There are 8 messages totalling 458 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. The airplane 2. Life's Little Truths (Pt 24) 3. More OJ Jokes 4. Humor: Trust in God 5. Franglais humor 6. Abraham & teenagers; The word from the farm on Sparcs 7. Automobiles vs. Pedestrians (WARNING: 113 Lines Long) 8. Engineering Logic ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 09:32:51 +0200 From: Altar Ariel Subject: The airplane This story is about an airplane factory that have built a new model. When they tried the prototype on its first flight his wings broke apart. The engineers of the company had tried to figure out what the problem was but none of the recommended solutions had yielded a better outcome since time after time the wings developed cracks and broke in the same place. Desperately they have decided to accept solutions provided by people who don't work at the company. Engineers from all over the country came with different ideas but the wings kept on breaking. One day came an old man that said: - If you know the location of those cracks exactly, go there and punch many holes along that place. - You must be crazy, said the engineers, it'll only make it prone to cracks. - Don't argue, said the old man, just go there and do it. Unwillingly and out of desperation they've decided to listen to his advice, and believe it or not, this time the wings remained intact. The engineers were amazed and asked that man how he has come to this solution. - Well, you see, said the man, I have this toilet paper at home and it never tears along the holes. ariel ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 13:33:54 E From: Charlie Hill Subject: Life's Little Truths (Pt 24) The well-known statement of Murphy's Law--"If something can go wrong, it will"--turns out to be a corruption of its original formulation: "If there's a wrong way to do a thing, somebody will find it and do it that way." (see SCIENCE 83, Jan.-Feb.l983, p. 78) One of my favorite sourcebooks on this subject is Paul Dickson's THE OFFICIAL RULES, with its sequel THE OFFICIAL EXPLANATIONS. I quote from "Gilb's Laws of Reliability": (1) Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. (2) Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. (3) The only difference between a fool and a criminal is that the fool will attack a system unpredictably and on a broader front. (4) A system tends to grow in complexity instead of simplicity, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable. (5) Self-checking systems tend to have a complexity in proportion to their inherent unreliability. (6) The error-detection and -correction capabilities of any system serve as a key to understanding the types of errors it cannot handle. (7) Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are finite. (8) All real programs contain errors until proved otherwise which is impossible. (9) Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until somebody insists on getting some useful work done. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 15:03:03 EDT From: "" Subject: More OJ Jokes Here are some more OJ jokes. Some are pretty old, so sorry if you heard 'em already. * New Hertz ad to read: A Killer of a deal! * Hertz will keep OJ as a spokesperson for the new weekend getaway * If they electrocute OJ Simpson will that mean he's really getting the Juice? * What was Mrs. Simpson's last words? Stop it, OJ, it Hertz * Why won't Prison be different than football for OJ? Big black guys will still open holes for him * Why does the Juice have trouble in interrogations? He can't concentrate * What was the first thing OJ did when he got to prison? Mike Tyson * What is OJ Simpson's favorite tool company? Black & Decker * Did you here about the new CLUE game? Every time you play it, the outcome is the same-OJ in the DRIVEWAY with the KNIFE * How many OJs does it take to screw in a light bulb? None, it's okay, he can kill his wife in the dark * OJ got a new endorsement contract today...SLICE SODA * I heard OJ's chauffeur asked if he'd mind if he was late, OJ said it's OK with me but I gotta ax my wife * There once was a jealous man they called Juice, Who was so sure his wife was on the loose; He caught her embraced, and severed her face, Now he's a wife with a jealous man on his caboose! * What's LA's favorite soft drink? OJ in the can * Bumper sticker-silhouette of a man with a gun to his head-caption-OJ on Board * OJ leads the NFL in double homicides by a running back * OJ now comes with 1000% more calcium ........you'll need it for those broken bones * What did OJ say when he kicked the door down and body slammed his ex? Love Hertz, don't it baby * Hey, remember how OJ switched lawyers? Well now he's switching doctors...to doctor Kevorkian * Heard how to make the new drink....a Bloody Nicole? Add Gin, Coke and Boilin' OJ * Have you hid in a Ford lately? * Headline after the execution-OJ GETS THE JUICE * What do Nicole Simpson and a Pez dispenser have in common? Their heads both snap back * Did you guys hear about the special death penalty in CA for OJ? Its called the juiceamatic ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 17:28:19 EST From: Clarity Hands Subject: Humor: Trust in God A man accidentally fell down a cliff. Halfway down, he managed to catch himself onto a branch that's sticking out. Hoping someone could save him, he screamed, "Is there anyone up there?" A voice from above replied, "Yes, but do you trust me?" The man said, "Definitely, I will do anything you ask of me." The voice from above then siad, "Let go." The man hesitated a second and screamed, "Is there anyone ELSE up there?" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 17:44:02 EDT From: Bill Subject: Franglais humor PARIS (AP) April 94-- In its endless guerrilla war against Franglais, the government has armed itself with a new dictionary containing 3,500 translations aimed at ``user-friendliness.'' Oops, make that ``convivialite.'' From ``airbag'' (sac gonflable) to ``zoning'' (zonage), the glossy red handbook seeks to counter the ever-wider use of English in business, sports and science by providing French alternatives. It remains to be seen whether the new terms, some of them long and clumsy, will catch on in a nation struggling with itself over how to be modern, high-tech and cool, yet preserve its rich linguistic tradition. The Dictionnaire des Termes Officiels contains translations mandated by government ministries since France started fighting Franglais in the early 1970s. This year's edition adds about 100 new terms and has an English-to-French index. It also is available on Minitel, the telephone company's widely used screen-and-keyboard console. ``The idea is to be more accessible,'' said Anne Magnant, head of the French Language Delegation, which prepared the 462-page paperback. ``The dictionary must be used by public officials,'' she said, and ``we hope professionals, students and teachers will use it.'' Words that do not catch on will be dropped from future editions, Magnant said. Premier Edouard Balladur is trying to push a bill through Parliament that would toughen the language laws. During a debate in April, one Socialist senator ridiculed it as ``a Maginot Line.'' With annual revisions, the new dictionary can react more quickly to language changes than the multivolume lexicon published every few decades by the Academie Francaise. New listings include ``navetteur'' for commuter, ``ravitaillement'' for catering, ``essaimage'' for spinoff, ``numero d'urgence'' for hotline and ``telemercatique'' for telemarketing. Other terms, such as ``disque compact'' (CD), ``furtivite'' (stealth), and ``remue-meninges'' (brainstorming) have yet to achieve general use. While ``balladeur'' has replaced Walkman, French TV showed an electronics salesman who didn't know what ''presonorisation'' was until the interviewer said ``playback.'' ``We find it a bit ridiculous,'' said Bill, a deejay (animateur) on Fun Radio, a rock station that tangled with the government over a sex-oriented talk show for young people. ```Hit Parade' exists since I was born, so `palmares' would be difficult,'' he said. Bill, 25, who refused to give his real French name and shatter the mystery of his radio moniker (pronounced ``Beel''), said he was more open to the dictionary's French-spelling adaptations of English words. ``We use those in French -- tuiteur, boomeur -- that's OK,'' he said, referring to the tweeters and woofers in stereo speakers. ``French is a very beautiful language. But using all those words in Franglais has become habit.'' Americans say ``a la mode'' without fear of prosecution, though some who are upset by the onslaught of Spanish want a law making English the official language. ``Toochay,'' one might say. The new French language law would not and could not outlaw street Franglais, like ``Je suis destroy'' for ``I'm wiped out.'' It would require advertising and officially sanctioned conferences to use approved translations. State-owned agencies, media and other companies, as well as official documents, already are required to avoid English terms. Most troubling to many officials is the increasing use of English in technical fields. Leading scientific publications are in English, and executives say they must use English terms in business. ``The financial culture is mainly traditionally Anglo-Saxon,'' said Jacques Charbit, spokesman for the Banque Nationale de Paris, but acknowledged the need for French equivalents. ``It's also a question of habit,'' he said. ``People who said `debt equity futures' are now used to saying `contrats a terme.' '' One English word that remains, Charbit said, is ``swap.'' It takes too long to say ``echange financier.'' ``As much as possible, they make us speak French,'' said Michel Nico, spokesman for the state-owned computer company Groupe Bull. ``But in computers, there's a whole jargon that comes in American.'' ``In our meetings, we speak of `le soft' (software),'' he said, even though the dictionary says ``logiciel.'' Where English terms will die hard is in sports. ``I think they're probably going to bomb my apartment,'' said George Eddy, a native of Orlando, Fla., who has become a popular play-by-play announcer for basketball and other sports on the private Canal Plus television network. ``If they've been using `tie-breaker' for years, it's going to be hard to start using `jeu decisif,''' said Eddy, 37. ``Obviously I think it's stupid when you have to replace something with three or four words. And you can't tell kids how to speak. They create their own language.'' Bill Edwards, HUMOR listowner, BEDWARDS@UGA.BITNET (uga.cc.uga.edu) ===================================================================== To leave HUMOR send LISTSERV@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU the command SIGNOFF HUMOR To subscribe send LISTSERV@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU the command SUB HUMOR Call- name FamilyName. A command goes in the 1st line of the message field. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 19:31:37 -0500 From: Ian Chai Subject: Abraham & teenagers; The word from the farm on Sparcs Do you know why God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac at age 12? Because at 13 it would no longer be a sacrifice. ---------------------------------------------------- November 8, 1990 YOU CAN'T FOOL 'EM DOWN ON THE FARM! Real Americans talk About Why They Chose the Sun SPARCstation 2000 (tm) "Wow - with a workstation that powerful, I could get twice as much milking done." - Mrs. Elaine Noose, Scumwater, Oklahoma "Out here on the farm, you really learn to appreciate the value of good graphics resolution." - Ted Lumplin, Brat's Head, Nebraska "After we lost most of our cattle stock to pellegra, our barn burned down. After that, Joe got himself caught in the thresher and lost most of his body hair. Then the banks foreclosed. It sure was a comfort to know that we had 28 MIPs of power to see us through hard times." - Darrell LaQuench, Pine Agony, Maine "I believe that Virtual Quilting, using high-speed networking services, will be the wave of the future." - Mrs. Jane Dobrynin, Fleughh, Utah "Last week we had a fella from Digital come out and look at the soybean crop. After 20 minutes, Ma chased him off and threw his keyboard out the window. We`re from old Norwegian stock, and we know a thing or two about bus controllers." - Buck Flange, Arkansas, Texas Why has the SPARCstation 2000 caught the imagination of the Amer- ican working man and working woman like no other computer in its class? Maybe it's the extra features, like the padded Corinthean leather screen, or the safety air bag that inflates when the typing buffer gets too full. Maybe it's the tradition of honest service and free doughnuts. Then again, maybe not. Sun Microsystems. A Step Ahead of Your Cows. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 20:06:54 EDT From: KEITH E SULLIVAN Subject: Automobiles vs. Pedestrians (WARNING: 113 Lines Long) -- [ From: Keith E. Sullivan * EMC.Ver #2.01P ] -- AN ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF AUTOMOBILES VS. PEDESTRIANS by P.J. O'Rourke We often hear automobiles criticized. Safety experts say they are dangerous. Ecologists tell us they pollute the air. Economists claim cars are responsible for U.S. trade deficits and high energy costs. Social Scientists blame them for the deterioration of our inner cities. And aesthetes damn them for roadside blight. But even if all these accusations are true, the automobile is still an improvement on its principal alternative, the pedestrian. Pedestrians are easily damaged. Try this test: Hit a pedestrian with a car. Now have the pedestrian hit the car back. Then roll a pedestrian and a car through four inches of slush and road salt at sixty miles an hour. Take a coin-operated gun and hose off their undersides. Which is in better shape? Also, most automobiles have 5 MPH bumpers. But a pedestrian cannot be run into a wall at even 3 MPH (approximately walking speed) without getting a bloody nose. And pedestrians are notoriously expensive to repair. Automobiles are cleaner than pedestrians. Even diesel exhaust smells better than a dirty human. Pedestrians wiggle and squeal when you try to scrub them, and they are hard to wax. A dented and rusty automobile is still more attractive than the average pedestrian. Strip a car of its paint. Strip a person of his clothes. Which looks worse in broad daylight? Cars last a hundred thousand miles or so. Just try to take anybody that far on foot. Pedestrians are slow, require complex maintenance procedures and have bewildering fuel requirements. There are no quality-control or safety standards for pedestrians. And if the anti-abortion lobby gets its way, we won't even be able to recall them. Most of the time you can predict what an automobile will do. And if you loose control of an automobile you can jump out of it. But pedestrians are completely unpredictable. And when you're a pedestrian it's difficult to jump out of yourself. Not only are automobiles better than people in most respects but people behave better when they are in automobiles than they do when they are on foot. A great big crowd of people in automobiles is a traffic jam. It's unpleasant, yes--horns honk, tempers flare, etc. But a great big crowd of people OUT of automobiles is a mob. And that's worse. No traffic jam ever stormed the Winter Palace, cheered a lynching or voted Adolf Hitler into power. Most good things can be experienced in a car--eating, sleeping, sex, listening to Handel's WATER MUSIC. But the experience of evil is severely limited. Think how much less evil Central America would have experienced if, for example, all the Sandinistas had been in cars. They would have been stuck in the jungle, axle-deep in mud, and would never have been able to enslave peasants, kill contras or get any Russian weapons into El Salvador. It's hard for people to mug you from inside an automobile, and virtually impossible for them to rob your apartment without getting out of the car. People on foot are more likely not only to steal, but to litter. The normal business suit has no convenient place, such as a backseat floor, to toss candy wrappers, old newspapers and empty beer cans. When people are in a car driving down the road it's hard to hear them lie, complain, argue and spread malicious gossip--especially if you're in your own car headed the other way. Consider how much better the United Nations Assembly would be if all the delegates were speeding around the Assembly floor in old junkers having a figure-eight race and smashing into each other. It would be more interesting for everybody, and the intellectual quality of debate would be greatly improved. The same goes double for Congress. True, some trouble, such as drive-by shootings and fatal crashes, can be caused in an automobile. But often it's just a pedestrian who gets killed. And though drunk drivers are a menace, drunk parents are a worse one. They do more damage to society stumbling around the house than anybody ever did in a head-on collision. All children should be given a car as soon as they are old enough to wash it and vacuum the seats. Owning and caring for an automobile builds good citizenship. Children can learn a great deal by watching their automobile and following its example. Automobiles are democratic. A Plymouth Velvedere is more than a match for a Lamborghini is a six- car pile-up. Automobiles are egalitarian, as anybody who's ever drag raced a Bently in an old Mustang knows. Automobiles are strangers to sexism. You can't possible say that a car's place is in the kitchen. And there's never been any such thing as distaff automobiles that couldn't vote or Chinese wire-wheel binding. Automobiles have no unfortunate allegorical connotations. A man on horseback is a symbol of authoritarianism. But a man on a car roof is just silly. There are no religious controversies among automobiles. Automobiles belong to no race and have no political opinions (though a Trabant, if it could, would probably wish it had been designed by somebody other than a drunk communist). Automobiles are free of egotism, passion, prejudice and stupid ideas about where to have dinner. They are literally, selfless. A world designed for automobiles instead of people would have wider streets, larger dining rooms, fewer stairs to climb and no smelly, dangerous subway stations. Indeed, we would lead better lives and be a wiser nation if we placed the automobile, instead of our own ambitions and greed, at the center of our society. This should be taken into consideration the next time we amend our Constitution: ARTICLE I: Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a boring old 55 MPH speed limit; or prohibiting the free exercise of performance cars on empty winding roads; or abridging the freedom to cruise around aimlessly; or the right of the people to remove those annoying voice boxes that tell you to buckle your seat belt. ARTICLE II: Contented Yahoos being necessary for the amusement of a free state, the right of Texans (and people who act like Texans) to drive around with guns in the gunracks of their pick-up trucks and shoot varmits and critters out the window shall not be infringed. ARTICLE III: No driver's education student or School Safety Patrol member shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house if he won't shovel the driveway. ARTICLE IV: The right of the people to be secure in their cars, trucks, vans and RVs against unreasonable nosiness shall not be violated, and no policemen with flashlights or irate parents shall come poking around country lanes or scenic overlooks while couples are parked and necking. ARTICLE V: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual wisecracks by local traffic cops made just because somebody forgot to get their car inspected or was going 38 in a 35 MPH zone. And so on. It would give us a federal charter that really has something to do with our day-to-day lives. And it would keep our legislators and Supreme Court busy with important things instead of school prayer and covert CIA antics. Plus--and this is very important-- parking would be an unalienable right. From GIVE WAR A CHANCE Copyright (c) 1992 by P.J. O'Rourke ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 21:52:12 -0500 From: Bruce Olson Subject: Engineering Logic Several years ago, when there was a scare about terrorists planting bombs on pla nes, an engineer who traveled a great deal became concerned over the probatility of there being a bomb on one of the planes when he was flying. Being the metho dical sort, he calculated the probability using the number of flights he took, a nd the percentage of flights on which there was a bomb. He found that there was a small, but still frightening probability that someday he would be flying on a plane some day that had a bomb on board. He worried and thought about the prob lem for a while, and finally came up with a solution. He calculated the probability of being on a plane which had two bombs on board, and found that the likelyhood of this was practically non-existent. So, he made his own bomb, and took it with him whenever he traveled by air. bruce ------------------------------ End of HUMOR Digest - 1 Oct 1994 to 2 Oct 1994 **********************************************