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From: cate3@netcom.com (Henry Cate)
Message-Id: [199409011352.GAA12316@netcom5.netcom.com]
To: JWry.dl@netcom.com
Subject: Life B.O
Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com
Status: R
---------------
Date: 7 Jan 94 10:54:32 PST (Friday)
Subject: Life B.O
The selections are from the eniac mailing list run by:
rissa@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
----------------------------------------------------
]From: "Rich Rosenbaum, rosenbaum@lkg.dec.com" [rosenbaum@tuxedo.enet.dec.com]
The Direct Marketing Association maintains a database listing people that
prefer to not receive unsolicited marketing material. I've had my name and
address added to this list, hoping it would reduce my mail. It seems to
have had just the opposite effect recently - I just received a mailing from
Sears that begins:
"Because you have requested through the Direct Marketing Association
not to receive various solicitations through the mail, ..."
--------------------------
From: Frank Wales [frank@arcglade.demon.co.uk]
Some quotes taken from the news pages of the 'BBC Top Gear'
magazine:
+ one New Mexico bank has a parking bay marked 'armed robbery
only' after a recent hold-up when police couldn't find a place
to park until the robbers had fled
+ ambulance men in Melbourne, Australia have been sacked after
advertising 'the world's fastest pizza delivery' on their vehicles
+ Magnus Lagergreen of Stockholm has changed his car number plate to
UNMARRIED in a bid to find himself a wife
+ American traffic cop Bob Croke issued 5000 speeding tickets in
Pennsylvania last year, worth 378000 pounds
--------------------------
From: megatest!bldg2fs1!sfisher@uu2.psi.com (Scott Fisher)
]From Kim
I thought I'd send you some of the funnier excerpts from the
"wild things" column today.
CHICKENS PREFER CLASSICAL MUSIC: Chickens apparently rank second in
farm-animal intelligence, as evidenced by their favorite composer, who
is Vivaldi. This was discovered by a farmer who noticed that chickens
were clucking happily in the henhouse when he played a classical-music
tape. In Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons," chickens much preferred the
"Spring" movement to "Winter."
-- are you doing what I'm doing now? "Buck-buck-buck-buck-ba-buckbuck!
Buck-buck-buck-buck-ba-buckbuck! Buck buck buck buckk...."
And this entry as well:
ELVIS TOPS COW CHARTS: One herd studied by scientists produced more
milk while listening to the King. This was supported by another study,
which showed that cows generally prefer rock'n'roll to other music.
"Imagine being a classical-music cow in a rock herd," Adcock [spokeperson
for the Humane Society quoted earlier in the article] says. "It would
be horrible."
--------------------------
From: rissa@world.std.com (Patricia O Tuama)
from the "Stocks" column of the 9/24/3 chicago tribune:
In the early 1900's Motorola was a manufacturer of foldup or in-
the-wall beds with small electric motors attached to the frames.
The owner pulled a ceiling cord sending current to the motor, and
the bed would roll forward to a horizontal position. Hence the
name Motorola!
--------------------------
From: Linda Birmingham [lbirming@acs.ryerson.ca]
I learned something today.
Don't put dish detergent in a dishwasher!
Oh yes, I can hear those in the know, saying, oh
you silly git you didn't do something that inane.
Well, yes I did.
I could say I was being efficient and completing two
tasks at the same time, washing dishes and the floor.
Or I could pretend that I was creating a lifeform for
an upcoming DS9 episode: that white foam oozing across
the floor at an alarming rate, nearly engulfing the cat,
definitely had a mind of its own.
But the sad truth is I was being lazy and trying to
save myself a trip to the store.
I only put in a little bit, honest.
And to compound this watery nightmare, the drain for the
washer got plugged and when I went downstairs to stop that
infernal pounding caused by an unbalanced machine, I
discovered more water flowing over the basement floor.
I swear I heard Lucille Ball laughing.
--------------------------
From: parris@atc.sps.mot.com (Patrice Michael Parris)
he said he, mrs. liddy and their daughter, had spend
many pleasant holidays on gun ranges firing on 'full
automatic fire.'
One night whilst channel-surfing, I came across Whoopie Goldberg interviewing
G. Gordon Liddy. The sight was so strange that I paused in time to hear him
relate how he chose his wife. If I remember his telling correctly, he decided
that people who undertand computers and technology would rule the future. That
meant, to him, he needed a wife with a strong technological bent. He also
decided that he was too short and his heirs ought to be taller. So he needed
a tall woman. He met a tall mathematician at some function (I was laughing
too hard at this point to get much of the rest. The words "Bene Gesserit
Reverend Mother G. Gordon Liddy" kept running through my mind.), courted her
(he claimed he sang her into submission) and, I guesss, has an Uzi-trained
daughter. Why stop at one when you've got such a mighty assemblage of good
genes all in one place?
--------------------------
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Check out the Oct '93 SMITHSONIAN, for an inside look at the tabloids.
"Eddie [Clontz, editor of the WEEKLY WORLD NEWS]," I say,
"I can't help but notice that you have a rubber dog mask
on your desk."
"Yeah. I wear it from time to time, but this is my real
reporter-waker-upper," he says gleefully as he opens his
desk drawer and pulls out the biggest squirt gun I've
ever seen. He aims it at Susan Jimison, ... specialist
on Elvis sightings ....
She looks up and groans, "Oh, no! Not again!" but Jack
Alexander ... chivalrously holds up his word-processor
keyboard to block the shot.
]From the photograph, the "squirt gun" is a Tidal Force III, the size
of a smallish machine gun. Combine that with the education of the
staff (including Harvard, Penn) and salaries (no tabloid experience
reporters starting at ]$50k), it seems like an interesting place to
work. Better than 2Dpeople!
They of course did not make up the story that revealed five senators
who were space aliens. As they called up aides to find out who was
and who was not a space alien, a few spilled the beans about their
bosses.
Their biggest story of the past year, in terms of reader response, was
the revelation that there are baby ghosts. A lot of people (1000?)
wanted to adopt one.
--------------------------
From: Mark Smith [msmith@discreet.demon.co.uk]
Found on the December 1993 Personal Computer World letters page:
Regarding the free disk supplied with your August issue, I enclose
an analysis by the program Prostyle of a file called Rubbish, which
speaks for itself. Prostyle even has the nerve to ask people to
send money! Is this a con or what? I should also mention that if
you analyse Prostyle's own Help pages with the product, you will
find that its own style of writing is classified as only fair to
average.
The file goes: "Tne jpooyt gohj tooyuoririty whiu qworty direetyweop
dirreectopn wehty qistyuiop weyt hifggbiuyt doop foopt aoup ertwoping
wert. Wourt we hgfu qudso scpvd oerty soiun qulopted hgoodroty
sdwoed trip maltiggataie. Fimth oloxhart? Habitiot ela callentnuero
dhaeoonf y quirrecir quertset puoi artic."
The analyses are as follows:
QUICK COMMENT ON RUBBISH: This writing is average. The style fault
ratio is high enough to be noticeable without difficulty, but is
normal and perfectly acceptable.
COMMENTS ON THE OVERALL STYLE OF RUBBISH: Your style is direct and
lively because you use verbs, which keep the reader clear at all times
about who is doing what.
COMMENTS ON THE CLARITY OF RUBBISH: Your writing is hard to follow
because you use too many abstract terms -- perhaps you harbour a desire
to write classical novels... Your sentences are generally too complex
because you have not found the right balance between natural pauses
and difficult words.
COMMENTS ON THE OVERALL IMPACT OF RUBBISH: Your writing is punchy and
alive, because you keep all your verbs out in the open where they work
best.
COMMENTS ON THE STANDARD OF GRAMMAR USED IN RUBBISH: Your standard of
grammar is excellent, and you have avoided some of the common pitfalls
that even some of the better writers can fall foul of. Rubbish best
fits the category of Literary Novel.
Lawrence Simpson
Sliema, Malta
--------------------------
jim muchow:
Given recent events in Florida, the tourism board in Texas has
developed a new advertising campaign based on the slogan "Ya'll come
to Texas, where we ain't shot a tourist in a car since November 1963."
from dave barry on WBEZ (local NPR): "If you lived in Miami,
you'd be dead by now"
--------------------------
From: "Tansin A. Darcos & Company" [0005066432@mcimail.com]
Subj: The Internet at house level
] Since the IETF I've been mulling over the idea of multi-stage access
] for things like thermostats and cat food dispensers. ...
Telephone: Ring! Ring!
Clerk: Hello, networks are us.
Man: Help, I need the SNMP management code for an American
Standard!
Clerk: American Standard what? Router, bridge, brouter, lan?
Man: Look, I need to shut down my toilet! It's leaking all
over the place and I need the computer code to tell my
house to stop it!
Clerk: Why don't you just turn the water off?
Man: I'm in Los Angeles, my house is in Phoenix! My house
sent me a page telling me to read my E-Mail. The
E-Mail message said there's water on the bathroom floor.
I pinged the sink and the tub, and both of them say
they are off, but when I tried to telnet to the toilet,
it said all connections were in use!
This brings new meaning to the term, "Dropping packets all over the floor."
--------------------------
From: jdt@ulysses.att:com
There was an apropos Editorial Cartoon the other day - two kids
were sitting in front of the TV, and one said to the other:
Where were you when you saw your first JFK Assasination
documentary?
--------------------------
From: CHWALKER@ucs.indiana:edu
I'm cataloging a run of ENGINEERING AND MINING, from
1866-1901, and am struck by how much closer a techie's
education was to mine, in the Victorian era. I can get
nothing out of a 1993 issue of E&M; but these old ones
interest me. The founding editor managed to be a technocrat
(he's quite severe about people who can't follow the
technical part of articles in E&M) who nevertheless
wrote engagingly, and had broad interests. He also had
progressive social views, which Hill Publishing repudiated
in 1906, when they took over. Nothing would induce me to
sit down and try to read a contemporary E&MJ; but I've rather
dawdled over these old ones, with their fine line engravings
and the breadth of material that they felt came under
"Engineering".
An issue from 1879 reports on a New Yorker's invention of
a new, improved electric light, which weighs *less* than five
pounds, and burns uninteruptedly for seven hours. Look for
them in your neighborhood soon.
A 1900 issue forwards a digest of an experiment report from
England, where a Rev. W. Buckland determined to get to the
bottom of this folklore that claims a toad can live without
air, light, or water for years. Rev. Buckland constructed
chambers, 12 in a block of sandstone, and 12 in a block of
oolitic limestone, and immured two dozen toads (cementing
them into the stone under glass panels). He buried them
three feet deep and left them for 13 months. When they were
dug up, the sandstone toads were all dead; but more than half
of the limestone toads were alive.
--------------------------
From: Michael Milligan
The following code will compile. Don't forget to add these #defines in yer rad
code. :-)
------------
Just wanted to check out that you gnarly dudes are using the latest and
greatest software technology fer yer rad code to make it easy for the dudes
who have to read it. The hip new way to write readable C code involves the use
of a few simple defines.
#define like {
#define man ;}
#define an ;
#define SayBro /*
#define CheckItOut */
SayBro like, this is some rad, so CheckItOut
like
a = b
an
c = d
man
SayBro, like who needs help from them compiler choads anyway?
THIS is the way to write CLEAR code. I mean really! CheckItOut
like SayBro this is ShellSort straight out of the white book, but in
a readable form.
CheckItOut man
#define YoDude for(
#define OK )
#define is =
#define AND &&
#define as
#define Do
#define long
#define some
#define make
#define FAROUT
shell( v, n ) SayBro sort v[ 0 ]...v[ n - 1 ] into increasing order CheckItOut
int v[], n;
like int gap, i, j, temp;
YoDude gap is n/2 an as long as gap ] 0 Do some some an make gap /=2 OK
YoDude i is gap an as long as i [ n Do some some an make i++ OK
YoDude j is i - gap an as long as j ]= 0 AND v[ j ] ] v[ j + gap ] Do
some an make j -= gap OK
like
temp is v[ j ] an
v[ j ] is v[ j + gap ] an
v[ j + gap ] is temp
man
FAROUT man
--------------------------
From: lyman@stpaul.gov (Chris Lyman)
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who wanted more than
anything to play Joseph at his church's annual Christmas pageant.
Imagine his disappointment when he learned that he was cast as
the innkeeper! After the shock wore off, he decided he would
get even with everyone for such a horrible miscarriage of justice...
On the night of the performance, everything was perfect. The kids
playing angels looked heavenly. Not one halo was bent or out of
alignment. The kids playing shepherds looked suitably rustic in
their burnooses and burlap robes. Everyone remembered their lines
and the performance fairly crackled with energy. However, the
little boy who played the innkeeper had not forgotten being slighted,
so when Joseph and Mary appeared before him and plaintively asked
if there was room for them, he replied, "Sure, there's room for you.
Come on in."
Whereupon the little girl playing Mary, remembering full well what
was _supposed_ to happen, said, "Let's find some other place to
stay, Joseph. This place is a dump!"
--------------------------
From: prudence!decwrl!ks25!garret@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Garret Toomey)
From: mbk%anl433.uucp@Germany.EU.net (Matt Kennel)
norman nithman (nrn@chinet.chinet.com) wrote:
: Architecture, pizza, blues, Algren, Sandberg, Speck, losing sports teams,
: futures/options markets...
: I guess Gates chose Chicago as a name because he felt that Chicago is
: the least exotic locale in the world. This doesn't stop him from coming
: here every time he wants to pitch his latest $499 program. I'd rather
: live in a town with some character than some foggy border town populated
: by a bunch of flannel-wearing, expresso-swilling, ex-Los Angelenos!
What about "Cairo" then? Chaos, traffic jams, exotic-look-n-feel, massive
bureaucratic overhead, and a tendency to get blown up or killed for no
particularly good reason? :-)
Let's continue along these lines... :-)
Apple System 7: Hollywood -- flashy and slick but lacking in substance.
SunOS (pre S5): Boston --- nice college town full of nerds
UNIX: Washington, DC --- More loopholes than a shoelace factory, but this
is where everything important happens.
Taligent: Oz --- "Somewhere, over the rainbow, somewhere far ...."
NeXTStep: Berkeley --- idealists dreaming away smoking dope but you never
know what genius that dead head might turn out to be...
MVS: The Death Star --- "A long time ago, in a Galaxy far far away..."
Newton: Disneyland *Tokyo* --- everything looks so bright and happy and
clean and friendly but absolutely nobody can understand a word you say.
OS/2: Westchester county Connecticut --- They want to get out of NYC but
they still can't completely leave...
Windows: NYC --- everybody lives there even though they know it's a pit.
--- and is right next to....
DOS: Newark, NJ --- did you ever see "Eraserhead"?
--------------------------
From: Matt Crawford [crawdad@munin.fnal.gov]
From: Carl Malamud [carl@trystero.malamud.com]
An interesting statistic for those of you watching
the growth of the net. We released santa@north.pole.org
at the same time as we released Larry King (see message
below). In a little over 24 hours, we have over 1000
messages to Santa Claus and 10 to Larry King.
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