mcgees.org

All three Sic! entries from Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words column this week are priceless.  The first had me cracking up when it arrived in my inbox at work:

From Jonathan Spencer: “Your piece on Murphy’s Law reminded this
transplanted Brit living in New York of being temporarily taken
aback by the sign on a local highway after the median had been
returfed. KEEP OFF SOD, it said”.

This note in the Daily Telegraph’s television guide last Wednesday
was presumably the result of a unconscious mental association and
not an ill-judged attempt at a joke: “With the Pope’s health fast
failing, critics argue that this is not the time for the BBC to
pontificate”.

Dermod Quirke mentioned a letter from Professor Yiannis Gabriel,
which appeared in the Guardian on 24 September (see the Web page
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1048372,00.html):
“Why should childless parents pay taxes to fund schools?”

What, exactly, do you think research of this patent entailed?

The Smoking Gun prepared a FOIA request for complaints and injury reports by workers and guests at the Los Angeles Zoo.  My favorite is a worker’s injury report:

I was scratching the male maned wolfs [sic] shoulders through the chain link fence when he turned suddenly [and] bit my left hand”

The supervisor, quite reasonably to this reader, responded as follows:

Keeper should never have put fingers into animal area — she is experienced enough to know this.  More safety talks cannot replace common sense.

From I, Cringely: The Pulpit:

Finally, I am sorry to report this week the death of George Morrow, one of the early pioneers of personal computing.  Morrow started two computer companies of his own — Morrow’s Microstuff and Thinkertoys (later called Morrow Designs after the lawyers for TinkerToys objected) — and his computer designs were also built by Osborne Computing and Zenith Data Systems.  George was audited by the IRS, and the agent used a Z-171 computer that George designed.  The computer failed halfway through the audit, so George fixed it.

The granite bird on my front lawn

Which I see every morning at dawn

   May appear to be igneous

   But should rather be “cygneous”,

Because it resembles a swan

Sorry, I just learned that word and had to work it into a limerick.  :-p

I received a request for attribution from the author of the original “What Would Jesus Drive?” article that I discussed in August 2001.  Follow that link to check it out.

Iraqi Explorer: These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed

“Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer,” says English jurist William Blackstone.  The ratio 10:1 has become known as the “Blackstone ratio.”  Lawyers “are indoctrinated” with it “early in law school.”  “Schoolboys are taught” it.  In the fantasies of legal academics, jurors think about Blackstone routinely.

The essay “n Guilty Men“, published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, is one of the most hilarious things I have ever read.  Rarely have I seen a better executed example of bone-dry humor.

MetaFilter sent me to a hilarious site (subtitled “A Primer on Parent Cruelty“) at which a commentator tears into posts on baby name bulletin boards.  For instance, there’s this:

For the last 50 years, my family has been naming their children after Southwestern Ontario cities.  My brother is Barrie, my sister is Kingston, and my cousin is Markham.  I am due in two weeks (it’ll be a girl) and I thinking about naming her either York or Orillia.  What do others think?

I think it’s time for a nuclear strike against Ottawa.

… and this …

here are some names i saw today

kaytaquana

alliwen

camianne

shaynelna

karlakenya

adanah

leezi

mays

karjovon

brandnel

jaslera

breedee

tylee

allikaylor

tylera

shairani

I’m guessing (hoping, praying) these are names you saw today while you were hitting random keys on the computer at Bellevue just before the Thorazine kicked in.  Wait, let me try:

huvven

woakam

euwher

iluhad

joofenkel (for boy or girl)

jofwern

mu’ulf

opiuren

puj

yubjibi

roowp

qimwoup

Abcadeffgheejecklemenopqrestuvwexiz (the most incredible word I’ve ever seen!)

Not that I’m completely innocent in this respect.  I think Niamh (feminine) and Reason (masculine) are great names.  But Jaslera?  Karlakenya?  Let’s hope the person was joking.

One person proposes what he calls the “Secretary of State Test”, “i.e., imagine how it would sound to have a news anchor read the now-adult child’s name out in a serious context like “Today at the United Nations, Secretary of State [Brandy Alexandra Jones] condemned Iraq’s stance….”  Another person, at a different site, suggests that when naming a child, you should first “go to the back door, fling it open and yell the name at the top of your lungs six or eight times, because that’s how it’s going to be heard for the next eighteen years.”

A gem from ‘the CarTalk section of cars.com’:

Q: Would it be safe to travel with approximately 50 pounds of dry ice in the trunk of a car over a two- to three-day period?  There will be two adults and two pets traveling in the car. — Karen

A: As long as one of the pets is a canary, Karen.

Russian, Albanian Election Monitors Sent to Florida

Deception has a new name: Joshua McGee

From inksyndicate.com

Last week Joshua McGee went so far as to leave the mainstream completely and enter a kind of obsessive and even dangerous alternate universe of duplicitous spin.

Like Bin Laden, Joshua McGee believes in a bizarrely hollow philosophy of mendacity.  Isn’t it clear by now that the world is menaced by a weaseling psychopath who has already tried to get his hands on uranium?  Joshua McGee and his outrageous slanderers are at it again.  “Don’t hurt me,” he said on his web page.  Well, duh.

Breathtakingly, to be one of the hate-crazed cultural elite is to deceive and disgrace.

When will Joshua McGee come clean about the way he attacks President Bush?

A leader not trying to take the war to Saddam would be outrageously pro-shoplifting in the extreme.

Had you going, didn’t I?  Visit Ink Syndicate’s R. Robot is making sense, enter the name of a liberal, and let the ‘warbot’ automatically craft an anti-liberal rant.

Bob’s Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots.

Would you have invested?

The Forbes Fictional Fifteen.  So who’s richer: Daddy Warbucks, Bruce Wayne, or J.R. Ewing?

This is great.  Some wiseass was actually able to extract $3 from a Nigerian 419 scammer.  He needed this money to prove they were acting in good faith.  Go figure.

More on manipulating 419 scammers here.

It’s … Lego Chef!

For the twelfth bug of Christmas, my manager said to me,

   Tell them it’s a feature

   Say it’s not supported

   Change the documentation

   Blame it on the hardware

   Find a way around it

   Say they need an upgrade

   Reinstall the software

   Ask for a dump

   Run with the debugger

   Try to reproduce it

   Ask them how they did it and

   See if they can do it again.

Or maybe you would prefer the “ABCs of Unix”.  It’s actually a pretty good introduction to Unix for a neophyte:

…S is for Spell, which attempts to belittle, while

T is for True, which does very little.

U is for Uniq, which is used after Sort, and

V is for Vi, which is hard to abort…

Or perhaps your taste runs to a computer programming song called “Write in C,” sung to the lyrics of the Beatles’ “Let It Be”:

A thousand people sware that T.P.

Seven is the one for me.

I hate the word PROCEDURE,

Write in C.

Be afraid.  There are many, many more.

I have started watching televised billiards.  I find this to be a fascinating game.  There is a great deal of logical and geometric reasoning involved coupled with precise training of bodily movements, sort of chess meets figure skating.

I followed the women’s world semifinals and finals, with players from the U.S., U.K., and Ireland reaching the top ranks.  The two finalists both have “a snooker background”, say the announcers, and explain that snooker is played on a longer table (so they are very good with use of the bridge) and with smaller balls (so they have good ball control.)  And watching Jeanette Lee, known as The Black Widow, lean over the cloth, chest touching the table and long black hair brushing the felt, I noted that billiards is the only women’s sport in which the sportcaster can get away with proclaiming “Nice rack!”

Product Warning, Epistemological Denotation:

The consumer must understand that due to the a-priori impossibility
of assuring a shared denotation amongst independent agents, none of
the advertising material, product literature, instructions, or safety
warnings (including this one), associated with this product may
contain what the consumer perceives to be factual information.

See this and more philosophy humour.

For those following the story, my digital cable was finally installed this past Saturday, with another conversation worthy of the one with dear Ernesto.  This one was with the cable installer:

Installer:  I called this morning and you didn’t answer.

Josh:  Really?

Installer:  Yes, but the base said I had to come anyway.

Josh:  Well, I’m glad you did.  What number did you call?

Installer:  Both of them.

Josh:  What were the numbers?

Installer:  I left messages on both numbers.

Josh:  Could you please read the numbers?

Installer:  Yes.  The first one is 373-4027.  The second one is 373-4027.

Josh:  (pause)

Installer:  Oh, I guess those are the same.

Josh:  Yes, and that’s my work number.

Only when guns are used as intended are they significantly dangerous to anyone.  But try telling this to all the crybabies suing the gun companies because not everybody in their family is alive.  What exactly are you suing them for — making a reliable product?  That’s a laugh.  Somebody should be suing those shoddy import jobs: You’d be lucky to kill a baby with one of them.

            – Courtesy of The Onion

Ralph Nader, in an episode of Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect, on the 2000 U.S. presidential debates between Bush and Gore:

It was unbelievable.  Gore spoke to the American people as if they did not understand the English language, and Bush spoke to the American people as if he didn’t understand the English language.

The overpriced cable company that serves the new house has one of the most frustrating sales departments I
have ever dealt with.  I am ordering from them cable television and cable modem services.  To
get the cable television installed, however, I have to wait until the cable modem gets installed.  I
cannot even schedule an installation for the cable television until the cable modem is
installed.  This was scheduled for the 30^th of last month, but the guy never
showed up.  It was rescheduled for this morning, but the guy did not show up until 2 p.m. (Jenn waited
around for him.)  Jenn told me he had finished, so I called Ernesto (my rep) to schedule the installation of the cable television service.  Here is the conversation:

Ernesto:  Hi Josh, we can get the home installation taken care of now.

Josh:  Great!

Ernesto:   OK, how many televisions do you have?

Josh:  Two.

Ernesto:   OK.  So on the first one we’ll set up a cable box.  That’s 64
basic channels, plus 77 digital channels, plus [some number] of music channels, plus four talk radio
channels, plus ten HBO and eight Showtime.  On the other television you will just have the 64 basic
channels.  After the first month [that I'm receiving for free as a promotion], if you choose to
keep it, it will be $65 per month.

Josh:  The $65 includes the pay channels?

Ernesto:   Yes.

Josh:  And how much would it be without the pay channels?

Ernesto:   $43 per month.

Josh:  OK, so I would then have the sixty-whatever basic channels, the 77 digital
channels and the music.

Ernesto:   No.

Josh:  I’m sorry?

Ernesto:   No.  You wouldn’t have the digital channels.

Josh:  I’m trying to figure out how much it would be if I just dropped the HBO and
Showtime.

Ernesto:   So you don’t want the digital channels?

Josh:  No, I am interested in the digital channels, and I’m trying to see how much that would be without HBO and Showtime.

Ernesto:   $65.

Josh:  (pause)

Ernesto:   (pause)

Josh:  Ernesto, does that include the HBO and Showtime?

Ernesto:   Errr, yes.

Josh:  How much would it be for the service without HBO and without Showtime?

Ernesto:   $43.

Josh:  $43?

Ernesto:   Yes.

Josh:  Does that include the digital channels?

Ernesto:   No, but if you, I mean if you want to, I mean you don’t have to decide right
now, you can tell us after the first month….

Josh:  Ernesto, I’m not trying to be critical or to complain here.  I’m just trying
to find out how much this will cost.

Ernesto:   OK.

Josh:  OK.  Can I get the digital channels without subscribing to HBO and
Showtime?

Ernesto:   Of course.

Josh:  How much would it be to have the digital cable box, but not have HBO and
Showtime?

Ernesto:   $6 more per month.

Josh:  OK, $6 more.  So the total cost would be $49 per month, right?

Ernesto:   Errr, yes, $49.

Josh:  That sounds pretty good.

Ernesto:   OK.  And if you want the digital channels at some point, that would be
only $10 more per month.

Josh:  (pause)

Ernesto:   (pause)

Josh:  I thought you just said $6.

Ernesto:   Yes.

Josh:  For the digital cable box it would be $6 per month.

Ernesto:   Yes, $6 for the box.  And then if you decided you wanted the
digital channels that would be only $10 more per month.

Josh:  Why in the world would I want a digital cable box if I didn’t have digital
channels?

Ernesto:   (pause)

Josh:  One can’t be used without the other, right?

Ernesto:   Right.

Josh:  So it’s just that you guys list them separately, you need both to get the digital
channels, right?

Ernesto:   Huh?

Josh:  To get digital channels, I would need to pay $6 per month for the digital cable
box and $10 per month for the digital channels.

Ernesto:   Yes.

Josh:  So it would be $16 per month in addition to the $43.

Ernesto:   Uh, $16 … err … right.  That would put you around $60 per month.

“Zarusoba: Ochazuke has you have paste and hail and tea with the paddle rice which there was.”

got raisins?

The cause of death for Camus was obviously the plague; Darwin was simply unfit to continue; Einstein, to his misfortune, diced with God.  Freud slipped, Decartes stopped thinking, Galileo stopped moving.  It was clearly Luther’s diet of worms that did him in, while for Rousseau it was a contract job.  For Sartre it was nausea, for Spinoza substance abuse.  And Anselm?  A disease no greater than which can be conceived.

A requirement for a philosophy degree might be for the candidate to get each of the 100+ jokes.

What will the new [Euro] coins look like?

There are to be eight euro coins worth, in descending order, two and one euros, then 50, 20, 10, five, two and one cents…

And the notes?

There will be seven notes, ranging upwards from five, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 euros - the last worth around £300 [US$450]…

Who wants a note worth £300?

Rich people, probably.

        - Euro notes and coins, Guardian Unlimited, 30 August 2001

Over the weekend, Jenn, accidentally misquoting the Kellogg’s elves, uttered the memorable phrase “Crack, Snapple, Pop”, sounding a good deal like the shopping list of one addicted to chemical stimulants.

Do check out the site Computer Stupidities if you need to be cheered up.  This site houses a great collection of people being triumphantly stupid in the face of technology.  I present a tiny sampling here.

I own a computer store. One day, two policemen came
into the store and told that they owned a 486 and a
286. They asked if a 486 and a 286 could be assembled
together into a 686. I replied to the dumb request by
asking them if two 200 horsepower police cars can be
used to make up a 400 horsepower Ferrari. The
policemen didn’t get it and replied angrily that
altering car engines is strictly forbidden by law.

---

• Customer: “I have a very big problem! If you don’t
  help me right now I will return the computer!”

• Tech Support: “Well sir, what can I do for you?”
• Customer: “Well, I just got my system today, and my
  friend installed a screen saver, and it comes up
  fine…BUT EVERY TIME I MOVE THE MOUSE IT GOES
  AWAY!!!!!!!”

---

Fact: Boston Computer Museum sells chocolate bars shaped like floppy disks.

Fact: Three year old kids see daddy boot his computer using a floppy to play games.

Fact: Computers are warm inside…even some quite expensive computers.

I don’t want to talk about it.

---

One user was very angry with me, because the
documentation that I had written did not work for him
at all. So I walked him through the document step by
step. As I went along, I asked him what had happened
on screen as he completed each step. When I got to
step 5, I got total silence as a response. When I
asked him again what happened when he did step 5, he
said, “Oh, I didn’t understand what that step was for,
so I skipped it.”

And one that turns the tables a bit…

---

A few years ago, my daughter took over my computer
sales and service business. Although she is probably
“techier” than I am now, at the time she was pretty
inexperienced, particularly when it came to hardware.
As part of her training, she assisted me while I did
various repairs. I remember stressing to her, “When
diagnosing and repairing problems, it’s important to
stay calm. If you panic, you’ll make mistakes.”

We were installing a hard drive in one particular
machine. The workbench was cluttered, so she had the
case, and I had the keyboard and monitor a few feet
away. After plugging everything in, I told her to hit
the power switch while I got ready to access the CMOS
from the keyboard. I was looking at the monitor when I
heard her calmly say, “Ok, now the drive’s on fire. Is
that normal?”

I had certainly never seen a drive actually burst into
flames before (obviously it was VERY faulty), and I
immediately shouted in a panicked voice “Turn it off!
Turn it off!” My daughter, however, was completely
calm.