[2335] in Central_America
New quotes for Wed Apr 4
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Apr 4 01:32:26 1990
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 90 01:31:59 EDT
From: root@CHARON.MIT.EDU (Initializer.SysDaemon)
To: ca-mtg@BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
alin (Alin L D'Silva):
Alin L. D'Silva
Undergraduate Student
Email : alin@athena.mit.edu
Term : 69 Chestnut Street
Address : Cambridge, MA 02139-4835
Permanent : 1264 W. Arthur, Rogers Park
Address : Chicago, IL 60626
(312) 508-1908
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
byron (Jack Miller):
{From system: This user's .plan file is not world readable}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
celine (Robert Fullmer):
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government,
intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption
from the cares of office.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
henry (Henry Mensch):
"We've known for a long time that the Soviets were a military
superpower but not an economic one. I wonder if we are as aware of how
much our own world power has depended on our military strength."
-- Sen. David L. Boren
-----------------
Planned absences:
9-10 April: North Carolina State University
08 Apr AA 789 Dp BOS 1646 Ar RDU 1848
11 Apr AA 1194 Dp RDU 1010 Ar BOS 1158
26 Apr TW 61 Dp BOS 1810 Ar SFO 2126
30 Apr- SCO (tentative), University of California,
2 May: Santa Cruz
3- 4 May: Strategies for Success Educational Software Expo;
UCSC; Santa Cruz, CA
06 May TW 44 Dp SFO 2205 Ar BOS 0802
14-16 May: OSF Member Meeting; Cambridge, MA
11-15 June: Usenix; Anaheim, CA
---------------------------------
Plans for this month:
* organising the PANSS tape (and thinking about off-site support)
* finding and retaining a man who can pass the "breakfast" test
* workable solutions for qa problems with respect to courseware
and other materials developed by non-athena personnel
* shoveling out my apartment
* considering moving the rest of my furniture (and books,
and tapes, etc.) back into my apartment.
* release 7.0
! treatment of athena network services as layers upon vendor os.
legend: * = "in progress"
+ = "in 'bureaucratic-wait' state"
! = "a future problem," in proposal stage
D = "done"
--
>off-campus readers will want to know that you'll find me here usually
>... when i'm not travelling to somewhere exotic, i'm a member of MIT's
>Project Athena Systems & Operations and External Relations Groups,
>where i handle a potpourri of systems development related tasks,
>including quality assurance, software export issues, etc. ... other
>details: i'm an alumnus of syracuse university and purdue university
> ... i like to travel often, and hate answering the phone.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
hlee (Hyekyung Lee):
{From system: This user's .plan file is not world readable}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
hooch (Conrad G Yoder):
To rescue my 6.170 grade.
Also. . .
This Spring - Singing Brahm's Requiem and in "Bye Bye Birdie"
This Summer - At home (hopefully) by 19 May (NO FINALS!). (614)545-6796
This Fall - In Budapest, Hungary and other random European cities!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
jik (Jonathan I. Kamens):
A Scotsman was shipwrecked and finally washed ashore on a small island.
As he regains consciousness on the beach he sees a beautiful unclad
nymphet standing over him. She says "Would you like some food?"
The Scot hoarsely croaks, "Och, lassie, I havna' ittin a bite in a week
noo, and I am verra hungry!"
She disappears into the woods and quickly comes back with a heaping
helping of haggis. (A Scottish delicacy about which the less said, the
better.) When he has choked it down, she asks "Would you like something
to drink?"
"Och, aye! That haggis has made me verra hungry and I wad verra much
like a drink!"
She goes off into the woods again and returns with a bottle of 75 year
old single-malt Scotch whiskey! The Scotsman in beginning to think that
he's in heaven when the unclad nymphet leans closer and says "Would you
like to play around?"
"Och, lassie, don't tell me ye've got a golf course here too!"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
jldelcal:
nothing as good as volleyball except...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
montreal (It's just Toby):
FOOTPRINTS
One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along
the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand--one
belonging to him, and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked
back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along
the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also
noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his
life.
This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.
"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me
all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome
times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't
understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."
The Lord replied, "My son, My precious child, I love you and
would never leave you. During you times of trial and suffering, when
you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."
-Author unknown
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
prasanna (Srinivasa Prasanna):
{From system: This user's .plan file is not world readable}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
rlcarr (Animato):
[from a friend at Microsoft]
In the beginning, God created the bit. And the bit was a zero; nothing.
On the first day, He toggled the 0 to a 1, and the Universe was.
(In those days, bootstrap loaders were simple, and "active low" signals
didn't yet exist.)
On the second day, God's boss wanted a demo, and tried to read the bit.
This being volatile memory, the bit reverted to a 0. And the universe wasn't.
God learned the importance of backups and memory refresh, and spent the rest
of the day (and his first all-nighter) reconstructing the universe.
On the third day, the bit cried "Oh, Lord! If you exist, give me a sign!"
And God created rev 2.0 of the bit, even better than the original prototype.
Those in Universe Marketing immediately realized that "new and improved"
wouldn't do justice to such a grand and glorious creation. And so it was
dubbed the Most Significant Bit, or the Sign bit. Many bits followed, but
only one was so honored.
On the fourth day, God created a simple ALU with 'add' and 'logical shift'
instructions. And the original bit discovered that by performing a
single shift instruction, it could become the Most Significant Bit.
And God realized the importance of computer security.
On the fifth day, God created the first mid-life kicker, rev 2.0 of the ALU,
with wonderful new features, and said "Screw that add and shift stuff.
Go forth and multiply." And God saw that it was good.
On the sixth day, God got a bit overconfident, and invented pipelines,
register hazards, optimizing compilers, crosstalk, restartable instructions,
microinterrupts, race conditions, and propagation delays. Historians have
used this to convincingly argue that the sixth day must have been a Monday.
On the seventh day, an engineering change introduced [name of buggy
component deleted to keep lawyers happy] into the Universe, and it
hasn't worked right since.
--- End of Central America ---
