Pittsburgh driver's test
8: Pedestrians are
	a) irrelevant.
	b) communists.
	c) a nuisance.
	d) difficult to clean off the front grille.
The correct answer is a.  Pedestrians are not in cars, so they
are totally irrelevant to driving, and you should ignore them
completely.

			Pittsburgh driver's test
9: Roads are salted in order to
	a) kill grass.
	b) melt snow.
	c) help the economy.
	d) prevent potholes.
The correct answer is c.
Road salting employs thousands of persons directly, and millions more
indirectly, for example, salt miners and rustproofers.  Most important,
salting reduces the life spans of cars, thus stimulating the car and
steel industries.

		      THE STORY OF CREATION
				or
			 THE MYTH OF URK

In the beginning there was data.  The data was without form and null,
and darkness was upon the face of the console; and the Spirit of IBM
was moving over the face of the market.  And DEC said, "Let there be
registers"; and there were registers.  And DEC saw that they carried;
and DEC separated the data from the instructions.  DEC called the data
Stack, and the instructions they called Code.  And there was evening
and there was morning, one interrupt ...
		-- Rico Tudor

		     JACK AND THE BEANSTACK
			  by Mark Isaak

	Long ago, in a finite state far away, there lived a JOVIAL
character named Jack.  Jack and his relations were poor.  Often their
hash table was bare.  One day Jack's parent said to him, "Our matrices
are sparse.  You must go to the market to exchange our RAM for some
BASICs."  She compiled a linked list of items to retrieve and passed it
to him.
	So Jack set out.  But as he was walking along a Hamilton path,
he met the traveling salesman.
	"Whither dost thy flow chart take thou?" prompted the salesman
in high-level language.
	"I'm going to the market to exchange this RAM for some chips
and Apples," commented Jack.
	"I have a much better algorithm.  You needn't join a queue
there; I will swap your RAM for these magic kernels now."
	Jack made the trade, then backtracked to his house.  But when
he told his busy-waiting parent of the deal, she became so angry she
started thrashing.
	"Don't you even have any artificial intelligence?  All these
kernels together hardly make up one byte," and she popped them out the
window ...

		Answers to Last Fortune's Questions:

(1) None.  (Moses didn't have an ark).
(2) Your mother, by the pigeonhole principle.
(3) I don't know.
(4) Who cares?
(5) 6 (or maybe 4, or else 3).  Mr. Alfred J. Duncan of Podunk,
    Montana, submitted an interesting solution to Problem 5.
(6) There is an interesting solution to this problem on page 1029 of my
    book, which you can pick up for $23.95 at finer bookstores and
    bathroom supply outlets (or 99 cents at the table in front of
    Papyrus Books).

		DETERIORATA

Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice -- even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss -- and when.
Remember that two wrongs never make a right,
But that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on "HOLD".
Be comforted, that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
And despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.

	You are a fluke of the universe ...
	You have no right to be here.
	Whether you can hear it or not, the universe
	Is laughing behind your back.
		-- National Lampoon

		Double Bucky
	(Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie")

Double bucky, you're the one!
You make my keyboard lots of fun
	Double bucky, an additional bit or two:
(Vo-vo-de-o!)
Control and Meta side by side,
Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!
	Double bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!

Double bucky, left and right
OR'd together, outta sight!
	Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of
	Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of
	Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!
		-- Guy L. Steele, Jr., (C) 1978
		(to Nicholas Wirth, who suggested that an extra bit
		be added to terminal codes on 36-bit machines for use
		by screen editors.)

		Hard Copies and Chmod

And everyone thinks computers are impersonal
cold diskdrives hardware monitors
user-hostile software

of course they're only bits and bytes
and characters and strings
and files

just some old textfiles from my old boyfriend
telling me he loves me and
he'll take care of me

simply a discarded printout of a friend's directory
deep intimate secrets and
how he doesn't trust me

couldn't hurt me more if they were scented in lavender or mould
on personal stationery
		-- terri@csd4.milw.wisc.edu

		`O' LEVEL COUNTER CULTURE
Timewarp allowed: 3 hours.  Do not scrawl situationalist graffiti in the
margins or stub your rollups in the inkwells.  Orange may be worn.  Credit
will be given to candidates who self-actualize.

	1: Compare and contrast Pink Floyd with Black Sabbath and say why
neither has street credibility.
	2: "Even Buddha would have been hard pushed to reach Nirvana squatting
on a juggernaut route."  Consider the dialectic of inner truth and inner
city.
	3: Discuss degree of hassle involved in paranoia about being sucked
into a black hole.
	4: "The Egomaniac's Liberation Front were a bunch of revisionist
ripoff merchants."  Comment on this insult.
	5: Account for the lack of references to brown rice in Dylan's lyrics.
	6: "Castenada was a bit of a bozo."  How far is this a fair summing
up of western dualism?
	7: Hermann Hesse was a Pisces.  Discuss.

		OUTCONERR
Twas FORTRAN as the doloop goes
	Did logzerneg the ifthen block
All kludgy were the function flows
	And subroutines adhoc.

Beware the runtime-bug my friend
	squrooneg, the false goto
Beware the infiniteloop
	And shun the inprectoo.

		Safety Tips for the Post-Nuclear Existence
1.	Never use an elevator in a building that has been hit by a
		nuclear bomb, use the stairs.
2.	When you're flying through the air, remember to roll
		when you hit the ground.
3.	If you're on fire, avoid gasoline and other flammable materials.
4.	Don't attempt communication with dead people; it will only lead
		to psychological problems.
5.	Food will be scarce, you will have to scavenge.  Learn to recognize
		foods that will be available after the bomb: mashed potatoes,
		shredded wheat, tossed salad, ground beef, etc.
6.	Put your hand over your mouth when you sneeze, internal organs
		will be scarce in the post-nuclear age.
7.	Try to be neat, fall only in designated piles.
8.	Drive carefully in "Heavy Fallout" areas, people could be
		staggering illegally.
9.	Nutritionally, hundred dollar bills are equal to one's, but more
		sanitary due to limited circulation.
10.	Accumulate mannequins now, spare parts will be in short
		supply on D-Day.

		The Guy on the Right Doesn't Stand a Chance
The guy on the right has the Osborne 1, a fully functional computer system
in a portable package the size of a briefcase.  The guy on the left has an
Uzi submachine gun concealed in his attache case.  Also in the case are four
fully loaded, 32-round clips of 125-grain 9mm ammunition.  The owner of the
Uzi is going to get more tactical firepower delivered -- and delivered on
target -- in less time, and with less effort.  All for $795. It's inevitable.
If you're going up against some guy with an Osborne 1 -- or any personal
computer -- he's the one who's in trouble.  One round from an Uzi can zip
through ten inches of solid pine wood, so you can imagine what it will do
to structural foam acrylic and sheet aluminum.  In fact, detachable magazines
for the Uzi are available in 25-, 32-, and 40-round capacities, so you can
take out an entire office full of Apple II or IBM Personal Computers tied
into Ethernet or other local-area networks.  What about the new 16-bit
computers, like the Lisa and Fortune?  Even with the Winchester backup,
they're no match for the Uzi.  One quick burst and they'll find out what
Unix means.  Make your commanding officer proud.  Get an Uzi -- and come home
a winner in the fight for office automatic weapons.
		-- "InfoWorld", June, 1984

		The STAR WARS Song
	Sung to the tune of "Lola", by the Kinks:

I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah
Where it bubbles all the time like a giant cabinet soda
	S-O-D-A soda
I saw the little runt sitting there on a log
I asked him his name and in a raspy voice he said Yoda
	Y-O-D-A Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda

Well I've been around but I ain't never seen
A guy who looks like a Muppet but he's wrinkled and green
	Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda
Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand
How he can raise me in the air just by raising his hand
	Oh my Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda, Yo-Yo-Yo-Yo Yoda

		The Three Major Kind of Tools

* Tools for hitting things to make them loose or to tighten them up or
  jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a
  manner that they function perfectly.  (These are your hammers, maces,
  bludgeons, and truncheons.)

* Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot.  (Awls)

* Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far
  greater than the value of any project that could possibly result.
  (Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses
  any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.)
		-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

		(to "The Caissons Go Rolling Along")
Scratch the disks, dump the core,	Shut it down, pull the plug
Roll the tapes across the floor,	Give the core an extra tug
And the system is going to crash.	And the system is going to crash.
Teletypes smashed to bits.		Mem'ry cards, one and all,
Give the scopes some nasty hits		Toss out halfway down the hall
And the system is going to crash.	And the system is going to crash.
And we've also found			Just flip one switch
When you turn the power down,		And the lights will cease to twitch
You turn the disk readers into trash.	And the tape drives will crumble
						in a flash.
Oh, it's so much fun,			When the CPU
Now the CPU won't run			Can print nothing out but "foo,"
And the system is going to crash.	The system is going to crash.

		'Twas the Night before Crisis

'Twas the night before crisis, and all through the house,
	Not a program was working not even a browse.
The programmers were wrung out too mindless to care,
	Knowing chances of cutover hadn't a prayer.
The users were nestled all snug in their beds,
	While visions of inquiries danced in their heads.
When out in the lobby there arose such a clatter,
	I sprang from my tube to see what was the matter.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
	But a Super Programmer, oblivious to fear.
More rapid than eagles, his programs they came,
	And he whistled and shouted and called them by name;
On Update!  On Add!  On Inquiry!  On Delete!
	On Batch Jobs!  On Closing!  On Functions Complete!
His eyes were glazed over, his fingers were lean,
	From Weekends and nights in front of a screen.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
	Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread...

		What I Did During My Fall Semester
On the first day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.

On the second day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
Then I hung out in front of the Dover.

On the third day of my fall semester, I got up.
Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic.
I found a thesis topic:
	How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover.
		-- Sister Mary Elephant,
		   "Student Statement for Black Friday"

		William Safire's Rules for Writers:

Remember to never split an infinitive.  The passive voice should never
be used.  Do not put statements in the negative form.  Verbs has to
agree with their subjects.  Proofread carefully to see if you words
out.  If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal
of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.  A writer must
not shift your point of view.  And don't start a sentence with a
conjunction.  (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a
sentence with.)  Don't overuse exclamation marks!!  Place pronouns as
close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more
words, to their antecedents.  Writing carefully, dangling participles
must be avoided.  If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a
linking verb is.  Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing
metaphors.  Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.  Everyone should
be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their
writing.  Always pick on the correct idiom.  The adverb always follows
the verb.  Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek
viable alternatives.

	      1/2
	 /(3)
	 |     2			  1/3
	 |    z dz cos(3 * PI / 9) = ln (e   )
	 |
	/ 1

The integral of z squared, dz
From 1 to the square root of 3
	Times the cosine
	Of 3 PI over nine
Is the log of the cube root of e

	   THE DAILY PLANET

	SUPERMAN SAVES DESSERT!
	Plans to "Eat it later"