[1028] in Humor
HUMOR: Are you finished yet?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Mon Aug 28 10:48:20 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 10:43:49 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 1995 21:18:58 +0000 (GMT)
From: Espacionaute Spiff domine! <MATOSSIAN@aries.colorado.edu>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 1995 10:05:01 -0400
From: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
From: spaf@gatech.edu (Gene Spafford)
Date: Wed, 27 May 87 11:50:54 EDT
[This needs some explanation. Back in 1987, I had finally finished my
PhD and was getting ready to leave GaTech for Purdue. One of the people
working on the Clouds project was a really talented, but easily
distracted, Masters student. Let's call him "Fred."
Now Fred had done some really nice work writing an Ethernet driver for
the Clouds I kernel. He basically put it together with the benefit of
little assistance, almost no documented API to the Clouds code, and
rotten documentation from the vendor (DEC). And it worked. All he had
to do was write it up, and he could get his M.S. degree and graduate.
There was always some distraction, however. May of 1987 was about 3
years from when he finished the coding phase....
"Fred" sent around a message about erasing cat brains with a strong
enough magnetic field. It would fit in Yucks, if I still had it. I
responded with the message below, which was saved and passed on by many
of the people on the list. I'm putting it in here for all those people
with too much free time on their hands. And for my own grad students,
who all waste time reading stuff like this.:-)
"Fred" finished his M.S. a year or two later. On the non-thesis
option. I think they forced him to graduate, or they were going to
enroll him in the PhD program.... --spaf]
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Of course, the really burning question in the minds of many of us is
not whether Joseph Neumann's energy machine can be used to power an
electric chair for cats, but whether Fred will ever finish his thesis
in our (or his) lifetimes. So far, his thesis has been cited in 3
other dissertations and some published papers, been requested as a tech
report, and otherwise anticipated by Clouds watchers. It has been "in
progress" for nearly two years now, as Fred has ported and rewritten
TeX, designed his own fonts and macro packages, developed tools for
imbedding tables and diagrams into the TeX dvi stream, and so on.
Current rumor has it that he is hand-making all the bond paper to print
it on, and developing a new language specifically for this magnum opus
(despite the fact that Charls Pearson already did something similar for
his PhD a few years back). It has also been rumored that he is
involved in the genetic development of a new species of cow, and will
wait until the herd matures so he can have a proper supply of leather
to bind the finished copies. Those of us who know Fred think that is
unlikely; he is probably designing some new inorganic material instead,
but only after he finishes development of his own laser printer.
Dave Pitts and I, world famous procrastinators, took a combined total
of 1.5 years to write up our dissertations once we started. Frankly,
we're in awe of Fred's ability to find new projects without finishing
the current one (his thesis). And this is only his MS! It boggles the
mind to think about what he might do while trying to avoid writing a
PhD dissertation -- perhaps we can expect experiments in
faster-than-light travel? Not only would it be off the topic, but the
time dilation effects involved would help stretch out the period
between finishing the work and presenting his thesis!
I'm thinking of starting a betting pool. To join, send in $10 and a
date (the decade is close enough) when you think Fred will finish
(defend and submit to the graduate office) his MS thesis. I'll invest
all the money in 30 year Treasury bonds, and whoever gets closest wins
the (probably matured) bonds, interest included.
Send your bets to:
Are you through yet, Fred?
c/o Clouds Project
School of ICS
Georgia Tech
Deadline is, oh, by 1 Jan. 1988. He probably won't be anywhere near
done by then either, but at least we'll start getting interest on the
money.
