UNIX will be half a billion (500000000) seconds old on
Tue Nov  5 00:53:20 1985 GMT (measuring since the time(2) epoch).
		-- Andy Tannenbaum


But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who
was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal
education and lived in New Jersey.  Edison's first major invention in
1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of
American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was
invented.  But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879, when he
invented the electric company.  Edison's design was a brilliant
adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends
electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the
electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant
part) sends it right back to the customer again.

This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch
of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since
very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely.
In fact the last year any new electricity was generated in the United
States was 1937; the electric companies have been merely re-selling it
ever since, which is why they have so much free time to apply for rate
increases.
		-- Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"


It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a
pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the
sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their colour.
		-- Voltaire


Scotty: Captain, we din' can reference it!
Kirk:	 Analysis, Mr. Spock?
Spock:	 Captain, it doesn't appear in the symbol table.
Kirk:	 Then it's of external origin?
Spock:	 Affirmative.
Kirk:	 Mr. Sulu, go to pass two.
Sulu:	 Aye aye, sir, going to pass two.


			"The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies
			and chase them before you, to rob them of their
			wealth and to see those dear to them bathed in
			tears, to ride their horses and to clasp to your
			bosom their wives and daughters."
					-- Ghengis Kahn, civic leader and
					   Bud man
%%
	Festivity Level 1: Your guests are chatting amiably with each
other, admiring your Christmas-tree ornaments, singing carols around
the upright piano, sipping at their drinks and nibbling hors
d'oeuvres.
	Festivity Level 2: Your guests are talking loudly -- sometimes
to each other, and sometimes to nobody at all, rearranging your
Christmas-tree ornaments, singing "I Gotta Be Me" around the upright
piano, gulping their drinks and wolfing down hors d'oeuvres.
	Festivity Level 3: Your guests are arguing violently with
inanimate objects, singing "I can't get no satisfaction," gulping down
other peoples' drinks, wolfing down Christmas tree ornaments and
placing hors d'oeuvres in the upright piano to see what happens when
the little hammers strike.
	Festivity Level 4: Your guests, hors d'oeuvres smeared all over
their naked bodies are performing a ritual dance around the burning
Christmas tree.  The piano is missing.

	You want to keep your party somewhere around level 3, unless
you rent your home and own Firearms, in which case you can go to level
4.  The best way to get to level 3 is egg-nog.
%%
The birds are singing, the flowers are budding, and it is time for Miss
Manners to tell young lovers to stop necking in public.

It's not that Miss Manners is immune to romance.  Miss Manners has been
known to squeeze a gentleman's arm while being helped over a curb, and,
in her wild youth, even to press a dainty slipper against a foot or two
under the dinner table.  Miss Manners also believes that the sight of
people strolling hand in hand or arm in arm or arm in hand dresses up a
city considerably more than the more familiar sight of people shaking
umbrellas at one another.  What Miss Manners objects to is the kind of
activity that frightens the horses on the street ...


California, n.:
	From Latin "calor", meaning "heat" (as in English "calorie" or
	Spanish "caliente"); and "fornia'" for "sexual intercourse" or
	"fornication."  Hence: Tierra de California, "the land of hot
	sex."
		-- Ed Moran


A is for Amy who fell down the stairs, B is for Basil assaulted by bears.
C is for Clair who wasted away, D is for Desmond thrown out of the sleigh.
E is for Ernest who choked on a peach, F is for Fanny, sucked dry by a leech.
G is for George, smothered under a rug, H is for Hector, done in by a thug.
I is for Ida who drowned in the lake, J is for James who took lye, by mistake.
K is for Kate who was struck with an axe, L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks.
M is for Maud who was swept out to sea, N is for Nevil who died of enui.
O is for Olive, run through with an awl, P is for Prue, trampled flat in a brawl
Q is for Quinton who sank in a mire, R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire.
S is for Susan who parished of fits, T is for Titas who flew into bits.
U is for Una  who slipped down a drain, V is for Victor, squashed under a train.
W is for Winie, embedded in ice, X is for Xerxies, devoured by mice.
Y is for Yoric whose head was bashed in, Z is for Zilla who drank too much gin.
		-- Edward Gorey "The Ghastly Crumb Tines"


			Get GUMMed
			----------

The Gurus of Unix Meeting of Minds (GUMM) takes place Wednesday, April
1, 2076 (check THAT in your perpetual calendar program), 14 feet above
the ground directly in front of the Milpitas Gumps.  Members will grep
each other by the hand (after intro), yacc a lot, smoke filtered
chroots in pipes, chown with forks, use the wc (unless uuclean), fseek
nice zombie processes, strip, and sleep, but not, we hope, od.  Three
days will be devoted to discussion of the ramifications of whodo.  Two
seconds have been allotted for a complete rundown of all the user-
friendly features of Unix.  Seminars include "Everything You Know is
Wrong", led by Tom Kempson, "Batman or Cat:man?" led by Richie Dennis
"cc C?  Si!  Si!" led by Kerwin Bernighan, and "Document Unix, Are You
Kidding?" led by Jan Yeats.  No Reader Service No. is necessary because
all GUGUs (Gurus of Unix Group of Users) already know everything we
could tell them.
		-- Dr. Dobb's Journal, June '84


	It was the next morning that the armies of Twodor marched east
laden with long lances, sharp swords, and death-dealing hangovers.  The
thousands were led by Arrowroot, who sat limply in his sidesaddle,
nursing a whopper.  Goodgulf, Gimlet, and the rest rode by him, praying
for their fate to be quick, painless, and if possible, someone else's.
	Many an hour the armies forged ahead, the war-merinos bleating
under their heavy burdens and the soldiers bleating under their melting
icepacks.
		-- The Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"


!07/11 PDP a ni deppart m'I  !pleH


The following quote is from page 4-27 of the MSCP Basic Disk Functions
Manual which is part of the UDA50 Programmers Doc Kit manuals:

As stated above, the host area of a disk is structured as a vector of
logical blocks.  From a performance viewpoint, however, it is more
appropriate to view the host area as a four dimensional hyper-cube, the
four dimensions being cylinder, group, track, and sector.
	. . .
Referring to our hyper-cube analogy, the set of potentially accessible
blocks form a line parallel to the track axis.  This line moves
parallel to the sector axis, wrapping around when it reaches the edge
of the hyper-cube.


Review Questions

(1) If Nerd on the planet Nutley starts out in his spaceship at 20 KPH,
    and his speed doubles every 3.2 seconds, how long will it be before
    he exceeds the speed of light?  How long will it be before the
    Galactic Patrol picks up the pieces of his spaceship?

(2) If Roger Rowdy wrecks his car every week, and each week he breaks
    twice as many bones as before, how long will it be before he breaks
    every bone in his body?  How long will it be before they cut off
    his insurance?  Where does he get a new car every week?

(3) If Johnson drinks one beer the first hour (slow start), four beers
    the next hour, nine beers the next, etc., and stacks the cans in a
    pyramid, how soon will Johnson's pyramid be larger than King
    Tut's?  When will it fall on him?  Will he notice?


	THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #10: SIMPLE

SIMPLE is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Monopurpose Programming Language
Environment.  This language, developed at the Hanover College for
Technological Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code
with errors in it.  The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN,
END and STOP.  No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't make
a syntax error.  Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful.  Thus
they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without
the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging.
%%
	THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #12: LITHP

This otherwise unremarkable language is distinguished by the absence of
an "S" in its character set; users must substitute "TH".  LITHP is said
to be useful in protheththing lithtth.
%%
	THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #13: SLOBOL

SLOBOL is best known for the speed, or lack of it, of its compiler.
Although many compilers allow you to take a coffee break while they
compile, SLOBOL compilers allow you to travel to Bolivia to pick the
coffee.  Forty-three programmers are known to have died of boredom
sitting at their terminals while waiting for a SLOBOL program to
compile.  Weary SLOBOL programmers often turn to a related (but
infinitely faster) language, COCAINE.
%%
	THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #17: SARTRE

Named after the late existential philosopher, SARTRE is an extremely
unstructured language.  Statements in SARTRE have no purpose; they just
are.  Thus SARTRE programs are left to define their own functions.
SARTRE programmers tend to be boring and depressed, and are no fun at
parties.
%%
	THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #18: C-

This language was named for the grade received by its creator when he
submitted it as a class project in a graduate programming class.  C- is
best described as a "low-level" programming language.  In fact, the
language generally requires more C- statements than machine-code
statements to execute a given task.  In this respect, it is very
similar to COBOL.
%%
	THE LESSER-KNOWN PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES #19: FIFTH

FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types
refer to quantity.  The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and
JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM and
BLOTTO.  Commands refer to ingredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY,
CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH, and WHATEVERSAROUND.

The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophistication and
financial status of its users.  Commands in the ELITE dialect include
VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER dialect include HOOTCH
and RIPPLE. The latter is a favourite of frustrated FORTH programmers
who end up using this language.


'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period
   preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, And
   throughout our place of residence,
Kinetic activity was not in evidence among the
   possessors of this potential, including that
   species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus.
Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward
   edge of the woodburning caloric apparatus,
Pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an
   imminent visitation from an eccentric
   philanthropist among whose folkloric appelations
   is the honorific title of St. Nicklaus ...


Sex is not the answer.  Sex is the question.  "Yes" is the answer.
		-- Swami X


Nine megs for the secretaries fair,
Seven megs for the hackers scarce,
Five megs for the grads in smoky lairs,
Three megs for system source;

One disk to rule them all,
One disk to bind them,
One disk to hold the files
And in the darkness grind 'em.


	Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the
month.  According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people
are experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China.
	The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either
(depending on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax
tadpole".
	Bite the wax tadpole.
	There is a sort of rough justice, is there not?
	The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's
hard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to
bite a wax tadpole.  Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad,
but broad satiric vistas do not open up.
		-- John Carrol, San Francisco Chronicle


"Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish
and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer
if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and
and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and
and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?"


		      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

methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylluecylphenyialanylalanylglutamin-
ylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolyl-
phenylalanylyalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglu-
taminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanyl-
glycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolyphenylalanyl-
serylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylglutaminyl-
asparaginylalanylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylva-
lythreonylprolyalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamylmethionylleucyala-
nylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysylhistidylprolythreonylisoleucylprolyli-
soleucylglyclleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalylphenylala-
nylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyltyrosylalanylglu-
taminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylala-
nylaspartylvalylprolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolyphenylalanylargi-
nylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalanylprolyiso-
leucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartyl-
aspartylleucylleucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycylarginyl-
glycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycylvalylthreonyl-
gylcylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginyalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylaspartagi-
nylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucylysylglutamyltyrosylasparaginylalanylala-
nylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylserylalanylpro-
lyaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanylglycylalanyla-
lanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalyllysylisoleucyli-
soleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylprolyglutamylly-
sylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalyglutaminylproly-
methionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine, n.:
	The chemical name for tryptophan synthetase A protien, a
1,913-letter enzyme with 267 amino acids.
		-- Mrs. Bryne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and
		   Preposterous Words