[1319] in Humor
Re: Elephants (An Addendum)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (belville@MIT.EDU)
Wed Feb 21 13:18:41 1996
From: <belville@MIT.EDU>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 13:10:21 -0500
To: humor@MIT.EDU
TECHNICAL WRITERS IN AFRICA
by Christy Van Brunt
An Addendum to Peter C. Olsen's article in BYTE, Sept 1989
A BOLD NEW PROPOSAL FOR MATCHING HIGH-TECHNOLOGY TO WRITERS' JOBS
Pick your favorite job-matching criteria from these three:
Job Matching Criteria 1:
Techwriters defind the standard elephant (which doesn't really exist), and
then describe deviant elephants (all the real ones) found in the field.
Seasoned writers submit copy to the elephants for review.
Job Matching Criteria 2:
Techwriters cut elephants into parts small enough for non-hunters to handle.
Job Matching Criteria 3:
Writers interview elephants as they are caught.
Techwriters reduce captured elephants to clear descriptions.
Editors revise the descriptions until they are unrecognizable.
Proofreaders compare revisions to the original elephants.
All copy is submitted to surviving elephants for review.
------- Forwarded transaction
[1312] daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joel Kohler) Humor 02/19/96 18:14 (112 lines)
Subject: Elephants
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 17:02:21 -0600
To: humor@MIT.EDU
From: samurai@nwu.edu (Joel Kohler)
Sender: "EXOTIC-L Exotic pet bird discussion group."
<EXOTIC-L@PLEARN.EDU.PL>
Poster: Sandra Dobbs <bluskies@MINDSPRING.COM>
Subject: Hunting elephants(NON-BIRD RELATED)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a copy of something posted to CITES earlier today - non-bird
related, although it does deal with "grey" alot<g>. Thought some of you
"professional types" out there might get a kick out of it.
Hunting Elephants
MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything
that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.
EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the existence of at least
one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise.
PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one unique
elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as
an exercise for their graduate students.
COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm
* A:
* 1. Go to Africa.
* 2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
* 3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent
alternately east and west.
* 4. During each traverse pass,
* a. Catch each animal seen.
* b. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
* c. Stop when a match is detected.
EXPERIENCED COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS modify Algorithm A by placing a known
elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.
ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands
and knees.
ENGINEERS hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at
random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15
percent of any previously observed elephant.
ECONOMISTS don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are
paid enough, they will hunt themselves.
STATISTICIANS hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant.
CONSULTANTS don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at
all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do.
OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can also measure the correlation of hat
size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if
someone else will only identify the elephants.
POLITICIANS don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you
catch with the people who voted for them.
LAWYERS don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing
about who owns the droppings.
SOFTWARE LAWYERS-will claim that they own an entire herd based on the look
and feel of one dropping.
VICE PRESIDENTS OF ENGINEERING, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT try hard to hunt
elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent it. When the vice
president does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that all
possible elephants are completely prehunted before the vice president sees
them. If the vice president does see a nonprehunted elephant, the staff
will (1) compliment the vice president's keen eyesight and (2) enlarge
itself to prevent any recurrence.
SENIOR MANAGERS set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption
that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices.
QUALITY ASSURANCE INSPECTORS ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the
other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.
SALES PEOPLE don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants
they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.
SOFTWARE SALES PEOPLE ship the first thing they catch and write up an
invoice for an elephant.
HARDWARE SALES PEOPLE catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them as
desktop elephants.
------- End forwarded transaction
