Date: 2 Nov 92 16:14:54 PST (Monday)
Subject: Life 8.U
----------------------------------------------------
From: spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene "Chief Yuckster" Spafford)
--------------------------
From: Joe Wiggins [JWIGG@UAFSYSB.UARK.EDU]
Subject: Should these researchers get a life?
Excerpted from a Harper's Index excerpt in the September '92 issue
of Funny Times:
] Days it would take to exhaust H. Ross Perot's fortune if it were
used to pay the INTEREST on the federal deficit: 5.7.
] Number of countries that have issued at least one Elvis Presley
postage stamp: 13.
] Bonus the Chinese government pays selected scholars and scientists
each month to discourage emigration: $20.
] Number of subscribers to Surfer Magazine who live in Saudi Arabia: 2.
] Years it would take a Nike worker in Indonesia to earn Michael
Jordan's endorsement fee: 44,492.
--------------------------
From: vsh@etnibsd.uucp (Steve Harris)
Checked in to my hotel at a recent Usenix conference,
opened the bedside drawer,
found a copy of K&R -- said it had been left by the Gideons.
--------------------------
From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods)
Moved by Clinton
[description of dull Clinton stump speech]
I didn't hear anything that touched me, moved me, made me want to vote
for Bill Clinton
what could he have said that would have moved you?
"Hey, you in the back; there's a chair up front if you want it."
--------------------------
From: kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov (Scott Dorsey)
UHF Televsion Antennas useful for anything?
In article [chrisc.79.719268271@ramrod.lmt.mn.org] chrisc@ramrod.lmt.mn.org (Chris Cox) writes:
]I've heard rumours that some people use them for receiving UHF television
]transmissions...
I've tried doing this, but I have been having real trouble. While I am using
an antenna installed in 1965, I continue to get 1992 programs. Also, the
programs seem to be extremely stupid, no matter what I do. I found a control
on the TV marked "brightness" and turned it up, but the intelligence level
didn't improve any. I am not sure what to do about this.
--------------------------
From: landman%xpoint@uunet.UU.NET (Howard Landman)
computer files
]I notice that lots of things
]get filed. Isn't this kind of abrasion going to lead to data loss?
]Wouldn't sanding be a `kinder, gentler' way to stow it?
Dear Litow,
In Germany, many companies have an apprenticeship program in which the new
apprentice spends a year or more doing nothing but filing. They beleive that
this is the only way for people to really get a feel for the shaping of data.
Actually, they may do some drilling and routing as well after a few months,
but the basic point is that there is no substitute for this kind of tactile
experience with live information. Later, when they are allowed to program,
they will have a gut feel for how manipulate it in the most effective manner.
Sanding is not used nearly as often, principally due to lower performance and
the difficulty of making truly straight cuts. There's no point teaching people
stuff that they're never going to use.
I hope this clears up any confusion you might have had,
--------------------------
From: Patrick Tufts [zippy@berry.cs.brandeis.edu]
nuh-nuh-nuh-Nitro!
Got a question for the American Gladiatiors?
Ask A Gladiator
10203 Santa Monica Bvd.
Los Angeles, CA
--Pat "which goes better with fish, bovine steroids or human growth hormone?"
--------------------------
From: Mike Spitzer [mjs@sequent.com]
Subject: Its out!
BTW, Did you hear about the Texas Cowboy?
He bought a dachshund because someone told him to "get a long little
doggy".
--------------------------
From: APUCORLE@idbsu.idbsu.edu
Amnesia International
We care.
We care about people. Deeply. Vaguely. Many parts of the world
are not very nice. We want to help. Help us find out which parts
they are. Or whatever. You know.
AMNESIA
INTERNATIONAL
PO Box either 207, or 702, or 027,
That Big Town With The Exhibition Centre And all The Tunnels,
Can't Remember the New Name of the County But It Used To Be
Called Rutland Or Something. Anyway, You Can't Miss It.
--------------------------
From: al@escom.com (Al Donaldson)
Plain Talk about Pie-Charts
Here's the top-ten graphics Ross Perot didn't show you:
10. bar chart showing the number of squirrels hit by cars
by year since 1980
9. pie chart showing breakout of different kinds of graphics he used,
41% pie charts, 38% bar charts, 12% tables, 9% other.
8. pie chart showing consumption of pies since 1900.
7. bar chart showing his height in inches by year
6. pie chart showing how many times he used the word "deficit"
in each of the three 10-minute segments of the show.
5. bar chart showing the decline in the number of volunteers
each time he changed his mind about running..
4. bar chart showing how many Really Serious Mistakes (TM)
General Motors has made each year since he left.
3. pie chart comparing the quality of a haircut with cost,
since the Republicans took over the White House.
2. table showing the size of his ears in inches each year
since they fluoridized his drinking water,
and the Number One Graphics Ole Ross Didn't Show You:
1. bar chart showing how many $$billions$$ he had in the bank
for each of the past five presidencies.
--------------------------
From: wisner@privateidaho.EBay.Sun.COM (Bill Wisner)
Subject: NOTW
A newspaper reported in June that the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency's executive fleet of cars averages only 6.2 miles per gallon, less
than one-fourth the federally mandated average of 27.5.
A Noblesville, Inv., judge agreed to move his courtroom one June night
to a van outside the Deer Creek Music Center so that rowdy Grateful Dead
concert fans could be processed immediately upon their arrest for drugs
possession and other crimes, rather than having to wait overnight.
A questionnaire that White County (Ark.) welfare officials required
each single mother to complete as a condition of receiving benefits
called for the following information: when and where she first had sexual
intercourse with the child's father; how often, when and where after that
first time; parties attended with the father; names of any motels, bars
or other places she went with the father; names of all other men with
whom she had sexual intercourse while seeing the father; and the regularity
and starting date of her menstrual periods before the pregnancy.
Use of the form was discontinued after the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
brought it to the attention of state officials.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in June on the local "Silent Meeting
club," consisting of several people who gather at various spots around
town and make it a point not to speak to each other. Founder John Hudak
said his inspiration was his observation that people often feel obligated
to talk when they really have nothing to say, such as at parties.
Shawn O'Neill, 42, was arrested in Escondido, Calif., in March and charged with
robbing Hussar's Jewelers. He had already been convicted of robbing it twice
in January and was awaiting sentencing.
A 29-year-old New Westminster, B.C., man was charged with DUI in June
after he rear-ended a van carrying several police officers who travel
around the community urging people not to drink and drive.
San Antonio police, trying to piece together the circumstances of the
death of a 40-year-old man in July, released to the newspapers the
following clues: In a closet in his apartment were numerous bars of
six different brands of soap; bizarre messages were taped to various
objects in the home; eight TV sets were placed in a semicircle; 40
half-dollars were found in the man's stomach.
Billy J. Sexton, serving 75 years in prison in Oklahome for killing
his first wife (and charged with killing his second wife), filed a
$60 million lawsuit against officials at a parole board hearing
recently for subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment that caused
him "mental trauma." He is objecting to parole officials forcing him
to view photographs of his first wife's mutilated body.
--------------------------
From: Mike O'Brien [obrien@aero.org]
Cooking shows
Local cable access being what it is (and isn't), especially in a
large metro area like Los Angeles, and esPECially in a highly gerrymandered
cable area like mine, which includes a corridor from downtown out to
the ocean, down through dead-broke, gang-ridden Venice and into
super-rich Marina del Rey... what was I saying?
Oh yeah, local access. We have a lot of it. Things being as
they are, (did I say that before?) lots of people think they can cook.
I watch some of these when my medicine kicks in and I can't get out of
my chair.
THE FRAGILE GOURMET
Maybe she was big-league once, I don't know. Now she's about nine years
older than dirt and can't weigh more than 85 pounds. Her print dresses
do things to the CCD elements in the studio cameras and the scan lines
don't help any; she's hard to look at straight. But boy can she cook!
I've gotten recipes I'm convinced are proprietary secrets from various
restaurants, which she remembers but has forgotten the origins of. Trouble
is, this only works about half the time. The other half of the time she
zaps, thinks she's at home, and wanders off the set to go change the
sheets or something. Since the crew's all gone out for coffee, this
leads to about ten or twenty minutes of bare set. A real Zen experience,
especially if she's left something on the stove. The sprinklers went
off once, and that was a hoot until the camera shorted out.
THE FERTILE GOURMET
This lady has between six and nine kids - I've never gotten an exact
count - and this has to be one of the most valuable shows on TV. She
demonstrates how to cook for a whole huge bunch of family, every day,
on a budget, while keeping half the family from assassinating the other
half with anything that comes to hand. She brings all the kids to
the set for every show. I think she has to. Unfortunately this very
valuable show was cancelled after every single piece of studio equipment
had to be replaced three times due to a buildup of saliva and Smurfs.
THE FARMER GOURMET
This guy looks like Steven King's take on Mr. Green Jeans. I think he's
a truck farmer with a messiah complex. He wheels in this grocery cart
loaded with dirt-covered vegetables, and proceeds to cook...something, I
don't know what, it's different every time. You can watch what he's
doing, but the problem is that while he starts talking about the cooking,
he wanders, the way people do, until after about five minutes it's all
about the New Christy Institute and the Trilabial Commission and a whole
bunch of people and nations that don't really correspond to any reality
with which I'm familiar. That's on Tuesdays. On Wednesdays he deals with
meat dishes, and those are much more pointed and direct, but I've never
managed to watch that one much past the point where he leads in the goat.
If anyone else ever actually watched this it wouldn't be on long, I don't
think.
I think there are some more of these on, but I have to go take some more
medicine now.
--------------------------
From: mmalervy@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Michael J. Malervy)
poltically correct pizzas
After months of exhausting research, I have concluded that
the politically correct UCSD student would only get a pizza at Pizza
Hut. Further, this student would not put any toppings on his
pizza.
Let's look at why other pizzas are politically incorrect.
Dominos is obviously the most politically incorrect. Their owner,
Pat Maynahan, is pro-life. Additionally, Dominos uses the
politically incorrect automobile to transport their pizza to their
customers. This is unacceptable to the politically correct crowd.
Next, we have Little Ceasars. Little Ceasars harkens back to the
Roman Empire, where the ceasars ruled. Little Caesars is therefore
Eurocentric, and politically incorrect. Round Table, whose mane
brings to mind England in the Middle Ages, is also Eurocentric.
Plus, the Round Table on campus is the home of the Bulls-eye Tavern,
a place which has raised the ire of the New Indicator. Therefore,
Round Table is politically incorrect.
This leaves Pizza Hut. What is a hut? It is a small
structure used by people living in the Third World. Pizza Hut is
not Eurocentric, does not take a stand against abortion, and has not
made the New Indicator angry. Therefore, Pizza Hut is politically
correct.
But what kind of pizza is politically correct at Pizza Hut?
Any pizza without pepperoni, sausage, ground beef, ham, or any other
topping that would be considered meat. After all, it is politically
incorrect to eat meat. It is cruel and inhumane to kill another
fellow creature to satisfy one's taste for meat. All the other
toppings at Pizza Hut are also politically incorrect. After all,
how can you eat green pepopers or mushrooms or extra cheese when
there are people starving? The politically correct
student would therefore order a regular cheese pizza at Pizza Hut in
order to avoid any of the guilt that might arise from enjoying a
politically incorrect pizza.
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