This man was in bed with a married woman when they heard the front door open. "Oh my God," she gasped, "it's my husband! Quick, hide in the closet!"
The man hurried into the closet and closed the door. Suddenly, he heard a small voice say "It's very dark in here."
"Who's that?" asked the man.
"That's my mother out there," the small voice answered.
"And now I'm going to scream."
"Please don't!" said the man.
"Okay, but it will cost you money," the boy said.
"Here's five dollars."
"I'm going to scream!" said the small voice.
"Okay, here's ten dollars!"
"I'm going to scream!" said the small voice.
"Here's twenty dollars."
Finally, when the boy turned down thirty five dollars the man said,
"All I have is forty dollars."
"I'll take it!" said the boy.
At last, the husband left and the man was able to get out of the closet
and make a hasty exit.
That afternoon, the mother took the boy with her on a shopping trip. "I want to get that bicycle," he said. The mother said, "No, you can't. It costs too much money." The boy said, "I've got forty dollars." The mother said, "Where would you get forty dollars?"
The boy wouldn't talk. She began to berate him. He refused to respond. She slapped him but he stood his ground. Finally, twisting his arm, she dragged him into a nearby church and approached the parish priest. "Father, my son has forty dollars and he won't tell me where he got it. Maybe you can find out?"
The priest nodded. He led the boy into a confessional booth. The boy sat in one side and the priest in the other. The boy said, "It's very dark in here...."
And the priest said, "Now, don't you start that again!"
11/oct/96 - Software Revisions
A Guide To Software Revisions
Once you start playing with software you quickly become aware that each software package has a revision code attached to it. It is obvious that this revision code gives the sequence of changes to the product, but in reality there's substantially more information available through the rev code than that. This article provides a guide for interpreting the meaning of the revision codes and what they actually signify.
% 1.0:
Also known as "one point uh-oh", or "barely out of beta".
We had to release because the lab guys had reached a point of exhaustion
and the marketing guys were in a cold sweat of terror. We're praying that
you'll find it more functional than, say, a computer virus and that its
operation has some resemblance to that specified in the marketing copy.
% 1.1:
We fixed all the killer bugs ...
% 1.2:
Uh, we introduced a few new bugs fixing the killer bugs and so we had
to fix them, too.
% 2.0:
We did the product we really wanted to do to begin with. Mind you,
it's really not what the customer needs yet, but we're working on it.
% 2.1:
Well, not surprisingly, we broke some things in making major changes
so we had to fix them. But we did a really good job of testing this time,
so we don't think we introduced any new bugs while we were fixing these
bugs.
% 2.2:
Uh, sorry, one slipped through. One lousy typo error and you won't
believe how much trouble it caused!
% 2.3:
Some anal-retentive pain in the ass found a deep-seated bug that's
been there since 1.0 and has been raising hell until we fixed it.
% 3.0:
Hey, we finally think we've got it right! Most of the customers are
really happy with this.
% 3.1:
Of course we did break a few little things.
% 4.0:
More features. It's doubled in size now, by the way, and you'll need
to get memory and a faster processor ...
% 4.1:
Just one or two bugs this time. Honest.
% 5.0:
We really need to go on to a new product but we have an installed base
out there to protect. We're cutting the staffing after this.
% 6.0:
We had to fix a few things we broke in 5.0. Not very many, but it's
been so long since we looked at this thing we might as well call it a major
upgrade. Oh, yeah, we added a few flashy cosmetic features so we could
justify the major upgrade number.
% 6.1:
Since I'm leaving the company and I'm the last guy left in the lab
who works on the product, I wanted to make sure that all the changes I've
made are incorporated before I go. I added some cute demos, too, since
I was getting pretty bored back here in my dark little corner (I kept complaining
about the lighting but they wouldn't do anything). They're talking about
obsolescence planning but they'll try to keep selling it for as long as
there's a buck or two to be made. I'm leaving the bits in as good a shape
as I can in case somebody has to tweak them, but it'll be sheer luck if
no one loses the.....................
Subject: How do you hunt elephants?
MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and collecting whatever is left over. Student 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 1st 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.
SALESPEOPLE don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens. Software salespeople ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant. Hardware salespeople catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them as "desktop elephants."
LIBRARIANS do an on-line search, of course (k=elephant). Depending on the jungle, they may have to undertake a retrospective conversion project on all animals first. They have to look through their LC schedules to find the proper classification (Mammals get classified under M, reptiles under R, etc. An elephant would probably get an MP call number [P for pachyderm]). Then all the elephants would have to be tagged (100:00:Jumbo,|d1945- ) and given bar codes. The patron could then search for the desired elephant. If not found, the librarian would then put a tracer on it, or, if the patron is really desperate, they could put out a request on IJL (Inter-jungle loan). The patron would get the elephant for 6 months, and after a 9 day grace period would accrue a fine of 10 bags of peanuts a day. If the elephant is still unreturned the patron's account would be reported to Marlin Perkins who would threaten to revoke the patron's insurance policy until said elephant was returned. This generally isn't a problem, since an elephant never forgets. The experienced animal librarian knows not to check out elephants to patrons wearing lots of ivory. Nevertheless, elephants in many jungles are being declared missing and in time may be withdrawn altogether.
It seems that when God was making the world, he called man over and bestowed upon him twenty years of normal sex life. Man was horrified "Only twenty years of normal sex life?" but the Lord was very adamant - that was all man could have.
Then the Lord called the monkey and gave him twenty years. "But I don't need twenty years", he protested, "Ten is plenty for me." Man spoke up eagerly. "Can I have the other ten?" The monkey graciously agreed.
Then the Lord called the lion and gave him twenty years, and the lion, like the monkey wanted only ten. Again the man spoke up, "Can I have the other ten?" The lion said of course he could.
Then came the donkey and he was given twenty years - but like the others, ten was sufficient - and again man pleaded, "Can I have the other ten?"
Which explains why man has twenty years of normal sex life, plus ten years of monkeying around, ten years of lion about it and ten years of making an ass of himself.
'I am the serenest!' he says
LHASA, TIBET-Employing the brash style that first brought him to prominence, SriDhananjai Bikram won the fifth annual International Yogi Competition yesterday with a world-record point total of 873.6.
"I am the serenest!" Bikram shouted to the estimated crowd of 20,000 yoga fans, vigorously pumping his fists. "No one is serener than Sri Dhananjai Bikram-I am the greatest monk of all time!"
Bikram averaged 1.89 breaths a minute during the two-hour competition, nearly .3 fewer than his nearest competitor, second-place finisher and two-time champion Sri Salil "The Hammer" Gupta.
The heavily favored Gupta was upset after the loss. "I should be able to beat that guy with one lung tied," Gupta said. "I'm beside myself right now, and I don't mean trans-bodily."
Bikram got off to a fast start at the Lhasa meet, which like most major competitions, is a six-event affair. In the first event, he attained total consciousness (TC) in just 2 minutes, 34 seconds, and set the tone for the rest of the meet by repeatedly shouting, "I'm blissful! You blissful?! I'm blissful!" to the other yogis.
Bikram, 33, burst onto the international yoga scene with a gold-mandala performance at the 1994 Bhutan Invitational. At that competition he premiered his aggressive style, at one point in the flexibility event sticking his middle toes out at the other yogis. While no prohibition exists against such behavior, according to Yoga League Commissioner Swami Prabhupada, such behavior is generally considered "unBuddhalike."
"I don't care what the critics say," Bikram said. "Sri Bikram is just gonnago out there and do Sri Bikram's own yoga thing."
Before the Bhutan meet, Bikram had never placed better than fourth. Many said he had forsaken rigorous training for the celebrity status accorded by his Bhutan win, endorsing Nike's new line of prayer mats and supposedly dating the Hindu goddess Shakti. But his performance this week will regain for him the number one computer ranking and earn him new respect, as well as for his coach Mahananda Vasti, the controversial guru some have called Bikram's "guru."
"My special training diet for Bikram of one super-charged, carbo-loaded grain of rice per day was essential to his win," Vasti said.
The defeated Gupta denied that Bikram's taunting was a factor in his inability to attain TC. "I just wasn't myself today," Gupta commented. "I wasn't any self today. I was an egoless particle of the universal no-soul."
In the second event, flexibility, Bikram maintained the lead by supporting himself on his index fingers for the entire 15 minutes while touching the back of his skull to his lower spine. The feat was matched by Gupta, who first used the position at the 1990 Tokyo Zen-Off.
"That's my meditative position of spiritual ecstasy, not his," remarked Gupta. "He stole my thunder."
Bikram denied the charge, saying, "Gupta's been talking like that ever since he was a 3rd century Egyptian slave-owner."
Nevertheless, a strong showing by Gupta in the third event, the shotput, placed him within a lotus petal of the lead at the competition's halfway point.
But event number four, the contemplation of unanswerable riddles known as koans, proved the key to victory for Bikram.
The koan had long been thought the weak point of his spiritual arsenal, but his response to today's riddle-"Show me the face you had before you were born"-was reportedly "extremely illuminative," according to Commissioner Prabhupada.
While koan answers are kept secret from the public for fear of exposing the uninitiated multitudes to the terror of universal truth, insiders claim his answer had Prabhupada and the two other judges "highly enlightened."
With the event victory, Bikram built himself a nearly insurmountable lead, one he sustained through the yak-milk churn and breathing events to come away with the upset victory.
"I think it would be a good idea"
- Mahatma Ghandi when asked what he thought of Western civilization.
These are some of the error messages produced by Apple's MPW C compiler.
These are all real.
(If you must know I was bored one afternoon and decompiled the String
resources for the compiler.)
The compiler is 324k in size so these are just an excerpt I hope. I'm
not sure where I stand on the copyright issue.
-Tony Cunningham
HOW TO BE A CULTIST
Courtesy of the Discordians
A police officer had a perfect hiding place for watching for speeders along a well traveled stretch of highway. The location, at a bend in the road, allowed him to hide his car out of sight of oncoming traffic while setting up his radar to nab any speeders who passed by. He had used this location successfully a number of times, especially on holidays, and decided to use it again one Labor Day weekend.
The officer arrived at his hiding place and set himself up, settling down to wait for the first speeders to appear. After a half hour or so the officer hadn't seen anybody speeding. In fact most of the cars that passed him were travelling exactly at the speed limit, and some of the passengers in the passing cars were even smiling and waving at him. He couldn't believe this was happening since his hiding place was so well concealed.
Finally, after realizing that virtually all the passing cars knew he was there, the officer decided that something was wrong and went investigate. He got out of his car and walked up the road a short distance. About 100 yards before his hiding place the officer found the problem: a 10 year old boy was standing on the side of the road with a huge hand painted sign which said "RADAR TRAP AHEAD". A little more investigative work led the officer to the boys accomplice, another boy about 100 yards beyond the radar trap with a sign reading "TIPS" and a bucket at his feet full of change.
A truck driver used to amuse himself by running over lawyers walking down the side of the road. Every time he'd see a lawyer, he'd swerve to hit him, and there would be a loud "THUMP" and then he'd swerve back on the road. One day, as he was driving he saw a priest hitchhiking. He thought he'd do a good turn and pulled the truck over. He asked the priest, "Where are you going, Father?". "I'm going to the church 5 miles down the road!", replied the priest. "No problem, Father! Climb in the truck". The happy priest climbed into the passenger seat and the driver continued down the road. Suddenly he saw a lawyer walking down the road and instinctively he swerved to hit him. But then he remembered there was a priest in the truck, so at the last minute he swerved back to the road, narrowly missing the lawyer. However, even though he was certain he missed the lawyer, he still heard a loud "THUD". Not understanding where the noise came from he glanced in his mirrors and when he didn't see anything, he turned to the priest and said, "I'm sorry Father. I almost hit that lawyer". "That's okay", replied the priest. "I got him with the door!"
You know lawyers ar buried 20 feet deeper than normal. Its because deep down they are good people.
Excerpt from LA Times:
"It was reported that Sens. William B. Spong (VA) and Hiram Fong (Hawaii) got their heads together to sponsor a bill recommending the mass ringing of church bells to hail the arrival in Hong Kong of the U.S. Table Tennis team after its tour of communist China.
"Unfortunately, the motion died, cheating Congress out of passing the Spong-Fong Hong Kong Ping-Pong Ding-Dong Bell bill"
It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others!
When Beethoven passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Beethoven was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest to come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.
When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that's Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards."
He listened a while longer, and said, "There's the Eighth Symphony, and it's backwards, too. Most puzzling." So the magistrate kept listening; "There's the Seventh... the Sixth... the Fifth..."
Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery, "My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. It's just Beethoven decomposing."
God Rest Ye Copland Programmers
(to the tune of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen")
God rest ye Copland programmers,
It's finally Christmas Day.
You've all worked 20-hour shifts
Beginning back in May.
No wonder after such neglect
Your spouses moved away.
The last real meal you had
Was late last year--
That's what we hear;
And since then you've lived on Pizza, Coke, and beer.
Your bosses change, and change their minds,
Is Copland off or on?
Are last week's OS plans in place
Or now completely gone?
God rest ye well this Christmas Day,
You'd better sleep in late--
It's the last sleep you'll get till '98.
Isn't that great?
It's the last day off you'll have till '98!
The Bill Gates Song
(to the tune of "The Christmas Song")
Netscape roasting on an open fire,
Apple begging on its knees,
Photo popping up on Time magazine,
Yes, Bill Gates dreams of days like these!
Everybody knows he's never fully satisfied,
Throws himself behind each task,
World dominion is his company's goal.
Well, hey, is that so much to ask?
He knows the world is in his sway,
We'll buy whatever software he might toss our way,
We'll surf his Internet, watch his TV,
He'll take us anywhere we ask him--for a fee.
And so we're offering this simple prayer,
To Bill and all his MS grunts:
Since we all follow any standard you write,
Make it good, please,
Make it good, please,
Make it good, please, just once!
Gil Amelio's Coming to Town!
(to the tune of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town")
You better watch out,
Absurd as it sounds,
'Cause Apple's about
To lose a few pounds--
Gil Amelio's coming to town!
He's making a list,
And trimming the rolls
Of projects that missed
Their revenue goals--
Gil Amelio's coming to town!
He knows what's losing money,
Like eWorld, PowerTalk . . .
You'd better make your project work
Or prepare to take a walk!
Though you follow his lead
Right out the back door,
You know he'll succeed--
He's done it before!
Gil Amelio's coming to town!
Microsoft
(to the tune of "Jingle Bells")
Nine-tenths of a gig,
Biggest ever seen,
God, this program's big--
MS Word 15!
Comes on ten CDs,
And requires--damn!
Word is fine, but jeez--
60 megs of RAM?!
Oh! Microsoft, Microsoft,
Bloatware all the way!
I've sat here installing Word
Since breakfast yesterday!
Oh! Microsoft, Microsoft,
Moderation, please.
Guess you hadn't noticed:
Four-gig drives don't grow on trees!
I'm Dreaming of a Clean System
(to the tune of "White Christmas")
I'm dreaming of a clean System,
Something that fits on one CD.
Each component matches,
Not bits and patches,
Unlike 7-5-point-3.
I'm longing for a dream System,
Small, stable, fast, and trouble-free.
What we want, I think you'll agree,
Is called System 6-point-oh-3!
Violent Night
(to the tune of "Silent Night")
Silent Mac, broken Mac!
System bombed, screen went black.
Books suggested things; I tried 'em all:
Shift key, desktop file, clean reinstall.
Now my deadline is tight,
This Mac's been silent all night.
Violent night, horrible night!
Lost my cool, filled with spite,
Threw my Mac through the balcony door
Watched it fall from the 20th floor,
Now I'm sleeping in peace;
Thank God I had it on lease.
Prove It's So!
(to the tune of "Let It Snow")
Oh, the papers say Apple's dying,
But before we start good-byeing,
We should call them all up and go,
"Prove it's so! Prove it's so! Prove it's so!"
They say "Mac OS software's scarcer."
We say, "Read those numbers, there, sir,
Sales continued this year to grow.
There ya go, there ya go, there ya go!"
When they tell us Win 95
Made the Mac's famed advantages ebb,
We'll say, "Why, then, do
Macs now drive 60 percent of the Web?"
We can win our PR reversal--
Make the Mac be universal--
Though we may have some years to go,
Make it so, make it so, make it so!
Happily Addicted to the Web
(to the tune of "Winter Wonderland")
Doorbell rings, I'm not list'nin',
From my mouth, drool is glist'nin',
I'm happy--although
My boss let me go--
Happily addicted to the Web.
All night long, I sit clicking,
Unaware time is ticking,
There's beard on my cheek,
Same clothes for a week,
Happily addicted to the Web.
Friends come by; they shake me,
Saying, "Yo, man! Don't you know tonight's the senior prom?"
With a listless shrug, I mutter,
"No, man; I just discovered letterman-dot-com!"
I don't phone, don't send faxes,
Don't go out, don't pay taxes,
Who cares if someday
They drag me away?
I'm happily addicted to the Web!
David Pogue, MacWorld
==== When the end of the world arrives, ====
====== how will the media report it? =====
USA Today: WE'RE DEAD
The Wall Street Journal: DOW JONES PLUMMETS AS WORLD ENDS
National Enquirer: O.J. AND NICOLE, TOGETHER AGAIN
Playboy: GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE
Microsoft Systems Journal: APPLE LOSES MARKET SHARE
Victoria's Secret Catalog: OUR FINAL SALE
Sports Illustrated: GAME OVER
Wired: THE LAST NEW THING
Rolling Stone: THE GRATEFUL DEAD REUNION TOUR
Readers Digest: 'BYE
Discover Magazine: HOW WILL THE EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT AFFECT THE WAY WE VIEW THE COSMOS?
TV Guide: DEATH AND DAMNATION: NIELSEN RATINGS SOAR!
Ladies' Home Journal: LOSE 10 LBS BY JUDGMENT DAY WITH OUR NEW "ARMAGEDDON" DIET!
America Online: SYSTEM TEMPORARILY DOWN. TRY CALLING BACK IN 15 MINUTES.
Inc. magazine: TEN WAYS YOU CAN PROFIT FROM THE APOCALYPSE
Microsoft's Web Site: If you didn't experience the rapture, download software patch RAPT777.EXE.
Sun: ARMAGEDDON-TOLERANT SOFTWARE NOW AVAILABLE !
Visual Basic Programmers Journal: VB5 Release Date Announced.
Microsoft Magazine: IBM To Cease Shipping OS/2.
The Vatican Press: "Told you So"