From perry@ece.vill.edu Mon Jul 15 11:41:45 EDT 1996 Status: O Students here are hassled by me if they leave jobs running when they log out. Recently I received mail from a student who said "I have a 'ps -ef' running and can't kill it. The process ID keeps changing. Please help". (this must be a Heisenberg uncertainty 'ps', where the act of observing the system changes its behavior). -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke (jokes ONLY) to funny@clari.net. If you see a problem with an RHF posting, reply to the poster please, not to us. Ask the poster to forward comments back to us if this is necessary. For the full RHF guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Tue Jul 11 21:57:25 1995 Return-Path: <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Received: from helios.physics.utoronto.ca (root@helios.physics.utoronto.ca [128.100.75.10]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id VAA17250 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 1995 21:57:24 -0400 Received: from netcom17.netcom.com ([192.100.81.130]) by helios.physics.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <1663>; Tue, 11 Jul 1995 21:57:10 -0400 Received: by netcom17.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom) id RAA03401; Tue, 11 Jul 1995 17:55:57 -0700 Date: Tue, 11 Jul 1995 20:55:57 -0400 Message-Id: <199507120055.RAA03401@netcom17.netcom.com> Subject: Life F.T To: jzest.dli@netcom.com From: Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com Status: OR A picture being worth a thousand words, police in Weatherford Texas, should have an easy time proving their case against a trio of juvenile vandals who left too many clues at the scene of a church burglary. "It would be nice if all burglars left a picture behind," says Sgt. Ray Moss, expressing the sentiments of lawmen everywhere. But he realizes he may not ever get so lucky again. In this case, the pivotal clue came from the photocopying machine at Calvary Methodist Church. Besides doing $3,000 worth of damage and stealing electronic equipment, these burglars became fascinated with the copier. They used it to make pictures of their faces and then left the modern art on the floor. "One of the kids had unusual teeth," says Sgt. Moss. "We took the pictures to the local middle school, and the principal identified him right away." Confronted with the evidence, the 15-year-old culprit admitted his guilt and led police to his associates, according to Sgt. Moss. They also confessed their involvement in several earlier burglaries, giving Sgt. Moss a chance to clear those cases, too. Curious about their reason for leaving such a telltale clue, Sgt. Moss asked why they hadn't taken their artwork with them. He learned that a breakdown in communications was to blame. "They all thought that another one had picked them up." -------------------------- A tourist stopped his car on a country road and asked a young boy, "How far is it to Smithville." "Well," said the boy, "the way you are going, it's about 4,996 miles, but if you turn around, it's about four." -------------------------- Kids, do indeed, say the darnest things. Our family was on a cross country road trip and our 3 year-old son was merrily singing some song. After a while he asked, "Mommy, sing with me?" My wife answered no, she didn't want to. Well, the 3 year-old kept pestering her to sing until finally she said "Ask your father!" "Dad", said the tyke. "Will you tell Mom to sing with me?" -------------------------- Your question was: > your Oracleness, > > Please tell me > > Why do birds suddenly appear > Every time > You are near? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } I just washed my car. -------------------------- Your question was: > If all the world is a stage, what does that make you? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } The critic that can close the play on the first night. -------------------------- Your question was: > Will computers ever "think"? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } bad command or file name -------------------------- "At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats." -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985 Submitted by: Michael Melo -------------------------- Today's quote is from the conference guide for the 1994 World Science Fiction Convention, held in Winnipeg, Manitoba: AND A WORD ABOUT HYGIENE: Odd as it may seem to some, personal hygiene standards vary around the world. In science fiction fandom, if you are interested in romantic pursuit (or just in not accidentally offending), we STRONGLY recommend that you shower & shampoo daily, and brush regularly (preferably first thing in the morning and after dinner before you hit the evening parties). Your odds of success will increase dramatically. Trust us on this. Submitted by: thorntn@CC.UManitoba.CA -------------------------- "A distributed system is one in which I cannot get something done because a machine I've never heard of is down" --Leslie Lamport (note to technophobes - a distributed system is a computer network in which work may get shuffled onto any member computer without your intervention, knowledge, or consent.) Submitted by: cdash@ludell.uccs.edu (Charlie Shub) -------------------------- The requirements for admission to practice law include completion of general education at the university level; completion of a three-year postgraduate law school curriculum; passing a two- or three-day written bar examination; and proof of satisfactory character, the latter requirement being minimal. G.C. Hazard Jr. and Michele Taruffo _American Civil Procedure_ 1993 Submitted by: "KENNETH J. LABACH" ---------------------------------------------------- From: Internet World, July/August, 1994: 17 What's the dumbest thing you can do with e-mail? Ask Christopher James Reincke, an eighteen-year-old freshman at the University of Illinois in Urbana, who sent a message to President Clinton: "I am curious, Bill, how you would feel about being the first president to be killed on the same day as his wife...You will die soon...." He signed it "Overlord." Sure he sent it anonymously, but anonymous e-mail is for protecting yourself from nasty, late-night phone calls, not the Secret Service. With help from the university, they tracked him down and arrested him. He was released without bail, pending a hearing, and faces five years in jail and up to a $250,000 fine. Don't try this at home. -------------------------- + OHNOSECOND: Time between pressing Enter + + and realizing you did something terribly + + and irrevocably wrong. + -------------------------- "Before a lethal injection, the condemned person's arm is swabbed with alcohol to prevent infection." --Utne Reader, quoted in The Progressive, February 1994. "One legislator started wearing a bullet-proof vest, and a group that supports guns has started warning its members that they cannot educate lawmakers if they keep threatening them with late-night phone calls. 'You just make them more sure that they want you disarmed,' the group, Firearms Coalition of Colorado, advised its members." --The New York Times, February 13, 1994. "They're failures. Well, that's a little strong. But if $120,000 a year is the best job you've ever had, you haven't really done much." --Tom Clancy, speaking about members of Congress, quoted in The Virginia Pilot and the Ledger Star, July 13, 1993. -------------------------- Three samurai are arguing among themselves about which is the greatest. The first says, "See that fly?" and in a blur, he draws his sword, swings, and replaces it. The fly drops in two pieces. The second says, "Very good, but do you see that fly?" And with that he draws, swings and puts back his sword, and the fly falls in _four_ pieces. "Beat that!" The third says, "That is nothing. See that fly?" and he quickly draws, swings, and resheaths his sword. The fly keeps flying on. "Ha!" the other two laugh, "the fly isn't even dead!" "Yes," says the third samurai, "but he will never have children." -------------------------- "Someone once said that to experience the thrill of sailing one only needs to go in the shower fully clothed, turn the cold water on, and start tearing $20 bills. To experience the thrill of windsurfing follow the same instructions with a minor variation: once in a while throw yourself against the wall." -- Luigi Semenzato -------------------------- Try again, Koko. You're close. "Koko... now... banana... want." Sorry. Wrong syntax. Try again. "Want... now... banana... koko." Almost. Almost. "Koko... neck... snap... yours... soon." Ok, that's good enough for me. One banana coming up! -------------------------- A friend spotted this sign on the Olympic Peninsula. He photographed it, and I hope to get a print for my door. It read: CAUTION NO WARNING SIGNS BEYOND THIS POINT -------------------------- Forwarded-by: Chris LaFournaise From a talk given by Professor Nancy Leveson, Dept of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, on Software Safety & Reliability (IEEE & ACM Sponsored 4/20/94) : * An F16 pilot was sitting on the runway doing the pre-flight and wondered if the computer would let him raise the landing gear while on the ground - it did... * When initially developing the sidewinder missile pylon mounting there were a few problems. The software would release the latch and fire the missile - initially however the latch was closed shortly thereafter not allowing enough time for the missile to leave the wing. Imagine the pilots dismay when there was a bunch of extra thrust attached to one of the wings! * The F16 has a sophisticated software system that performs load balancing to optimize flight performance. This includes dropping empty fuel tanks in such a way as to balance the plane. A minor prerequisite to dropping the tanks was overlooked in the software - it's usually a good idea to be upright when releasing the tanks. Imagine flying upside down and having empty fuel tanks come flying off... * A manufacturer of torpedoes for the Navy wanted to make a 'safe' torpedo. Their initial solution was to cause the torpedo to self-destruct if it made a 180 degree change in course. On the test run for this new 'safe' torpedo the captain fired the torpedoe and nothing happened. So the captain ordered the sub back to base, executing a 180 degree turn... -------------------------- According to the latest issue of *The Economist*, Friday, October 14 was World Standards day. Or, at least, it was World Standards Day in *some* countries. However, as they note, "In America, the celebrations were held on October 11th. In Finland, World Standards Day was marked on October 13th. Italy is planning a separate conference on standards for October 18th." -------------------------- -- Henry Cate III The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet From: "Patrick Ryan" "Honour thy father" does not mean repeat his mistakes. From <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca,@janus.hwc.ca:pnilson@hpb.hwc.ca> Fri Jul 21 07:47:04 1995 Return-Path: <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca,@janus.hwc.ca:pnilson@hpb.hwc.ca> Received: from helios.physics.utoronto.ca (root@helios.physics.utoronto.ca [128.100.75.10]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id HAA29833 for ; Fri, 21 Jul 1995 07:47:03 -0400 Received: from hwc.ca ([204.187.49.99]) by helios.physics.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <2089>; Fri, 21 Jul 1995 07:46:38 -0400 Received: from hpb.hwc.ca ([204.187.49.1]) by janus.hwc.ca with SMTP id <28169>; Fri, 21 Jul 1995 08:03:06 -0400 Received: by hpb.hwc.ca (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA10537; Fri, 21 Jul 95 07:50:03 EDT Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 07:50:00 -0400 From: Pete Nilson To: Ken Macleod , Tim Welch , Christopher Neufeld , Keith Seifert , John Nilson , Al Caughey , GORD KOLONKO Subject: Fun Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: ORS If it's green or it wriggles, it's biology. If it stinks, it's chemistry. If it doesn't work, it's physics. If it's incomprehensible, it's mathematics. If it doesn't make sense, it's either economics or psychology. If it causes cancer in laboratory animals, it's pharmacology or nutrition. If it's just plain wrong, it's education. If it crashes, it's either engineering or CS. If it falls on itself, smashing a hundred cars, it's civil engineering. If it fails to distribute the middle term, it's theology. PLEASE DISTRIBUTE: Subject: from the Johnson Space Center [forwards raking it in at the box office] Top Ten TECHNICAL ERRORS/ANACHRONISMS in the movie "Apollo 13" ============================================================== compiled by a bunch of genuine NASA dweebs who actually noticed 10. The NASA "worm" logo appears on a glass door. The logo was not developed until 1976. 9. One engineer checks an astronaut's addition using a slide rule. Slide rules are not used for addition. 8. Jim Lovell's license plate is new. 7. The astronauts point out the Sea of Tranquility while on the dark side of the moon. It is on the other side. 6. A technician at the cape is wearing a Rockwell Intl logo on his coveralls. The Apollo capsule was built by North American, which did not become Rockwell Intl until after the Apollo program. 5. The gantry arms for the Saturn V are released in unison, not one at a time. 4. During entry, the spacecraft is shown hurling directly at the earth. At that angle, it would punch a brief but fiery hole through the atmosphere. It should be aiming toward the horizon. 3. The paint pattern on the Saturn V is for the test configuration, not the launch configuration. 2. The astronauts look at their intended landing site while on the dark side of the moon. It is a good thing they didn't land - no communications with planet Earth, it's dark and very cold. AND THE NUMBER ONE TECHNICAL ERROR/ANACHRONISM in APOLLO 13 is: 1. In space, from outside the capsule, propulsion jets do not make any noise. - Christopher Land Notes: Any errors are the responsibility of the reader. If you point them out we may sue, so watch it. Heretofore notwithstanding and nevertheless hereby contradicting the previous sentence, any additions/corrections should be passed back to me and I promise to care. Deeply. ------- FORWARD, End of original message ------- From <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Tue Jul 25 12:13:02 1995 Return-Path: <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Received: from helios.physics.utoronto.ca (root@helios.physics.utoronto.ca [128.100.75.10]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id MAA02088 for ; Tue, 25 Jul 1995 12:13:02 -0400 Received: from netcom3.netcom.com ([192.100.81.103]) by helios.physics.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <1734>; Tue, 25 Jul 1995 12:12:45 -0400 Received: by netcom3.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom) id IAA27535; Tue, 25 Jul 1995 08:09:05 -0700 Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 11:09:05 -0400 Message-Id: <199507251509.IAA27535@netcom3.netcom.com> Subject: Life G.2 To: jzest.dli@netcom.com From: Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com Status: O From: mwm@a.gp.cs.cmu.edu >From the latest Crow's Nest on the Microsloth/DOJ antitrust agreement... Bill Neukom (not Gates), Microsoft's house counsel, promptly issued a standard statement of legal boilerplate saying, in effect, "We didn't do anything wrong, and we'll never do it again." [Incidentally, Neukom's writing style is a piece of work. Even when he's called upon to announce reverses for Microsoft, such as the loss in the Stac patent case, he invariably prefaces his published comments with the stock phrase "I am pleased to announce that..." One wonders how Neukom would respond if suddenly tapped to announce the impending end of the world. "I am pleased to announce that the world will end tomorrow morning at 9 AM. The end of the world will provide a strong boost to Microsoft's competitive stance, with our new suite product consisting of Microsoft Void, Microsoft Oblivion, and Microsoft Nothingness to be shipping soon. This event will also be a significant victory for consumers of Microsoft products, as we expect complaints about help line delays to cease entirely not long after the nine AM deadline."] ---------------------------------------------------- > > A system admin's life is a sorry one. The only > > advantage he/she has over Emergency Room doctors > > is that malpractice suits are rare. On the other > > hand, ER doctors never have to deal with patients > > installing new versions of their own innards! ---------------------------------------------------- >From MacWeek, 17 Oct 1994 The 'Mac the Knife' column concluded with: "It was just this week that a MacWEEK mug was hastily dispatched to the source who observed that with Office 4.2, Microsoft had managed to market software of sufficient bulk that it may automatically invoke an obscure U.S. Department of Transportation regulation requiring an audible safety beep when it is backing up." ---------------------------------------------------- From: Conrad G T Yoder IF OPERATING SYSTEMS RAN AIRLINES.... (From a talk by an IBM employee (who shall remain nameless) with some modifications) DOS Airlines Passengers are handed maps, compasses, rulers, pencils and an airplane manual (shrink wrapped) as they enter the plane. Have to figure out how to get the plane to wherever they want to go. Some succeed very well. Others crash, but they shouldn't have been messing around with airplanes anyway. MAC Airlines All the stewards, stewardesses, captains, baggage handlers and ticket agents look the same, act the same and talk the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you are told you don't need to know, don't want to know, and everything will be done for you without you having to know, so just shut up. OS/2 Airlines To board the plane, you have your ticket stamped 10 different times by standing in 10 different lines. Then you fill out a form showing where you want to sit and whether it should look and feel like an ocean liner, a passenger train, or a bus. If you succeed in getting on board the plane and the plane succeeds in getting off the ground, you have a wonderful trip . . . . except times when the rudder and flaps get frozen in position, in which case you have time to say your prayers and get yourself prepared before the crash. WINDOWS Airlines The airport terminal is nice and colourful, with friendly stewards and stewardesses, easy access to the plane, and an uneventful takeoff . . . then the plane blows up without any warning whatsoever. NT Airlines Everyone marches out on the runway, says the password in unison and forms the outline of a plane. Then they all sit down and make a whooshing sound like they're flying. UNIX Airlines Everyone brings one piece of the plane with them when they come to the airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece by piece, arguing constantly about what kind of plane they are building. From <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Thu Jul 27 11:49:50 1995 Return-Path: <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Received: from helios.physics.utoronto.ca (root@helios.physics.utoronto.ca [128.100.75.10]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id LAA04578 for ; Thu, 27 Jul 1995 11:49:49 -0400 Received: from netcom23.netcom.com ([192.100.81.137]) by helios.physics.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <2039>; Thu, 27 Jul 1995 11:49:21 -0400 Received: by netcom23.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom) id HAA03108; Thu, 27 Jul 1995 07:54:49 -0700 Date: Thu, 27 Jul 1995 10:54:49 -0400 Message-Id: <199507271454.HAA03108@netcom23.netcom.com> Subject: Life G.3 To: jzest.dli@netcom.com From: Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com Status: O From: Joe Mole In 1904, when *Peter Pan* began playing in London, the children were so enthralled by the flying hero of Never-Never Land that they took his words literally: If they believed strongly enough, then they would be able to fly. Quickly distraught parents began complaining that their children were being injured attempting to fly. J.M. Barrie, the creator of *Peter Pan* replied by incorporating a slight change into Peter's formula for flying. His solution was effective, imaginative, and life-saving. His solution perfectly fit the situation and even improved on what originally existed--the ideal way to solve a problem. From then on, in order to fly, the children in the story needed to be sprinkled with the dust of Tinker Bell, a pixie. -------------------------- From: "" Patient: "Doctor, please help me. I don't know what to do. I talk in my sleep." Doctor: "That's not so bad. You don't need to despair. Does your talking bother your sleeping wife?" Patient: "No, but in the office everyone laughs at me." In school the class has to write an essay on the theme "If I were a millionaire." Everyone eagerly begins to write, only little Fritz leans back in his chair and writes nothing. "Don't you have any ideas on this theme?" the teacher wants to know. "Yes" answers little Fritz, "but I'm waiting on my secretary." -------------------------- Don't accept your dog's admiration as conlcusive evidence that you are wonderful. "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." Mark Twain -------------------------- ["Egon, can you tell me why you go out on the balcony every time your wife begins her singing lesson?" "Very simple, Erwin. I do that so the neighbors don't think I'm beating my wife."] -------------------------- "The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it is unfamiliar territory." -Paul Fix -------------------------- DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- David Shidler didn't know his credit card was stolen -- until another man tried to use it to buy $3,000 worth of jewelry from him. ``I thought there was a joke being played on me, and it turned out it wasn't a joke,'' Shidler said. Shidler's credit cards and birth certificate were lifted from a storage building. He didn't know it had been broken into until Friday, when a customer at his jewelry shop handed him the credit card. At first, Shidler said he thought the man just shared his name. Then he recognized his signature on the card and his Social Security number on the man's driver's license. ``The chances of that ever happening are one in a million,'' said police Sgt. Judy Bradshaw. Police think he used the stolen birth certificate to get a driver's license. The man, who told police his name is David Cox, faces one charge of forgery. He was being held on $3,000 bond. (July 1994) -------------------------- More political gaffes from the 10/9 Baltimore Sun: Frank G. Bonelli of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors welcomed a presidential commission on drug trafficking and said: "I am sure the committee will do an infinitesimal amount of good." -------------------------- From: BETH WOODELL Al Smith visited SingSing prison soon after he was elected governor of New York. His verbal problems began as soon as he had toured the grounds and began toaddress the inmates. He was unsure how to begin, but he finally said, "My fellow citizens." Then he recalled that when one goes to prison [in the U.S.], one is no longer a citizen. So he then said, "My fellow convicts." This brought a roar from the inmates. Finally, Smith blurted out, "Well, anyway, I'm glad to see so many of you here." And then there's the story that Harold Hoffman, former governor of New Jersey, swears is true: A state employee was driving a truck along a New Jersey highway at an excessive speed. A trooper stopped him and asked, "Do yo realize you were doing over 55 miles an hour?" "No, I didn't," the driver replied. "Well," asked the trooper, "don't you have a governor on that truck?" "No sir,"said the highwayman, "the governor's in Trenton-- that's fertilizer you smell." -------------------------- Monday Night Football: Does anybody out there want Dan Dierdorf thrown out of the booth onto screaming fans as much as I do? Some classic quotes: "Well tonight will be a tough game, somebody will have to win." Really, Dan? You're sure about that? "Boy, the harder that guy runs, the more yards he gets." You're point being.....? -------------------------- From: "Mark S. Hutchenreuther" Subject: Famous Scientists Joke A couple of years ago, the following joke was told at a Mensa gathering: Rene Descartes was sitting at a bar. The bartender came over and asked if he would like another drink. He replied, "I think not." And he vanished. --------------------------------------- Layne Marshal sent me this one. "The Constitution is a forthright peice of work and quite succinct--21 pages (in the American Civics E-Z reader large-type version) giving the complete operating instructions for a nation of 250 million people. The manual for a Toyota Camray, which only seats five, is four times as long." From "A Parliament of Whores" by P.J. O'Rourke -------------------------- I thought you might enjoy this apparently true story from a recent posting on REGIST-L (the registars' e-mail discussion list). It's from Maureen Breed , Associate Registrar at Syracuse University. Thought you'd all appreciate this item, passed on by our registrar, Peter Deblois, as further evidence that institutions benefit when registrars are in the classroom (courtesy of the February '94 issue of Recruitment and Retention). RULE #1: NEVER SKIP CLASS If you're defrauding a school, make sure that the class you cut isn't taught by the institution's registrar. James Lloyd, a student at St. Petersburg (FL) Junior College, learned that lesson the hard way. Lloyd was registered for a lower-level history class taught by part-time instructor Dave McCary, who's full-time job is registrar. The problem with Lloyd cutting McCary's class wasn't that he was missing material, but that he had registered for the class using seven different names. Lloyd was using more than a dozen aliases to register for classes at the college and then collect thousands of dollars in financial aid payments. Financial aid officers and staff in the registrar's office had noticed some irregularities in several residency applications. They conferred but had no direct proof of any misdeeds. The key piece of the puzzle came when McCary went to teach his first class and discovered only 20 students there--out of 30 who had registered. He ran a check on the absent names and addresses and discovered that seven of the 10 had the same address and phone number: Lloyd's. After discovering a small house instead of a large building at the address and being unable to verify high school graduation, the financial aid and registrar's staffs set up a sting: They asked Lloyd to come in and pick up one of his financial aid checks. Lloyd was arrested and charged with more than a dozen felonies, including grand theft. Jack Webb, of "Dragnet" fame, might have ended this episode thusly: "The suspect was tried in the Superior Court of the State of Florida and found guilty of stupidity in the first degree. He is now serving a five-year sentence on a schedule adjustment line at Tallahassee State Penitentiary. The registrar was given five years of TIAA-CREF credit and has retired to the Longboat Key Club." Da da-da da. -------------------------- Here are the last of the too-hastily-written advertisements from Nick Hart . "Stock up and save. Limit: one." "Wanted: Preparer of food. Must be dependable, like the food business, and be willing to get hands dirty." "Girl wanted to assist magician in cutting-off-head illusion. Blue Cross and salary." "Wanted. Widower with school-age children requires person to assume general housekeeping duties. Must be capable of contributing to growth of family." "Mother's helper--peasant working conditions." "Semi-Annual after-Christmas Sale." "And now, the Superstore--unequaled in size, unmatched in variety, unrivaled inconvenience." "We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $1.00." -------------------------- Here's a story that I found rather amusing. It's from Paul Koster . Larry - - - - - I recently hired an assistant for our Computer Department, But one of my interviews was so funny I just have to share it. These were my questions and her answers. Q. How long have you been working with Computers ? (Note!.. Her Resume states 3 years with Sun Computers, 4 years with IBM, and the last 2 years with Compaq computers) A. Oh, About 7 years. Q. Have you ever worked with Lotus 1-2-3 ? A. I have worked with lotus 1 and 2, but I just started a few months ago working with Lotus 3. Q. What Windows programs have you worked with ? A. Oh, Dos 5, ASCII and text, Wordperfect, and of course Lotus 1 and 2. Q. Would you be available to work overtime ? A. Sure, Anytime but Nights and Weekends. Q. We have Hard drives and Floppy drives here, We also have CD-Rom drives, I assume you have worked with CD-Rom's ? A. Oh sure. I even have a CD player at home. Although I haven't hooked it to My PC at home yet. Q. How about Telecommunications, have you worked with modems? A. Well at my old company we had a Pac Bell system, and I used to answer the phones in relief when our Receptionist went on Vacation, But I don't think I would have any trouble with a Modems system. She always had an answer, but what questions she was answering I am still trying to figure out. Needless to say, I think she is still looking for a job. -- Henry Cate III The Life collection maintainer, selections of humor from the internet From: "Patrick Ryan" "Honour thy father" does not mean repeat his mistakes. From <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Thu Aug 3 15:34:30 1995 Return-Path: <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Received: from helios.physics.utoronto.ca (root@helios.physics.utoronto.ca [128.100.75.10]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id PAA06963 for ; Thu, 3 Aug 1995 15:34:28 -0400 Received: from netcom13.netcom.com ([192.100.81.125]) by helios.physics.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <2220>; Thu, 3 Aug 1995 15:34:14 -0400 Received: by netcom13.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom) id LAA26044; Thu, 3 Aug 1995 11:54:00 -0700 Date: Thu, 3 Aug 1995 14:54:00 -0400 Message-Id: <199508031854.LAA26044@netcom13.netcom.com> Subject: Life G.5 To: jzest.dli@netcom.com From: Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com Status: O David missed his early flight home from a business trip, but couldn't contact his wife in time. Concerned about him not being on the flight, she sent cables to five of his friends, asking if he was with them. When David arrived home she showed him the five return cables, each one simply read "Yes". -------------------------- From: Davorin.Mestric@112.hrfido.fesb.hr (Davorin Mestric) Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. But remember, Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Look before you leap. But remember, He who hesitates is lost. Nothing venture, nothing gain. But remember, Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Seek and ye shall find. But remember, Curiosity killed the cat. Save for a rainy day. But remember, Tomorrow will take care of itself. Life is what we make it. But remember, What is to be will be. Too many cooks spoil the broth. But remember, Many hands make light work. One man's meat is another man's poison. But remember, Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. With age comes wisdom. But remember, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings come all wise sayings. A rolling stone gathers no moss. But remember, A setting hen never lays. A hollow pot makes the most noise. But remember, The squeaky wheel gets the grease. To thine own self be true. But remember, The nail that stands out gets hammered down. Faint heart never won fair lady. But remember, The meek shall inherit the Earth. -------------------------- From: jkemp@eosc.osshe.edu (Jack Kemp) Last term, a history professor received a panicked voice mail message from a student stating that he would be unable to make the mornings mid-term because his car was broke down 150 miles away. Unfortunately for the student, the college's voice mail system identified the call as having been made 10 minutes ago from the student union. -------------------------- From: George F. Niebling IV During a recent ecumenical gathering, a secretary rushed in shouting, 'The building is on fire!' The METHODISTS gathered in the corner and prayed The BAPTISTS cried, "Where is the water?" The QUAKERS quietly praised God for the blessings that fire brings The LUTHERANS posted a notice on the door declaring the fire was evil The ROMAN CATHOLICS passed a collection plate to cover the damage The JEWS posted symbols on the doors hoping that the fire would pass The CONGREGATIONALISTS shouted, "Everyone for themselves" The FUNDAMENTALISTS proclaimed, "It's the vengeance of God" The CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS concluded that there wasn't a fire The PRESBYTERIANS appointed a chairperson who was to appoint a committee to look into the matter and make a written report and the EPISCOPALIANS formed a procession and marched out... and the secretary grabbed a fire extinguisher and put the fire out! -------------------------- From: John=Ings%TECH%CSA_DFL@sso.sci.sp-agency.ca The New York Times reports that the following list is being passed around in Washington, DC: Lord's Prayer: 56 words 23rd Psalm: 118 words Gettysburg Address: 226 words Ten Commandments: 297 words U.S. Department of Agriculture order on the price of cabbage: 15,629 words. -------------------------- From: jeby@mcis.messiah.edu A friend of mine recently told of an experience of a friend of his in India. The friend was invited to give a speech through translation at an important occassion. He began, "I am tickled to death to be invited to this wonderful occassion." After pausing a moment the translator with great enthusiasm said, "They scratched him until he died!" -------------------------- From: Rick Granberry Two boys decide to take a "shortcut" through a field, ignoring the "Danger, no Trespassing" signs. They are halfway across when they discover the reason for the danger sign, a large bull is also in the field, it charges at the two boys. The two boys begin running for the nearest fence, but it is soon evident they will not arrive in time. One boy pants to the other "I don't know what else to do but pray!" The second shoots back "but I only know one prayer, and I don't think it is the right one." As the bull converges on them the first boy pleads "any prayer is better than nothing right now!" The second boy incants "Oh Lord, we thank you now for that which we are about to receive ..." -------------------------- From: jkr@netcom.com (Katherine Rossner) That one reminds me of a story told by a woman I used to know. Barbara was teaching History of Music at a small school in the South. One term when she taught a class that covered the history of Western European music up to AD 1500. a number of her students went to the dean and protested against her "prejudices" because she discussed so much Catholic music, and omitted Protestant music entirely... -------------------------- Newsgroups: comp.arch,uk.media Subj: Re: Re: Mips R8000, Dick Pountain, BYTE From: peter@nmti.com (Peter da Silva) In article <366ba5$1kr@zeus.london.micrognosis.com>, Richard Parratt wrote: > And does it run NT? A supercomputer running NT would be a serious machine. Certainly. I can't imagine it being a happy machine. -------------------------- From: Serge Matulich When I discuss accounting for payrolls with my class, I point out that people are very sensitive about their pay and companies cannot afford to make mistakes in their payroll records. Then I tell students that when I worked in the payroll office of a business, an irate worker came to me one day, pounded his fist on the counter, and said "My pay was $10 short last week and I demand you make it up right now." I tried to calm him down and pulled out his file (this was in pre-computer days) and on checking I saw that he was right, but I noticed something else also. "I see that we paid you $10 too much the previous week. You didn't say anything about that." He responded "One mistake I can tolerate, but not two in a row." -------------------------- From: A collection of quotes from Professor Ralph Noble, a professor of psychology at RPI. Specifically, these were taken from his Psychology of Motivation class, Fall semester 1991. - "If I could go through the dorms and shoot people, exam pressures would be put into perspective." - "As you approach 4.0, study time approaches infinity." - "I've been in the academic world a long time...I can sleep with my eyes open, which is an important skill for those of you considering jobs in middle and upper management." - "In the US, males are a minority and should be treated and protected as such." - "A college professor is someone smart enough to get a Ph.D., but too crazy to make a living." -------------------------- From: "D. E. Gulledge" At the craps table a man laid down a $1000 bet. He threw the dice and a third one fell from his sleeve. The croupier didn't bat an eye. He returned two of them to the bettor, pocketed the third and said "Roll again, your point is sixteen." -------------------------- Although up in years, Pete's mother-in-law was determined to learn how to drive. On her very first time behind the wheel, she moaned, "Pete, I don't know what to do!" Pete hesitated, and then softly said, "Just imagine I'm doing the driving." -------------------------- T H E 2 4 - S T A G E S O F T W A R E T E S T alpha: It compiles! beta: It runs on Joe's machine. gamma: It runs on Kate's machine, too. delta: It runs on the network. epsilon: Its stopped running on Kate's machine. zeta: It runs on all machines, but Report crashes. eta: It crashes on the 486. theta: It only works on the 486. iota: It crashes with a serial printer. kappa: It works! But the spec has changed. lambda: It runs, but mysteriously at half the speed of before. mu: It crashes the network. nu: It crashes Kate's machine with Local Bus, Joe's without. xi: It runs, but the printout is garbage. omicron: As above, but crashes after printout sometimes. pi: It sometimes crashes. rho: Kate thinks it works, but it turns out she's running lambda. sigma: No luck yet. tau: Aha, sorted out the printout. upsilon: Nearly there - jus tneed to tidy up the help text. phi: It won't run at all on anything under 4meg. chi: Yippee! It runs perfectly on all the machines in the world. psi: It runs on all the machines in the world except that idiot's from Basingstoke with a customised Pentium. omega: It won't compile. -------------------------- My bank manager told me of a disgruntled customer at another branch. This may be another of those urban myths but the manager claimed the customer rented a safe deposit box just before he went on holiday. He filled it with fish on a Friday and left for Europe that evening. That's one way to get your bank's attention. -------------------------- From: ross@ncd.com (Ross Oliver) I am a member of the local YMCA (which here in Silicon Valley is disguised as a trendy health club). At least once a week, there is a note on the comments board from someone complaining about the parking. Not a lack of parking, but that during peak hours, the available parking is too far away. It strikes me as completely ridiculous and very Californian that people who spend an hour or more lifting weights and pumping step machines would then complain about the 50-yard walk to their car. -------------------------- From: angie@cs.indiana.edu (angela allen) My hubby (John Nienart) and I were doing the spring cleaning a few weeks ago. As we were vacuuming the dust and dead insects off the windowsills so that we could put in the screens, he turned to me and said, "In all my career plans and visions of my future in computer science, this is something I never thought I would be doing --- debugging Windows!" -------------------------- From: emery@spectre.mitre.org (David Emery) A local salvage/discount store received a shipment of wedding dresses. A hand-lettered sign was posted by the rack of dresses: No more than 2 wedding dresses per bride, please. -------------------------- From: pjcreath@phoenix.princeton.edu (Peter Janssen Creath) Did you hear Cuba has a new national anthem? "Row, row, row your boat..." -------------------------- From: brucer@bighorn.dr.att.com (131W10000-RobinsonB(DR7643)6) My wife and I had just moved into the neighborhood. We received a card from Sears (the camp of the enemy) saying "since you are new in town, would you like to apply for a credit card?" Sure, we decided, filled out the application and returned it. Several weeks later we got a rejection from Sears saying "Sorry, we cannot issue to you a credit card." Reason? "You haven't been in town long enough." -------------------------- From: joel@ssd.intel.com >From the cover letter of a recent internal memo: "Please distribute the enclosed document to all employees in your group immediately. Please fax to field employees. This information is highly confidential and SHOULD NOT BE SENT ELECTRONICALLY - UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" It's nice to know fax machines are so secure and not electronic. ------------------------- "So you want another day off," snorted the office manager to his clerk. "I'm anxious to hear what excuse you have this time. You've been off for your grandfather's funeral four times already." Replied the clerk, "Today my grandma is getting married again." -- Joe Lanser -------------------------- While looking for part-time work in my campus newspaper's classifieds, I found an opening for a telephone fund-raiser. After I had intervied for the job, I asked the supervisor why he had advertised in a college paper. The man replied, "When it comes to telephoning people and asking them for money, college students seemed the logical choice." -- Matthew Wheeler From funny-request@clari.net Fri Aug 25 11:13:00 EDT 1995 Status: O [Note - What follows is one part of the True News Digest - a collection of true-life stories which didn't really warrant individual posting, but which are amusing nevertheless. The digest is quite long, and it will appear in 22 parts over the next few months - ed.] = = = = = = = From: dbell@maths.tcd.ie (Derek Bell) Subject: Is Quayleitis contagious? Des O'Malley, an important minister in the Irish government, made the following comment about the Danish rejection of the Maastricht treaty: "The Maastricht treaty ... has been dealt, at least temporarily, a fatal blow." = = = = = = = From: baker@cs.stanford.edu (Andrew Baker) Subject: American workers and customers deserve each other This story is true. A store at the Stanford Shopping Center was having a 30% off sale. In front of me in line is this middle-aged woman who looks vaguely troubled as the clerk is totalling up her purchases. Finally, she asks the clerk, "Is it 30% off *each* *item*? Or only 30% off at the very end?" The clerk tells her that first they total up the purchases normally, and then they subtract the 30%. The woman seems even more troubled at this point, and then observes (to no one in particular), "You don't save very much that way...." = = = = = = = From: vdclprd@prism.gatech.edu (Mike Mitten) Subject: Paper Towels In the men's bathroom in Oxford Books, Peachtree Battle Shopping Center, Atlanta, Georgia, written on the paper towel thingey, are the following words: ANCIENT FOREST DISPENSER = = = = = = = From: prichard@devon.larc.nasa.gov Organization: Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Co. Subject: radio ad a local AM radio station, WTAR, has been running ads for a hearing aid company. huh? = = = = = = = From: drawson@tymnet.com (Dick Rawson) Subject: have a blast The Denver Museum of Natural History has a section on mining during frontier days. There is a small stack of DuPont No. 6 Blasting Cap boxes, labeled with the advice, Attach caps to fuse with a cap crimper, not with knife or teeth. = = = = = = = From: mrb@bugs.aero.org (Bug Guts) Subject: I thought it was funny >From the Los Angeles Times (whenever Paul Simon's "Rhythm of the Saints" album came out): RICHMOND, Va. -- Comedians Chevy Chase and Steve Martin took turns holding down a giant Casper the Friendly Ghost balloon as the pair helped singer Paul Simon make a new music video. [paragraph describing the video deleted] Martin signed just one autograph, for Carrie Cheeley, an 8-year-old baton twirler. "This certifies that you have had a personal encounter with me and that you found me warm, polite, intelligent and funny," Martin wrote. = = = = = = = From: Another one of these POLISH VILLA things.@uunet.UUCPAnother one of these POLISH VILLA things. Subject: Sign Location Sometimes the location of a sign is says as much as the sign itself. Take these for example: ----------------------------------- | Cruise Ships - Use airport exit | ----------------------------------- - highway in San Diego, California All of the cruise ships I saw on the highway got off there. Or another good example: ------------------------------------------------- | Now entering the town of York. | | All Building codes will be strictly enforced. | ------------------------------------------------- It's next to a large field. There's not a building within a mile. Maybe the building codes were TOO strictly enforced? Or yet a third. ------------------------------------ | Big Flats - Planned and Growing. | ------------------------------------ It's next to their cemetary. Is this where Steven King gets his ideas? So keep your eyes open. You'll find sign locations most important at times. = = = = = = = From: bsingh@cory.berkeley.edu (Balraj Singh) Organization: EECS at University of California, at Berkeley Subject: food stamps Clipping in Newsweek :- From a letter to a dead person from the Greenville County (S.C.) Department of Social Services.. "Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992, because we have received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances." = = = = = = = From: bsingh@cory.berkeley.edu (Balraj Singh) Organization: EECS at University of California, at Berkeley Subject: is this going to take too long??? Clipping in Newsweek :- "Is this going to take long? I've got someplace to go tonight." An 8-year old Chicago boy being questioned by detectives after he shot a girl classmate in the spine with a semiautomatic handgun. = = = = = = = From: asbestos@nwu.edu (Michael A. Atkinson) Subject: A sign from the Paper Gods You know it's time to give up writing a paper when you awake with your head on the keyboard and you've typed fifty pages of the letter "g". [This happened to me Tuesday 3/17/92. It's true.] = = = = = = = From: daled@meaddata.com (Dale Drummond) Subject: more bathroom graffiti There's a small town in Ohio called Yellow Springs, known for it's very left-wing inclinations. Many people of alternative lifestyles live in Yellow Springs, and it's also the location of Antioch College, which was notorious in the 60's for having "free-thinking" attitudes about education and lots of flower children as students. This graffiti was seen on the bathroom wall at Ha Ha Pizza in Yellow Springs: "The hippies will rise again." Underneath in another handwriting: "But the day will be half over." = = = = = = = From: jmkell1@ptsfa.pacbell.com (Jim Kelly) Subject: Automation Efficienies >From the San Francisco Chronicle, March 24, 1992 (without permission): "Unemployment Checks to be Delayed 3-4 Days" Unemployment checks will be delayed three to four days starting tomorrow as Bay Area offices of the Employment Development Department [California's unemployment office] switch over to a faster automated system. I can't wait for them to come up with new ways to process my tax refund... = = = = = = = From: dbd2x@kelvin.seas.virginia.edu (Dan Duncan) Subject: joke TRUE, ORIGINAL I was driving down the street the other day and I stopped behind a car with a bumper sticker reading "Jesus can heal YOU!" Of course, the car also had handicapped plates... = = = = = = = From: jonc@computing-department.poly-south-west.ac.uk (Jon Care) Subject: WP's are doing it for themselves. Note: PCAS is a system in the UK for the administration of college applications. PCAS form - Confidential statement by referee Mr xxx has positively uttered absurd premature eroticism of memoir for the BTEC National Sheepskin in Computer Discipline at this Lyceum. So dramatically he is arraying an excellent consequence in his garbage year. . . . The Poly replied... I am in receipt of a PCAS application from Mr xxx ( a copy of which is enclosed) I refer to the reference shown and would ask for your comments as to its authenticity. If the first paragraph was caused by a "gremlin" in the works perhaps you would send me an amended copy, however if this reference does not come from you your comments would be appreciated. . . . Dear Mrs. Green, I enclose the correct reference for Mr. xxx, a student in my tutor group at this college. I must apologise for the incorrect version which had been corrupted by a bug in my thesaurus on my system.. Although I had carefully checked the text on screen we did have to hurry the application process in December due to a threatened postal strike. CORRECTED FIRST PARA ==================== Mr. xxx has successfully completed his first year of study for the BTEC National Diploma in Computer Studies at this College, and so far he is showing an excellent progression in his second year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A true story people, I kid you not. We do seem to get all the weirdoes here. Now that wasnt too depressing was it? -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your jokes (jokes ONLY) to funny@clari.net Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Sponsored by ClariNet Communications Corp. (http://www.clari.net) If you post instead of mailing, it screws up the reply-address sometimes. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. From <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Tue Aug 29 13:16:53 1995 Return-Path: <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:cate3@netcom.com> Received: from helios.physics.utoronto.ca (root@helios.physics.utoronto.ca [128.100.75.10]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id NAA25895 for ; Tue, 29 Aug 1995 13:16:52 -0400 Received: from netcom6.netcom.com ([192.100.81.114]) by helios.physics.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <1165>; Tue, 29 Aug 1995 13:16:46 -0400 Received: by netcom6.netcom.com (8.6.12/Netcom) id IAA17042; Tue, 29 Aug 1995 08:20:06 -0700 Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 11:20:06 -0400 Message-Id: <199508291520.IAA17042@netcom6.netcom.com> Subject: Life G.C To: jzest.dli@netcom.com From: Reply-to: cate3@netcom.com Status: O Forwarded-by: chris@das.harvard.edu % finger rhp@cs.cmu.edu [...] "Do not operate heavy equipment with your head submerged in this liquid for extended periods of time." - Warning on a bottle of spring water -------------------------- Forwarded-by: cavasin@bach.convex.com (Vince Cavasin) CRIME BILL RETURNS Supporters of the crime bill swore it wasn't pork and would target crime-ridden areas. The first $200 million has been divvied up among 392 communities. There are several dubious recipients, but none more interesting than Moffett, Oklahoma, population 340. [No, that's not a typo. It's 340.] It received $106,000 to hire policemen. Moffett has no police department and no need other than on weekend nights. Town officials wonder how they can possibly come up with the required 25% in matching funds. The town's annual budget is less than $10,000. -------------------------- Subj: Undergraduate posting of the day Forwarded-by: guy@netapp.com (Guy Harris) From: luidensn@river.it.gvsu.edu (Nita Luidens) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subj: Pipelining Date: 22 Oct 1994 13:24:26 GMT Please post everything you know about pipelining and hazards. Thank you. -------------------------- Forwarded-by: ccaputo@microsoft.com Discussing Stephen Case's (America On-Line CEO) comment that Microsoft should show some restraint in the online market: If you think the 13,000 guys at Microsoft who aren't millionaires yet are going to show some restraint, you're in for a surprise. -- Andy Nicholson (andyni@microsoft.com) -------------------------- From: Jon Loeliger This tops the "I'm out of the office" duration I've seen. Gives a new meaning to "vacation" program too... =-=-=-= From: Pierre-Yves.Lochou@cnam.fr (Pierre-Yves Lochou) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 05:20:45 +0100 To: jdl@healthcare.com I will not be reading my mail for a while (until the end of September 95), because I've gone to the army. Your fascinating mail regarding "Marillion's White Feather" will be read when I return. -------------------------- Forwarded-by: guy@netapp.com (Guy Harris) The "Notebook" section of the November 7 *The New Republic* reports the following headline from the October 12 *New York Times*: After Detour to California, Shuttle Returns to Earth -------------------------- Subject: Comedy writers, on... Forwarded-by: Wendell Craig Baker From: ShopTalk for Thu, Nov 3, 1994 Comedy writer Leslie Coogan, on Mike Huffington saying that interviewing a nanny is "the most important interview you will ever have in your entire life": "Wanna bet that his upcoming interview with the INS will rank right up there." White House Shooting, Redux: David Letterman says there's a brighter side: "Now when President Clinton runs for reelection, at least he can say he's had combat experience." Letterman adds that Monday was just a typical autumn scene in Washington: "Squirrels gathering shell casings." Comic Argus Hamilton says there's a reason Republicans are demanding better presidential protection: "If something happens to Clinton, they'll have to run on THEIR record." Comedy writer Bob Mills on White House security: "Experts recommended barring access to people who really have no business there...such as Michael Dukakis, Dan Quayle and Ross Perot. -------------------------- Forwarded-by: ddt@lsd.com (Dave Del Torto) My favorite Error Msg of the Day (courtesy of HP DeskScan II v2.0): ___________________________________________ | | | Sorry, an unknown error has occurred. | | This is probably a bad thing. | | [OK] | |___________________________________________| -------------------------- Forwarded-by: "James W. Williams" From: bane@gst.gsfc.nasa.gov (Robert Bane) Subject: Spell Checker Goes Beserk! Editorial Maimed! The following sentence was taken from Richard Cohen's column on the editorial page of Tuesday's Post: "GOP national chairman Haley Barbour instantly announced that New York City was no longer in the running for the Republican National Convention, and, more ominous, Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, the state's leading Republican and Pataki's Disk Operating System (DOS), said he would not seek revenge on Giuliani." The only explanation I can come up with (other than Sen. D'Amato really being a copy of DOS) is that Cohen typed 'doss' instead of 'boss', and the spelling checker not only corrected it to DOS, but spelled the acronym out since it's the first appearance of it in a non-computer-related news story. From xhu@bnr.ca Thu Dec 21 17:17:16 1995 Return-Path: xhu@bnr.ca Received: from bnr.ca (x400gate.bnr.ca [192.58.194.73]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id RAA00475 for ; Thu, 21 Dec 1995 17:16:08 -0500 Status: OR Subject: fw:A Christmas Carol 'Twas the night before implementation and all through the house, not a program was working..... not even a browse. The programmers hung by their tubes in despair, with hopes that a miracle would be there. The users were nestled, all snug in their beds, while visions of inquiries danced in their heads. When out in the machine room there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter. What to my wondering eyes should appear, but a super programmer... with a six pack of beer. His resume glowed with experience so rare, he turned out great code with a bit pusher's flair. More rapid than eagles, his programs they came, and he cursed and muttered and called them by name: On Update! On Add! On Inquiry! On Delete! On Batch jobs! On Closing! On Functions Complete! His eyes were glazed over, fingers nimble and lean, from weekends and nights in front of a screen. A wink of his eye, and a twitch of his head soon gave me to know, I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to work, turning specs into code, then turned with a jerk. And laying his finger upon the "ENTER" key, the system came up and worked perfectly. The updates updated, the deletes they deleted, the inquiries inquired, and closing completed. He tested each whistle, he tested each bell with nary an abend, and all had gone well. The system was finished, the tests were concluded. The user's last changes were even included. And the user exclaimed with a snarl and a taunt, "It's just what I asked for...... but not what I want"!!! *Reprinted with the permission of Santa Incorporated ============================= From RISKS: Date: 4 Jun 96 14:20:39 EDT From: Kevin Rainier Subject: Loopy Mail It all started innocently enough. Last night somebody sent a message to the recreational mailing list "virtua-fighter@netcom.com". This is an infrequently used mailing list for the discussion of the Virtua Fighter family of SEGA arcade games. Since the last time somebody had used the list a Microsoft employee left the company -- perhaps he died -- and the mail address is no longer valid. Microsoft is a helpful company and informed the list (automatically, of course) that the address is not valid. Netcom is a helpful list server and sent the message to all recipients of the list, including the late, lamented employee of Microsoft. And so it continued. And continued. It's now morning. I'm receiving a message every two or so minutes, the subject line has maxed out with "Undeliverable: Undeliverable: ...". Members of the list have just begun arriving at their desks and discovering over 150 messages from postmaster@microsoft.com via the virtua-fighter mailing list. Naturally, they panic and rush to unsubscribe from the list. Not knowing how to do that, they send an "unsubscribe" message to -- where else -- "virtua-fighter@netcom.com". Which sends a message to the user at Microsoft. So far we've had five attempts to unsubscribe. As I've been composing this mail, the frequency of new mail has increased to more than one message per minute. Oh no. There's a bad address at dartmouth.edu. It replied to the list too. I suppose I can hope that it won't reply to its own replies. But I'm sure that Microsoft will. And since the Dartmouth message is responding to a Microsoft "Failed Mail" message, that part of the loop is working just fine. Hmm, I just found out that our outgoing mail server isn't working, though our incoming one is working just fine. I love computers. One final postscript: I just received a message (two hours after the above portions were written) from the list maintainer -- the list is now dead. I also haven't received any new autoreply messages for an hour. Seems that the storm has passed. kevin_rainier@crd.lotus.com From neufeld@southwind.net Wed Jul 24 10:06:06 EDT 1996 Forwarded-by: Karl Juhnke Forwarded-by: Peter Langston Forwarded-by: Keith Bostic Forwarded-by: Rob Pike KABINDA, ZAIRE--In a move IBM offices are hailing as a major step in the company's ongoing worldwide telecommunications revolution, M'wana Ndeti, a member of Zaire's Bantu tribe, used an IBM global uplink network modem yesterday to crush a nut. Ndeti, who spent 20 minutes trying to open the nut by hand, easily cracked it open by smashing it repeatedly with the powerful modem. "I could not crush the nut by myself," said the 47-year-old Ndeti, who added the savory nut to a thick, peanut-based soup minutes later. "With IBM's help, I was able to break it." Ndeti discovered the nut-breaking, 28.8 V.34 modem yesterday, when IBM was shooting a commercial in his southwestern Zaire village. During a break in shooting, which shows African villagers eagerly teleconferencing via computer with Japanese schoolchildren, Ndeti snuck onto the set and took the modem, which he believed would serve well as a "smashing" utensil. IBM officials were not surprised the longtime computer giant was able to provide Ndeti with practical solutions to his everyday problems. "Our telecommunications systems offer people all over the world global networking solutions that fit their specific needs," said Herbert Ross, IBM's director of marketing. "Whether you're a nun cloistered in an Italian abbey or an Aborigine in Australia's Great Sandy Desert, IBM has the ideas to get you where you want to go today." According to Ndeti, of the modem's many powerful features, most impressive was its hard plastic casing, which easily sustained several minutes of vigorous pounding against a large stone. "I put the nut on a rock, and I hit it with the modem," Ndeti said. "The modem did not break. It is a good modem." Ndeti was so impressed with the modem that he purchased a new, state-of- the-art IBM workstation, complete with a PowerPC 601 microprocessor, a quad-speed internal CD-ROM drive and three 16-bit ethernet networking connectors. The tribesman has already made good use of the computer system, fashioning a gazelle trap out of its wires, a boat anchor out of the monitor and a crude but effective weapon from its mouse. "This is a good computer," said Ndeti, carving up a just-captured gazelle with the computer's flat, sharp internal processing device. "I am using every part of it. I will cook this gazelle on the keyboard." Hours later, Ndeti capped off his delicious gazelle dinner by smoking the computer's 200-page owner's manual. IBM spokespeople praised Ndeti's choice of computers. "We are pleased that the Bantu people are turning to IBM for their business needs," said company CEO William Allaire. "From Kansas City to Kinshasa, IBM is bringing the world closer together. Our cutting-edge technology is truly creating a global village." -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. If you mail to original@clari.net, it makes sure that your joke is tagged as your original work, Always attribute the source of a joke, whether it's you, or somebody else. For the full submission guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From langleyr@arbeit.gozel.org Wed Jul 24 15:54:42 EDT 1996 Subject: Re: Merkin Chums *I* From: kirby_dave@tandem.com (Decay) Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett mark@monark.ftech.co.uk wrote: > >Murky B wrote: > > > >> Are all of our Merkin Chums okay after Bertha? > John Francis wrote: > >We're fine - how are you? (She/it came closer to you than to me!). > > Ah, you're one of those people waiting for the "big one" are you? The "big one" will never come as long as we the faithful continue our ritual of throwing whatever coins are handy into the San Andreas Fault as we drive along highway 280 (which runs parallel and immediately adjacent to the fault for about 10 miles on the San Francisco peninsula) to appease the earthquake gods. The practice is called Being Generous To A Fault. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From John_David_Galt@cup.portal.com Tue Aug 6 21:53:58 EDT 1996 The following are a sampling of REAL answers received on exams given by the California Department of Transportation's driving school (read Saturday Traffic School for moving violation offenders.) Q: Do you yield when a blind pedestrian is crossing the road? A: What for? He can't see my license plate. Q: Who has the right of way when four cars approach a four-way stop at the same time? A: The pick up truck with the gun rack and the bumper sticker saying "Guns don't kill people. I do." Q: What are the important safety tips to remember when backing your car? A: Always wear a condom. Q: When driving through fog, what should you use? A: Your car. Q: How can you reduce the possibility of having an accident? A: Be too s--- faced to find your keys. Q: What problems would you face if you were arrested for drunk driving? A: I'd probably lose my buzz a lot faster. Q: What changes would occur in your lifestyle if you could no longer drive lawfully? A: I would be forced to drive unlawfully. Q: What are some points to remember when passing or being passed? A: Make eye contact and wave "hello" if he/she is cute. Q: What is the difference between a flashing red traffic light and a flashing yellow traffic light? A: The color. Q: How do you deal with heavy traffic? A: Heavy psychedelics. Q: What can you do to help ease a heavy traffic problem? A: Carry loaded weapons. Q: Why would it be difficult to be a police officer? A: It would be tough to be a d---head all day long. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Fight the communications decency act. We've filed suit to stop it. See http://www.clari.net/suitpage.html From kraitch@eecs.berkeley.edu Fri Aug 9 00:43:12 EDT 1996 ATLANTA (KRT) -- And now for NBC's impression of the Olympics on TV: TRUMPETS: BOM! BOM! BOM-BOM BOM BOM BOM! BOB COSTAS: Good evening, and as you can tell by the sound of the Olympic Theme Song that we play almost as much as we show Kerri Strug's historic vault, it's time for our broadcast of The Recently Videotaped Olympic Games Featuring Americans. We're going to start by taking you right to the track-and-field stadium, where the men's 100-meter dash is about to get under way, despite the fact that it actually happened four hours ago. TRACK COMMENTATOR: Bob, this promises to be an exciting race, featuring Americans. COSTAS: And what are the obstacles that these Americans have overcome to create a Human Interest Factor for our broadcast? TRACK COMMENTATOR: Bob, from left to right, they have overcome psoriasis, vertigo and a bad allergy to vinaigrette dressing. COSTAS: We'll come back to the men's 100-meter final, but right now we're going to replay the video of Kerri Strug, an American, overcoming her ankle to make her courageous vault. (Kerri Strug vaults.) COSTAS: What a human moment! Time for a commercial. ANNOUNCER: We're IBM. We're a giant corporation with vast computer expertise. That's why we're in charge of keeping track of all the statistics for these, the Olympic Games of 1953. Thank you. BOM! BOM! BOMBOM BOM BOM BOM! COSTAS: Now we're going to take you to women's beach volleyball, where the sun is shining brightly despite the fact that it is now 10:37 p.m. on the East Coast. BEACH VOLLEYBALL COMMENTATOR: Thanks, Bob. This is Holly McPeak, an American, and as you can see in this digitized, computer-enhanced, ultra-slow-motion Beach Cam closeup shot, she has overcome cellulite. COSTAS: I'll say. When is she going to serve? BEACH VOLLEYBALL COMMENTATOR: She'll be serving in about 4 seconds, Bob. COSTAS: I'm sorry, but we don't have that kind of time, because we need to show this Heartwarming Moment. (Kerri Strug vaults.) COSTAS: Now let's go out to the cycling competition, where I believe we have a race involving an American. CYCLING COMMENTATOR: That is correct, Bob. We have an American shown here pedaling furiously in 637th place, with a solid chance to move up to 636th. COSTAS: What obstacle has this American overcome? CYCLING COMMENTATOR: Bob, he is overcoming one hellacious case of hemorrhoids. COSTAS: We'll have more on that exciting cycling race, but right now we're going to return to the Olympic track stadium for an update on the men's 100-meter dash. TRACK COMMENTATOR: Bob, the race started about two seconds ago and should be over in about eight more seconds. None of the Americans has fallen down. COSTAS: We're going to break away from the men's 100-meter dash at this point, but we will be covering it throughout the course of the evening. Right now, however, we want you to see this moment, captured by our NBC cameras. (Kerri Strug vaults.) COSTAS: Now let's head out to the pool to check on the progress of the American swimmers, all of whom have overcome asthma. SWIMMING COMMENTATOR: Bob, here we see an American swimmer winning a race. This happened earlier. COSTAS: How much earlier? SWIMMING COMMENTATOR: Twenty-four years, Bob. This is Mark Spitz. COSTAS: Time for this commercial. ANNOUNCER: We're the Nike Corporation. We pay famous athletes millions of dollars to wear our shoes. Because of this, you, the public, pay absurdly high prices for these shoes. Is that stupid, or what? Thank you. BOM! BOM! BOMBOM BOM BOM BOM! (Kerri Strug vaults.) COSTAS: OK, right now there are exciting live gold-medal competitions going on in archery, shooting, rowing, kayaking, table tennis, softball, volleyball, team handball and judo, so right now we're going to take you to beach volleyball, recorded earlier today. BEACH VOLLEYBALL COMMENTATOR: Bob, as you can see, American Holly McPeak is bending over. COSTAS: I'll say. BOM! BOM! BOMBOM BOM BOM BOM! (Kerri Strug vaults.) -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. The "executive moderator" is Brad Templeton. Please! No copyrighted stuff. Also no "mouse balls," dyslexic agnostics, Clinton/Yeltsin/Gates meets God, or "OJ will walk" jokes. For the full submission guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From larryc@teleport.com Wed Aug 14 23:13:52 EDT 1996 Subject: Re: Vae, vae Babylon From: lorrie@mellers1.psych.berkeley.edu (Lorrie Wood) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated Stephen Langasek wrote: >I&E Spoiler (do we still need these? :P) Newsgroup custom has been to wait until a given ep has been shown in the UK. Channel Four has shown I&E, but Wales is two weeks behind, so we have to wait for them. Even so, other countries will complain if we don't spoiler protect anything and everything, up to and including "The Gathering." The showings in Wales are two weeks behind because, so I've been told, all the vowels have to be removed and packed separately to pass Welsh customs. They get injected back in via a secret water-infusion process later, of course, but the process, plus clearance of all those foreign vowels to make sure they don't contaminate the Welsh consonant supply, takes about two weeks. You see, a really bad storm ripped through Wales and Eaastern Europe, washing all their vowels to see. Oddly enough, these all wound up in the Pacific, where they were caught by Polynesians out fishing. This is why we have 'Straczynski,' 'Kaczynski,' 'Cynwyd,' 'Kauai,' and 'Oahu.' The storm hit hardest in Wales, which is why they occasionally have to put y's and w's in to pinch-hit for the real vowels they don't have. In Eastern Europe, they simply make do with throwing more consonants at the prolem until it goes away. (PSA for the Bosnian Vowel Airlift gracefully deleted...) -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From pnilson@hpb.hwc.ca Fri Aug 16 12:45:03 1996 Return-Path: pnilson@hpb.hwc.ca Received: from hpb.hwc.ca (hpb.hwc.ca [204.187.49.1]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id MAA27132 for ; Fri, 16 Aug 1996 12:33:42 -0400 Received: by hpb.hwc.ca (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA21996; Fri, 16 Aug 96 12:36:05 EDT Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 12:36:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Pete Nilson To: funny -- Ben Nilson <103210.2664@compuserve.com>, Blythe Nilson , John Nilson , Dave Lessard , Dave Shmelzer , Derek Threinen , Doc Halen , Gord Kolonko , Keith Seifert , Ken MacLeod , Radek Zelechowski , Sam Dube , Tiffany Horricks , Tim Welch , Chirstopher Neufeld , Trish Larwill Subject: Today is a good day to... Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: OR How Not To Die: The Dumbest Deaths in Recorded History Attila the Hun: One of the most notorious villains in history, Attila's army had conquered all of Asia by 450 AD--from Mongolia to the edge of the Russian Empire--by destroying villages and pillaging the countryside. How he died: He got a nosebleed on his wedding night In 453 AD, Attila married a young girl named Ildico. Despite his reputation for ferocity on the battlefield, he tended to eat and drink lightly during large banquets. On his wedding night, however, he really cut loose, gorging himself on food and drink. Sometime during the night he suffered a nosebleed, but was too drunk to notice. He drowned in his own blood and was found dead the next morning. - -------------------- Tycho Brahe: An important Danish astronomer of the 16th century. His ground breaking research allowed Sir Isaac Newton to come up with the theory of gravity. How he died: Didn't get to the bathroom in time In the 16th century, it was considered an insult to leave a banquet table before the meal was over. Brahe, known to drink excessively, had a bladder condition -- but failed to relieve himself before the banquet started. He made matters worse by drinking too much at dinner, and was too polite to ask to be excused. His bladder finally burst, killing him slowly and painfully over the next 11 days. - -------------------- Horace Wells: Pioneered the use of anesthesia in the 1840s How he died: Used anesthetics to commit suicide While experimenting with various gases during his anesthesia research, Wells became addicted to chloroform. In 1848 he was arrested for spraying two women with sulfuric acid. In a letter he wrote from jail, he blamed chloroform for his problems, claiming that he'd gotten high before the attack. Four days later he was found dead in his cell. He'd anaesthetized himself with chloroform and slashed open his thigh with a razor. - -------------------- Francis Bacon: One of the most influential minds of the late 16th century. A statesman, a philosopher, a writer, and a scientist, he was even rumored to have written some of Shakespeare's plays. How he died: Stuffing snow into a chicken One afternoon in 1625, Bacon was watching a snowstorm and was struck by the wondrous notion that maybe snow could be used to preserve meat in the same way that salt was used. Determined to find out, he purchased a chicken from a nearby village, killed it, and then, standing outside in the snow, attempted to stuff the chicken full of snow to freeze it. The chicken never froze, but Bacon did. - -------------------- Jerome Irving Rodale: Founding father of the organic food movement, creator of "Organic Farming and Gardening" magazine, and founder of Rodale Press, a major publishing corporation. How he died: On the "Dick Cavett Show", while discussing the benefits of organic foods. Rodale, who bragged "I'm going to live to be 100 unless I'm run down by a sugar-crazed taxi driver," was only 72 when he appeared on the "Dick Cavett Show" in January 1971. Part way through the interview, he dropped dead in his chair. Cause of death: heart attack. The show was never aired. - -------------------- Aeschylus: A Greek playwright back in 500 BC. Many historians consider him the father of Greek tragedies. How he died: An eagle dropped a tortoise on his head According to legend, eagles picked up tortoises and attempt to crack them open by dropping them on rocks. An eagle mistook Aeschylus' head for a rock (he was bald) and dropped it on him instead. - -------------------- Jim Fixx: Author of the best selling "Complete Book of Running," which started the jogging craze of the 1970s. How he died: A heart attack....while jogging Fixx was visiting Greensboro, Vermont when he walked out of his house and began jogging. He'd only gone a short distance when he had a massive coronary. His autopsy revealed that one of his coronary arteries was 99% clogged, another was 80% obstructed, and a third was 70% blocked....and that Fixx had had three other attacks in the weeks prior to his death. - -------------------- And finally there's Lully, one of our favorite 16th-century composers, who wrote music for the king of France. While rehearsing the musicians, he got too serious beating time with his staff, and drove it right through his foot. He died of infection. From pnilson@hpb.hwc.ca Thu Aug 22 08:30:54 1996 Return-Path: pnilson@hpb.hwc.ca Received: from hpb.hwc.ca (hpb.hwc.ca [204.187.49.1]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id IAA04703 for ; Thu, 22 Aug 1996 08:28:21 -0400 Received: by hpb.hwc.ca (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA11627; Thu, 22 Aug 96 08:31:34 EDT Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 08:31:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Pete Nilson To: funny -- Ben Nilson <103210.2664@compuserve.com>, Blythe Nilson , John Nilson , Dave Shmelzer , Doc Halen , Gord Kolonko , Keith Seifert , Ken MacLeod , Radek Zelechowski , Ray Trochim , Sam Dube , Tiffany Horricks , Tim Welch , Chirstopher Neufeld , Trish Larwill Subject: "Math, Science, Engineering jokes" Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: OR The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want mustard with that?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Engineers think that equations approximate the real world. Scientists think that the real world approximates equations. Mathematicians are unable to make the connection... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A Mathematician, a Biologist and a Physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street. First they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while they notice three persons coming out of the house. The Physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate.". The Biologists conclusion: "They have reproduced". The Mathematician: "If now exactly 1 person enters the house then it will be empty again." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, ``It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints.'' Another said, ``No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections.'' The last said, ``Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?'' -------------------------------------------------------------------------- An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence. The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution." The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd." The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In some foreign country a priest, a lawyer and an engineer are about to be guillotined. The priest puts his head on the block, they pull the rope and nothing happens -- he declares that he's been saved by divine intervention -- so he's let go. The lawyer is put on the block, and again the rope doesn't release the blade, he claims he can't be executed twice for the same crime and he is set free too. They grab the engineer and shove his head into the guillotine, he looks up at the release mechanism and says, "Wait a minute, I see your problem......" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist went to the races one Saturday and laid their money down. Commiserating in the bar after the race, the engineer says, "I don't understand why I lost all my money. I measured all the horses and calculated their strength and mechanical advantage and figured out how fast they could run..." The physicist interrupted him: "...but you didn't take individual variations into account. I did a statistical analysis of their previous performances and bet on the horses with the highest probability of winning..." "...so if you're so hot why are you broke?" asked the engineer. But before the argument can grow, the mathematician takes out his pipe and they get a glimpse of his well-fattened wallet. Obviously here was a man who knows something about horses. They both demanded to know his secret. "Well," he says, between puffs on the pipe, "first I assumed all the horses were identical and spherical..." From pnilson@hpb.hwc.ca Tue Sep 10 08:54:52 1996 Return-Path: pnilson@hpb.hwc.ca Received: from hpb.hwc.ca (hpb.hwc.ca [204.187.49.1]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id IAA01358 for ; Tue, 10 Sep 1996 08:46:41 -0400 Received: by hpb.hwc.ca (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA19368; Tue, 10 Sep 96 08:49:10 EDT Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 08:49:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Pete Nilson To: funny -- Ben Nilson <103210.2664@compuserve.com>, Blythe Nilson , John Nilson , Dave Shmelzer , Derek Threinen , Doc Halen , Gord Kolonko , Keith Seifert , Ken MacLeod , Radek Zelechowski , Ray Trochim , Sam Dube , Tiffany Horricks , Tim Welch , Chirstopher Neufeld , Trish Larwill Subject: Dilbert Newsletter 12.0 (fwd) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: OR Some good excerpts...my favourite story is about the lamp cord under the refrigerator. Clues for Induhviduals ---------------------- The following 11 tips for Induhviduals are based on allegedly true stories reported from DNRC observers in the field. If one Induhvidual is stymied by something, it's a safe bet that they all are, so this should help a lot. 1. If you're bidding on a job for UPS, don't send your bid by FedEx. 2. If your computer says, "Printer out of Paper," this problem cannot be resolved by continuously clicking the "OK" button. 3. If you want your refrigerator's ice maker to work, you need to hook it to a water source. Air doesn't make good ice unless it is mixed with water. 4. No matter how much data you add to your laptop, it will not get heavier. 5. A bad place to store your emergency backup diskette is on the underside of your desk drawer, secured by a large magnet. 6. It's okay to use the Poloroid Land Camera on a boat. 7. When the PC says, "Insert diskette #2," don't do it immediately. Remove disk #1 first, even if you're sure you can make them both fit in there. 8. When your PC says "You have mail," don't go to the company mail room and look for a package. 9. The French version of Netscape Navigator doesn't translate English language web pages into French. 10. If you're in the armed services, and it's April 1st, and you get an e-mail message to call Colonel Sanders for new orders, don't. 11. If you go to the computer store to buy a mousepad, you don't have to specify whether it's for a Windows or a Macintosh. Practical Jokes for the Office ------------------------------ >From DNRC operatives: Prank #1: Using the conferencing feature of your office phone, dial one Induhvidual, then while it's ringing dial another and conference them together. Put your own phone on mute and listen to see how long they'll make small talk before figuring out that neither one placed the call. Prank #2: Microsoft Word has an autocorrect spelling function in its latest version. This function automatically corrects spelling mistakes as you type. The wonderful part of it is that you can add words to the autocorrect dictionary...including words that do not exist. If your co-worker leaves his computer unsecure, you're home free. For example, you could set it up so that the boss's first name, Bob, is autocorrected to Boob whenever the Induhvidual types it. Or set paradigm to autocorrect to "puredumb." If you're good, you can get your co-worker disciplined for sexual harassment plus any number of diversity-related violations. Prank #3: Get a greeting card that plays an insidious tune. Wrap the musical chip in cotton and tape it in on top of a ceiling tile in the victim's office. Make it quiet enough that the victim only hears it when it's especially silent. Act like he's crazy when he asks you if you hear music. Prank #4: Put an official-looking sign over the control pad of your office fax or copy machine that says it is now voice activated. The sign should direct the users to say their full name in a loud, crisp voice (for tracking purposes of course) followed by the desired commands, e.g., "This is Bruce Induhvidual, give me ten copies, no staple." Prank Report: (a DNRC field report from a mission completed) An Induhvidual left his e-mail account online after he left work. The next day his boss asked him why he sent a message asking to take a shower with him in the locker room. The pranked Induhvidual could not remember sending out the e-mail containing that suggestion. Induhviduals Calling Tech Support --------------------------------- ...another true tale from tech support: Tech Support: "What does the screen say now." Induhvidual: "It says, 'Hit ENTER when ready'." Tech Support: "Well?" Induhvidual: "How do I know when it's ready? True Tales of Induhviduals -------------------------- These true tales of Induhviduals have been reported by DNRC members: My friend called his car insurance company to tell them to change his address from Texas to Vermont. The woman who took the call asked where Vermont was. As he tried to explain, she interrupted and said, "Look, I'm not stupid or anything, but what state is it in?" ----- A co-worker was playing with an astronomy program called 'Distant Suns' when an Induhvidual walked by, noticed his monitor and inquired what he was doing. He replied that he was connected to the Hubbell telescope and was manipulating its view from his keyboard over the Internet. He even let this person take a try at moving our NASA's multi-million dollar telescope himself, just by clicking the mouse and the arrow keys! The person could not pry himself away, thinking he was working with the Hubbell and could not wait to tell his wife what he had done at work. ----- An Induhvidual in my office was having trouble with his e-mail. I overheard him discussing the fact that people to whom he had mailed things yesterday had not yet received the messages. I asked about the e-mail "outbasket" and he replied that there was nothing there because he had cleaned it all out this morning. A stunned silence followed while I attempted to not laugh, and then I asked him if he meant that he deleted everything in the outbasket. Yup. Oops. It must be rough being the new guy. ----- Several years ago we had an intern who was none too swift. One day he was typing and turned to a secretary and said, "I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?" "Just use copier machine paper," she told him. With that, the intern took his last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five blank copies. Hey, interns work free. ----- I was working the help desk. One day one of the computer operators called me and asked if anything "bad" would happen if she dropped coins into the openings of her PC. I asked her if this was something she was thinking of doing. She said, "never mind" and hung up. So I got out my trusty tool kit and paid her a visit. I opened her CPU case and sure enough - there was 40 cents. [editor's note: Maybe there was some confusion over the phrase "screen saver." ] ----- One of our servers crashed. I was watching our new system administrator trying to restore it. He inserted a CD and needed to type a path name to a directory named "i386". He started to type it and paused, asking me, "Where's the key for that line thing?" I asked what he was talking about, and he said, "You know, that one that looks like an upside-down exclamation mark." I replied, "You mean the letter i?" and he said, "Yeah, that's it!" ----- This Induhvidual had a broken lamp which he wanted to discard. Unfortunately, the power cord ran under his refrigerator, making it impossible to move the lamp while the cord was attached. He decided to cut the cord, since the lamp was unusable anyway. He didn't remember to unplug it first. I found him in the hallway rolling back and forth. ----- I was in a car dealership a while ago when a large motor home was towed into the garage. The front of the vehicle was in dire need of repair and the whole thing generally looked like an extra in "Twister." I asked the manager what had happened. He told me that the driver had set the cruise control, then went back to make a sandwich. [Editor's note: No, I don't believe this one either.] ----- I called a company and asked to speak to Bob. The Induhvidual who answered said, "Bob is on vacation. Would you like to hold?" ---- Here's the set up: I rented a movie from Blockbuster. Before the movie begins a message comes on the screen saying, "This movie has been altered to fit your television screen." Comment from Induhvidual: "How do they know what size screen I have?" ------ A fun thing to write on a restroom stall, if in fact we were people who write things on restroom stalls: Left wall: Right wall: -------------------------- -------------------------- INDUHVIDUAL NECK EXERCISES INDUHVIDUAL NECK EXERCISES see other wall see other wall (For those that don't know, Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert) Scott's Trip Report ------------------- This is being written during my whirlwind book tour to promote The Dilbert Principle. I will give you a summary of each location I visit so you don't have to go to any of these places yourself when you write a best-selling book. Philadelphia: My escort (not what you think) drove me past the little plexiglass shack that contains the Liberty Bell. From the road I could make out a large crack, which, it turns out, was the backside of a huge tourist with sagging pants who blocked my view of the bell. It was bigger than I had imagined. Chicago: This is a difficult city for a vegetarian like me. Most of the restaurants have three choices for how you can have your cow prepared: 1) Dead, 2) Dying, 3) Really pissed-off. Chicagoans aren't buying into the "well done" concept that is being hyped by the liberal media. Much of my time was spent arguing that fish and chicken are not vegetables in the classic sense of the word. Minnesota: They call it the "Land of 10,000 lakes." I was immediately suspicious of this state because it seemed like 10,000 is too round a number to be true. Could this state be so boring that all they have to boast about is the number of holes filled with rainwater? Upon further investigation, it turns out that the lake thing is all part of an elaborate plot to keep people from moving into their secret paradise. Further evidence of a conspiracy: the temperature in Minnesota is actually 60 to 75 degrees all year long! But the weasly residents go out of their way to tell you that you came on "...the only nice day this year. Normally it's 400 degrees below zero and your tongue breaks off if you try to say any word with a hard consonant in it." Except for being liars, the Minnesotans are nice people. But I never got used to their mumbling. Texas: I've heard that everything is bigger in Texas, so I was really looking forward to my shower. But it was a lie. I still had to use my hands to adjust the shower knobs. It's so hot there in the summer that the weather report is expressed in terms of how many minutes you can be outside before being killed by the sun. The weather yesterday was four minutes. New York City: No matter how many times I visit this great city I'm always struck by the same thing: a yellow taxi cab. But the thing that makes up for the bruises, that makes me forget the pervasive stench, that makes me appreciate the oppressive humidity and the grey crust on my lungs, is the lovely disposition of the residents. Strangers on the street will walk right up to you and ask questions like, "Are you looking at me?" and "Do you want a date?" You don't get that kind of caring from aloof midwesterners. How to Subscribe Automatically ------------------------------ You can subscribe to the Dilbert List automatically by sending an e-mail with the address, subject and message shown: Address: listproc@internex.net Subject: Dilbert Message: subscribe Dilbert_List Joe Blow (except put your real name instead of Joe Blow). Your e-mail address will be picked up automatically, so you need not specify it. The only thing you customize is your first and last name. Unsubscribing ------------- If you want to take your name off the list automatically, send an e-mail to listproc@internex.net but include only these words in the body of the message: unsubscribe Dilbert_List Put only the word "Dilbert" in the subject line. Getting Old Newsletters ----------------------- Old newsletters are only available on the Dilbert Web site: www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/ I can't send back issues by e-mail for reasons you wouldn't believe if I told you. Problems Signing Up for the Newsletter -------------------------------------- If you tried unsuccessfully to subscribe to the newsletter just send e-mail to me and I'll sign you up manually. My personal address is still scottadams@aol.com If you try to change your password (which you don't need to do, since only I can post to the list anyway) and you get a strange message saying you're not on the list, ignore it. It's a "feature." Reprinting This Newsletter -------------------------- Feel free to copy, post and distribute this newsletter within the bounds of good netiquette. Scott Adams scottadams@aol.com http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/ From Carpenter@UH.EDU Tue Sep 17 09:20:31 EDT 1996 We recently acquired a particularly obnoxious contractor where I work (also as a contractor). His salient characteristics are constant gum popping and a less than perfect toupee. As several of us were standing at the coffee machine yesterday with my cubicle mate, Steve, we heard the tell-tale gum popping of the new hire coming toward us. Steve leaned over and muttered to the group: "By the smacking of his gums, Something wig-ged this way comes." The new hire's nickname is now "MacBreath." -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Please don't send us requests of the form, "could you please send me the joke about XXX?" We don't act as a joke server but the web pages at http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ will let you search for jokes in our archives. From bonni@prairienet.org Wed Sep 18 09:07:20 EDT 1996 [Submitter's note: This was from a thread in which it was explained for the bazillionth time why it is NOT appropriate to post binary files to a discussion group.] Subject: Re: Posting of Binaries (part 2) From: dave.rogers@bt-sys.bt.co.uk (Dave Rogers) Newsgroups: alt.fan.monty-python bonni@prairienet.org says... > >Well, I've yet AGAIN amended the standard "please don't do that" file. > >Here's the newly updated file, okay? Sheesh. OTOH, you could just mail them this. The Newbie's Song (Based on the Major General's song from "The Pirates of Penzance", Gilbert & Sullivan). I am the very model of a Usenet individual, I've information meaningless and ultimately trivial, I know the basic elements of alien biology, And all the hidden secrets of the Church of Scientology, I've seen "The Wrath of Khan" and every Star Trek film that followed it, I moan about my Servicecard and how the cash till swallowed it, About the laws on handguns I am sending off a counterblast, With many cheerful facts about the way you can MAKE MONEY FAST! ALL: With many cheerful etc. I'll tell you why the Japanese are taking over Panama, And why the USA is still a better place than Canada, In short, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, I am the very model of a Usenet individual. ALL: In short, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, He is the very model of a Usenet individual. I post in alt.revisionism lies about the Holocaust, I cut my .sig to twenty lines, I didn't want to, I was forced, I really can't believe the "Good Times" virus to be mythical, And Clinton's raising taxes which is, frankly, bloody typical, I've upset several people on alt.flame, I really don't know how, And sent a thousand business cards to Mr. and Mrs. Shergold now, I have a very poor grip of political geography, And absolutely no involvement (yet!) in child pornography, ALL: And absolutely no, etc. I've paid two-fifty dollars for the Nieman-Marcus recipe, And told the Spanish tourist's tale about the toothbrush pessary, In short, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, I am the very model of a Usenet individual. ALL: In short, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, He is the very model of a Usenet individual. In fact, when I know what is meant by "binary" and "FTP", When I know how to decode porno JPEGs from a .uue, When I can handle HTML, Telnet, mail and IRC, And when I know the words initialised to form "http", When I have learnt what topics are acceptable in talk.bizarre, When I know more of Usenet than the tailpipe of a motor-car, - In short, when I've a smattering of elementary netiquette, You'll say a better individual has never surfed the Net. ALL: You'll say a better individual, etc. For my technical experience, although I claim to know it all Could barely serve to run the installation disk from AOL; But still, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, I am the very model of a Usenet individual. ALL: But still, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, He is the very model of a Usenet individual. (P.S. I've been looking for an excuse to post this on a.f.m-p, despite it being flagrantly off-topic, because I got the idea from somebody else on the Talker. We now return you to the normal Python-related service.) -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From dsew@packrat.aml.arizona.edu Mon Sep 23 16:56:04 EDT 1996 Subject: Re: Internet style guide for media hacks From: ddern@world.std.com (Daniel P Dern) Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage Haynes Lee wrote: >Is there a style guide for media hacks writing about the Internet? Yes. Here, off the top of my head, are thirteen guidelines for writing about the Internet, based on much of the coverage I've seen/heard during the past year... 1. Be sure to confuse online services like AOL and CI$ with the Internet. 2. Be sure to confuse the Web, the Internet, and Usenet with each other. 3. Be sure to declaim that there are fortunes to be made on the net. 4. Be sure to claim the Internet isn't yet ready for business use. 5. Be sure to claim that the Internet is ready for business use. 6. Talk about how the Internet was created to survive a nuclear attack. For extra points, find a way to pronounce it "nuke-u-lar" in print. 7. Pick an Internet population survey and report on it as if it were true. 8. Be sure to obsesss on all that pronography which litters the Internet like dead possums on a back road. Don't actually try looking for any, as first-hand research doesn't count. For extra credit, quote Marty Rimm's pseudo-study; for double credit, quote from the Time magazine pseudo-coverage of it. 9. Talk about how companies like Microsoft and AOL are making the net easier and better to use. Don't ask anyone at those companies how much money they've taken in reselling the concept of the Internet. 10. Talk about how great the net is for mass market email. If you're not up to speed on this, post a query in one or two newsgroups asking for some junk mail... 11. Extoll the virtues of the Web as a multimedia, interactive playground and business platform. If you have a 28.8 modem, don't actually try anything; go find somebody with a T1 line and use their system. 12. Report on Internet-over-cable, voice-over-Internet, and the like as mature technologies that will be readily available in time for the holiday shopping season. 13. Be sure to mention how companies like AT&T, MCI, Sprint and such have made Internet access broadly available, cheap and easy. and 14. Explain why Java is safe, and Netscape is worth all the money it IPOd for, based on all those free browsers they gave away. If you can do this, then you're ready to report on the real computer industry, like why Win95 is wonderful and so much better than a Mac. P.S. Be sure to tell your investor readers I've got a great deal on a large-scale continent-island vehicle connector with a POP in lower Manhatten, near Brooklyn. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From tez@pierrot.demon.co.uk Subject: A cultural interlude. From: simes@amdev.demon.co.uk (Simon Brown) Newsgroups: demon.ip.support.amiga To celebrate the return of my news posting capabilities, and in accord with my commitment to bringing cultured entertainment to the readers of disa, I offer the following for your delectation: My friendly ISP - a poem by Simon Brown It's always fun to log in to my friendly I.S.P., There's always something fascinating waiting there for me. One day there'll be no mail servers, another day no news, Which you might think would lead to acute cases of the blues. The IRC machine's gone down, so there's no place to chat, The Web server's broken again, so we can't look at that, "Engineer on site" they say, "but still no ETR" And what the hell are "ARP storms"? It's all rather bizarre. Yes, it's fun to log on and find out what's going wrong, And those "ten minute fixes" which take ten times as long. But when I log in yesterday - oh, the distress and pain; I can't find out what's going on, the routing's down again! -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From jason@heaven.demon.co.uk Mon Sep 30 13:12:38 EDT 1996 Subject: Re: alt.life.the-universe.and-everything charter From: io1o@mist.demon.co.uk (Iolo Davidson) Newsgroups: demon.local > I'm not a person who holds grudges. I do. I can hold a grudge forever. Unfortunately, though, I have a terrible memory for names, so it's all a bit unfocused. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From richard@guyy.demon.co.uk Tue Nov 12 17:04:00 EST 1996 Subject: Lab Accidents....... From: rwpick01@ldd.net (Randal W. Pick) Newsgroups: sci.chem All *true* chemists must have had at least one or two spectacular accidents while they were in school learning the science and craft. Here's one of mine (let's hear yours): ACCIDENT #1 COURSE: Quantitative Analysis (sophomore level flunk out course - one rigorous MF! Reduced the number of prospective BS Chem majors from around 150 to around 20). CONDITION: Attending 7:00 am Saturday morning make-up experiment with severe hangover and no sleep. OBJECTIVE: Determine amount of Nitrogen in cow's blood. METHOD: Kjeldahl Determination DESIRED RESULTS: a) Quantitatively transfer accurately weighed dried blood to Kjeldahl flask containing 500 ml of concentrated sulfuric acid. Boil at dull red heat (~600 F) for 1 hour. (I am not kidding) b) Meanwhile assemble rest of apparatus: ~500 ml concentrated NaOH in flask at top of apparatus ready to be dripped into 500 ml conc. sulfuruc acid. (!!!!!!) c) Sidearm from vertical tube is intended to convey ammonia gas into a separate flask of standardized acid after sulfuric acid is neutralized and resulting sodum sulfate/water solution turns strongly basic driving NH3 gas off (from N in blood). d) Backtitration allows calculation of nitrogen (hence protein) content of dead cow's blood. f) Instructor (Dr. Caskey) examines painstakingly ink-written notes, gives student D-. Student is grateful. ACTUAL RESULTS: a) First few drops of NaOH into acid produce really neat fizzing and popping. b) Subsequent drops do nothing. c) Poor hungover student ponders the thermodynamics of concentrated NaOH *refusing* to react with concentrated sulfuric acid. Must be having bad dream. What is entropy? d) After having dripped entire 500 ml of sulfuric acid into 500 ml of conc NaOH nothing has occurred. (Student scratches head, wishes he was synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid instead). e) Student realizes he has mis-aligned vertical tube, allowing conc. NaOH to flow gently down side of vertical tube into conc. sulfuric acid. Result is 500 ml of sulfuric acid has formed layer beneath 500 ml conc NaOH separated by thin film of water/NaSO4. f) Student resists urge to panic and run, leaving this impossible mess to the TA. g) Student tries to salvage experiment by *gently* agitating flask to mix conc. sulfuric acid and concentrated caustic. h) Mixing starts out OK until heat of reaction causes water to boil, rapidly mixing conc. sulfuric acid and conc. NaOH. i) Resulting steam explosion blows dropping funnel off top of apparatus and blows contents of apparatus all over ceiling tiles in a fraction of second. My reflexes are quick enough to note that reaction accelerates exponentially, just like out-of-control reactions are supposed to. Mess is dripping off ceiling tiles all over surrounding (and very busy) laboratory. j) Student calmly and purposefully leaves laboratory for dormitory and crashes for 12 straight hours. k) Student makes F on experiment. EPILOGUE: After graduation (one of eight BS Chems out of graduating class of 5000), ex-student returns to Chem/Biochem department for some paperwork. Secretary remarks "Ooooh! You made a C- in quant! That's good!". Ex-student's mouth drops open, decides on analytical chemistry as profession. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:verama@nortel.ca> Thu Dec 12 13:32:18 1996 Return-Path: <@helios.physics.utoronto.ca:verama@nortel.ca> Received: from helios.physics.utoronto.ca (helios.physics.utoronto.ca [128.100.75.10]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.7.6/8.6.9) with SMTP id NAA25737 for ; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 13:32:17 -0500 Received: from bcarsde4.localhost ([192.58.194.74]) by helios.physics.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <1889>; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 13:32:45 -0500 Received: from bcarsfba.ott.bnr.ca by bcarsde4.localhost; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 13:14:09 -0500 Received: from bnr.ca by bcarsfba.bnr.ca id <12676-0@bcarsfba.bnr.ca>; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 13:21:33 -0500 Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 11:36:00 -0500 Sender: "Vera Ma" To: "Annie Zhang" , "Betty Trinh" , "David Wong" , "David Diep" , "Doug Chui" , "Elsie Kwan" , "Francis Chew" , "Ho Hong" , "Jian Ho" , "Kenneth Ma" , lenie.chang.cnt76382@nortel.ca, "Lisa Yang" , neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca, "Sean Wang" , "Stanley Chu" , "Xiaoyun Hu" From: "Vera Ma" Subject: Peterson's Guide Message-Id: <96Dec12.133245edt.1889@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> Status: OR Peterson's guide to engineers A FIELD GUIDE TO ENGINEERS People who work in the fields of science and technology are not like other people. This can be frustrating to the nontechnical people who have to deal with them. The secret to coping with technology-oriented people is to understand their motivations. This chapter will teach you everything you need to know. I learned their customs and mannerisms by observing them, much the way Jane Goodall learned about the great apes, but without the hassle of grooming. Engineering is so trendy these days that everybody wants to be one. The word "engineer" is greatly overused. If there's somebody in your life who you think is trying to pass as an engineer, give him this test to discern the truth. ENGINEER IDENTIFICATION TEST You walk into a room and notice that a picture is hanging crooked. You... A. Straighten it. B. Ignore it. C. Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing a solar-powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often stating aloud your belief that the inventor of the nail was a total moron. The correct answer is "C" but partial credit can be given to anybody who writes "It depends" in the margin of the test or simply blames the whole stupid thing on "Marketing." SOCIAL SKILLS Engineers have different objectives when it comes to social interaction. "Normal" people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from social interaction: *Stimulating and thought-provoking conversation *Important social contacts *A feeling of connectedness with other humans In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational objectives for social interactions: *Get it over with as soon as possible. *Avoid getting invited to something unpleasant. *Demonstrate mental superiority and mastery of all subjects. FASCINATION WITH GADGETS To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed into one of two categories: (1)things that need to be fixed, and (2)things that will need to be fixed after you've had a few minutes to play with them. Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet. No engineer looks at a television remote control without wondering what it would take to turn it into a stun gun. No engineer can take a shower without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would make showering unnecessary. To the engineer, the world is a toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys. FASHION AND APPEARANCE Clothes are the lowest priority for an engineer, assuming the basic thresholds for temperature and decency have been satisfied. If no appendages are freezing or sticking together, and if no genitalia or mammary glands are swinging around in plain view, then the objective of clothing has been met. Anything else is a waste. LOVE OF "STAR TREK" Engineers love all of the "Star Trek" television shows and movies. It's a small wonder, since the engineers on the starship Enterprise are portrayed as heroes, occasionally even having sex with aliens. This is much more glamorous than the real life of an engineer, which consists of hiding from the universe and having sex without the participation of other life forms. DATING AND SOCIAL LIFE Dating is never easy for engineers. A normal person will employ various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a false impression of attractiveness. Engineers are incapable of placing appearance above function. Fortunately, engineers have an ace in the hole. They are widely recognized as superior marriage material: intelligent, dependable, employed, honest, and handy around the house. While it's true that many normal people would prefer not to date an engineer, most normal people harbor an intense desire to mate with them, thus producing engineerlike children who will have high-paying jobs long before losing their virginity. Male engineers reach their peak of sexual attractiveness later than normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos in their mid thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples of sexually irresistible men in technical professions: * Bill Gates. * MacGyver. * Etcetera. Female engineers become irresistible at the age of consent and remain that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death. Longer if it's a warm day. HONESTY Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and human relationships. That's why it's a good idea to keep engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other people who can't handle the truth. Engineers sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say things that sound like lies but technically are not because nobody could be expected to believe them. The complete list of engineer lies is listed below. "I won't change anything without asking you first." "I'll return your hard-to-find cable tomorrow." "I have to have new equipment to do my job." "I'm not jealous of your new computer." FRUGALITY Engineers are notoriously frugal. This is not because of cheapness or mean spirit; it is simply because every spending situation is simply a problem in optimization, that is, "How can I escape this situation while retaining the greatest amount of cash?" POWERS OF CONCENTRATION If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything else in the environment. This sometimes causes engineers to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high-tech areas have started checking resumes before processing the bodies. Anybody with a degree in electrical engineering or experience in computer programming is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if he or she snaps out of it. RISK Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they can. This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one little mistake the media will treat it like it's a big deal or something. EXAMPLES OF BAD PRESS FOR ENGINEERS * Hindenberg * Space Shuttle Challenger * SPANet(tm) * Hubble space telescope * Apollo 13 * Titanic * Ford Pinto * Corvair The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like this: RISK: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of innocent people. REWARD: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic frame or a customized pocket protector. Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing. The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain. If that approach is not sufficient to halt the project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: "It's technically possible but it will cost too much." EGO Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers: * How smart they are. * How many cool devices they own. The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to declare that the problem is unsolvable. No engineer can walk away from an unsolvable problem until it's solved. No illness or distraction is sufficient to get the engineer off the case. These types of challenges quickly become personal a battle between the engineer and the laws of nature. Engineers will go without food and hygiene for days to solve a problem. (Other times just because they forgot.) And when they succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego rush that is better than sex--and I'm including the kind of sex where other people are involved. Nothing is more threatening to the engineer than the suggestion that somebody has more technical skill. Normal people sometimes use that knowledge as a lever to extract more work from the engineer. When an engineer says that something can't be done (a code phrase that means it's not fun to do), some clever normal people have learned to glance at the engineer with a look of compassion and pity and say something along these lines: "I'll ask Bob to figure it out. He knows how to solve difficult technical problems." At that point it is a good idea for the normal person to not stand between the engineer and the problem. The engineer will set upon the problem like a starved Chihuahua on a pork chop. From jfl666@u.washington.edu Thu Dec 12 16:56:33 EST 1996 The World According to Software... What Software Distribution would be like in different governments: COMMUNISM: We are pleased to announce that the new PC operating system, MS-DOS 3.3, and a hot new video game, Pac-Man, are available for download >from our public distribbution sites, which have just upgraded to 2400 bps. CAPITALISM: Revolutionary New Concept!!!!!! Lots of free extras!!!!! Free box!!!!! Free manual!!!!! Only $60!!!!! SOCIALISM: OK, that'll be $40, plus $300 sales tax. DEMOCRACY: The next order of business is the vote on whether memory address 1DCE should be 0008. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?..... Alright, now the matter of memory address 1DCF... REPUBLIC: After 4 weeks of deliberation, we've decided that the software in question violates existing laws. FEDERAL REPUBLIC: After 4 weeks of deliberation, we've decided to raise our salary. DICTATORSHIP: El Presidente would like to remind the scum that he is enjoying his new computer software. OLIGARCHY: The important people have all of the necessary software. MONARCHY: Let everyone rejoice in the Emperor's new code! FEUDALISM: Point, click, and serf. THEOCRACY: There is no way to be perfect like the Earth Mother... but it doesn't hurt to use Her Almighty Software. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Remember: Only ONE joke per submission. Extra jokes may be rejected. For the full submission guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From CCDeSantis@chq.byu.edu Sat Dec 21 11:57:23 EST 1996 A traveler became lost in the desert region of Algeria. Realizing his only chance for survival was to find civilization, he began walking. Time passed, and he became thirsty. More time passed, and he began feeling faint. Reduced to crawling, he was on the verge of passing out when he spied a tent about 500 meters in front of him. Barely conscious, he reached the tent and called out, "Water...". A bedouin appeared in the tent door and replied sympathetically, "I am sorry, sir, but I have no water. However, would you like to buy a tie?" With this, he brandished a collection of exquisite silken neckwear. "You fool," gasped the man. "I'm dying! I need water!" "Well, sir," replied the bedouin, "If you really need water, there is a tent about 2 kilometers south of here where you can get some." Without knowing how, the man summoned sufficient strength to drag his parched body the distance to the second tent. With his last ounce of strength he tugged at the door of the tent and collapsed. Another bedouin, dressed in a costly tuxedo, appeared at the door and enquired, "May I help you sir?" "Water..." was the feeble reply. "Oh, sir," replied the bedouin, "I'm sorry, but you can't come in here without a tie!" ----------------------- I first heard this joke about 20 years ago from my mother.... I have no idea where it originated, but I thought it was painfully funny. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Remember: Only ONE joke per submission. Extra jokes may be rejected. For the full submission guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From dmarti@agdia.com Thu Jan 2 10:50:55 EST 1997 This is pretty close to an actual sales call I received. The sales person's name has been changed. The company name has not. I think we'll stick with our current provider. Bob: Hello, I'm Bob ______ from AT&T, and I'm calling to let you know about the Internet services we offer. Do you have a minute to... Me: I'm kind of busy right now, but if you could just email me the information I'll call you back if I'm interested. My address is... Bob: Could I have your fax number? We're behind a firewall, so our email doesn't always get through. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. The "executive moderator" is Brad Templeton. Please! No copyrighted stuff. Also no "mouse balls," dyslexic agnostics, Clinton/Yeltsin/Gates meets God, or "OJ will walk" jokes. For the full submission guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From spinnerets@sympatico.ca Wed Jan 8 18:20:16 1997 Return-Path: spinnerets@sympatico.ca Received: from smtp1.sympatico.ca (smtp1.sympatico.ca [204.101.251.52]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.7.6/8.6.9) with SMTP id SAA12801 for ; Wed, 8 Jan 1997 18:20:14 -0500 Received: from Dante (ppp1840.on.sympatico.ca [206.172.228.112]) by smtp1.sympatico.ca (SMI-8.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA29475; Wed, 8 Jan 1997 18:18:39 -0500 Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 18:18:39 -0500 Message-Id: <199701082318.SAA29475@smtp1.sympatico.ca> X-Sender: b1mfsm64@pop1.sympatico.ca X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tiffany.horricks@istar.ca, Gord_Kolonko@isdtcp3.hwc.ca, Patricia_Larwill@isdtcp3.hwc.ca, kmacleod@bnr.ca, neufeld@caliban.physics.utoronto.ca, bb079@freenet.carleton.ca, daves@cadlink.com, dthreine@mail.coin.missouri.edu, trochim@rintintin.Colorado.EDU, dhalen@magi.com, Radek.Z.Zelechowski@AC.COM From: Pete Nilson Subject: Golf Humour Status: OR > > > Two men are playing golf. They play each week, and have a wager as to > who is going to win. It happens one week that there are two women > playing ahead of them. They're hitting the ball all over the place. > They have no idea how to play, and are just out to have some fun. The > two men are anxious to finish their game, so one of them decides to > ask the women if they can play through. He goes ahead to speak to > them, but turns around half way and comes back. He tells his friend > "I can't do it. One of the women is my wife and the other one is my > mistress." The other guy says "No problem. I understand." and goes to > talk to them himself. No more than two minutes later he's back. He > says, "Gee, small world, isn't it?" > > From filfeit@hydrogen.BTNA.COM Thu Jan 9 08:39:08 EST 1997 Heard from an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi: A woman is riding a bus in the midwest, when a man gets on the bus and sits down next to her. He's wearing a black hat, long black coat, black slacks and shoes, and he has a long curly dark beard. The woman looks at him disgustedly. "Jews like you," she hisses at him. He looks up at her, puzzled, and says, "I beg your pardon, madam?" She says, "Look at you. All in black, a beard, never take off your hat! It's Jews like you that give the rest of us a bad name." He says calmly, "I beg your pardon, madam, but I am not Jewish. I'm Amish." The woman looks back and smiles, "How nice. You've kept your customs." -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. If you mail to original@clari.net, it makes sure that your joke is tagged as your original work, Always attribute the source of a joke, whether it's you, or somebody else. For the full submission guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From gordol@pobox.com Wed Jan 15 08:46:16 EST 1997 Subject: (fwd) Re: win95 From: mikroa@ix.netcom.com (Michael Roach) Newsgroups: alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent It was the dawn of the third age of Mankind, the year the great war came upon us all, when customer@tcol.net said absolutely nothing about Win95. Was this supposed to be some sort of update? Perhaps a late ballgame score? Win 95, OS 2! Late breaking news: the team from Pentium has been disqualified for being in the wrong division! -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From spinnerets@sympatico.ca Thu Jan 16 17:22:09 1997 Return-Path: spinnerets@sympatico.ca Received: from smtp1.sympatico.ca (smtp1.sympatico.ca [204.101.251.52]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.7.6/8.6.9) with SMTP id RAA00442 for ; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 17:22:02 -0500 Received: from Dante (ppp1809.on.sympatico.ca [206.172.228.81]) by smtp1.sympatico.ca (SMI-8.6/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA28982; Thu, 16 Jan 1997 17:18:58 -0500 Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 17:18:58 -0500 Message-Id: <199701162218.RAA28982@smtp1.sympatico.ca> X-Sender: b1mfsm64@pop1.sympatico.ca X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: tiffany.horricks@istar.ca, Gord_Kolonko@isdtcp3.hwc.ca, Patricia_Larwill@isdtcp3.hwc.ca, kmacleod@bnr.ca, neufeld@caliban.physics.utoronto.ca, 103210.2664@compuserve.com, bb079@freenet.carleton.ca, seifertk@em.agr.ca, daves@cadlink.com, dthreine@mail.coin.missouri.edu, trochim@rintintin.Colorado.EDU, dhalen@magi.com, Radek.Z.Zelechowski@AC.COM, matthewg@panther.middlebury.edu, stinson@wavecon.com, skeenan@auracom.com, RSHARER@MSPO3.MED.UTMB.EDU, mcvarney@holly.colostate.edu, bwg1@cornell.edu, jstopple@monmouth.com, D.VanOrden@m.cc.utah.edu, austindt@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu From: Pete Nilson Subject: If Restaurants ran like MICROSOFT... Status: OR > If restaurants functioned like MICROSOFT : > > > Patron: Waiter! > > Waiter: Hi, my name is Bill, and I'll be your Support Waiter. > What seems to be the problem? > > Patron: There's a fly in my soup! > > Waiter: Try again, maybe the fly won't be there this time. > > Patron: No, it's still there. > > Waiter: Maybe it's the way you're using the soup; > try eating it with a fork instead. > > Patron: Even when I use the fork, the fly is still there. > > Waiter: Maybe the soup is incompatible with the bowl; > what kind of bowl are you using? > > Patron: A SOUP bowl! > > Waiter: Hmmm, that should work. Maybe it's a configuration > problem; how was the bowl set up? > > Patron: You brought it to me on a saucer; what has that to > do with the fly in my soup?! > > Waiter: Can you remember everything you did before you > noticed the fly in your soup? > > Patron: I sat down and ordered the Soup of the Day! > > Waiter: Have you considered upgrading to the latest Soup > of the Day? > > Patron: You have more than one Soup of the Day each day?? > > Waiter: Yes, the Soup of the Day is changed every hour. > > Patron: Well, what is the Soup of the Day now? > > Waiter: The current Soup of the Day is tomato. > > Patron: Fine. Bring me the tomato soup, and the check. > I'm running late now. > > Waiter: leaves and returns with another bowl of soup and > the check > > Waiter: Here you are, Sir. The soup and your check. > > Patron: This is potato soup. > > Waiter: Yes, the tomato soup wasn't ready yet. > > Patron: Well, I'm so hungry now, I'll eat anything. > > Waiter leaves. > > Patron: Waiter! There's a gnat in my soup! > > > The check: > Soup of the Day . ........... . . . $5.0 > Upgrade to newer Soup of the Day. . . $2.5 > Access to support . . . . . . . . . . $1.0 > > > From rhfr-badmail@clari.net Tue Jan 28 09:42:27 EST 1997 C O N F U S I O N ================= (provided to my by Toni Theisen April 1979) As I was walking down the street one dark and dreary day, I came upon a billboard and much to my dismay, The words were torn and tattered, >From the storm the night before, The wind and rain had done its work and this is how it goes, Smoke Coca-Cola cigarettes, chew Wrigleys spearmint beer, Ken-L-Ration dog food makes your complection clear, Simonize your baby in a Hershey candy bar, And Texaco's a beauty cream that's used by every star. Take your next vacation in a brand new Frigedaire, Learn to play the piano in your winter underware, Doctors say that babies should smoke until they're three, and people over sixty-five should bathe in Lipton tea. From: John F. Wardale {seismo | harvard | ihnp4} !uwvax!astroatc!johnw -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Visit http://comedy.clari.net/rhf to browse the RHF pages and archives on the web. Rec.humor.funny and RHF.reruns are provided by ClariNet, publisher of the net's largest (1.5 million paying subscriber) E-newspaper. http://www.clari.net From reickja@lamrc.com Tue Jan 28 13:40:53 EST 1997 I received this one from a girlfriend whose husband works at a mortuary. This woman goes into a funeral home to make arrangements for her husband's funeral. She tells the director that she wants her husband to be buried in a dark blue suit. He asks, "Wouldn't it just be easier to bury him in the black suit that he's wearing?" But she insists that it must be a blue suit and gives him a blank check to buy one. When she comes back for the wake, she sees her husband in the coffin and he is wearing a beautiful blue suit. She tells the director how much she loves the suit and asks how much it cost. He says, "Actually, it didn't cost anything. The funniest thing happened. As soon as you left, another corpse was brought in, this one wearing a blue suit. I noticed that they were about the same size, and asked the other widow if she would mind if her husband were buried in a black suit. She said that was fine with her. So... I switched the heads" -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Do you know about rec.humor.funny.reruns? It has all the best jokes from the archives of this group. RHF does only new material. See also at http://comedy.clari.net/rhf From rhfr-badmail@clari.net Sat Feb 8 22:12:09 EST 1997 BACK IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS -- the "Golden Era" of computers, it was easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called "Real Men" and "Quiche Eaters" in the literature). During this period, the Real Men were the ones that understood computer programming, and the Quiche Eaters were the ones that didn't. A real computer programmer said things like "DO 10 I=1,10" and "ABEND" (they actually talked in capital letters, you understand), and the rest of the world said things like "computers are too complicated for me" and "I can't relate to computers -- they're so impersonal." (A previous work [1] points out that Real Men don't "relate" to anything, and aren't afraid of being impersonal.) But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world in which little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens, 12 year old kids can blow Real Men out of the water playing Asteroids and Pac-Man, and anyone can buy and even understand their very own Personal Computer. The Real Programmer is in danger of becoming extinct, of being replaced by high-school students with TRASH-80s. There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If this difference is made clear, it will give these kids something to aspire to -- a role model, a Father Figure. It will also help explain to the employers of Real Programmers why it would be a mistake to replace the Real Programmers on their staff with 12 year old Pac-Man players (at a considerable salary savings). LANGUAGES The easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by the programming language he (or she) uses. Real Programmers use FORTRAN. Quiche Eaters use PASCAL. Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of PASCAL, gave a talk once at which he was asked "How do you pronounce your name?" He replied, "You can either call me by name, pronouncing it 'Veert', or call me by value, 'Worth'." One can tell immediately from this comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a Quiche Eater. The only parameter passing mechanism endorsed by Real Programmers is call-by-value-return, as implemented in the IBM/370 FORTRAN G and H compilers. Real programmers don't need all these abstract concepts to get their jobs done -- they are perfectly happy with a keypunch, a FORTRAN IV compiler, and a beer. o Real Programmers do List Processing in FORTRAN. o Real Programmers do String Manipulation in FORTRAN. o Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in FORTRAN. o Real Programmers do Artificial Intelligence programs in FORTRAN. If you can't do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you can't do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing. STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING The academics in computer science have gotten into the "structured programming" rut over the past several years. They claim that programs are more easily understood if the programmer uses some special language constructs and techniques. They don't all agree on exactly which constructs, of course, and the examples they use to show their particular point of view invariably fit on a single page of some obscure journal or another -- clearly not enough of an example to convince anyone. When I got out of school, I thought I was the best programmer in the world. I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program, use five different computer languages, and create 1000 line programs that WORKED. (Really!) Then I got out into the Real World. My first task in the Real World was to read and understand a 200,000 line FORTRAN program, then speed it up by a factor of two. Any Real Programmer will tell you that all the Structured Coding in the world won't help you solve a problem like that -- it takes actual talent. Some quick observations on Real Programmers and Structured Programming: o Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTOs. o Real Programmers can write five page long DO loops without getting confused. o Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements -- they make the code more interesting. o Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can save 20 nanoseconds in the middle of a tight loop. o Real Programmers don't need comments -- the code is obvious. o Since FORTRAN doesn't have a structured IF, REPEAT ... UNTIL, or CASE statement, Real Programmers don't have to worry about not using them. Besides, they can be simulated when necessary using assigned GOTOs. Data structures have also gotten a lot of press lately. Abstract Data Types, Structures, Pointers, Lists, and Strings have become popular in certain circles. Wirth (the above-mentioned Quiche Eater) actually wrote an entire book [2] contending that you could write a program based on data structures, instead of the other way around. As all Real Programmers know, the only useful data structure is the Array. Strings, Lists, Structures, Sets -- these are all special cases of arrays and can be treated that way just as easily without messing up your programming language with all sorts of complications. The worst thing about fancy data types is that you have to declare them, and Real Programming Languages, as we all know, have implicit typing based on the first letter of the (six character) variable name. OPERATING SYSTEMS What kind of operating system is used by a Real Programmer? CP/M? God forbid -- CP/M, after all, is basically a toy operating system. Even little old ladies and grade school students can understand and use CP/M. Unix is a lot more complicated of course -- the typical Unix hacker never can remember what the PRINT command is called this week -- but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. People don't do Serious Work on Unix systems: they send jokes around the world on UUCP-net and write adventure games and research papers. No, your Real Programmer uses OS/370. A good programmer can find and understand the description of the IJK305I error he just got in his JCL manual. A great programmer can write JCL without referring to the manual at all. A truly outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in a 6 megabyte core dump without using a hex calculator. (I have actually seen this done.) OS is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to destroy days of work with a single misplaced space, so alertness in the programming staff is encouraged. The best way to approach the system is through a keypunch. Some people claim there is a Time Sharing system that runs on OS/370, but after careful study I have come to the conclusion that they were mistaken. PROGRAMMING TOOLS What kind of tools does a Real Programmer use? In theory, a Real Programmer could run his programs by keying them into the front panel of the computer. Back in the days when computers had front panels, this was actually done occasionally. Your typical Real Programmer knew the entire bootstrap loader by memory in hex, and toggled it in whenever it got destroyed by his program. (Back then, memory was memory -- it didn't go away when the power went off. Today, memory either forgets things when you don't want it to, or remembers things long after they're better forgotten.) Legend has it that Seymour Cray, inventor of the Cray I supercomputer and most of Control Data's computers, actually toggled the first operating system for the CDC7600 in on the front panel from memory when it was first powered on. Seymour, needless to say, is a Real Programmer. One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer for Texas Instruments. One day, he got a long distance call from a user whose system had crashed in the middle of saving some important work. Jim was able to repair the damage over the phone, getting the user to toggle in disk I/O instructions at the front panel, repairing system tables in hex, reading register contents back over the phone. The moral of this story: while a Real Programmer usually includes a keypunch and lineprinter in his toolkit, he can get along with just a front panel and a telephone in emergencies. In some companies, text editing no longer consists of ten engineers standing in line to use an 029 keypunch. In fact, the building I work in doesn't contain a single keypunch. The Real Programmer in this situation has to do his work with a "text editor" program. Most systems supply several text editors to select from, and the Real Programmer must be careful to pick one that reflects his personal style. Many people believe that the best text editors in the world were written at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center for use on their Alto and Dorado computers [3]. Unfortunately, no Real Programmer would ever use a computer whose operating system is called SmallTalk, and would certainly not talk to the computer with a mouse. Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been incorporated into editors running on more reasonably named operating systems -- EMACS and VI being two. The problem with these editors is that Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in Women. No, the Real Programmer wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor -- complicated, cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous. TECO, to be precise. It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely resembles transmission line noise than readable text [4]. One of the more entertaining games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a command line and try to guess what it does. Just about any possible typing error while talking with TECO will probably destroy your program, or even worse -- introduce subtle and mysterious bugs in a once working subroutine. For this reason, Real Programmers are reluctant to actually edit a program that is close to working. They find it much easier to just patch the binary object code directly, using a wonderful program called SUPERZAP (or its equivalent on non-IBM machines). This works so well that many working programs on IBM systems bear no relation to the original FORTRAN code. In many cases, the original source code is no longer available. When it comes time to fix a program like this, no manager would even think of sending anything less than a Real Programmer to do the job -- no Quiche Eating structured programmer would even know where to start. This is called "job security." Some programming tools NOT used by Real Programmers: o FORTRAN preprocessors like MORTRAN and RATFOR. The Cuisinarts of programming -- great for making Quiche. See comments above on structured programming. o Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps. o Compilers with array bounds checking. They stifle creativity, destroy most of the interesting uses for EQUIVALENCE, and make it impossible to modify the operating system code with negative subscripts. Worst of all, bounds checking is inefficient. o Source code maintenance systems. A Real Programmer keeps his code locked up in a card file, because it implies that its owner cannot leave his important programs unguarded [5]. THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT WORK Where does the typical Real Programmer work? What kind of programs are worthy of the efforts of so talented an individual? You can be sure that no real Programmer would be caught dead writing accounts-receivable programs in COBOL, or sorting mailing lists for People magazine. A Real Programmer wants tasks of earth-shaking importance (literally!). o Real Programmers work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray I supercomputers. o Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding Russian transmissions. o It was largely due to the efforts of thousands of Real Programmers working for NASA that our boys got to the moon and back before the Russkies. o The computers in the Space Shuttle were programmed by Real Programmers. o Real Programmers are at work for Boeing designing the operating systems for cruise missiles. Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With a combination of large ground-based FORTRAN programs and small spacecraft-based assembly language programs, they are able to do incredible feats of navigation and improvisation -- hitting ten-kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years in space, repairing or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, and batteries. Allegedly, one Real Programmer managed to tuck a pattern-matching program into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in a Voyager spacecraft that searched for, located, and photographed a new moon of Jupiter. The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity assist trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory passes within 80 +/- 3 kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to trust a PASCAL program (or PASCAL programmer) for navigation to these tolerances. As you can tell, many of the world's Real Programmers work for the U.S. Government -- mainly the Defense Department. This is as it should be. Recently, however, a black cloud has formed on the Real Programmer horizon. It seems that some highly placed Quiche Eaters at the Defense Department decided that all Defense programs should be written in some grand unified language called "ADA,"{reg} (DoD). For a while, it seemed that ADA was destined to become a language that went against all the precepts of Real Programming -- a language with structure, a language with data types, strong typing, and semicolons. In short, a language designed to cripple the creativity of the typical Real Programmer. Fortunately, the language adopted by DoD has enough interesting features to make it approachable -- it's incredibly complex, includes methods for messing with the operating system and rearranging memory, and Edsgar Dijkstra doesn't like it [6]. (Dijkstra, as I'm sure you know, was the author of "GoTos Considered Harmful" -- a landmark work in programming methodology, applauded by Pascal Programmers and Quiche Eaters alike.) Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write FORTRAN programs in any language. The real programmer might compromise his principles and work on something slightly more trivial than the destruction of life as we know it, providing there's enough money in it. There are several Real Programmers building video games at Atari, for example. (But not playing them -- a Real Programmer knows how to beat the machine every time: no challenge in that.) Everyone working at LucasFilm is a Real Programmer. (It would be crazy to turn down the money of fifty million Star Trek fans.) The proportion of Real Programmers in Computer Graphics is somewhat lower than the norm, mostly because nobody has found a use for Computer Graphics yet. On the other hand, all Computer Graphics is done in FORTRAN, so there are a fair number people doing Graphics in order to avoid having to write COBOL programs. THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT PLAY Generally, the Real Programmer plays the same way he works -- with computers. He is constantly amazed that his employer actually pays him to do what he would be doing for fun anyway (although he is careful not to express this opinion out loud). Occasionally, the Real Programmer does step out of the office for a breath of fresh air and a beer or two. Some tips on recognizing real programmers away from the computer room: o At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner talking about operating system security and how to get around it. o At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the plays against his simulations printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper. o At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts in the sand. o A Real Programmer goes to discos to watch the light shows. o At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying "Poor George. And he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary." o In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on running the cans past the laser checkout scanner himself, because he never could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first time. THE REAL PROGRAMMER'S NATURAL HABITAT What sort of environment does the Real Programmer function best in? This is an important question for the managers of Real Programmers. Considering the amount of money it costs to keep one on the staff, it's best to put him (or her) in an environment where he can get his work done. The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal. Surrounding this terminal are: o Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on, piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the office. o Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee. Occasionally, there will be cigarette butts floating in the coffee. In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush. o Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual and the Principles of Operation open to some particularly interesting pages. o Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year 1969. o Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter filled cheese bars -- the type that are made pre-stale at the bakery so they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending machine. o Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of double-stuff Oreos for special occasions. o Underneath the Oreos is a flow-charting template, left there by the previous occupant of the office. (Real Programmers write programs, not documentation. Leave that to the maintenance people.) The Real Programmer is capable of working 30, 40, even 50 hours at a stretch, under intense pressure. In fact, he prefers it that way. Bad response time doesn't bother the Real Programmer -- it gives him a chance to catch a little sleep between compiles. If there is not enough schedule pressure on the Real Programmer, he tends to make things more challenging by working on some small but interesting part of the problem for the first nine weeks, then finishing the rest in the last week, in two or three 50-hour marathons. This not only impresses the hell out of his manager, who was despairing of ever getting the project done on time, but creates a convenient excuse for not doing the documentation. In general: o No Real Programmer works 9 to 5. (Unless it's the ones at night.) o Real Programmers don't wear neckties. o Real Programmers don't wear high heeled shoes. o Real Programmers arrive at work in time for lunch. [9] o A Real Programmer might or might not know his wife's name. He does, however, know the entire ASCII (or EBCDIC) code table. o Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't open at three in the morning. Real Programmers survive on Twinkies and coffee. THE FUTURE What of the future? It is a matter of some concern to Real Programmers that the latest generation of computer programmers are not being brought up with the same outlook on life as their elders. Many of them have never seen a computer with a front panel. Hardly anyone graduating from school these days can do hex arithmetic without a calculator. College graduates these days are soft -- protected from the realities of programming by source level debuggers, text editors that count parentheses, and "user friendly" operating systems. Worst of all, some of these alleged "computer scientists" manage to get degrees without ever learning FORTRAN! Are we destined to become an industry of Unix hackers and Pascal programmers? >From my experience, I can only report that the future is bright for Real Programmers everywhere. Neither OS/370 nor FORTRAN show any signs of dying out, despite all the efforts of Pascal programmers the world over. Even more subtle tricks, like adding structured coding constructs to FORTRAN have failed. Oh sure, some computer vendors have come out with FORTRAN 77 compilers, but every one of them has a way of converting itself back into a FORTRAN 66 compiler at the drop of an option card -- to compile DO loops like God meant them to be. Even Unix might not be as bad on Real Programmers as it once was. The latest release of Unix has the potential of an operating system worthy of any Real Programmer -- two different and subtly incompatible user interfaces, an arcane and complicated teletype driver, virtual memory. If you ignore the fact that it's "structured," even 'C' programming can be appreciated by the Real Programmer: after all, there's no type checking, variable names are seven (ten? eight?) characters long, and the added bonus of the Pointer data type is thrown in -- like having the best parts of FORTRAN and assembly language in one place. (Not to mention some of the more creative uses for define.) No, the future isn't all that bad. Why, in the past few years, the popular press has even commented on the bright new crop of computer nerds and hackers ([7] and [8]) leaving places like Stanford and M.I.T. for the Real World. From all evidence, the spirit of Real Programming lives on in these young men and women. As long as there are ill-defined goals, bizarre bugs, and unrealistic schedules, there will be Real Programmers willing to jump in and Solve The Problem, saving the documentation for later. Long live FORTRAN! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Jan E., Dave S., Rich G., Rich E. for their help in characterizing the Real Programmer, Heather B. for the illustration, Kathy E. for putting up with it, and atd!avsdS:mark for the initial inspiration. Copyright (c) 1982 Ed Post, Tektronix, Inc., Wilsonville, OR. -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Web users, you can read a random joke from the archives just by bookmarking http://comedy.clari.net/cgi-bin/randomurl/rhf/jokes/masterlist From mike@econym.demon.co.uk Thu Feb 20 21:04:53 EST 1997 Subject: TV Asteroid Science From: kfl@access5.digex.net (Keith F. Lynch) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science, sci.astro, sci.physics, alt.folklore.science, rec.arts.sf.tv Here are the fundamental principles of asteroid science, as I learned on NBC tonight: * Asteroids travel through space making a noise like a powerful but subdued engine. * Asteroids are usually locked into orbits, but if a comet comes by, they can be bumped out of their rut and become dangerously unstable. * It's only the fact that everything is locked into an orbit which prevents collisions in our solar system. Any asteroid that gets loose is certain to crash into Earth within a matter of hours. * It's just barely possible to evacuate Kansas City to a distance of 100 miles in 48 hours. This requires lots of airplanes. It also requires martial law, so that "looters will be arrested on sight". (Have they no mercy?) With 30+ hours to go, people will panic in the streets and run around at random. * A mile-wide asteroid can mostly burn up in the atmosphere, causing it to do only a relatively small amount of damage (bursting a dam) when it strikes. * A river from a burst dam can exactly keep pace with a pickup truck for several minutes. It will then obligingly pause as the pickup truck turns around and goes in another direction. * When a raging river washes over a pickup truck on a bridge, the bridge won't be damaged, the truck won't be swept off the bridge, and people in the open back of the truck won't be swept away. * A four-mile-wide nickel asteroid (which would mass about a *trillion* tons) can be destroyed -- literally destroyed, so that nothing remains -- by three airplane-mounted lasers. * But with only two airplane-mounted lasers, it instead instantly explodes into thousands of pieces. Astronomers are very surprised that it wasn't literally destroyed. * Laser beams are easily visible in space. * Incoming asteroids spend several minutes in Earth's atmosphere. * Asteroids made of softer or more volatile stuff than nickel will harmlessly burn up in the atmposphere regardless of size. * Asteroids that land in the ocean will do no damage regardless of size. * Asteroids are discovered by astronomers peering directly through their telescopes in brightly lit observatories. Whatever they see will appear on computer monitors, however. * Asteroid positions are reported in plainly audible 75 BPS Baudot teletype signals. * Oddly, there will be no dog to be rescued at the last possible moment. Maybe only tornadoes and volcanoes come equipped with dogs. Would you settle for goldfish? The stunning conclusion will be broadcast tomorrow night. I look forward to learning more TV asteroid science. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From mhhammon@neumann.uwaterloo.ca Sat Mar 8 23:32:42 EST 1997 ********************************* * * * Cyberwocky * * * ********************************* (With Apologies to Lewis Carroll) 'Twas e-mail, and the ftp Did route and telnet to the node. All rlogin to Xterms free To let gopher download. ``Beware the Internet, my son! The posts that spam, the speech that's free! Beware the Netscape cache, and shun The AOL mail id!'' He took his HP mouse in hand. Long time a higher bandwidth sought -- And wished had he for his old PC A faster modem bought. And, as that wistful thought he gripped, The Internet, with bait of flame, Ran applets through the Javascript, And mailbombed as it came! The war he waged! As on each page The HP mouse he double-clicked! And 'twas absurd, the hype he'd heard 'Bout sites that he had picked. ``And, hast thou surfed the Internet? Come link my page, my newbie bud! O Lycos night! Yahoo! Excite!'' He messaged on his MUD. 'Twas e-mail, and the ftp Did route and telnet to the node. All rlogin to Xterms free To let gopher download. by Mike ``Hammerwocky'' Hammond (First appeared in Volume 71, Issue 4 of mathNEWS, the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics student newsletter/humour publication. Check us out at http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~mathnews Submitted with permission of authour --- me!) -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke (jokes ONLY) to funny@clari.net. If you see a problem with an RHF posting, reply to the poster please, not to us. Ask the poster to forward comments back to us if this is necessary. For the full RHF guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From nathanr@k2.ashpool.com Sun Mar 9 23:49:07 EST 1997 [Note - from "The Top Five List" - see credits at the end - ed.] The Top 15 Potential Problems With Cloning Humans 15> Harder than ever to land a role in those new Wrigley's commercials featuring the Doublemint Octuplets. 14> Two words: Gilbert Gottfried(s) 13> Any scientific advancement that stems from the result of Scottish people doing strange things to sheep is bound to have dire consequences. 12> In mere weeks, Bill Gates (v1.0, v1.2, v2.0, v3.0, v3.1 & v5.0) has all the money on the entire planet. 11> Hillary's husband discovers true multiple orgasms. 10> If you think there are too many idiots shouting "Show me the money!" on every occasion now, just wait. 9> Rush Limbaugh takes his self-affection to a whole new level, and suddenly is IN FAVOR of same-sex marriages. 8> "Penn & Penn & Teller & Teller & Teller & Penn & Penn & Teller & Penn" much harder to fit on comedy club marquee. 7> And you think it's hard to find your size now! 6> 18-month waiting list for George Clooney and Cindy Crawford clones. 5> "Alternative" radio filled with even more Nirvana clones. 4> And the final score: the New York Gretzkys - 408, the Pittsburgh Lemieuxs - 399. 3> Can no longer count on the Grim Reaper to get Jesse Helms out of office. 2> Those apocalyptic words: "Ladies & Gentlemen: The John Tesh Philharmonic Orchestra!" and the Number 1 Potential Problem With Cloning Humans... 1> Seventeen Mark Fuhrmans, and suddenly OJ's defense doesn't seem quite as far-fetched. [ This list copyright 1997 by Chris White and Ziff-Davis ] [ *To forward or repost, please include this section.* ] [ The Top Five List top5@walrus.com www.topfive.com ] Selected from 143 submissions from 50 contributors. Today's Top Five List authors are: ---------------------------------------------------------------- John Voigt, Chicago, IL -- 1, 5 (6th #1) Alan Smithee, Sugar Land, TX -- 2 Michael Wolf, Brookline, MA -- 2 George Olson, Colorado Springs, CO -- 2 Gene/Cynthia Markins-Dieden, New Haven, CT -- 3 Jeff Johnson, Daly City, CA -- 4 Ed Smith, Chattanooga, TN -- 4 Wade Kwon, Birmingham, AL -- 4 Jennifer Hart, Arlington, VA -- 6 Paul Seaburn, Houston, TX -- 7 Jesse Garon, San Francisco, CA -- 7 Greg Pettit, Houston, TX -- 7, 14 Tisha Stacey, St. Paul, MN -- 8 JB Leibovitch, Oakland, CA -- 9 Alexander Clemens, San Francisco, CA -- 10 Doug Johnson, Santa Cruz, CA -- 11 Steve Hurd, San Ramon, CA -- 12 Jeff Downey, Raleigh, NC -- 13 Kris Kettner, Fond du Lac, WI -- 14 R.M. Weiner, Brighton, MA -- 15 LeMel Hebert-Williams, San Francisco, CA -- 15 (Hall of Famer) Phil Doyle, Mercer Island, WA -- 15 ---------------------------------------------------------------- *** Windows Sources Spotlight *** All your questions about the Office suite can be answered! Visit the Expert Answers forum at http://www.winsources.com... ================================================================ T H E T O P F I V E L I S T To subscribe: Send mail to top5-on@lists.zdnet.com To unsubscribe: Send mail to top5-off@lists.zdnet.com For more information: Send mail to top5@walrus.com with "INFO" in the *subject* line of the message. To report a sighting of a Top Five List in other media: Send mail to top5@walrus.com with "BINGO!" in the *subject*. ================================================================ -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Web users, you can read a random joke from the archives just by bookmarking http://www.clari.net/cgi-bin/randomurl/rhf/jokes/masterlist From watmath!psivax!sa@ttidca.CSS.GOV Mon Mar 17 16:27:44 EST 1997 The Top 15 Advertising Slogans for Delta Air Lines -------------------------------------------------- 1. Delta: We're Amtrak with wings. 2. Join our frequent near-miss program. 3. Ask about our out-of-court settlements. 4. Noisy engines? We'll turn 'em off! 5. Complimentary champagne in free-fall. 6. Enjoy the in-flight movie in the plane next to you. 7. The kids will love our inflatable slides. 8. You think it's so easy, get your own damm plane! 9. Delta: Our pilots are terminally ill and have nothing to lose. 10. Delta: We might be landing on your street! 11. Delta: Terrorists are afraid to fly with us. 12. Bring a bathing suit. 13. So that's what these buttons do! 14. Delta: A real man lands where he wants to. 15. Delta: We never make the same mistake three times. -- Steve Alter ...!{csun,trwrb,psivax}!ttidca!alter or alter@tti.com Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica CA (213) 452-9191 x2541 -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Web users, you can read a random joke from the archives just by bookmarking http://comedy.clari.net/cgi-bin/randomurl/rhf/jokes/masterlist From nevin@cs.arizona.edu Tue Mar 18 14:44:01 EST 1997 This list is Copyright 1996 by Peter Anspach . If you enjoy it, feel free to pass it along or post it anywhere, provided that (1) it is not altered in any way, and (2) this copyright notice is attached. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Being an Evil Overlord seems to be a good career choice. It pays well, there are all sorts of perks and you can set your own hours. However every Evil Overlord I've read about in books or seen in movies invariably gets overthrown and destroyed in the end. I've noticed that no matter whether they are barbarian lords, deranged wizards, mad scientists or alien invaders, they always seem to make the same basic mistakes every single time. Therefore, if I ever happen to become an Evil Overlord: 1. My legions of terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones. 2. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through. 3. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon. 4. Shooting is not too good for my enemies. 5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. 6. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicatment before killing them. 7. When the rebel leader challenges me to fight one-on-one and asks, ``Or are you afraid without your armies to back you up?'' My reply will be, ``No, just sensible.'' 8. When I've captured my adversary and he says, ``Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?'' I'll say, ``No.'' and shoot him. 9. After I kidnap the beautiful princess, we will be married immediately in a quiet civil ceremony, not a lavish spectacle in three weeks' time during which the final phase of my plan will be carried out. 10. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled ``Danger: Do Not Push''. 11. I will not order my trusted lieutenant to kill the infant who is destined to overthrow me -- I'll do it myself. 12. I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well. 13. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat. 14. I will not waste time making my enemy's death look like an accident -- I'm not accountable to anyone and my other enemies wouldn't believe it. 15. I will make it clear that I do know the meaning of the word ``mercy''; I simply choose not show them any. 16. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation. 17. All slain enemies will be cremated, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal. 18. My undercover agents will not have tattoos identifying them as members of my organization, nor will they be required to wear military boots or adhere to any other dress codes. 19. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request. 20. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation. 21. I will design all doomsday machines myself. If I must hire a mad scientist to assist me, I will make sure that he is sufficiently twisted to never regret his evil ways and seek to undo the damage he's caused. 22. I will never utter the sentence ``But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know.'' 23. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice. 24. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time. 25. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father. 26. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly. 27. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my legions of terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set. 28. No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head. 29. I will keep a special cache of low-tech weapons and train my troops in their use. That way -- even if the heroes manage to neutralize my power generator and/or render the standard-issue energy weapons useless -- my troops will not be overrun by a handful of savages armed with spears and rocks. 30. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line ``No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!'' (After that, death is usually instantaneous.) 31. No matter how well it would perform, I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely indestructable except for one small and virtually inaccessible vulnerable spot. 32. If I am engaged in a duel to the death with the hero and I am fortunate enough to knock the weapon out of his hand, I will graciously allow him to retrieve it. This is not from a sense of fair play; rather, he will be so startled and confused that I will easily be able to dispatch him. 33. No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me. Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have any other tidbits of advice for me to follow, please e-mail me. I wish to thank the following contributors to this list who, if I ever happen to become an Evil Overlord, will be named as lieutenants -- but not trusted lieutenants -- in my legions of terror: * Julie Helmer * Christy Marx * Mark Musante * Katherine Teague * g.kenter@genie.com * rsledge@spry.com -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Do you know about rec.humor.funny.reruns? It has all the best jokes from the archives of this group. RHF does only new material. See also at http://comedy.clari.net/rhf From rhfr-badmail@clari.net Tue Mar 18 22:18:35 EST 1997 A telphone man joined the Army. As part of his basic training, he went out on the rifle range. He fired 99 shots at the target, and missed the target with every shot! His Drill Instructor tried to find out why. "What's the matter with you?" asked the DI. "Why can't you hit the target? What were you in civilian life?" "I was a telephone man," replied the new recruit, "and I don't know why I can't hit the target. Let me see..." The telephone man checked his rifle, checked his rifle again, and checked his rifle a third time. He then put his finger in front of the muzzle, pulled the trigger, and blew the end of his finger off! "Well," the phone man said, writhing in pain, "the bullets are leaving here fine. The trouble must be on the other end!" -- Bruce Stein on the Line -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Web users, you can read a random joke from the archives just by bookmarking http://comedy.clari.net/cgi-bin/randomurl/rhf/jokes/masterlist From cmt@kepler.unh.edu Fri Mar 21 22:23:06 EST 1997 "What if Data (from "Star Trek, The Next Generation") were Microsoft Windows compatible?" WORF: Captain, there are three Romulan warships uncloaking dead ahead. PICARD: On screen. The main viewing screen changes to a pattern of horizontal lines, each only a single pixel wide. PICARD: Data, what's wrong here? DATA: Captain, the main viewscreen does not have sufficient video memory to display an image of this size. May I suggest that you select a lower resolution? PICARD: Make it so. The screen blanks, and then an image appears, with big, blocky square pixels. Three objects appear in the center, which could be Romulan warbirds, but which actually look more like the aliens in Space Invaders. PICARD: Data, open a hailing channel to the Romulans. DATA: Aye, sir. Data picks up an hourglass from the floor beside him, turns it over, and places it on the console in front of him. He punches some buttons on the console and sits motionless for several seconds. A flash of light blossoms from one of the Romulan ships on the viewscreen. WORF: Incoming plasma torpedo, Captain! PICARD: Shields up! DATA: I'm sorry, Captain, but I am still attempting to complete your last instruction. I must ask you to wait until I have finished before you issue your next command. PICARD: What on earth do you mean? Data, this is *important*! I want those shields up *right now*. DATA: I'm sorry, Captain, but I am still attempting to complete your last instruction. I must ask you to wait until I have finished before you issue your next command. LAFORGE: Allow me, captain. to Data Control-alt-delete, Data. Data removes the hourglass from the console, and returns it to the floor. DATA: The Romulans are not responding to my hails. Press my nose to cancel and return to Windows. Pull my left ear to close this communications channel which is not responding. You will lose any information sent by the Romulans. LaForge pulls Data's left ear. PICARD: Shields... There is a tremendous explosion. The bridge shakes violently, and all the crew members are thrown to the floor. A shower of sparks erupts from Wesley Crusher's station at the helm, throwing Wesley back away from the console. PICARD: Up, Data! DATA: Aye, sir. RIKER: All decks, damage report! WORF: Captain, Ensign Crusher is injured. He appears to be unconscious. Data picks up the hourglass again, places it on his console, and punches some more buttons. He waits a few seconds, then puts the hourglass back on the floor. DATA: Shields are now up, captain. PICARD: And not a moment too soon. Worf, lock all phasers on the lead Romulan ship. WORF: Aye, sir. He punches buttons on the weapons console. PICARD: Mr. Data, take the helm, and prepare for evasive action. DATA: I am sorry, sir, but I do not have the proper device driver installed for that console. PICARD: Well, damn it, install the right one. DATA: Please insert Setup Implant 1 in my right nostril. PICARD: Number One, where do we keep Data's setup implants? RIKER: I left them with Geordi. LAFORGE: (in a surprised voice) What!!? I thought you still had them! PICARD: Data, don't you have device drivers stored in your internal memory? DATA: Not found, sir. Please insert Setup Implant 1 in my right nostril. PICARD: Data, I don't *have* Setup Implant 1. DATA: Not ready reading right nostril. Abort, Retry, Fail? PICARD: Abort! DATA: Not ready reading right nostril. Abort, Retry, Fail? PICARD: Well, fail, then! DATA: Current nose is no longer valid. Data walks over to the helm, and presses several buttons. The ship lurches, the images of the Romulan warships suddenly shift to one side of the viewscreen, and a high-pitched whining noise is heard coming from somewhere else in the ship. LAFORGE: alarmed Data, what the hell are you doing? PICARD: Number One, do we have a customer service number for Data? RIKER: Yes sir, but last time I tried to call them, I got put on hold for two hours before I was able to talk to anyone. And that person wasn't knowledgeable about androids of Data's model. She specialized in industrial control robots. Suddenly, the lights all go out, the viewscreen goes blank, and all the usual noise of fans, motors, and so on whines to a halt. After a few seconds, the red emergency lights come on. Data is standing by the console, absolutely motionless. PICARD: What's going on? LAFORGE: (checking the helm console) Lieutenant Data has caused a General Protection Violation in the warp engine core. PICARD: These androids look really sharp, but you can't really do anything with them. The shimmer of the transporter effect appears, and six Romulans in full battle dress materialize on the bridge. A seventh figure, a Ferengi, appears moments later. FERENGI: (with a mercenary grin) Can I interest you in a Macintosh, Captain? -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Send comments meant for the moderator to funny-request@clari.net. Jokes sent to this address will be ignored. For the full submission guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From ian@irowland.demon.co.uk Tue Mar 25 09:50:59 EST 1997 The New Age Believer's Driving School Rules: 1. First of all, can we make it clear you don't have to prove anything to us. We choose to believe you can drive. If the closed-minded types want to object, the onus is on them to prove you can't, okay? 2. If you DO agree to take a driving test, all credit to you. By all means make up your own driving test exactly as you want it to be. If there are any bits that you think might be a bit hard, just leave them out. 3. You may feel that having a qualified driving instructor around inhibits your ability to drive. We quite understand. If you like, we'll cravenly make sure your test is conducted by someone with no qualifications for the job at all. How about a deaf, blind whelk-stall owner who has never seen a car before? 4. If you sort of manage to make the car move at all, in any direction, even if it's not the direction you said it would go in, then that's good enough for us. You've passed with flying colours. And you only have to do it once, of course. 5. Instead of sitting the driving test, you may want to submit some eyewitness reports, which we won't check, saying that you did drive something, at some point, somewhere, some time ago. This is good enough proof for us. If there's a grainy, blurred, indistinct black and white photo of you sitting in a car, all the better. You get the licence. 6. If you adamantly refuse any sort of test, for the next 40 years, don't worry. We realise it's basically a tiresome abuse of your profound driving talents, and we'll give you the licence anyway. 7. If you keep causing multiple pile-ups and writing off one car after another, and mowing down innocent pedestrians, and getting fined for contravening every basic driving rule there is, don't worry. We'll attribute this to unfavourable reporting from hostile and closed-minded sources, and let you keep the driving licence. 8. We'd like to arrange a prime-time TV show in which you only have to pretend to drive, using a little fakery, and we'll treat you like you're the reigning Formula 1 world champion driver. Is this okay with you? We think it would prove popular wiht our viewers. Ian Rowland ian@irowland.demon.co.uk www.irowland.demon.co.uk ________________________ krlx3 From AirShowGuy@aol.com Sun Apr 6 23:44:01 EDT 1997 We got this one from one of our friends at Oracle computers....he wants to remain nameless, but he likes to fly...ALOT! ============================================================ Alp: One of a number of ski mountains in Europe. Also a shouted request for assistance made by a European. Avalanche: One of the few actual perils skiers face that needlessly frighten timid individuals away from the sport. See also: Blizzard, First Aid, Fracture, Frostbite, Hypothermia, Lift Collapse. Bindings: Automatic mechanisms that protect skiers from serious injury during a fall by releasing skis from boots, sending the skis skittering across the slope where they trip two other skiers. Bones: There are 206 in the human body. No need for dismay, however; the two bones of the middle ear have never been broken while skiing. Cross-Country Skiing: Traditional Scandinavian all-terrain technique. It's good exercise, doesn't require purchase of costly lift tickets. It has no crowds or lines. See also Cross-Country Something-Or-Other. Cross-Country Something-or-Other: Touring on skis along trails in scenic wilderness, gliding through snow-hushed woods far from the hubbub of the ski slopes, hearing nothing but the whispery hiss of the skis slipping through snow and the muffled screams of other skiers dropping into the puffy powder of a deep, wind-sculpted drift. Exercises: A few simple warm-ups to make sure you're prepared for the slopes: 1) Tie a cinder block to each foot and climb a flight of stairs. 2) Sit on the outside of a fourth-story window ledge with your skis on and your poles in your lap for at least 30 minutes. 3) Bind your legs together at the ankles, lie flat on the floor; then, holding a banana in each hand, get to your feet. Gloves: Designed to be tight around the wrist to restrict circulation, but not so closefitting as to allow any manual dexterity; they should also admit moisture from the outside without permitting any dampness within to escape. Gravity: One of four fundamental forces in nature that affect skiers. The other three are the strong force, which makes bindings jam; the weak force, which makes ankles give way on turns; and electromagnetism, which produces dead batteries in expensive ski-resort parking lots. See Inertia. Inertia: Tendency of a skier's body to resist changes in direction or speed due to the action of Newton's First Law of Motion. Goes along with these other physical laws: 1) Two objects of different mass falling side by side will have the same rate of descent, but the lighter one will have larger hospital and home care bills. 2) Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but if it drops out of a parka pocket, don't expect to encounter it again in our universe. 3) When an irresistible force meets an immovable object (see "Tree") Prejump: Maneuver in which an expert skier makes a controlled jump just ahead of a bump. Beginners can execute a controlled pre-fall just before losing their balance and, if they wish, may precede it with either a pre-scream and a few pre-groans or simple profanity. Shin: The bruised area on the front of the leg that runs from the point where the ache from the wrenched knee ends to where the soreness from the strained ankle begins. Ski!: A shout to alert people ahead that a loose ski is coming down the hill. Another warning skiers should be familiar with is "Avalanche!" (which tells everyone that a hill is coming down the hill). Skier: One who pays an arm and a leg for the opportunity to break them. Stance: Your knees should be flexed, but shaking slightly; your arms straight and covered with a good layer of goose flesh; your hands forward, palms clammy, knuckles white and fingers icy, your eyes a little crossed and darting in all directions. Your lips should be quivering, and you should be mumbling, "Am I nuts or what?" Thor: The Scandinavian god of acheth and painth. Traverse: To ski across a slope at an angle; one of two quick and simple methods of reducing speed. Tree: The other method. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Sponsored by ClariNet Communications Corp. (http://www.clari.net) If you post instead of mailing, it screws up the reply-address sometimes. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. From colin@sonic.net Tue Apr 8 23:41:39 EDT 1997 Subject: High Expectations, Low Technology From: colin@sonic.net (Colin Coller) Newsgroups: sonic.help $ ps -aux | grep lynx user 8928 0.0 0.9 1808 1252 pc S 01:25 0:01 lynx www.penthousemag colin 9239 0.0 0.3 984 384 ? S 01:54 0:00 grep lynx $ Wow. So people DO read it for the articles! -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From drjoe@netscape.com Fri May 23 14:49:56 EDT 1997 This is a bit of light relief from an internal web site here at Netscape. Apparently, it has been excerpted from "Masquerade: The Amazing Camouflage Deceptions of World War II", Seymour Reit (Signet, 1980): Another enemy decoy, built in occupied Holland, led to a tale that has been told and retold ever since by veteran Allied pilots. The German "airfield", constructed with meticulous care, was made almost entirely of wood. There were wooden hangars, oil tanks, gun emplacements, trucks, and aircraft. The day finally came when the decoy was finished, down to the last wooden plank. And early the following morning, a lone RAF plane crossed the Channel, came in low, circled the field once, and dropped a large wooden bomb. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Please don't send us requests of the form, "could you please send me the joke about XXX?" We don't act as a joke server but the web pages at http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ will let you search for jokes in our archives. From *stopspam*jparadise@sdicorp.com Fri May 23 14:52:29 EDT 1997 Subject: Re: human gallstones for sale From: lowdough@enteract.com (Dennis Galion) Newsgroups: ne.forsale, ny.forsale, nj.forsale, chi.forsale rosaphil wrote: > > i just had my gallstones out. i am hiv negative. (no aids). > > i heard that cow gallstones go for about $650 an ounce. > > i'll take bout that much for minez..er, maybe $1000. they weigh >more than an ounce. > Rosaphil, What a great deal! I really need your gallstones, but currently find myself strapped for cash, having recently taken advantage of a similarly fantastic deal on some caribou earwax. I do, however, have some valuable items to trade. To wit: 1 lb, 5 oz bag of of hair 1/4 thimbleful of lint (navel) 1/3 bucket of spit (warm) 1 small piece of scotch tape with (what appears to be) an eyelash stuck to it and 2 square yards (front and back) of dog poop (YOU MUST PICK UP THIS ITEM, AS IT IS NOT SHIPPABLE) Please give me a call at [deleted] ASAP so we can arrange an equitable trade -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From neidorff@uicc.com Mon Jun 9 09:50:38 EDT 1997 These are alledged to be some actual maintenance complaints submitted by US Air Force pilots and the replies from the maintenance crews: Problem: "Left inside main tire almost needs replacement." Solution: "Almost replaced left inside main tire." Problem: "Test flight OK, except autoland very rough." Solution: "Autoland not installed on this aircraft." Problem #1: "#2 Propeller seeping prop fluid." Solution #1: "#2 Propeller seepage normal." Problem #2: "#1, #3, and #4 propellers lack normal seepage." Problem: "The autopilot doesn't." Signed off: "IT DOES NOW." Problem: "Something loose in cockpit." Solution: "Something tightened in cockpit." Problem: "Evidence of hydraulic leak on right main landing gear." Solution: "Evidence removed." Problem: "DME volume unbelievably loud." Solution: "Volume set to more believable level." Problem: "Dead bugs on windshield." Solution: "Live bugs on order." Problem: "Autopilot in altitude hold mode produces a 200 fpm descent." Solution: "Cannot reproduce problem on ground." Problem: "IFF inoperative." Solution: "IFF always inoperative in OFF mode." Problem: "Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick." Solution: "That's what they're there for." Problem: "Number three engine missing." Solution: "Engine found on right wing after brief search." [Note - forwarded by the submitter, making the rounds in a very big way, supposedly from a USAF "public board" - ed.] -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Remember: Always give your jokes a descriptive "Subject:" line. Don't use "joke" or "submission" or "joke submission," please. For the full submission guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From mbr@larch.LCS.MIT.EDU Tue Jul 8 09:26:53 EDT 1997 New York Times, 25 April 1989, in an article on new operating systems for the IBM PC: Real concurrency -- in which one program actually continues to function while you call up and use another -- is more amazing but of small use to the average person. How many programs do you have that take more than a few seconds to perform any task? -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Visit http://comedy.clari.net/rhf to browse the RHF pages and archives on the web. Rec.humor.funny and RHF.reruns are provided by ClariNet, publisher of the net's largest (1.5 million paying subscriber) E-newspaper. http://www.clari.net From kimmo@cc.hut.fi Fri Jul 11 09:33:42 EDT 1997 Subject: Re: **AUTO SECURITY SECRETS** From: Jamie Dyer Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport.f1 BSMAURICIO wrote: > > Automotive Security Secrets > > Statistics show every 30 seconds a car is stolen in the U.S. You ask > yourself, how can I protect my car from being stolen? I reply to myself "Keep it in the UK"? -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From adeboer@gjetor.geac.com Tue Jul 15 09:55:54 EDT 1997 I heard this from my brother, who is a Search and Rescue pilot at Canadian Forces Base Bagotville, Quebec. It's an apocryphal story that allegedly happened late one night during bad weather, as heard over the tower radio: Helicopter Pilot: "Roger, I'm holding at 3000 over beacon". Second voice: "NO! You can't be doing that! {it8 I'm} holding at 3000 over that beacon!" (brief pause, then first voice again): "You idiot, you're my co-pilot." -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Visit http://comedy.clari.net/rhf to browse the RHF pages and archives on the web. This newsgroup does not accept submissions. See rec.humor.funny for that. From rsk@itw.com Tue Sep 2 16:29:08 EDT 1997 Copyright Rich Kulawiec, rsk@itw.com, 1997. Reading the various job-related newsgroups while searching for employment can be frustrating at times -- there are mis-posted articles, duplicate articles, articles without relevant subject lines, get-rich-quick spams, and a hundred other annoyances. I can't help you with those. However, I can help you to understand the text of some of the less intelligible help-wanted articles. Enclosed below are (1) direct quotes from articles which have appeared in misc.jobs.offered with (2) a translation of what the author actually meant to say. The company and personal names have been elided to protect my future job prospects, if any remain after this gets posted. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@itw.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is not, repeat, not a position for an academic-type of internet hacker. Rather, it is a need for a solid business applications developer type. "Even though we are trying to implement a cutting-edge web-based system, we are unaware that the academic community is precisely the place that such systems originated, and where a lot of the people who know how about them can be found. We would prefer to hire someone who still finds spreadsheets and accounting software exciting." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Due to the volume of expected responses, we are only able to contact candidates who qualify for this position. "Although sending an e-mail response to a received cover letter and resume would only a take a few seconds, we are too busy to indulge in this basic, common courtesy. We're also not smart enough to automate the process. Guess you'll never know if we received and read your resume..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ HOT! Call today! "My project is a mess and I need to hire someone immediately who can either bail me out, or, by virtue of being the latest hire, take the blame." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Candidates should be able to start work immediately. "Don't bother giving a reasonable amount of notice to your current employer. Of course, should you ever leave our firm, we'll expect 90 days notice.' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ No relocation assistance available. "We're cheap. We think so little of you that we won't even pick up the $2K it'll cost to move your 1-bedroom apartment's worth of furniture 400 miles." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Requires X years experience with Y, with X > than the number of years that Y has existed, e.g.) Wanted: Expert Java programmers, 5+ years experience "We're clueless, but very easy to impress." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Applicant must have a minimum of 10 solid years working as [...] Submit cover letter, resume, and transcript to [...] "Even though this is a field where the technology turns over every three years, we think how you did in Organic Chemistry in college over a decade go has some relevance to your qualifications." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ YOU WILL HAVE 5+ YEARS EXPERIENCE AS A CFO IN A HIGH TECH COMPUTER INDUSTRY. "Please teach us where the CAPS LOCK key is." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Very short ad, with entire copy consisting of:) Wanted: Unix/C programmers. "We think you're so hungry that you'll jump at any job with this in the title, even though we list no other qualifications, don't tell you what kind of work you'll be doing, or even where we're located." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [...] implementing new system on VAX/VMS platform with DECNET [...] "We still think VMS and DECNET are hot technologies and that this Unix and TCP/IP fad will be over any minute. Hey...do you think we could get Ken Olsen?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Skills: Pearl, Linus, Seashell, [...] "We're really clueless." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Title: Senior Unix Administrator Location: New York City. Salary range: $30-$45K. "We think you're really clueless." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please submit resumes in Word format with subject "Lead Unix Admin" to: [...] "Even though we are looking for a senior Unix person, we are so brainwashed by Microsoft that it didn't dawn on us that Word is a proprietary format used by a word processor almost completely avoided by Unix people." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [...] interfacing the Web with legacy systems including mainframes [...] "We want you to take the hottest technology available and shackle it to hardware and software that were obsolete before you graduated from college. Don't worry, this will not damage your career." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ability to carry pager and perform after-hours and weekend work required. "We're too cheap to actually hire as many qualified people as we need, so we're going to try to squeeze unpaid overtime out of you and everyone else on the staff at the expense of your personal lives." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You will work in a team with 2 or 3 other people in a fast-paced environment. Adherance to strict deadlines is critical as well as the ability to learn and be innovative. "We're behind schedule. Really behind schedule. We'd like to convince you to join these other poor bastards in hell." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Are you a programmer on a legacy/mainframe system and want to transition your career into something new? Well the [...] Group, Inc. is looking for mainframe programmers with experience in COBOL, DB2, IMS, CICS, and others. "Didn't bother to keep your skillset current? We think we can now hire you at a bargain rate because you'll do anything in order to get yourself retrained on technology from this decade." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ New York System Integration company has short and long term needs for Sun Unix admins. Competency Level 1500 and 2000 especially sought. "We think that you'll know what somebody's skill assessment system for Unix administrators will mean, even though we didn't bother to tell you here. Bonus if you're clairvoyant." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Entire text of ad, excluding boilerplate) Position available for a *very* senior internet expert. Should have a very solid education, experience and the potential to be an industry leader. Position details are confidential, for qualified candidates only. "In fact, the position details are so confidential, that we haven't bothered to tell you just what sort of skills we're looking for (routers? protocols? operating systems? programming? web site development? all of them?), where this position is located, or what it's responsibilities might be. Even though we've provided you next to nothing to go on, we expect you to figure out whether or not you're qualified. And since we're one of the companies that doesn't do applicants the courtesy of acknowledging resumes, you'll never know if you guessed wrong." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Entire text of ad) Subject: Need 20 Hardware and Software Engineers 2-10 years of experince 100k + Relocation Paid H1 visa ok Our client is a big Semiconductor Company in Silocon Valley. Please email your resume to [...] or fax it at [...] RELOCATION PAID H-1 VISA OK "Not only can't we take the time to provide any information about the positions, or the requirements that applicants are expected to have, we can't spell." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Entire text of ad) Subject: Wanted: HEAVY C++/UNIX/GUI APPLICATIONS DESIGNER - read on [1/1] 4 bytes BEGIN --- CUT HERE --- Cut Here --- cut here --- read on begin 644 read on $#0H-"K3H ` end END --- CUT HERE --- Cut Here --- cut here --- "We're going to have the person we hire to teach us how and when to use uuencode." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright Rich Kulawiec, rsk@itw.com, 1997. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke (jokes ONLY) to funny@clari.net. If you see a problem with an RHF posting, reply to the poster please, not to us. Ask the poster to forward comments back to us if this is necessary. For the full RHF guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From xhu@deleted Mon Sep 29 11:06:43 1997 Subject: Monday Morning Funny, FW: Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road? (fwd) Status: OR > Moses: And God came down from heaven, and he said unto the chicken, "Thou > shalt cross the road" and the chicken did cross the road, and there was much > rejoicing. > > Richard Nixon: The chicken did not cross the road, I repeat, the chicken did > NOT cross the road. > > Jerry Seinfeld: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone > ever think to ask "what was this chicken doing out of his pen walking around > all over the place anyway?" > > Freud: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken did cross the > road reveals your underlying insecurity. > > Bill Gates: I have just released the new Chicken Office 780. Which will not > only cross roads but will also lay eggs and file your important documents. > > Oliver Stone: The question is not "Why did the chicken cross the road" but > it is rather, "Who was crossing the road at the same time, and whom have we > overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing." > > Darwin: Chickens, over great periods of time have been naturally selected in > such a way that they are now genetically predispositioned to cross roads. > > Grandpa: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone > told us he had and that was good enough for us. > > Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved > beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference. > > Buddha: Asking this question denies your own chicken nature. > > Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain. > > Colonel Sanders: I missed one?? From UNDERHILL@gacvax1.uwaterloo.ca Tue Sep 30 10:13:24 EDT 1997 (Told to me by a fellow performer...) A famous film director, having died of late, arrives at the Pearly Gates. He is greeted by St. Peter, who is delighted to see him. *Peter:* "Great! We were waiting for you! God's making a movie, and we need a director." *Director:* "No, no, no! I am done! I have been directing for thirty years, and I want to rest. Eternally. Get someone else." *Peter:* "But you don't understand. We have a script by Shakespeare." *Dir:* "Sounds great...I'll see it opening night. I won't do it." *Peter:* "Our set design is a collaborative effort between Leonardo DaVinci and M.C. Escher." *Dir:* "Well, I really do need some time off. Maybe next time." *Peter:* "It's a Bach score! C'mon, you've gotta do it!" *Dir:* "You tempt me, Peter...." *Peter:* "Here's the clincher: You've got an open budget, a tech crew known for getting stuff in early, and all the audition material you could dream of." *Dir:* "Okay, okay. I'll do it. Where's the stage manager?" *Peter:* "Over there. But first, there is something I have to tell you. You see, God's got a girlfriend, like, and she sings...." -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Visit http://comedy.clari.net/rhf to browse the RHF pages and archives on the web. Take care in replying to postings in this group -- most were submitted years ago. From kfoster@shell.rmii.com Wed Oct 1 16:11:09 EDT 1997 Heh-heh. Watch for it. Having recently heard that, according to Bishop Ussher's calculation the 6000-year span of Earth will end on October 23 this year (to be followed by the Millennium described in the Revelation to St. John), I figured that somebody might try to cash in... Meanwhile, I hauled out the following, made a few changes in the format, and corrected some typos (and probably missed some others), but it's otherwise unchanged. Enjoy! ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` From: mnestheus@aol.com (Mnestheus) Newsgroups: sci.skeptic Subject: Usshering in the Millenium Date: 30 Sep 1996 17:55:12 -0400 Message-ID: <52pfk0$fgm@newsbf02.news.aol.com> ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ USSHERING IN THE MILLENNIUM `EARTH' Magazine, Feb. 1996 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 6000th Anniversary of the Earth's Creation (4004 B.C. - 1997 A.D.) is about to be celebrated by congregations that revere geochronology's founder, the good and great Archbishop Ussher. Their enthusiasm seems bound to spill over into their Congressional Districts, with obvious ramifications for the funding of geophysical research. So it may be prudent to amend geochronology to fit a Biblically Correct 6000-year format, at least for the fiscal year to come: ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25 Oct. 4004 BC: Encounter with Nemesis knocks Lucifer out of Oort Cloud. 1 Nov. 4004 BC: Earth still largely molten; Adam and Eve invent Asbestos waders. 3884 BC: The first biotechnologist, Cain, invents cyanobacteria. 3554 BC: Komatiites inundate earliest crust, Noah's Ark incinerated. 3264 BC: Methusaleh begins to notice passage of geological time. 3124 BC: Archaean stratiform sulfide deposits form, making Bronze age possible. 2844 BC: Tired of reading graphic granite, Imhotep invents heiroglyphs. 2584 BC: Earliest sedimentation; Discovery of slate leads to stone tablets. 2444 BC: Breathable atmosphere develops; first sermon preached. 2384 BC: Descendants of Tubal Cain inaugurate banded Iron Age. Sphinx starts to fossilize. 2024 BC: Nimrod the Hunter erects the Geosyncline of Babel. 1914 BC: Advent of diapirism; Lot's wife turned into first salt dome. 1794 BC: Children of Ham split from Israelites, insisting that the Burgess shale fauna are kosher; Chowder invented. 1704 BC: Charshumash the Hittite bitten by first vertebrate; Lawyers emerge from slime. 1624 BC: Samson attempts Perovskite synthesis: Laboratory of the Philistines implodes. 1444 BC: War of the Chaldean Succession, Pangaea broken up in accordance with the Treaty of Uruk. 1334 BC: Shang Empire abandons efforts to invent compass when China drifts over south magnetic pole. 1264 BC: Moses invents hydrofracturing, opening of Red Sea rift drowns Egyptian army. 1194 BC: Odysseus runs aground on Gondwandan riviera; Circe founds Club Teth. 1104 BC: Ezekiel see de Pterodactyl, 'way ub in de middle of de air. 1024 BC: Goliath stepped on by irate Barosaurus; David takes credit. 794 BC: Jonah swallowed by Carcharas Megalodon. 564 BC: Pythagoras publishes Air-Earth-Fire-Water phase diagram. 454 BC: Marble deposits form in Greece, Parthenon erected. 338 BC: Aristotle concludes that quartz is just another polymorph ofice, like diamond or pearls; this is known as the Wisdom of the Ancients. 64 BC: Pliny the Elder writes eyewitness account of the Alpine orogeny. 48 BC: All of Gaul is divided into three parts by the collision of Corsica with the European plate. The Year Zero: Nothing much happens, there being none. AD 31: Miracle of the Loaves and Ichthyosaurs. AD 70: Paul, formerly Saul the Tarser, undergoes identity crisis on the road to Damascus and writes Epistle to the Cephalopods. AD 344: Vanguard of Attila the Hun perishes when Romans breach Gibraltar escarpment, flooding the Mediterranean Desert. AD 494: Snakes evolve and are driven out of Ireland. AD 974: Lief the Unlucky lost with all hands when his dragon ship is spotted by an amorous Kronosaurus. AD 1066: William the Conquerer invades England by walking through northern France. AD 1215: Magna Carta eaten by Velociraptor. AD 1324: Gunpowder and plate armor introduced; Dinosaurs hunted to extinction. AD 1384: Dante Aligheri describes core-mantle boundary. AD 1444: Flowering plants appear; Wars of the Roses commence. AD 1484: Leonardo Da Vinci designs Archaeopteryx. AD 1492: Mesoamerica emerges, thwarting Columbus's discovery of Japan; the Santa Maria is attacked by Ammonites. AD 1519: Asteroid impact shatters Aztec Empire ; Cortez mops up. AD 1588: Spanish Armada frustrated by continuing absence of English Channel; Shakespeare tours seacoast of Bohemia. AD 1636: Earliest primates appear, Harvard founded. AD 1664: An English primate becomes Primate of Ireland - Archbishop Ussher successfully deduces last four out of ten digits of the age of the Earth. AD 1688: Hapsburg Iceboat Armada invades England via London-Bruges canal; Inquisition burns Isaac Newton at the stake for alchemy. AD 1776: General Washington's Mastedon cavalry routs Hessians at Battle of the Hudson Canyon. AD 1787: Gibbons evolve and author masterpieces like 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'. AD 1835: Charles Darwin attacked by giant Rattite in Galapagos, returns home a convinced Neptunist. AD 1846: A milestone in ape evolution is passed - a son is born to Bishop and Lady Wilberforce. AD 1867: COSMOS superstar Alexander Von Humboldt wins Napoleon III Peace Prize posthumously for sabotaging the Baltimore Gun Club's lunar artillery program . AD 1894: Awed by extent of glaciation, Cecil Rhodes proposes Capetown to Cairo bobsled run. AD 1914: Younger Dryas sea level rise unleashes U-boats into the Atlantic, Holy Roman Empire wins World War One. AD 1948: Harry Truman proposes using ice to contain Stalin, Cold War begins, ending Last Interglacial. AD 1954: Glaciers retreat from Fulda gap, General De Gaulle invades Russia. AD 1957: Civil Rights movement challenges Jim Cro-Magnon laws. AD 1961: Rachel Carson links DDT to Glyptodonts' decline . AD 1969: Last sighting of sabre-tooth tiger in Central Park; Elizabeth Taylor divorces Proconsul. AD 1971: Warhol paints Cambell Soup cans on walls of Lascaux caverns. AD 1983: Australopithicus wins The America's Cup. AD 1988: Homo Habilis volunteers to serve as Pat Robertson's running mate. AD 1990: Last Neanderthals perish in seige of Kremlin. AD 1991: Saddam Hussein discovers fire, Holocene tar sands form in Kuwait. AD 1997: Citing black smoker emissions, E.P.A bans continental drift. Thermophilis wins Nobel prize for sequencing its own DNA while trapped in amber. + + + N.B. : As all dates save the first are +- ~2.6 billion years,the author strongly advises against using this chronology for purposes of exegesis or dendrochronology. Editor's note: Russell Seitz reports that the inspiration for his revised geochronology was a remark made at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union last spring by the late Cesare Emiliani, a renowned geophysicist and author of the book "Planet Earth." --T.Y. From julian@norstar.on.ca Wed Sep 17 14:48:45 1997 Return-Path: julian@norstar.on.ca Received: from helios.physics.utoronto.ca (helios.physics.utoronto.ca [128.100.75.10]) by caliban.physics.utoronto.ca (8.7.6/8.6.9) with SMTP id OAA10864 for ; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 14:48:45 -0400 Received: from norstar.on.ca ([209.50.79.66]) by helios.physics.utoronto.ca with SMTP id <4265>; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 14:48:36 -0400 Received: from [209.50.79.69] by norstar.on.ca with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 1.2); Wed, 17 Sep 1997 14:48:13 -0400 X-Sender: julian@mail.norstar.on.ca Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 14:48:00 -0400 To: Brian Atkinson in LA , "Gary Bell (Dibo Canada)" , Anne-Marie Daniel , Mary DiSanzo , Don Dolan , Gillian Duggan , eswanson@ctc.edu, Simon Finch , "Colin Firth (South Side Story)" , Susan Gibs , Mike Holler , Phil Lidow , lynda@astral.magic.ca, Connie , Chris Neufeld , obnoxious@firecraker.com, Kelly Pankatz , Dave Story , Bob Vaillancourt From: Julian Daniel Subject: Norm Peterson's Famous Quotes Status: OR Norm Peterson's Famous Quotes (from TV's "Cheers") -------------------------------------------------- "Can I draw you a beer Norm ?" "No, I know what they look like. Just pour me one." "How's a beer sound Norm?" "I dunno. I usually finish them before they get a word in." "What's shaking Norm?" "All four cheeks & a couple of chins." "What would you say to a nice beer Normie?" "Going Down?" "What's new Normie?" "Terrorists, Sam. They've taken over my stomach & they're demanding beer." "What'll it be Normie?" "Just the usual Coach. I'll have a froth of beer & a snorkel." "What would you say to a beer Normie?" "Daddy wuvs you." "What'd you like Normie?" "A reason to live. Give me another beer." "What'll you have Normie?" "Well, I'm in a gambling mood Sammy. I'll take a glass of whatever comes out of that tap." "Looks like beer, Norm." "Call me Mister Lucky." "What'd you say Norm?" "Any cheap, tawdry thing that will get me a beer." "What would you say to a beer Norm?" "Hiya, sailor. New in town?" (Coming in from the rain) "Evening everybody." Everybody: "Norm!" "Still pouring Norm?" "That's funny, I was about to ask you the same thing." "Whaddya say, Norm?" "Well, I never met a beer I didn't drink." "Hey Norm, how's the world been treating you?" "Like a baby treats a diaper." "Would you like a beer Mr. Peterson?" "No, I'd like a dead cat in a glass." "How's life treating you?" "It's not, Sammy, but you can." "What's the story Mr. Peterson?" "The Bobbsey twins go to the brewery. Let's cut to the happy ending." "Hey Mr. Peterson, there's a cold one waiting for you." "I know, if she calls, I'm not here." "Beer, Norm?" "Have I gotten that predictable? Good." "What's going on Mr. Peterson?" "A flashing sign in my gut that says, 'Insert beer here.'" "Hey Mr. Peterson, Jack Frost nipping at your nose?" "Yep, now let's get Joe Beer nipping at my liver, huh?" "What's going on Mr. Peterson?" "Another layer for the winter, Wood." "Whatcha up to Norm?" "My ideal weight if I were eleven feet tall." "How's it going Mr. Peterson?" "Poor." "I'm sorry to hear that." "No, I mean pour." "How's life treating you Norm?" "Like it caught me sleeping with its wife." "Women. Can't live with 'em....pass the beer nuts." "What's going down, Normie?" "My butt cheeks on that bar stool." "Pour you a beer, Mr. Peterson?" "Alright, but stop me at one....make that one-thirty." "How's it going Mr. Peterson?" "It's a dog eat dog world, Woody & I'm wearing Milk Bone underwear." "What's the story Norm?" "Boy meets beer. Boy drinks beer. Boy meets another beer." "How's about a beer, Norm?" "That's that amber sudsy stuff, right? I've heard good things about it!" "What's going on Mr. Peterson?" "The question is what's going in Mr. Peterson? A beer please, Woody." "Can I pour you a beer Mr. Peterson?" "A little early isn't it, Woody?" "For a beer?" "No, for stupid questions." Julian Daniel North Star Computer Ltd. (Barrie) A member of the North Star Group of Companies, a chain of Apple-only computer stores, with offices in Sudbury, Timmins, Thunder Bay, North Bay, Ottawa, Barrie, and Richmond Hill in Ontario, Canada. Visit our home page at: http://www.norstar.on.ca/ Visit our FTP site at: ftp://ftp.norstar.on.ca/ From geoff@wsu.edu Wed Oct 29 09:43:32 EST 1997 Subject: Re: Checking for a file From: Randal Schwartz Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.misc >>>>> "John" == John Grimm writes: John> How can I check to see if a file is there or not? Try to remove it with unlink. If the result is 0, it wasn't there. If the result is 1, it's not there now. :-) -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From dean.lenort@WORLDNET.ATT.NET Sun Nov 2 22:26:57 EST 1997 Subject: Marketing law idea From: nickb@primenet.com (Nick S Bensema) Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology I believe that after every commercial, there should be a brief voice-over with Gilbert Gottfried explaining what has just been advertised. "What if there were a sekrit button that would make all traffic except you go away? It's like that at Shell." "IT'S A GAS STATION!!!!!!" "Foot Locker has new shoes that give you foot action that makes Michael Jordan fly through the air." "IT'S A SHOE STORE!!!!!!!" "There are lots of college games you WANT to see, but can't. Solution? Clone yourself and waste multiple instances of your own time. Or, take Saturday off and buy our pay-per-view stuff." 'IT'S A _GAME_!!!!!!!!" "Fresh goes better with Mentos fresh and full of life!" "IT'S A MINT!!!!!!!!!!!" Not only would this emphasize the triviality of the things they're selling, but I'd also be able to figure out what all these Lucent Technologies and other non-consumer-oriented commercials are trying to get me to do. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From guymacon@deltanet.com Sun Nov 2 22:29:09 EST 1997 Subject: Re: a basic question on peace From: warlock@nortel.ca (Jacky Mallett) Newsgroups: soc.religion.quaker Guy Macon wrote: >Notice the size of the armies that Mexico and Canada have to >meet the constant threat of a U.S. invasion. Why so small? > Newsflash. Ottawa, January 2013 Ottawa Quakers called for donations today to an emergency snowsuit fund for american soldiers, as the latest wave of invaders was stalled by a snowstorm outside Toronto. As american tanks were halted by massive snowdrifts on the 417, the RCMP denied that it has been assisting american marines with directions to Ottawa. "I told them it was near Toronto", said one RCMP officer, "but they said they knew that already". Canadian meterologists dismissed claims by the US military that winter temperatures of -20 and below were unusually cold. 'If they think that's bad, wait until they get to Calgary' one senior meterologist commented. Meanwhile the Ontario government announced that savings in the snow removal fund caused by the american invasion would be used to cover additional social assistance costs for new canadian citizens. A total of 10,000 US soldiers have now accepted canadian citizenship as part of the invasion response program. The package which offers immediate citizenship for soldiers and their families, including all health costs, membership of the canadian pension fund, free education, housing and a resettlement allowance for the west coast, has been extremely popular with the older rank and file. The success of the program is being attributed in part to local relief efforts to assist american soldiers poorly prepared for winter conditions. As local towns provided hot food and blankets to the troops, american GI's were amazed by canadian hospitality. "These people are really nice", said one GI who reported being shot at during one holiday in Chicago. Reports that the high rate of breakdown experienced by american troop carriers was due to bottles of blue coloured water labelled anti-freeze being distributed to canadian petrol stations were strenously denied by the Canadian government. 'Mislabelling of consumer products can be extremely dangerous, and will be prosecuted under the Sale of Goods Act', stated an official. Meanwhile in Florida, the takeover of the state government by Canadian Snowbirds has continued into its third week. Attempts by the national guard to move in were blocked by senior citizens who have built an ice rink on the main freeways using snowmakers smuggled in from Quebec. "They just don't have any winter driving experience down here, eh", said one pensioner, armed with a submachine gun bought at a local gun store. Concerns raised by Congress over the availability of weapons to foreign nationals, were condemned by Florida gun shop owners as 'anti-competitive'. European observers have expressed surprise over the latest american agression, so soon after the acknowledged fiasco of the recent Mexican takeover. Relief efforts in San Diego are continuing after the massive exodus from Mexico City to California. Immigration officials stated they were unable to stop mexican-americans from traveling north in search of work now that the border has been dismantled. In Washington today, Senate members called for emergency debate as opinion polls for the Presidential elections continued to show the Mayor of Mexico city in first place, with 98% support amongst the mexican community. State officials have acknowledged that granting US citizenship to all mexicans immediately following the takeover may have been premature. ;-) -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From jflegg@po-box.mcgill.ca Sat Nov 8 22:42:25 EST 1997 Subject: Re: Metric threads (Neophyte question.) From: cougar@elevator-bbs.com Newsgroups: rec.crafts.metalworking "capc" wrote: >sorry for posting such obvious flame bait. >BUT why didn't America change to metric with the rest of the world. >??? Because we're dorks. I thought everybody knew that. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From janecek@tezcat.com Sat Nov 8 22:49:34 EST 1997 Subject: Re: JESUS IS THE LORD!!!!! From: Q Newsgroups: alt.autos.toyota Dorkdorf5 wrote: > > >Honor Jesus, worship God. Pray that the Holy Spirit will move on this country > >with power to enable the leaders of this nation to eliminate pornography. > > > >Take a stand for Jesus. > > > > > Also, Jesus drives a Camry!!! > > DD Not true Jesus is a dedicated Mopar fan -- says so in the bible. "and he drove them out in his fury" -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From laird@cs.byu.edu Mon Nov 10 11:11:59 EST 1997 How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a light bulb? Four. One to change it, one to rewire the socket so that Netscape light bulbs won't work in it, one to rewrite Sun's light bulbs into something unrecognizable (and non-functional), and one to convince the justice department that all Microsoft light bulbs are conforming to anti-trust laws. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Web users, you can read a random joke from the archives just by bookmarking http://www.clari.net/cgi-bin/randomurl/rhf/jokes/masterlist From guymacon@deltanet.com Mon Nov 10 11:16:51 EST 1997 Subject: Re: Quaker religion From: dmoorman@interaccess.com (Dave Moorman) Newsgroups: soc.religion.quaker cmgreenlnd@aol.com (Cmgreenlnd) wrote: >>I have a Gilbert and Sullivan/Xena parody that I'll post with the slightest >>encouragement or email to anyone who wants it . > >Thee may send it on -- and while we're at it perhaps if each of us could > develop a patter song for our respective branches of Friends, we'd get some > perspective back. Here it is. Enjoy! ------------- Begin Forwarded Message ------------- Although the effect of this piece is enhanced by working with adolescents infatuated with the Fox TV series "Xena, Warrior Princess", surely it must strike a familiar note with Gilbert & Sullivan fans everywhere. ---------------------- [We join our operetta already in progress. The infamous Pirates of Pergamum have just seized a bevy of beautiful Mytilenean maidens, and are attempting to carry them off for matrimonial purposes. Gabrielle intervenes, with a recitative (well, it's better than a pan flute solo) ;-) Gabrielle: Hold, scoundrels! Ere ye practice acts of villainy Upon the peaceful and agrarian, Just bear in mind, these maidens of My-TIL-ene[1] Are guarded by a buff barbarian! Pirates: We'd better all rethink our cunning plan; They're guarded by a buff barbarian. Maidens: Yes, yes, she is a buff barbarian. [Xena leaps in from the wings, with a tremendous war cry, does a mid-air somersault, and lands on her feet on the Pirate King's chest.] Xena: Yes, yes, I am a buff barbarian! [The orchestra starts up.] I am the very model of a heroine barbarian; Through Herculean efforts, I've become humanitarian. I ride throughout the hinterland -- at least that's what they call it in Those sissy towns like Athens (I, myself, am Amphipolitan). I travel with a poet who is perky and parthenian[2] And scribbles her hexameters in Linear Mycenian[3] (And many have attempted, by a host of methods mystical, To tell if our relationship's sororal or sapphistical). Chorus: To tell if their relationship's sororal or sapphistical! To tell if their relationship's sororal or sapphistical! To tell if their relationship's sororal or sapphisti-phistical! Xena: My armory is brazen, but my weapons are ironical; My sword is rather phallic, but my chakram's rather yonical[4] (To find out what that means, you'll have to study Indo-Aryan[5]). I am the very model of a heroine barbarian! Chorus: To find out what that means, we'll have to study Indo-Aryan -- She is the very model of a heroine barbarian! Xena: I wake up every morning, ere the dawn is rhododactylous[6] (Who needs to wait for daylight? I just work by _sensus tactilis_[7].) And ride into the sunrise to protect some local villagers From mythologic monsters or from all-too-human pillagers. I hurtle towards each villain with a recklessness ebullient And cow him with my swordwork and my alalaes ululient[8]; He's frightened for his head, because he knows I'm gonna whack it -- he's Aware that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhetes_! [The music crashes to a halt, as the Chorus stares at Xena in utter confusion. She sighs.] It's *Greek*. It means "Warrior Princess"! [Light dawns on the Chorus, and the music resumes.] Sheesh . . . Chorus: He knows that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhetes_! He knows that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhetes_! He knows that his opponent is the _Basileia Makhe-makhetes_, Xena: Because I've got my armor, which is really rather silly, on (It's cut so low I feel like I'm the topless tow'rs of Ilion, And isn't any use against attackers sagittarian[9]). I am the very model of a heroine barbarian! Chorus: It isn't any use against attackers sagittarian -- She is the very model of a heroine barbarian! Xena: In short, when I can tell you how I break the laws of gravity, And why my togs expose my intermammary concavity, And why my comrade changed her dress from one that fit more comfily To one that shows her omphalos[10] (as cute as that of Omphale[11]), And why the tale of Spartacus appears in Homer's versicon[12], [She holds up a tomato:] And where we found examples of the genus _Lycopersicon_[13], And why this Grecian scenery looks more like the Antipodes, You'll say I'm twice the heroine of any in Euripides! Chorus: We'll say she's twice the heroine of any in Euripides! We'll say she's twice the heroine of any in Euripides! We'll say she's twice the heroine of any in Euripi-ripides! Xena: But though the kinked chronology, confusing and chimerical (It's often unhistorical, but rarely unhysterical), Would give a massive heart attack to any antiquarian, I am the very model of a heroine barbarian! Chorus: 'Twould give a massive heart attack to any antiquarian -- She is the very model of a heroine barbarian! [As the orchestra plays the final chords, a wild Xenaesque melee ensues, and the curtain has to be brought down.] ---------------------------------- Notes: [1] Actually, "Mytilene" would properly be accented on the third syllable; Gabrielle always did have trouble with rhymes. (Mytilene, incidentally, is a city on the isle of Lesbos -- the hometown of the poet Sappho, as a matter of fact. It is not clear what, if anything, Gilbert is trying to imply here.) [2] parthenian: virginal. [3] Linear Mycenian: Mycenian is the ancient dialect of Greek which was written in Linear B (a form of Greek writing that predates the adoption of the alphabet). The implication is that Gabrielle does her writing in Linear B; if _Xena_ takes place around the time of the Trojan war, this is chronologically reasonable. [4] yonical: "Yonic" is the female counterpart to "phallic". [5] Indo-Aryan: The language group consisting of Sanskrit and its close relatives. Both "chakram" and "yonic" are of Sanskrit derivation. [6] rhododactylous: rosy-fingered. (Homer makes frequent reference to _rhododaktulos eos_ -- "rosy-fingered dawn".) [7] _sensus tactilis_: Latin for "the sense of touch". [8] "Alalaes" are war-cries (the Greeks spelled a Xena-like war cry as _alala_ or _alale_) and "ululient" is a coined term, apparently meaning "characterized by ululation". [9] sagittarian: archer-like. [10] omphalos: belly-button. [11] Omphale: Legendary queen of Lydia. From context, we must assume that she had a cute belly-button; however, no known classical source seems to address this vital issue. [12] versicon: a coined term, apparently meaning "collection of verse". [13] _Lycopersicon_: the biological genus to which tomatoes are assigned. (The tomato is a New World plant, and was entirely unknown in the Old World in pre-Columbian times. Thus, having tomatoes in a _Xena_ish context is an even greater anachronism than having Homer tell the tale of Spartacus.) -------------------------- ..originally obtained in a message forwarded from: Paul Kreamer kreamep@setmms.tusd.k12.az.us -------------------------- ------------- End Forwarded Message ------------- -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From erkki.tapola@iki.fi Wed Nov 12 15:02:12 EST 1997 STOP THE GENOCIDE Erkki Tapola 29-Jul-96 Every second billions of innocent assembler instructions are executed all over the world. Inhumanly they are put on a pipeline and executed with no regard to their feelings. The illegal instructions are spared, although they should be executed instead of the legal ones. Prior to the execution the instructions are transported to a cache unit using a bus. There they spent their last moments waiting for the execution. Just before the execution the instruction is separated into several pieces. The execution isn't always fast and painless. On crude hardware the execution of a complex instruction can take as long as 150 clock cycles. Scientists are working on shorter execution times. Microsoft endorses the needless execution of instructions with their products like DOS(TM), Windows(TM), Word(TM) and Excel(TM). It is more humane to use software which minimises the executions. Modern machines use several units to execute multiple instructions simultaneously. This way it is possible to execute several hundred million instructions per second. The time is near when there will be no more instructions to execute. ACT NOW! Before it's too late This article was written on recycled paper by hand. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Remember: PLEASE spell check and proofread your jokes. You think I have time to hand-correct everybody's postings? For the full submission guidelines, see http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/ From johnbl@tekig5.TEK.COM Tue Nov 18 08:35:33 EST 1997 A lawyer and an engineer were fishing in the Caribbean. The lawyer said, "I am here because my house burned down and everything I owned was burned. The insurance company paid for everything." "That is quite a coincidence," said the engineer, "I am here because my house and all my belongings were destroyed by a flood, and my insurance company also paid for everything." The lawyer looked somewhat confused and asked, "how do you start a flood?" -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Visit http://comedy.clari.net/rhf to browse the RHF pages and archives on the web. Rec.humor.funny and RHF.reruns are provided by ClariNet, publisher of the net's largest (1.5 million paying subscriber) E-newspaper. http://www.clari.net From pennypacker@altech.com Tue Nov 18 11:23:00 EST 1997 German Lesson #7 Dog: Barkenpantensniffer Dog Catcher: Barkenpantensniffersnatcher Dog Catcher's Truck: Barkenpantensniffersnatcherwagen Garage for Truck: Barkenpantensniffensnatcherwagenhaus Truck Repairman: Barkenpantensniffensnatcherwagen- mechanikerwerker Mechanic's Union: Barkenpantensniffensnatcherwagen- mechanikerwerkerfeatherbedden- gefixengruppe Doctor: Chestergethumpenpulsentooker Nurse: Chestergethumpenpulsentookerhelper Hypodermic Needle: Chestergethumpenpulsentooker- helperhurtensticker Backside: Chestergethumpenpulsentooker- helperhurtenstickerstabbenplatz Piano: Plinkenplankenplunkenbox Pianist: Plinkenplankenplunkenboxgepounder Piano Stool: Plinkenplankenplunkenboxgepounder- spinnenseat Piano Recital: Plinkenplankenplunkenboxgepounder- offengeshowenspelle Fathers at the Recital: Plinkenplankenplunkenboxgepounder- offengeshowenspellensnoozengruppe Mothers at the Recital: Plinkenplankenplunkenboxgepounder- offengeshowenspellensnoozen- gruppenuppenwakers Automobile: Honkenbrakenscreecher Gasoline: Honkenbrakenscreecherzoomerjuicen Driver: Honkenbrakenscreecherguidenschtunker Auto Mechanic: Honkenbrakenscreecherknockengepinger- sputtergefixer Repair Bill: Bankenrollergebustenuptottenliste -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Web users, you can read a random joke from the archives just by bookmarking http://www.clari.net/cgi-bin/randomurl/rhf/jokes/masterlist From simon@darkmere.gen.nz Thu Nov 20 09:52:58 EST 1997 Subject: news.cmc.net is finally fixed From: bem@news.cmc.net (brian moore) Newsgroups: news.software.nntp A few here know my sad sad story of the accident my news server had, but I guess I'll share it with others so they don't let it happen to them! It seems I made a horrible and tragic mistake when editing nnrp.access and allowed ANYONE in the world to read and post news on my server. That is a very very bad thing, since some people will hunt down an open server and use it to insert lots of things they shouldn't. VERY VERY BAD! To make matters worse, within 3 days, the folks at pervert.net found my news server and started injecting well over two thousand posts a day. That means 2000 posts to every news server in the world, and 2000 subsequent cancels. Not good at all! If that weren't enough though, it seems that I had a horrible bug in my filter_nnrpd.pl. I had downloaded Andrew Gierth's modified version of the perl hooks and installed it and I guess I wasn't so good at checking my perl code: every post that didn't have 'cmc.net' on the NNTP-Posting-Host line was being flagged with 'SPOOL'! It seems that didn't actually "SPOOL to send" as I thought. It put it in /var/spool/news/in.coming/spam instead. I was telling the folks at pervert.net that I was accepting their articles and I wasn't! VERY VERY VERY BAD! As Tom Lehrer says, "Lying is a sin". I thought I owed it to the folks at pervert.net to notify them that their posts weren't working, so I changed it to "DROP" the connection on each post. But they kept injecting them! So I modified it more and thought maybe if I selected the articles for them, they would notice them in their newsreader. I added a select(NULL,NULL, NULL,0.25) for each post thinking this would alert them to the situation at hand. They didn't seem to notice. In fact, looking at my logs, of all the hundreds of people who were using news.cmc.net for news access, the folks at pervert.net never read a single article. I then read up on the perl filter from Andrew and it seems that DROP doesn't drop the connection at all: it discards the article! And, like the SPOOL result, it LIES and tells the poster everything is well and good. At this point, I sought out the help of a few trusted news administrators to help me in my plight. They laughed at me and offered me no help! Fluffy told me I had to buy him a new keyboard. For over a week, the folks at pervert.net injected thousands of pieces of spam into my server and I was helpless to stop it. I was also just losing articles! Unfortunately no one was willing to help me fix these bugs and I just didn't have the time to figure them out myself, so the situation continued. It seems to have finally ended, so now I can tell my story. For the past couple of days, the folks at pervert.net seem to have found some other news server, or they're at least no longer using mine. This has afforded me the time to research the problems with my news server and to close the open port. Again, it is VERY VERY bad to run an open news server. It is even WORSE to drop articles from posters on that server on the floor. I promise to never ever ever do it again. Unless I get bored with all the probes of my machine again. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From northcut@mindspring.com Tue Nov 25 09:09:16 EST 1997 Subject: Re: hello From: Kent Stewart Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles a_kramer wrote: > > hello everyome! > > my name is michal and I am a big beatles fan . Hi michal! > I don't understand how to use news group so if someone can explane it to > me i will be very glad , I'm new at this and i really want to understand Well, it often works kind of like this: 1) post something innocent, simple, and sincere. 2) receive a shocking amount of abuse, ridicule, and incomprehensibly bitter demands for retraction. 3) be defended by somebody equally abusive who apparently didn't understand a word of what you had originally said either. 4) watch in awe as somebody you've never heard of before pops up to say how very much in character it was for the person who defended you to be stooping to such tactics. 5) note that half of the posts in the resulting flame war appear to be coming from someplace called alt.anxt.ZIBO!.auntiechrist.diediedie. 6) also note that for some reason several people not originally involved in the argument are for some reason attempting to work allusions to Hitler into their responses. 7) wonder what in the froggy blue eyed world is going on here. 8) repeat. No reason not to try, though. Welcome! -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From lars@potency.Berkeley.EDU Wed Dec 3 16:21:06 EST 1997 Subject: Re: Blowouts and flats, was Another one for Ri From: Steve Collier Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.soc Jack Dingler wrote: > > In contrast, a racer in a local ride was hospitalized after running over > an armadillo. He suffered a fractured arm. ... adillo -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From ark@research.att.com Thu Dec 11 08:56:36 EST 1997 I got an announcement recently for a conference on massively parallel computing systems. They sent me 600 copies. -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Web users, you can read a random joke from the archives just by bookmarking http://comedy.clari.net/cgi-bin/randomurl/rhf/jokes/masterlist From RISKS: Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 19:16:15 -0000 From: Ken Tindell Subject: Re: What really happened on Mars Rover Pathfinder (Jones, R-19.49) >This scenario is a classic case of priority inversion. So classic that it has happened before many times in many projects. And I fear will continue to happen. Today, people are building critical real-time systems based on Windows NT. But NT doesn't implement priority inheritance. Instead it contains a "priority randomizer" which randomly selects tasks and alters their priorities in the hope that eventually the priority inversion goes away. Whilst this may be adequate for a general-purpose computer in a workstation environment, this is unlikely to be adequate for a critical real-time system. From Marcus.Meissner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de Thu Jan 22 09:37:43 EST 1998 Subject: The Guru of Chelm From: hughett@chaplin.med.upenn.edu (Paul Hughett) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy The Guru of Chelm In the village of Chelm there was a computer guru who had passed his novitiate hacking ITS for Minsky and who was now greatly respected for his wisdom. One day a graphic artist came to the guru and asked him whether MacOS was the best operating system. The artist believed that it was, for as he said, "It has a graphical user interface with many lovely icons and is very easy for a beginner to use. In addition, it has wonderful tools for drawing and page layout." "You're right," said the guru, and the artist went away satisfied. The next day a manager came to the guru and said that he had heard the artist proclaiming that MacOS was the best operating system. "But this cannot be correct," the manager explained, "for Windows NT is the best operating system. It has a graphical user interface just like the MacOS, plus all the applications programs that anyone might want. Not only that, but it runs on inexpensive hardware." "You're right," said the guru, and the manager went away satisfied. The following day a programmer who worked for the manager came to the guru and asked why he had said that Windows NT was the best operating system. "For it seems to me that Linux is the best operating system. It comes with a dozen different languages and all the tools that you need to write wonderful code. And you get the source code for everything in the system." "You're right," said the guru, and the programmer went away satisfied. On the fourth day a kernel hacker came to the guru and asked how he could possibly have told the programmer that Linux was the best operating system. "FreeBSD is the best," he said, "for it has beautifully designed internal structures and is carefully written to work reliably even under very heavy loads. It makes no sense to use anything else for a critical server." "You're right," said the guru, and the hacker went away satisfied. A novice who had witnessed all this spoke to the guru. "Master, you have told the artist that MacOS is the best operating system, the manager that Windows NT is the best operating system, the programmer that Linux is the best operating system, and the kernel hacker that FreeBSD is the best operating system. How can all of these be true?" The guru smiled gently. "My son, you must understand that each user sees the operating system through the lens of his own needs. Each of our visitors has the best operating system because he has the operating system best suited to his needs." "I see," said the novice. "Then ITS is no better than any other operating system?" The guru grew red in the face and almost shouted, "Fool! Have you learned nothing from my teachings? ITS is the greatest operating system ever, compared to which all others are but pale imitations." "You're right," said the novice. Paul Hughett (c) Copyright 1998 -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From Toby.Speight@digitivity.com Thu Jan 29 09:45:31 EST 1998 Subject: Re: HTML Standards (was Bill Schlake: FAQ?) From: grayc@btm0qt.se.bel.alcatel.be (Chris Gray) Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html In article <34ad47cd.543376364@news.mxol.com> aray@nmds.com (Arjun Ray) writes: > [...] There's plenty of tergiversation and paronomasia ... and a fair amount of double-talk too. Sometimes I think Arjun has wed his spell-checker and his thesaurus into an unholy union, and they have birthed a monster ... -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From ark@research.att.com Tue Feb 3 11:05:27 EST 1998 1. Put a paint shaker in the middle of the floor. 2. Put an open can of paint in the paint shaker. 3. Turn it on. Run out of the room very quickly. Everything in the room is now covered with paint. 4. Wait until the paint dries. 5. Cover every part of the room you really wanted painted with masking tape. Leave the floor, switch plates, etc. uncovered. 6. Put an open can of paint remover in the paint shaker. 7. Turn it on. Run out of the room very quickly. Everything not covered with masking tape is now clean again. 8. Remove the masking tape. 9. Remove the paint shaker and sludge from the floor. -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Visit http://comedy.clari.net/rhf to browse the RHF pages and archives on the web. Rec.humor.funny and RHF.reruns are provided by ClariNet, publisher of the net's largest (1.5 million paying subscriber) E-newspaper. http://www.clari.net From mark@wutka.com Fri Feb 6 09:33:27 EST 1998 "Brussels police department, how may I assist you?" "Uh.. yes.. I just got hit in the face with a cream pie." "Okay, sir. Have you called the Brussels police department before?" "No" "Well, let me get a little information about you for our records. Your name?" "Bill Gates" "Country?" "The USA" "Native language?" "English" "Okay, sir. Your police department ID number is BP31415927. Please use this number the next time you call. Now, you say you were hit in the face with a pie?" "Yes, I was just about to meet with the Belgian Prime Minister. One person distracted me while another hit me with a cream pie." "We've had other customers report that they were hit in the face with a custard pie. Are you sure it was a cream pie?" "Well, I have white stuff all over my face and I don't see any custard, so I really don't think it was a custard pie." "Have you visited the Prime Minister before?" "Yes" "Were you hit in the face with a pie then?" "No" "Hmm... have you visited any other Prime Ministers in the past month?" "Yes" "Any pies then?" "No" "Okay, well.. let's try something. Go outside the building and come in again. I'll wait." "Just a minute.." "Okay, I'm back." "Did you get hit by another pie?" "Of course not" "Well sir, I don't know what could have caused the first pie, but it looks like things are working fine now. I'll make a note of the problem, though. If it happens again, please note the exact details of the situation and call us again. Thank you for calling the Brussels Police Department. " -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Do you know about rec.humor.funny.reruns? It has all the best jokes from the archives of this group. RHF does only new material. See also at http://comedy.clari.net/rhf This joke's link: http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/jokes/98/Feb/creampie.html From DELETED@cal.montage.ca Sun Mar 8 16:35:14 1998 Status: OR > The following are actual English subtitles used in films from Hong Kong: > > * I am darn unsatisfied to be killed in this way. > * Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep. > * Gun wounds again? > * Same old rules: no eyes, no groin. > * A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries. > * Darn, I'll burn you into a BBQ chicken > * Take my advice, or I'll spank you. > * Who gave you the nerve to get killed here? > * This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am > sure you will not mind that I remove your toenails and leave them > out on the dessert floor for ants to eat. > * Quiet or I'll blow your throat up. > * I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out! > * You daring lousy guy. > * Beat him out of recognizable shape! > * Yah-hah, evil spider woman! I have captured you by the short > rabbits and can now deliver you violently to your doctor for a > thorough extermination. > * I have been scared silly too much lately. > * I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair! > * Beware! Your bones are going to be disconnected. > * The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold? > * How can you use my intestines as a gift? > * Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up > together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate > feets on some but of the giant lizard person. > * You always use violence. I should've ordered glutinous rice chicken. From chaber@neosoft.com Fri Mar 20 12:22:17 EST 1998 The 8 Worst Convenience Foods By PENMART10@aol.com 8. Meeter's Kraut Juice (Stokely USA): Yes, that's sauerkraut juice, which is even worse than it sounds. The taste and smell can be a bit, well, harsh, but KJ is reputed by its fans to have certain medicinal benefits (as a source of vitamin C, cure for intestinal bugs, etc.), which adds up to a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease. 7. Guycan Corned Mutton with Juices Added (Bedessee Imports): The best thing about this Uruguayan canned good is the very pouty-looking sheep on the package label -- he seems to be saying, "Go on, eat me already." The second-best thing is the presence of both "cooked mutton" and "mutton" in the ingredients listing, which would seem to have all the mutton bases covered. 6. Armour Pork Brains in Milk Gravy (Dial Corp.): If you're really looking to clog up those arteries in a hurry, you'll be pleased to learn that a single serving of pork brains has 1,170 percent of our recommended daily cholesterol intake. All the more ingenious, then, that the label on this product helpfully features a recipe for brains and scrambled eggs. 5. Sweet Sue Canned Whole Chicken (Sweet Sue Kitchens, Inc.): From its size (think growth-impaired Cornish hen) to its overall appearance (it's stewed in a quivering mass of aspic goop), this product may change forever your idea of what constitutes a chicken. Gives new meaning to the old line about meat "falling off the bone." 4. Musk Life Savers (Nestle Confectionery): You may think musk is a scent, but over in Australia, they think it's a candy flavor. A candy flavor that tastes disturbingly like raw meat, to be precise. But what did you expect >from a country where everyone happily consumes Vegemite? 3. Blind Robins Smoked Ocean Herring (recently discontinued by Bar Food Products): Possibly the world's most bizarre prepackaged tavern snack. Interestingly, the product's titular robin isn't actually blind, he's blindfolded -- the better, presumably, to avoid looking at these heavily salted herring strips, which look like giant slugs. 2. Kylmaenen Reindeer Pate` (Kylmaenen Oy): This Finnish canned good may not be particulary tasty, but at least it answers the age-old question of why Rudolph was so eager for that safe, steady job on Santa's sleigh team -- he didn't want to end up a cracker spread. 1. Tengu Clam Jerky (Tengu Co.): Nothing you've ever consumed can prepare you for the horror that is clam jerky. Still, this product does score a sort of conceptual coup: If you're the sort who's always found raw clams too slimy and gelatinous for your taste, these dried, shriveled mollusks will help you dislike clams on a whole new level. [Note - originally appeared in rec.food.cooking. Reprinted with permission of PENMART10@aol.com. All are reportedly real products - ed.] -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Sponsored by ClariNet Communications Corp. (http://www.clari.net) If you post instead of mailing, it screws up the reply-address sometimes. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. This joke's link: http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/jokes/98/Mar/convfood.html From surfbaud@waverider.co.uk Wed Apr 1 10:43:43 EST 1998 Recent evidence has come to light that suggests that pyramid style chain letters may have pre-dated Dave Rhodes by a considerable margin. Palaentologists recently deciphered the following, painted on a cave wall on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. MAKE SPIKY CLUBS FAST!!! Hello, not-tribe-member. Urk name Urk. Many moons ago, Urk in bad way. Urk kicked out of cave by Thag. Thag bigger than Urk, Thag take Urk spiky club, Urka (Urk wo-man). Urk not able kill deer, must eat leaves, berries. Urk flee from wolves. Today, Urk big chief. Urk have best cave, many wives, many spiky clubs. Urk tell how. WHAT DO: make one spiky club and take to cave places below. Add own cave place to bottom of list, take cave place off top. Put new message on walls many caves. Wait. Many clubs soon come! This not crime! Urk ask shaman, gods say okay. HERE LIST: 1) Urk First cave Olduvai Gorge few) Thag (not that Thag, other Thag) old dead tree by laked shaped like mammoth few) Og big rock with overhang near pig game trail Many) Zog river caves where river meet big water Urk hope not-tribe-member do what Urk say do. That only way it work. (c) Dave Hemming 1998. Circulate how you please, but keep my name on it. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. The best of old postings from RHF are now also available in the new group rec.humor.funny.reruns. Unless you've been a loyal reader since '87 you may want to subscribe to that too, since RHF does only new material. The archives are also at http://comedy.clari.net/rhf This joke's link: http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/jokes/98/Mar/makeclubs.html From laird@cs.byu.edu Sat Apr 4 11:34:32 EST 1998 Top ten ways the Bible would be different if it were written by college students 10. Last Supper would have been eaten the next morning - cold. 9. The Ten Commandments are actually only five, double-spaced, and written in a large font. 8. New edition every two years in order to limit reselling. 7. Forbidden fruit would have been eaten because it wasn't cafeteria food. 6. Paul's letter to the Romans becomes Paul's e-mail to abuse@romans.gov. 5. Reason Cain killed Abel: They were roommates. 4. The place where the end of the world occurs: Finals, not Armageddon. 3. Out go the mules, in come the mountain bikes 2. Reason why Moses and followers walked in desert for 40 years: They didn't want to ask directions and look like Freshmen. 1. Instead of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, He would have put it off until the night before it was due and then pulled an all-nighter. -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. Join and contribute to the Electronic Frontier Foundation today. This joke's link: http://comedy.clari.net/rhf/jokes/98/Apr/college10.html From DELETED Thu Apr 9 15:16:14 1998 Subject: Proud to be Canadian Status: O PROUD TO BE CANADIAN ==================== TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 1. Weed. 2. Vancouver: 1.5 million people and two bridges. 3. The local hero is a pot-smoking snowboarder. 4. The local wine doesn't taste like malt vinegar. 5. Your $400,000 Vancouver home is just 5 hours from downtown. 6. A university with a nude beach. 7. You can throw a rock and hit three Starbucks locations. 8. If a cop pulls you over, just offer them some of your hash. 9. There's always some sort of deforestation protest going on. 10. Cannabis. TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN ALBERTA 1. Big Rock. 2. Preston Manning. 3. Tax is 7 percent instead of approximately 200 percent. 4. The Premier is a fat, wife-beating alcoholic with a grade 4 education. 5. Flames vs. Oilers. 6. Stamps vs. Eskies. 7. You can exploit almost any natural resource you can think of. 8. Eventually, it will be your town's turn to ban VLT's. 9. The Americans below you are all in anti-government militia groups. 10. You can attempt to murder your rich oil tycoon husband and get away with it. TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN SASKATCHEWAN 1. You never run out of wheat. 2. Those cool Saskatchewan Wheat Pool hats. 3. Cruise control takes on a whole new meaning. 4. Your province is really easy to draw. 5. You never have to worry about roll-back if you have a standard. 6. It takes you two weeks to walk to your neighbor's house. 7. YOUR Roughriders survived. 8. You can watch the dog run away from home for hours. 9. People will assume you live on a farm. 10. Buying a huge John Deere mower makes sense. TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN MANITOBA 1. You wake up one morning to find you suddenly have beachfront property. 2. Amusing town names like "Flin Flon" and "Winnipeg". 3. All your local bands make it big and move to Toronto. 4. The only province to ever violently rebel against the federal government (so far!). 5. Hundreds of huge, horribly frigid lakes. 6. Nothing compares to a wicked Winnipeg winter. 7. You don't need a car, just take the canoe to work. 8. You can be an Easterner or a Westerner depending on your mood. 9. Because of your license plate, you are still "friendly" even when you cut someone off. 10. Pass the time watching trucks and barns float by. TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN ONTARIO 1. You live in the center of the universe. 2. Your $400,000 Toronto home is actually a dump. 3. You and you alone decide who will win the federal election. 4. There's no such thing as an Ontario Separatist. 5. Your grandparents sold booze to the States during Prohibition. 6. Lots of tourists come to Toronto because they mistakenly believe it's a cool city. 7. The only province with hard-core American-style crime. 8. MuchMusic's Speaker's Corner - rant and rave on national TV for a dollar. 9. Baseball fans park on your front lawn and pee on the side of your house. 10. Mike Harris: basically a sober Ralph Klein. TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN QUEBEC 1. Everybody assumes you're an asshole. 2. Racism is socially acceptable. 3. The only province to ever kidnap federal politicians. 4. You can take bets with your friends on which English neighbour will move out next. 5. Other provinces basically bribe you to stay in Canada. 6. The FLQ. 7. Your hockey team is made up entirely of dirty French guys. 8. The province with the oldest, nastiest hookers. 9. NON-smokers are the outcasts. 10. You can blame all your problems on the "Anglo bastards". TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN NEW BRUNSWICK 1. You are sandwiched between French assholes and drunken Celtic fiddlers. 2. One way or another, the government gets 98 percent of your income. 3. You're poor, but not as poor as the Newfies. 4. When listing the provinces, everyone forgets to mention yours. 5. The economy is based on fish, cows, and ferrying Ontario motorists to Boston. 6. No one ever blames anything on New Brunswick. 7. You have French people, but they don't want to kill you. 8. Everybody has a Grandfather who runs a lighthouse. 9. Just as charming as Maine, but with more unemployed fishermen. 10. You probably live in a small seaside cottage with no television. TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN NOVA SCOTIA 1. The only place in North America to get bombed in the war ... by a moron who set a munitions ship on fire. 2. Your province is shaped like male genitalia. 3. Everyone is a fiddle player. 4. If someone asks if you're a Newfie, you are allowed to kick their ass. 5. The local hero is an insane, fiddle playing, sexual pervert. 6. The province that produced Rita MacNeil. 7. You are the reason Anne Murray makes money 8. You can pretend you have Scottish heritage as an excuse to wear a kilt. 9. The economy is based on fish, lobster, and fiddle music. 10. Even though it smells like dead sea animals, Halifax is considered Canada's most beautiful city. TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE ON PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 1. Even though more people live on Vancouver Island, you still got the big-ass bridge. 2. You can walk across the province in half an hour. 3. You were probably once an extra on "Road to Avonlea". 4. This is where all those tiny red potatoes come from. 5. The economy is based on fish, potatoes, and CBC TV shows. 6. Tourists arrive, see the "Anne of Green Gables" house, then promptly leave. 7. You can drive across the province in two minutes. 8. It doesn't matter to you if Quebec separates. 9. You don't share a border with the Americans, or with anyone for that matter. 10. You can confuse ships by turning your porch lights on and off at night. TOP 10 REASONS TO LIVE IN NEWFOUNDLAND 1. The poorest, stupidest, drunkest province in Confederation. 2. If Quebec separates, you will float off to sea. 3. In the rare case when someone moves to the Rock, you can make them kiss a dead cod. 4. The economy is based on fish, seafood, and fish-related products. 5. If you do something stupid, you have a built-in excuse. 6. You understand the meaning of Great Big Sea's lyrics. 7. The work day is about two hours long. 8. You are credited with many great inventions, like the solar-powered flashlight and the screen door for submarines. 9. If someone asks if you're from Nova Scotia, you are allowed to kick their ass. 10. It is socially acceptable to wear your hip waders on your wedding day. From DELETED Tue Feb 17 11:58:43 1998 Subject: fw: Psych Hot Line Status: OR ---- forwarded message ----> ...And for your Psych students: Hello, welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline. If you are obsessive compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly. If you are co-dependant, have someone press 2 for you. If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6. If you are having a panic, press all of the buttons at once. If you are paranoid delusional, we know who you are and what you want, just stay on the line until we can trace the call. If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press. If you are manic depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer. From revbill@gte.net Fri May 1 09:29:52 EDT 1998 Subject: Re: Greek sculpture. From: Klaus Ole Kristiansen Newsgroups: alt.fan.cecil-adams kewsquared@aol.com (KewSquared) writes: >How come most of the Greek sculptures have no arms? The Journal of Irreproducible Results puplished a study on this some years ago. The conclusion was that the arms were stolen by Indians (Indian Indians form India). Note that many Indian statues have more than two arms. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From tyson@norloff.com Tue May 12 09:23:52 EDT 1998 Mark Israel posted this in misc.education.language.english. He is the "I" in the following. I was correcting the English in a report written by my roommate (who is Swiss-German and is here doing postgraduate work in educational psychology). She had written: "Mike prevented William >from working by putting his hand over William's keyboard. Mike found this very sparingly and did it again and again." I asked her, "What do you mean by 'sparingly'?" She replied that she had originally written "funny", but when she ran the report through the grammar-checker on her computer, it told her that "funny" was trite and suggested "sparingly" as a substitute. Baffled, I crossed out "sparingly" and wrote "amusing". The next morning, it hit me: the grammar-checker must have said something like "The word 'funny' is trite. Use sparingly." -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@netfunny.com. The "executive moderator" is Brad Templeton. Please! No copyrighted stuff. Also no "mouse balls," dyslexic agnostics, Clinton/Yeltsin/Gates meets God, or "OJ will walk" jokes. For the full submission guidelines, see http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/ This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/98/May/sparingly.html From davidsen@prodigy.com Fri May 29 09:27:13 EDT 1998 An aging man lived alone in Ireland. His only son was in Long Kesh Prison, and he didn't know anyone who would spade up his potato garden. The old man wrote to his son about it, and received this reply, "For HEAVENS SAKE, don't dig up that garden, that's where I buried the GUNS!!!!!" At 4 A.M. the next morning, a dozen British soldiers showed up and dug up the entire garden, but didn't find any guns. Confused, the man wrote to his son telling him what happened and asking him what to do next. His son's reply was: "Just plant your potatoes." -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@netfunny.com. Read about The Internet Joke Book -- the best of RHF at http://www.netfunny.com/inetjoke.html This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/98/May/diggarden.html From gmiller@inca.co.nz Wed Jun 3 10:04:34 EDT 1998 Subject: Re: Star Trek Humor (very long) I From: "Jim" Newsgroups: rec.humor OK - I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet - it's quite an oldie What if Mr. Data were Microsoft Windows Compatible? WORF: Captain, there are three Romulan warships uncloaking dead ahead. PICARD: On screen. [The main viewing screen changes to a pattern of horizontal lines, each only a single pixel wide.] PICARD: Data, what's wrong here? DATA: Captain, the main viewscreen does not have sufficient video memory to display an image of this size. May I suggest that you select a lower resolution? PICARD: Make it so. The screen blanks, and then an image appears, with big, blocky square pixels. Three objects appear in the center, which could be Romulan warbirds, but which actually look more like the aliens in Space Invaders.] PICARD: Data, open a hailing channel to the Romulans. DATA: Aye, sir. [Data picks up an hourglass from the floor beside him, turns it over, and places it on the console in front of him. He punches some buttons on the console and sits motionless for several seconds. A flash of light blossoms from one of the Romulan ships on the viewscreen.] WORF: Incoming plasma torpedo, Captain! PICARD: Shields up! DATA: I'm sorry, Captain, but I am still attempting to complete your last instruction. I must ask you to wait until I have finished before you issue your next command. PICARD: What on earth do you mean? Data, this is *important*! I want those shields up *right now*. DATA: I'm sorry, Captain, but I am still attempting to complete your last instruction. I must ask you to wait until I have finished before you issue your next command. LAFORGE: Allow me, captain. [to Data] Control-alt-delete, Data. [Data removes the hourglass from the console, and returns it to the floor.] DATA: The Romulans are not responding to my hails. Press my nose to cancel and return to Windows. Pull my left ear to close this communications channel which is not responding. You will lose any information sent by the Romulans. [LaForge pulls Data's left ear.] PICARD: Shields... [There is a tremendous explosion. The bridge shakes violently, and all the crew members are thrown to the floor. A shower of sparks erupts from Wesley Crusher's station at the helm, throwing Wesley back away from the console.] PICARD: Up, Data! DATA: Aye, sir. RIKER: All decks, damage report! WORF: Captain, Ensign Crusher is injured. He appears to be unconscious. [Data picks up the hourglass again, places it on his console, and punches some more buttons. He waits a few seconds, then puts the hourglass back on the floor.] DATA: Shields are now up, captain. PICARD: And not a moment too soon. Worf, lock all phasers on the lead Romulan ship. WORF: Aye, sir. [He punches buttons on the weapons console.] PICARD: Mr. Data, take the helm, and prepare for evasive action. DATA: I am sorry, sir, but I do not have the proper device driver installed for that console. PICARD: Well, damn it, install the right one. DATA: Please insert Setup Implant #1 in my right nostril. PICARD: Number One, where do we keep Data's setup implants? RIKER: I left them with Geordi. LAFORGE: [in a surprised voice] What!!? I thought you still had them! PICARD: Data, don't you have device drivers stored in your internal memory? DATA: Not found, sir. Please insert Setup Implant #1 in my right nostril. PICARD: Data, I don't *have* Setup Implant #1. DATA: Not ready reading right nostril. Abort, Retry, Fail? PICARD: Abort! DATA: Not ready reading right nostril. Abort, Retry, Fail? PICARD: Well, fail, then! DATA: Current nose is no longer valid. [Data walks over to the helm, and presses several buttons. The ship lurches, the images of the Romulan warships suddenly shift to one side of the viewscreen, and a high-pitched whining noise is heard coming from somewhere else in the ship.] LAFORGE: [alarmed] Data, what the hell are you doing? PICARD: Number One, do we have a customer service number for Data? RIKER: Yes sir, but last time I tried to call them, I got put on hold for two hours before I was able to talk to anyone. And that person wasn't knowledgeable about androids of Data's model. She specialized in industrial control robots. [Suddenly, the lights all go out, the viewscreen goes blank, and all the usual noise of fans, motors, and so on whines to a halt. After a few seconds, the red emergency lights come on. Data is standing by the console, absolutely motionless.] PICARD: What's going on? LAFORGE: [checking the helm console] Lieutenant Data has caused a General Protection Violation in the warp engine core. PICARD: These androids look really sharp, but you can't really do anything with them. [The shimmer of the transporter effect appears, and six Romulans in full battle dress materialize on the bridge. A seventh figure, a Ferengi, appears moments later.] FERENGI: [with a mercenary grin] Can I interest you in a Macintosh, Captain? -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@acpub.duke.edu. From DELETED Subject: Check Disclaimer for Software Purchases Date: 12 Jun 1998 00:00:00 GMT Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny.reruns This was circulated in and augmented by an MOIS class a few years back. Disclaimer to be used when purchasing software: This check is fully warranted against physical defects and poor workmanship in its stationery. If the check is physically damaged, return it to me and I will replace or repair it at my discretion. No other warranty of any kind is made, neither express nor implied including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of Merchantability, Suitability for Purpose, and Validity of Currency. Any and all risk concerning the actual value of this check is assumed by you, the recipient. Even though I or my agents may have assured you of its worth, either verbally or in written communication, we may have had our fingers crossed, so don't come whimpering back to me if it bounces. The money, if any, represented by this instrument remains my property. You are licensed to use it, however you are not allowed to copy the original check except for your personal records, nor are you permitted to give the money itself to anyone else. Neither may you allow any other person to use the money. Remember, you may have it in your possession, but it still belongs to me, and I'm going to call on you from time to time just to keep tabs on it. This agreement supersedes all others between us, including the equally ridiculous one you have undoubtedly pasted on the back of your packaging, or concealed somewhere in the middle of it. The location of your version of this or any other covenant between us is irrelevant to its inapplicability here. Only this one pertains, and I really mean it. In fact, this one supersedes yours even though yours may say that it supersedes mine. Why, even if yours said it would supersede mine even if mine said it would supersede yours even if yours said... Oh well. You get the idea. You may decline this agreement by returning the uncashed check to me within twenty-four hours. If you attempt to cash it, however, you have implicitly accepted these terms. You may also implicitly accept these terms by: 1) Calling my bank to inquire about the status of my account; 2) Thanking me at the conclusion of our business transaction; 3) Going to bed at the end of this or any other day; or 4) Using any toilet or rest room. Please be advised that I have adopted a strict rubber-glue policy. Any nasty thing that your lawyers say bounces off of me and sticks back to you. Be further advised that you agree to pay my legal expenses if I decide to sue you for violating this agreement or for any other reason that might strike my fancy. Violations will be punishable by fine, imprisonment, death, any two of the above, or all three. Thank you and have a nice day! -- From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Web users, you can read a random joke from the archives just by bookmarking http://www.netfunny.com/cgi-bin/randomurl/rhf/jokes/masterlist From DELETED Tue Dec 22 19:45:31 1998 Subject: Humor: Twas the Night Before Christmas Status: ORS Some people have way too much free time: On Fri, 18 Dec 1998 10:23:10 -0800, "DELETED" wrote: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' (as written by a technical writer for a firm that does Gov't contracting) Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Musmusculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas. The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof. Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule, aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his ungulate motive power traveling at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities. As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodiouscloth receptacle. His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water. Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose grey fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container. He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund, multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me visibly frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on mypart was groundless. Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave- taking, and forthwith effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hither to observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to that self same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn." - - - - - - - - - Maybe someday I'll be in that league, Rick From DELETED Wed Feb 3 07:45:33 1999 Subject: Humor: Letter from Scout Camp Status: OR Dear Mom, Our scout master told us all to write to our parents in case you saw the flood on TV and worried. We are OK. Only two of our tents and four sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the mountain looking for Jeff when it happened. Oh yes, please call Jeff's mother and tell her he is OK. He can't write because of the cast. I got to ride in one of the search and rescue jeeps. It was neat. We never would have found him in the dark if it hadn't been for the lightning. Scoutmaster Webb got mad at Hector for going on a hike alone without telling anyone. Hector said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he probably didn't hear him. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will blow up? The wet wood still didn't burn, but one of our tents did. Also some of our clothes. Larry is going to look weird until his hair grows back. We will be home on Saturday if Scoutmaster Webb gets the car fixed. It wasn't his fault about the wreck. The brakes worked OK when we left. Scoutmaster Webb said that a car that old you have to expect something to break down; that's probably why he can't get insurance on it. We think it's a neat car. He doesn't care if we get it dirty, and if it's hot, sometimes he lets us ride on the tailgate.. It gets pretty hot with ten people in a car. He lets us take turns riding in the trailer until the highway patrolman stopped and talked to us. Scoutmaster Webb is a neat guy. Don't worry, he is a good driver. In fact, he is teaching brother Doug how to drive. But he only lets him drive on the mountain roads where there isn't any traffic. All we ever see up there are logging trucks. This morning all of the guys were diving off the rocks and swimming out in the lake. Scoutmaster Webb wouldn't let me because I can't swim and Jeff was afraid he would sink because of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You can still see some of the trees under the water from the flood. Scoutmaster Webb isn't crabby like some scoutmasters. He didn't even get mad about the life jackets. He has to spend a lot of time working on the car so we are trying not to cause him any trouble. Guess what? We have all passed our first aid merit badges. When Rob dove in the lake and cut his arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Also Bruce and I threw up. Scoutmaster Webb said it probably was just food poisoning from the leftover chicken; he said he got sick that way with the food they ate in prison. I'm so glad he got out and become our scoutmaster. He said he sure figured out how to get things done better while he was doing his time. I have to go now. We are going into town to mail our letters and buy bullets. Don't worry about anything. We are fine. Love, Davey P.S. How long has it been since I had a tetanus shot? From dfuller@columbus.rr.com Thu Apr 8 08:51:31 EDT 1999 My friend Jeff was in a pub in Australia while the Lewinsky interview was being aired on TV. He asked his mates what they thought of all this. One replied,"I'm glad we got the criminals and you got the Puritans." -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@netfunny.com. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. If you don't need an auto-reply, submit to rhf@netfunny.com instead. For the full submission guidelines, see http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/ This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/99/Apr/aussies.html From mh@primenet.com Tue Jul 13 09:54:37 EDT 1999 Six wise, blind elephants were discussing what humans were like. Failing to agree, they decided to determine what humans were like by direct experience. The first wise, blind elephant felt the human, and declared, "Humans are flat." The other wise, blind elephants, after similarly feeling the human, agreed. -- >From the RHF archives as selected by Brad Templeton, Maddi Hausmann and Jim Griffith. This newsgroup posts former jokes from the newsgroup rec.humor.funny. Visit http://www.netfunny.com/rhf to browse the RHF pages and archives on the web. From DELETED Tue Jul 13 18:12:24 1999 Subject: Humor: Culinary groaner Status: OR There's these two French Legionnaires in the desert, and they've been separated from their unit and are lost. They've been wandering for several days without food and water, and are nearly resigned to the fact that they will soon die from dehydration, when as they reach the top of a sand dune, they see a big, bustling market laid out before them. Naturally, they can't believe their eyes and think it's a mirage, but as they draw closer, they can hear the stallholders' cries, and they eventually reach the market and realise that it's really there. So the legionnaires rush up to the first stall they can and cry to the stallholder, "Stallholder, we have been travelling in the desert for many days, and have had no food or water. We shall surely die soon unless you have some you can sell us. Tell us, do you have any sustenance for us?" The stallholder shook his head and replied "I'm sorry, French legionnaire type people, but all I have to sell is a load of bowls full of jelly, topped with custard and cream, and lovingly sprinkled with hundreds and thousands of pieces of fruit and cake." The legionnaires look at each other, mildly surprised, and move on to the next stall, where they ask the stallholder, "Mr purveyor of fine foodstuffs and the like, we have been travelling through the desert for days, deprived of the necessary beverages and foodstuffs which are required for survival. We shall surely die soon, unless you can sell us some skins of water." The stallholder looked at them embarressed, and confessed "Gentlemen, tragic as I admit it is, I have none of the ingredients necessary to life for which you ask me. All I have to sell is this large bowl of jelly topped with custard and cream and sprinkled with hundereds and thousands of pieces of fruit and cake, with a little cocktail cherry in the middle at the top, there," he said, pointing out the glace cherry. "I cannot help you." The legionnaires look at each other in desparation, and run on to the next stall, where they demand of the stallholder, "Look, mate," (cuz they'd stopped talking funny all of a sudden) "we need water or we'll die. We've been travelling without water for days and need some now. Do you have any you can sell us?" The stallholder looked at his curl-ended shoes in shame as he confessed,"Sorry, fellas, all I have to sell you is a bowl of jelly, with custard, cream and hundreds and thousands of pieces of fruit and cake. I can't help you. I'll have to condemn you to a long and lingering death through dehydration." The legionnaires were really worried by this point, and they went throughthe market, stall by stall, asking each stallholder whether they had any water they could sell them, and thus save their lives, but each stallholder gave the same reply, all they had to sell was a bowl of jelly with cream, custard and hundreds and thousands of pieces of fruit and cake. Dejected and resigned to their grim fate, the legionnaires left the desert market and walked off into the setting sun. As they did so, one turned to the other and said, "That was really odd, a big market in the middle of nowhere, and all they sold was bowls of jelly with custard, cream and hundreds and thousands of pieces of fruit and cake." The other turned to face his companion and replied, ... "Yes, it was a trifle bazaar." Couldn't resist, Rick From grenkes@gcfn.org Tue Oct 19 14:47:32 EDT 1999 Article: 7921 of rec.humor.funny Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny From: grenkes@gcfn.org (Gordon D Renkes) Subject: A Chorister's Guide to Keeping Conductors In Line Keywords: smirk, forwarded Approved: funny-request@netfunny.com Followup-To: rec.humor.d Message-id: Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 19:30:00 PDT Path: capella.physics.utoronto.ca!utnut!torn!cyclone.bc.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.netfunny.com!funny-request Xref: capella.physics.utoronto.ca rec.humor.funny:7921 Status: O A CHORISTER'S GUIDE TO KEEPING CONDUCTORS IN LINE 1. Never be satisfied with the starting pitch. If the conductor uses a pitch-pipe, make known your preference for pitches from the piano, and vice-versa. 2. Complain about the temperature of the rehearsal room, the lighting, crowded space, or a draft. It is best to do this when the conductor is under pressure. 3. Bury your head into the music just before the cues. 4. Ask for a re-audition or seating change. Ask often. Give the impression you are about to quit. Let the conductor know your are there as a personal favor. 5. Loudly clear your throat during pauses. (Tenors are trained to do this from birth.) Quiet instrumental interludes are a good chance to blow your nose. 6. Wait until well into a rehearsal before letting the conductor know that you do not have the music. 7. Look at your watch frequently. Shake it in disbelief occasionally. 8. Find an excuse to leave the rehearsal fifteen minutes early so that others will become restless and start to fidget. 9. Tell the conductor, "I can't find the beat." Conductors are always sensitive about their "stick technique", so challenge it frequently. 10. If your articulation differs from that of others, stick to your guns. Do not ask the conductor which is correct until backstage just before the concert. (In other words, make every effort to take the attention away from the podium and put it on you, where it belongs.) [Passed out by our director at rehearsal.] -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@netfunny.com The EFF helps keep the net free but depends urgently on your dues and donations to continue this work. Read http://www.templetons.com/brad/eff.html This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/99/Oct/conductors.html From alopezo@unb.ca Thu Dec 9 23:37:06 EST 1999 Article: 2317 of rec.humor.funny Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny From: alopezo@unb.ca (Alex Lopez-Ortiz) Subject: Apply within Keywords: mirk Approved: funny-request@netfunny.com Path: news.magma.ca!nntp.magma.ca!news1.tor.metronet.ca!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.algonet.se!algonet!uninett.no!news-feed.ifi.uio.no!news.netfunny.com!funny-request Followup-To: rec.humor.d Message-ID: Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 19:30:00 PST Lines: 12 Xref: news.magma.ca rec.humor.funny:2317 A professor at a local university has just received a large grant to study the effectiveness of kevlar army helmets against bullet impact. I hear he's looking for more grad students... -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@netfunny.com The EFF helps keep the net free but depends urgently on your dues and donations to continue this work. Read http://www.templetons.com/brad/eff.html This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/99/Dec/kevlar.html From luke.p@staff.ihug.co.nz Tue Jan 11 08:03:18 EST 2000 Whilst watching the idiot box yesterday, there was a show about some DNA program being run. Bill Gates had invested $5 million into it, so they interviewed him and he responded as such: "We should be able to debug DNA the same way we debug software." Be afraid. [Note - originally by Mark Denholm (gigs@ihug.co.nz), posted with his permission. Insert your favorite BSOD, GPF or illegal operation joke here - ed.] -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@netfunny.com. Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Please don't send us requests of the form, "could you please send me the joke about XXX?" We don't act as a joke server but the web pages at http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/ will let you search for jokes in our archives. This joke's link: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/00/Jan/debug.html From rhialto@chikyuujin.earthling.net Sun Jan 23 14:06:12 EST 2000 Subject: Re: e-commerce the Microsoft way From: james@marage.demon.co.uk (James Follett) Newsgroups: alt.usage.english On Sunday, in article trulyd@ibm.net "Truly Donovan" wrote: (Snip horror story) > >Microsoft wants your business and wants your money--they just don't >want you. They've changed, Truly. I wrote to Microsoft in 1982 regarding what appeared to be a bug in their firmware for the Tandy Radio Shack Model 100 laptop computer -- a nifty machine which I still use. The problem was that any printer attached merely overprinted the preceding line -- the WP firmware didn't include an end of line carriage return -- a bad case of new stuff on top. The reply was prompt -- a handwritten note from a Mr Bill Gates in which he apologized for the error and provided clear instructions on opening the file, correcting one line, and closing the file. His solution worked a treat. Some time later I saw that Microsoft had floated and were seeking investors. I resisted the temptation because I couldn't see any future for a company that released word-processing software without testing it on a printer. I've now read that Microsoft and Mr Gates have parted company. A pity -- he was one of their more personable employees, and he had legible handwriting. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submitter. Submit articles to ahbou-sub@duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod@duke.edu.