Date: 21 Jul 92 16:35:32 PDT (Tuesday)
Subject: Life 8.F
----------------------------------------------------
The following are selections I've saved from a mailing list run by:
bostic@okeeffe.cs.berkeley.edu (Keith Bostic)
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From: gnu@cygnus.com
Subject: IBM threatens Microsoft with 1000 software patents; gets $20-30M
Today's Wall St. Journal reports that IBM and Microsoft have completed
negotiations on royalties for OS/2; IBM will pay Microsoft some amount
under $30/copy. But during the negotiations, IBM threatened to hit
Microsoft with patent suits on a thousand software patents. They ended
up cross-licensing all their patents, but because IBM had more patents,
Microsoft paid between $20M and $30M as part of the deal.
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]From somebody's signature line:
Jim Tisdall
System Manager, Human Genome Project for Chromosome 22
University of Pennsylvania
(215) 573-3113
tisdall@cbil.humgen.upenn.edu
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Cellular car phones can be dangerous as a British Columbia man has
learned. Merv Turchak was stopped at an intersection talking on his car
phone when his pick-up truck was rear-ended. The receiver slammed into
Turchak's head, leaving him with whiplash. Then he began suffering
shoulder pain and said he couldN'T drive and properly fulfill his job as
a salesman. A judge agreed and ordered the Inusrance Corporation of
British Columbia to pay him more than 200-thousand dollars in damages.
Turchak said one of the first symptoms he suffered after being slammed
by the cellular phone was a ringing in the ears.
**************************
From: mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu (The Embodiment of Cheese)
Subject: The Temptation of Saint Anthony
Date: 9 Apr 92 23:16:35 GMT
WANTED TO SELL:
* * * HOLY GRAIL * * *
As is.
$50 or best offer.
I got it cheap at a flea market. It's the real McCoy, and I thought
I was getting a great deal. But it turned out not to be so hot from my
point of view. I'll explain, because I don't want anyone saying how I
cheated them if it wasn't what they expected.
First, the Grail sheds a pure and holy light. That's okay, and it's
quite a conversation piece, but it's damn annoying when you're trying to
sleep or watch TV. Covering the grail with a cloth does not seem to
help for some reason. (We have been using white samite; perhaps this is
the source of the problem?)
Second, only the pure of heart can touch or even look upon the
Grail. Needless to say I do not qualify. This means that we haven't
been able to dust behind it on the mantel since we put it in there.
Therefore anyone who wants to purchase the Grail will have to come and
carry it away themselves; we will not deliver it.
Third, every month or so since we have had the Grail, three
white-clothed women have made a silent and eerie procession through our
house. They also glow with a pure and holy light, and they have no
consideration for any guests who happen to be living in the downstairs
room. It sure is a good thing that they are silent, because I think
otherwise the neighbors would surely have complained. We got enough
weird glances as it is. To top it off, one of the glowing babes is
carrying a spear which continually drips blood. True, the blood
vanishes ere it touches the floor, but nevertheless I get queasy at the
sight of blood and these women traipsing through my house with their
cloth and blood and light and stuff at all hours of the day and night
are really getting on my nerves.
Anyway that's the scoop. Perhaps someone else out there knows how
to deal with these problems and would like to take the abominable cup
off my hands?
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From: Mateo.Burtch@eng.sun.com (M. Burtch--Specialist in Courier Font)
Subject: And In The U.S., They're Forced To Buy Retail
The Society for Technical Communication (STC) released its annual Report
on the Status of Technical Writers today. This report, issued by the
STC's Writers' Committee on Technical Scribes, monitors the civil and
human rights of technical writers throughout the world and documents
abuses against them. It also includes a handy quick-reference guide to
basic Fortran compiler options.
Overall, the report noted that the situation for technical writers the
world over is "precarious, and, in many cases, is worsening rapidly. In
particular, writers in the Third World routinely live in poverty and
squalor." (The report noted that this may apply to other people in the
Third World as well.)
The report concludes:
To the twin I-beams of Democracy and Freedom one may add those of
Technical Accuracy and Good Visual Layout. But these too are
threatened by mankind's age-old nemeses: Bigotry . . . Hatred .
. . Right Justification. If the human race is not only to
survive, but to prosper in the heart and in the mind and in the
soul, technical writers must practice their ageless craft
unencumbered by fear, privation, or schedules.
Some of the highlights of the Committee's report include:
o Worldwide deaths involving courier font have increased
9% over the past two years.
o Canada recently passed legislation making the passive
voice the national language.
o In China's remote Dimsum province, oxen are used in
place of technical writers, with no apparent loss of
readability.
o In North Korea, police departments no longer use electric
cattle prods to torture dissidents, replacing them
instead with extremely slow and finicky daisy wheel
printers.
o The Frame Technology Corporation now touts its product
as "disposable."
o Torture of technical writers by roving gangs of
hooligans known as "editors" is rampant in Northern
Ireland, where sectarian violence between different
spellers of "filesystem" runs out of control. One
particularly gruesome form of punishment is "chopping":
holding a writer down and then cutting the dangly
thing off his cedilla.
o A similar practice is "stet-ing," the continual removal
and replacement of chunks of text, leaving the
writer dazed and confused. (Or more dazed and confused,
to be exact.)
o A worldwide shortage of #2 pencils has left many
technical writers in poorer countries unable to
take notes or doodle during meetings--forcing them
to pay attention or end the meeting by flinging
live poisonous insects at the other attendees.
o The Baath Socialist party of Syria has introduced the
use of cuneiform stone tablets, which jam PostScript
printers.
What can you do? Lots. Send a letter to the head of government of one
of the cited countries; include a diagram with mixed fonts and at least
one incorrect cross-reference. Show them you mean business. Or write to
the UN High Commissioner on the Status of Technical Writers, stating that
you are categorically opposed to the use of mustard gas during staff
meetings and that you're still having problems figuring out which way the
darn CD is supposed to go in. Or you can have a fundraising party,
inviting all your technical writer friends and promising them that if they
give a donation to Save the Tech Writers you'll cancel the performance
art you had scheduled for the evening.
A copy of the report is available from the Copy Center and from your local
samadzat.
--Mateo Burtch
(c) 1992 Mateo Burtch
Yes, you can forward this; just keep my name attached to it or I'll
publicly link you with Ron Reagan.
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From: meo@ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com (Miles ONeal)
Subject: Medal of Technology
People can rant and rave all they want about Quayle, but it's Bush who
has apparently sustained a high-speed blowout in one or more of his
frontal lobes.
Yesterday, President George Herbert Walker Bush presented a Medal of
Technology to one William Gates, CEO of the that awesome monument to the
depressing, berserk side of capitalism, MicroSoft.
Note that this was NOT a Medal of Financial Prestidigitation. This was
a Medal of Technology, normally offered to people who have made a major
positive impact in areas of technology, forwarding the state of the art.
MicroSoft, on the other hand, bears primary responsibility for setting
back the computer industry at least 7 centuries.
If Gates were British, would he have been knighted for singlehandedly
resurrecting the concept of caveat emptor? If he were French, perhaps he
would be given a Royal Order of Something for raising the image of Geekdom
to a level of respectability nearly on par with that of the Romantic.
In any event, it is fairly mind-boggling (or would be, if politicians
weren't involved) that Bush would use the phrase, "pig in a poke" in
reference to Perot's plan to use networks to give the public access to
the government, while giving high recognition to the company foisting off
a County Fair Grand Prize Winning Pig in a Poke on the majority of the US
public.
One can only speculate on this in light of other recent events. Perhaps
Bush is, in reality, NOT an ex-CIA mole inserted into the office of
President of the United States, but a KGB mole inserted into the CIA, and
thence to his current office. With the Soviet universe in terminal
disarray, it would be a major coup to be sure that the United States was
headed in the same direction.
**************************
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 92 17:44:17 PDT
From: Mike O'Brien [obrien@aero.org]
Subject: tigers
]] And yes, kiddies, tigers really are as big and poofy and
]] soft as they look, and they purr like a freight train
]] going by. You don't want to know what it takes to find
]] this out.
]Au contraire. We're agog. Galore of agog people faunch to know,
]among them
Well, OK, you find this out by taking one for a walk To take a tiger for
a walk, you first need a tiger. Tigers fresh from the bush are not
recommended for the inexperienced. What you need is one who's used to
the procedure. He or she is thus liable to be merely playful, rather than
actively irritated. You also need a friend, whom you really, really
trust.
The friend carries an apple-wood cane - apple, or some other wood which
will bend under stress rather than shattering. This friend is your
backup, and the cane is his or her only tool for everything, from knocking
stuff out of the way that the tiger is liable to eat, to crowd control,
to hooking on and madly hanging on if things go wrong.
What YOU carry is a ten-foot length of pass-link chain. This is
your leash.
Pass-link chain is the stuff where the links will fit through each other.
This is important. You need this so you can hook on a safety clip. The
chain is looped about the tiger's neck and acks as a giant choke-chain,
but the clip is there to keep a loop of some sort in case things go badly
wrong. You carry the chain looped in one hand in a peculiar fashion which
permits the whole length of chain to be dragged from your hand without
taking your hand and/or arm with it. You practice this beforehand till
you're sure you've got it right.
Then you go into the cage with the tiger. Your friend does not. You
gauge the tiger's mood and put the leash on the tiger. There isn't a
whole lot more to say about this step except to say that that is why your
friend is there, OUTside the cage. On your side is the fact that the
tiger knows what the leash is for by this time and presumably is largely
in favor of the idea.
This is where you find out that tigers are soft and poofy. They are also
much, much larger than you had ever dreamed, when you're standing next to
one.
Then you take the tiger for a walk. Your friend walks in front with the
cane to clear the way. You walk with the tiger at your side, keeping
pretty good control and letting the tiger know that you are Paying
Attention, because if the tiger thinks you are not Paying Attention, it
will do what housecats do - let you know that you should be Paying
Attention. Unlike housecats, the tiger is big enough not to have to do
anything truly outrageous to rectify the situation. Reaching behind you
with one forepaw and sweeping your legs out from under you is generally
considered good enough by most tigers. They think this is hilarious. To
this extent, tigers differ from housecats in that they seem to have a
sense of humor.
It is possible that the tiger will see something that it wants. In this
case the tiger will go where it wants to go, and your job is to stop it.
This is generally done by wrapping the chain around something that you
pass, as the tiger drags you away. This will slow it down enough for your
friend to jump on top of you and grab the chain as you go bulleting across
the countryside. The weight of two adult humans will generally slow a
tiger down enough to make things manageable, whereas one will not.
It is not usual for the tiger to react to freedom by turning around and
turning you into fajitas, though this would actually (at least in the
short term) be an eminently practical thing for the tiger to do. They
enjoy their fun but are generally not ill-tempered. If they are they
don't get taken for walks.
They also purr like a freight train passing. Experts in the field claim
that this is not purring, that it means something else, but you couldn't
put it by me. Sure sounded like purring - at 16-2/3 RPM, but it sounded
like purring.
All in all, an experience I highly recommend as a lifetime source of
cocktail party conversation, but it sort of tends to leave you limp for
the rest of the day.
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