[172] in Humor
HUMOR: Misc. Stuff
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Sat Apr 2 07:51:16 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Sat, 02 Apr 94 07:49:14 EST
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 06:13:32 -0800
From: cate3@netcom.com (Henry Cate)
The following are selections from sent postings to
silent-tristero mailing list: silent-tristero@world.std.com
From: 881045m@dragon.acadiau.ca (Richard Muise)
Friends : Don't Let Friends Do DOS !
From: David Gingold <gingold@think.com>
A friend who used to write news for Channel 5 once told me that the best
way to get tips from the police in Boston is to hang out at a certain store
in Dorchester that sells police supplies and doughnuts. Sure enough, in
the Yellow Pages we find:
> Doughnuts
Doughboy Donuts
256 Boston Dor-----436-0646
> Police Equipment
Doughboy Police & Fire Supply
198 Boston Dor-------------------287-1999
--------------------------
From: aboulang@bbn
Two signs stacked top-to-bottom spotted in Quincy:
Fortune Telling
Guns and Ammo
- --------------------------
From: John Robinson <jr@ksr.com>
>From the Reuters News Service, printed in The Los Angeles Times Sunday,
September 19, 1993:
Computers Paid Bills as Woman in Sweden Lay Dead for 3 Years
Stockholm -- The body of an elderly woman who died in 1990 lay undiscovered in
her apartment for more than three years while computers received her pension
and automatically paid her bills, Swedish police said Saturday. "It's very
unusual for someone to be dead so long without anyone else reacting," a police
duty officer in the Stockholm suburb of Farsta told the national news agency
TT.
The woman's last-opened mail was dated May 11, 1990, police said, indicating
she had died at the age of 72. Her name has not been made public. Police
were called to break into the apartment by its landlord after he had made
repeated efforts to gain the occupant's permission to renovate it.
- --------------------------
From: John Robinson <jr@ksr.com>
From: Tim Peters <tim>
From: Connie_Kleinjans@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
From: "Sharalee Field" <sharalee@planning.mit.edu>
From: "Emily Cikovsky" <ECIKOVSK@us.oracle.com>
If you thought YOU were having a bad day...
%
Surprised while burgling a house in Antwerp, Belgium, a thief fled out
the back door, clambered over a nine-foot wall, dropped down and found
himself in the city prison.
%
While motorcycling through the Hungarian countryside, Cristo Falatti came
up to a railway line just as the crossing gates were coming down. While
he sat idling, he was joined by a farmer with a goat, which the farmer
tehered to the crossing gate. A few moments later a horse and cart drew
up behind Falatti, followed in short order by a man in a sports car.
When the train roared through the crossing, the horse startled and bit
Falatti on the arm. Not a man to be trifled with, Falatti responded by
punching the horse in the head. In consequence the horse's owner jumped
down from his cart and began scuffling with the motorcyclist. The horse,
which was not up to this sort of excitement, backed away briskly,
smashing the cart into the sports-car. At this, the sports-car driver
leaped out of his car and joined the fray. The farmer came forward to
try to pacify the three flailing men. As he did so, the crossing gates
rose and his goat was strangled. At last report the insurance companies
were still trying to sort out the claims.
%
In a classic case of one thing leading to another, seven men aged eighteen
to twenty-nine received jail sentences of three to four years in Kingston-on-
Thames, England, in 1979 after a fight that started when one of the men
threw a french fry at another while they stood waiting for a train.
- --------------------------
From: John Robinson <jr@ksr.com>
FORE SAIL: Slight Lee used Newton personal digit tall assist pant.
Call 617 78j-##8?
- --------------------------
From the .sig of Jim Paradis (paradis@tallis.enet.dec.com):
The purpose of time is to keep everything from happening at once.
It's not working.
- --------------------------
From: Dan Aronson <dan@think.com>
Forward removed...
HEAVENLY HOT LINE GETTING SECOND NUMBER. "BEST-OF-BOOK"
By: Arieh O'Sullivan, Associated Press
JERUSALEM - Faxing notes to God has been such a hit that the Israeli
phone company has opened another line to the divine and plans to publish a
book of the best prayers and messages.
In January, the national phone company, Bezek, decided to make a
business of the hundreds of notes stuffed each day into the crannies of
Jerusalem's Wailing Wall.
It opened a fax line to receive the messages, which are copied and
sent by messenger to the wall, Jerusalem's holiest shrine of Judaism.
On Tuesday, Bezek set up another line for those seeking divine
intervention but unable to get to the wall personally to plant a note.
Author Joyce Shira Starr will use the best of the messages from the
new second line in a book she'll start writing next spring.
But for those who want their innermost desires to remain between
them and God, the first line set up in January will continue to be
confidential.
About 70 faxes are sent daily from around the world, mainly
originating in the United States and Europe. While God presumably
understands any language, only faxes sent in English will be considered for
publication in Starr's forthcoming book. Starr and Bezek will share jointly
in the profits from book sales.
<end quoted story>
The number of the original (and still confidential) fax line in
Isreal is +972 2 612222, while the new line for publishable faxes to the
Wailing Wall is +972 2 235555. Calls to both numbers are chargeable to the
orginating party at international telephone rates as applicable to a call to
Israel.
- --------------------------
From: dave mankins (dm@world.std.com, dm@hri.com)
Subj: signature of the commute
- -----
Markku Tuomi Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.
mot@jybox.jyu.fi Mark Twain
Subj: signature of the week
/// Seth Gordon /// <sethg@gnu.ai.mit.edu> /// standard disclaimer ///
"When I became a math major, I stopped having to add, because I understood
how adding is done. When I learned computers, I stopped having to remember,
because I understood how remembering is done." --Dale Worley
- --------------------------
From: Jym Dyer <jym@remarque.berkeley.edu>
Subj: Signature _du_Jour_
> This message is brought to you as shareware. If you like what
> was said, please send me a check.
- --------------------------
From: Miles R Fidelman <fidelman@civicnet.org>
I saw this in the paper recently:
"Last summer, the cable television station that serves Columbia S.C.
aimed a camera full-time at an aquarium to occupy a vacant channel, which
was awaiting the September start-up of the Science-Fiction Channel. When
Sci-Fi replaced the 'fish channel,' complaints were so numerous that the
company was forced to find another channel for the aquairum, which now
runs 14 hours per day, sharing time with the Bravo Channel."
personally, my favorite programming is on NASA Select TV -- when they
leave a camera open on activites inside the shuttle
- --------------------------
From: John L Redford <jlr@world.std.com>
I came across a curious song the other day by a local (Boston) band
called Tribe:
Under Texas soil, under Texas sky,
It sits and waits and grows
It runs for fifty-four miles
Goodbye Princeton, goodbye CERN
He's gone to Texas to watch the holy fire burn
refrain:
He's gone to build
He's gone to build the Supercollider
Then there's a driving bridge full of high-neck guitar work.
Oh well. Maybe this is why there are so few rock songs about physics -
just as you get one out, Congress yanks the funding on you...
- --------------------------
From: David Gingold <gingold@think.com>
... He's gone to build the Supercollider
Tribe didn't actually write the song as an anthem for Big Science (you can
read the lyrics either way), but the SSC folks liked it so much anyway that
they invited the band down to Texas to film a video. Filming was in
progress the day Congress pulled the plug, and so Supercollider unwittingly
become history's most expensive music video.
- --------------------------
From: John Robinson <jr@ksr.com>
from a .sig...
Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the
only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. -- Wernher von Braun
- --------------------------
From: rnewman@mit.edu (Ron Newman)
It's been a few days since our mini-flame war about whether Bill Clinton
should install electronic-voting software at his Internet site to sound out
public opinion.
Let me remind you all of the _Literary Digest_ poll of 1936.
The _Literary Digest_ mailed out 10 million postcards to Americans throughout
the country, asking whether the recipient preferred President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt or his Republican challenger, Alf Landon. Over two million people
responded, with these results:
Landon: 1,293,669 (57%): 360 electoral votes
FDR: 972,897 (43%): 171 electoral votes
The actual election returns were a bit different. Roosevelt got 60.8% of the
popular vote. Landon carried two states: Vermont (3 electors) and Maine (5
electors).
What went wrong? The answer was obvious--in retrospect. The lists that the
_Literary Digest_ mailed to were taken from automobile registrations and
telephone directories. The _Digest_ didn't realize that, in 1936, car and
telephone users were disproportionately affluent, well-educated, and
Republican.
The _Literary Digest_ ceased publishing soon after the 1936 election.
Now, do you still want an electronic poll of computer and modem users to
guide our President's policies?
- --------------------------
From: Bruce Boghosian <bmb@think.com>
[Found on the net. Said to be quoted from October issue of Northwest
Airlines in-flight magazine. Headers deleted.]
"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
-- purported to be the last words of Pancho Villa
- --------------------------
From: Simon E Spero <ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu>
I woke up this morning in the middle of an NPR pledge drive. As I lay there
with my eyes closed, waiting for some actual news to start, I was impressed
to hear the latest way of sending pledges- mail your pledge to
wuncradio@unc.edu.
Is this a first?
- --------------------------
From: dlw@odi.com
PageSat, Inc. of Palo Alto, CA, is broadcasting a complete Usenet
feed, with every single news group in existence, 90MB/day, from GE
Americom's K2 satellite, over the entire United States, southern
Canada, and northern Mexico. These photons are passing through
your brain right now.
- --------------------------
From: David Gingold <gingold@think.com>
"Luckily, the eggs turned to rock millions of years ago
and no harm was done."
Today's Boston Globe, describing the near-catastrophe when
a a cameraman's lighting equipment fell into a new display
of dinosaur eggs.
- --------------------------
From: leira@athena.com (Linda L. Julien)
Athena Design Announces Psychic Tech Support Hotline
Athena Design announces another way in which we can better serve our customers'
needs -- our new Psychic Technical Support Hotline.
Our staff of trained psychics have been studying the karmic ebb and flow of
technical support issues on the higher planes. They have determined that in
addition to being affected by the tides and the position of the moon and
planets, technical support issues are especially affected by cosmic rays and
sunspot activity. One of our staff psychics states, "We've studied the effects
of sunspot activity on tech support questions for a period of time now, and
feel confident that we can accurately determine the answers to questions based
on our charts." The director of the Psychic Support Department has found that,
"The same question will come up over and over in a short period of time, as the
karmic flow influences the our customers' hardware and software. Recently, for
example, we've had a number of questions about absolute cell references. The
charts we're developing predict that next week will will get a large number of
questions about linking worksheets."
Our trained psychics have researched these influences, and have created a
special tarot deck for use in technical support readings. With the help of
this deck, our psychics will be able to give you technical support for Mesa,
even if you don't know what the problem is! Once we've found the problem, our
psychics will be able to determine a solution and step you through it.
Our Psychic Technical Support Hotline is available to all registered
commercial users of Mesa on Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 5:30pm Eastern
Time. Just call 617.734.6372 and ask for Mesa Psychic Tech Support.
- -----
Sample Reading
This is an actual transcript of a Psychic Technical Support call received by
one of our readers recently. The names of the customers have been changed for
privacy reasons.
Reader: Hi, this is Psychic Tech Support. How can I help you, John?
Customer: Hello. I've got a problem here. With Mesa. It's not working
right. Can you tell me what's wrong?
Reader: Ok. Let me just lay out a reading, and we'll figure out the
problem...Ah, the reading starts with the King of Wells, crossed by the Nine of
Links. I can see that you're very talented when it comes to formatting
worksheets, but you're feeling rather daunted by the amount of data that you
have to connect together with your current project. The cards are suggesting
that you should try linking worksheets; I think you'll find that will make the
project a lot easier. Are you familiar with that feature of Mesa.
Customer: Yes, I am. I hadn't considered using that for this problem
however. I do have a really large amount of data.
Reader: Well, let's look a little further and see what we can determine. At
the root of the problem we have the card representing the Legal Department. My
feeling here is that they're pushing you very hard to represent all of this
data in a specific manner.
Customer: Oh! I knew my boss said I had to set things up in a certain
way, but I wasn't sure why...
Reader: The Legal Department Card is from the Major Arcana, so that signifies
that this issue isn't going to go away. Moving into the recent past, I see the
Seven of Wells, reversed. You're concerned that the things they insist on
might make it impossible for you to format your data in a manner that you feel
will be most effective and pleasing to look at.
Looking at the position of what might happen, I see the Ace of Disks,
reversed. Disks represent Earth, or bringing things into a physical form,
using graphs and printed reports. Since this card is reversed, it represents
that this project might never get off the ground -- it might fail before it
even gets started. I think you need to look beyond the formatting issues, and
spend some more time working on linking worksheets.
In the position of what will happen, I see the Page of Swords. This
card represents becoming skilled in the use of complex formulas and Mesa's
MScript scripting language. I think that in this case, scripting and linking
worksheets are very intimately related. By mastering MScript, your entire task
will become easier to accomplish.
Customer: I haven't looked at MScript yet. Do you think it will be
useful?
Reader: Definitely. Take a look at the MScript chapter in the User's Guide,
and I think you'll find all the information you need.
Moving on to your hopes and dreams, we have the Two of Wells. This
represents your hope that a coworker will help you with this project, and that
together you can find a way to balance the appropriate formatting with the
other requirements of the project.
Customer: Actually, I was hoping that my coworker, Susan, could help me
with this. I know that she's worked on similar projects in the past, and
they've been pretty successful.
Reader: I think you're right about that. I'd suggest that you talk to her
about it.
The next card represents your environment, or, more specifically, how
your coworkers view you. The card in this position is the Internet. This
shows that your coworkers have a very high regard for you. They believe in
your ability to successfully complete this project, and they also regard you as
having incredible resources and connections. Since this card is from the Major
Arcana, I think that their assessment of you is correct.
The next card in the spread represents your fears, and we have the Five
of Wells. This represents your fear that you'll lose your freedom of
creativity while formatting this project, due to the restrictions that are
being put on you. However, the card also shows that there are some
possibilities that you haven't even considered yet. I'd advise that you think
about this some more -- you're not as limited as you think. In particular,
take a look at Mesa's Drag & Drop colors, patterns, and fonts.
The conclusion of this reading is the Seven of Links, reversed. This
tells me that you might still find yourself overwhelmed by the large amount of
data that you need to link together, and that you might not be as familiar with
Mesa's worksheet linking features as you could be. Let's open up a new
worksheet and step through some simple linking procedures, so that we can be
sure you're comfortable with the whole process...
