An Indian Army camp in the eastern state of West Bengal is plagued
by a herd of elephants that regularly breaks in and guzzles the rum
supply in the main warehouse. New Delhi's _Statesman_ reported that
electric fences, bonfires and railings have been no match for the
invaders. The wily animals have learned to hose out the bonfires,
and to demolish electrified fences by smashing them with wooden logs
grasped in their trunks. Once inside the camp, they break open the
bottles of rum, then stagger away once they have had their fill.
Forest Department sources say the herd originally strayed into the
region from Bhutan in search of food, but instead developed a taste
for Army rum.
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From: stoll@ocf.berkeley.edu (Cliff Stoll)
Subject: non-computer computer viruses
Newsgroups: alt.security
For example...
Ever notice that the second or third time you read a book,
you discover all sorts of typos and misprints? The more
often you read a book, the more typos you find.
These typos are read-errors; mistakes introduced by reading
the text. To preserve accuracy, you should purchase a new
edition each time you wish to read a book. Most of all,
avoid used books, pirated editions, and books from unknown
sources.
Public libraries are especially dangerous! Library books are
read many times, introducing uncounted read-errors. Worse,
borrowers (and some unscrupulous authors) can infect books
with literary viruses (analogous to computer viruses) which
can be transmitted to other readers.
You can avoid these problems by only reading from new books,
and purchasing fresh shrinkwrapped volumes at your local
bookstore. Hardback editions are most resistant to typos and
literary viruses; get these whenever possible.
A public service message brought to you by a disinterested party
-Cliff Stoll
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From: bostic@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Subject: Practice Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty
To: /dev/null@okeeffe.CS.Berkeley.EDU
PRACTICE RANDOM KINDNESS AND SENSELESS ACTS OF BEAUTY
Reprinted from Glamour magazine, December, 1991.
It's a crisp winter day in San Francisco. A woman in a red Honda, Christmas
presents piled in the back, drives up to the Bay Bridge tollbooth. "I'm
paying for myself, and for the six cars behind me," she says with a smile,
handing over seven commuter tickets.
One after another, the next six drivers arrive at the tollbooth, dollars in
hand, only to be told, "Some lady up ahead already paid your fare. Have a
nice day."
The woman in the Honda, it turned out, had read something on an index card
taped to a friend's refrigerator: "Practice random kindness and senseless
acts of beauty." The phrase seemed to leap out at her, and she copied it
down.
Judy Foreman spotted the same phrase spray-painted on a warehouse wall a
hundred miles from her home. When it stayed on her mind for days, she gave
up and drove all the way back to copy it down. "I thought it was incredibly
beautiful," she said explaning why she's taken to writing it at the bottom
of all her letters, "like a message from above."
Her husband, Frank, liked the phrase so much that he put it up on the wall
for his seventh graders, one of whom was the daughter of a local columnist.
The columnist put it in the paper, admitting that though she liked it, she
didn't know where it came from [sic] or what it really meant.
Two days later, she heard from Anne Herbert. Tall, blonde, and forty,
Herbert lives in Marin, one of the country's ten richest counties, where
she house-sits, takes odd-jobs, and gets by. It was in a Sausalito
restaurant that Herbert jotted the phrase down on a paper place mat, after
turning it around in her mind for days.
"That's wonderful!" a man sitting nearby said, and copied it down carefully
on his own placemat.
"Here's the idea," Herbert says. "anything you think there should be more
of, do it randomly."
Her own fantasies include: (1) breaking into depressing-looking schools to
paint the classrooms, (2) leaving hot meals on kitchen tables in the poor
parts of town, (3) slipping money into a proud old woman's purse. Says
Herbert, "kindness can build on itself as much as violence can." Now the
phrase is spreading, on bumper stickers, on walls, at the bottom of letters
and business cards. And as it spreads, so does a vision of guerrilla
goodness.
In Portland, Oregon, a man might plunk a coin into a stranger's meter just
in time. In Patterson, New Jersey, a dozen people with pails and mops and
tulip bulbs might descend on a run-down house and clean it from top to
bottom while the frail elderly owners look on, dazed and smiling. In
Chicago, a teenage boy may be shoveling off the driveway when the impulse
strikes. What the hell, nobody's looking, he thinks, and shovels the
neighbor's driveway, too.
It's positive anarchy, disorder, a sweet disturbance. A woman in Boston
writes "Merry Christmas!" to the tellers on the back of her checks. A man
in St. Louis, whose car has just been rear-ended by a young woman, waves
her away, saying, "It's a scratch. Don't Worry."
Senseless acts of beauty spread: A man plants daffodils along the roadway,
his shirt billowing in the breeze from passing cars. In Seattle, a man
appoints himself a one man vigilante sanitation service and roams the
concrete hills collecting litter in a supermarket cart. In Atlanta, a man
scrubs graffiti from a green park bench.
They say you can't smile without cheering yourself up a little -- likewise,
you can't commit a random act of kindeness without feeling as if your own
troubles have been lightened if only because the world has become a
slightly better place.
And you can't be a recipient without feeling a shock, a pleasant jolt. If
you were one of those rush-hour drivers who found your bridge fare paid,
who knows what you might have been inspired to do for someone else later?
Wave someone on in the intersection? Smile at a tired clerk? Or something
larger, greater? Like all revolutions, guerrilla goodness begins slowly,
with a single act. Let it be yours.
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