Al Macintyre: Laugh Track

Fri, 06 Dec 2002 19:14:41 GMT

Regarding my recent post on 12 roles of Knowledge Management (KM) workers, [Matthew Eberle Library Techlog] prefers Knowledge Renegade, but I fail to see the definition, while [Patrick O'Beirne] points me to "A knowledge worker is anyone who knows more about their work than their boss.", without volunteering which kind of KM worker this is, from [Monster Learning KM Quiz] so I may as well use Patrick's definition for Matthew's role.

Fri, 22 Nov 2002 04:14:05 GMT

Humor forwarded via e-mail from my old friend David Waller.

A bum, who obviously has seen more than his share of hard times,
approaches a well-dressed gentleman on the street.

"Hey, Buddy, can you spare two dollars?"

The well-dressed gentleman responds, "You're not going to spend it on liquor are you?"

"No, sir, I don't drink," retorts the bum.

"You are not going to throw it away on some fishing gear, are you?" asks the gentleman.

"No way, I don't fish," answers the bum.

"You wouldn't waste the money on a hunting rifle, would you?" asks the man.

"Never," says the bum, "I don't hunt."

"You wouldn't waste the money on racing, would you?", he asks.

"No way," says the bum."I don't race."

The man asks the bum if he would like to come home with him for a home cooked meal.

The bum accepts eagerly.
While they are heading for the man's house, the bum's curiosity gets the better of him.

"Isn't your wife going to be angry when she sees a guy like me at your table?"

"Probably," says the man, "but it will be worth it. I want her to
see what happens to a guy who doesn't drink, fish, hunt, or race."

Sun, 13 Oct 2002 21:07:23 GMT

What we have here are some links inspired by me visiting places that are visited by people who also visit my site, showing some interests that we have in common.

Christian stories that never happened.
- I'd like to see something similar on other Religions, because those of us who are not believers can sometimes have a hard time distinguishing truth vs. distortion.
Computer Virus Myths - how to spot them.
- Warning - that site disables the back button.
Darwin Awards for people who have found incredible ways to remove themselves from the gene pool. These are true stories, that someone could easily think were made up.
Discuss Urban Legends.
Electronic tour of artistic renditions of Urban Legends.
- I was not impressed with what I sampled, but different strokes for different folks.
Hoax Identification Education
Hoax Kill Service

Once you find out if a message is a hoax you can send it to a designated email address and their software will then extract the addresses of all previous recipients from the message and inform them all that the message is a hoax.

Humor about Hoaxes.
Latest Urban Legends.
Net Lore and Urban Legends.
Norton Symantec Security Response Directory of e-mail Hoaxes.
Researching Urban Legends.
- This might be where my sister got the idea that the volume of visitors to a website, translated into extra charges for bandwidth. Oh! that Is a true story for this site.
Scam Busters list e-mail chain nonsense and other scams, tips on fighting spam, lots of good links, also including links to info on real computer viruses.
Scope of Urban Legends.
Many people think something is a hoax when it is not. See my Sep 20 post about the plight of a Nigerian woman, sentenced to be stoned to death for the crime of being jilted by the husband of her child, in which I got a flood of referers due to people searching Gooble and other engines for information on the hoax details on this story, so their only hits were on sites that both talked about this real life situation, and some unrelated hoaxes.

Mon, 07 Oct 2002 08:31:28 GMT

While adding some more updates to my Blog Software directory, it occurred to me that I might later have a mangement challenge keeping track of stuff that does not belong here, which reminds me of a funny story from yesteryear. In the 1970's I was active in the Cincinnati Computer Club, at a time when a lot of home computer users identified interesting Internet sites such as BBSs based on the phone number that went into your modem.

We'd circulate directories of phone numbers by category, published in newsletters, passed around on diskette, and some of those sites had directories of other sites that people tried to mine. Now at that point in time, the ability of end users to do cut and paste correctly was in its infancy, because the software just was not that good. So we would get strings of digits that were supposedly a phone number that someone had typed in wrong, or they dropped a leading or ending digit in a string, with a zero inserted by mistake that made the right number of digits.

Our club had a directory of several thousand numbers passed out to the officers and volunteers to check them out before we published them to the general membership. Quite a few were identified as wrong numbers (this number is for a real human being, not a computer connection), so we omitted them from our official directory. Then we would get people sending us in additions to our directory, that they got from other directories, that included those #s we had determined were wrong #s, so we started listing them immediately followed by Do Not Call - this is a Real Person, not a BBS. We also had a statement about the problem in our introductory text about how to use the overall directory.

Many members did not read the instructions, and were curious about the Do Not Call numbers, and called them out of curiosity, thinking perhaps we were saying not to call because something extremely naughty going on at those BBSs. So then we started getting some members calling us to say that they tried a Do Not Call number and think the officers ought to update the club directory because this is a Real Person, not a BBS, so we ended up having a separate Do Not Call list, which was used to clean suggested additions to the list, before we checked them out.

This was before ma bell had caller id. Unwanted phone calls was an epidemic compared to today, and the poor person whose number made it into these hundreds of directories of BBSs of which a large percentage were actually wrong #s (for calling BBSs) became afflicted with phone calls all day long from all over the country, in which the caller did not say anything, something like today's marketing which dials a cluster of phone #s, connects the phone vendor to the first person who answers, and records others that answer to try them again a little later.

Sun, 29 Sep 2002 22:58:14 GMT

Inspiration shared by my sister Susan via e-mail.

Inner Strength

If you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If you can overlook when people take things out on you when,
through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can do all these things,

Then you are probably the family dog.

Tue, 24 Sep 2002 08:30:33 GMT

China and Western World Relations

Tue, 24 Sep 2002 08:00:28 GMT

Some Computer Humor urls

Project Management Proverbs

http://www.project-training-uk.freeserve.co.uk/

IT Devil's Dictionary

http://www.isham-research.freeserve.co.uk/dd.html

Real Programmers

http://www.cyberdrive.net/~wthompson2/funnies/realprog.htm

MIS Information

http://members.aol.com/misinfo/misinfo1.htm

NT Quips and Quotes

http://home.xnet.com/~raven/Sysadmin/ASR.Quotes.html

Sat, 07 Sep 2002 19:18:28 GMT

[Boing Boing Blog] QUOTE

Archive of answering machine greetings. There are some funny ones in here.

"Hi. I am probably home, I'm just avoiding someone I don't like. Leave me a message, and if I don't call back, it's you."

Link Discuss (Thanks, Kevin!) UNQUOTE [Boing Boing Blog]

I also have some favorites.

The Answer Machine is Broke. This is the Refrigerator speaking. If you talk very slowly (the voice does so by example) I will write down what you say and stick it to myself and hopefully someone will see the message.

Sat, 07 Sep 2002 00:25:58 GMT

Checking my Radio referrers, of who linked to my weblog site today, I see that someone was checking on banking mistakes and I was # 45 out of 16402 search engine hits. It amazes me how much stuff is out there on some topics, and how high I show up in some searches.

See my "Banking Stories" for what they found of my prior remarks.

The bottom line moral for Everyone, is that bank clerks are just like you and me.

Everyone makes mistakes, including people who handle your money accounts at your bank. You have to watch them like a hawk. Their mistakes are potentially more serious for you than mistakes made by other clerks that we do business with.

People are more likely to make mistakes right after other mistakes. In other words when something disturbs our normal routine, we get rattled, distracted, more likely to make more mistakes. So one mistake leads to mistakes fixing original mistake.

This means that tech support people need to stay calm and not contribute to the nervousness that is out there.

Checking referers can sometimes find us other stuff of interest ... I was # 3 in an International search for Computer Security Future, and I see a link on the same page to the International Society of Mad Scientists on the topic of Saudi Arabia's interest in Quantum Computing for Security purposes, which interests me now that IBM has the world's first Quantum Computer in one of their labs. ISMS home page has lots of links to weird stuff that I think is really borderline people out of touch with reality.

Thu, 05 Sep 2002 21:23:31 GMT

Comment on Al's Radio Doc Sources using Quick Topics. Eventually, Al wants to look into pros & cons of several different commenting systems for Radio, but we have to start some place.

Thu, 29 Aug 2002 07:37:47 GMT

Geek Beauty & everyone else's poetry and eye candy, except for the porno-lovers of course. I just love this stuff. How much disk space do pictures take up on servers? The equivalent of 1 k words I suspect. Here is a site with art collage inspired by the X-Files, and since this site identifies picture of self, it probably has a human helper, because where is a keyboard paws-friendly?

That reminds me of some humor about our furry friends.

Cat Physics

Presented at the Institute of Theoretical & Applied Cat Physics, forwarded to Al by iVillager Graceanne and Gary.Holliday

1. Law of Cat Inertia

A cat at rest will tend to remain at rest, unless acted upon by some outside force, such as the opening of cat food, or a nearby scurrying mouse.

2. Law of Cat Motion

A cat will move in a straight line, unless there is a really good reason to change direction.

3. Law of Cat Magnetism

All blue blazers and black sweaters attract cat hair in direct proportion to the darkness of the fabric.

4. Law of Cat Thermodynamics

Heat flows from a warmer to a cooler body, except in the case of a cat, all heat flows to the cat.

5. Law of Cat Stretching

A cat will stretch to a distance proportional to the length of the nap just taken.

6. Law of Cat Sleeping

All cats must sleep with people whenever possible, in a position as uncomfortable for the people involved as is possible for the cat.

7. Law of Cat Elongation

A cat can make her body long enough to reach just about any countertop that has anything remotely interesting on it.

8. Law of Cat Acceleration

A cat will accelerate at a constant speed, until he gets good and ready to stop.

9. Law of Dinner Table Attendance

Cats must attend all meals when anything good is served.

10. Law of Rug Configuration

No rug may remain in its naturally flat state for very long.

11. Law of Obedience Resistance

A cat's resistance varies in inverse proportion to a human's desire for her to do something.

12. First Law of Energy Conservation

Cats know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed and will therefore use as little energy as possible.

13. Second Law of Energy Conservation

Cats also know that energy can only be stored by a lot of napping.

14. Law of Refrigerator Observation

If a cat watches a refrigerator long enough, someone will come along and take out something good to eat.

15. Law of Electric Blanket Attraction

Turn on an electric blanket and a cat will jump into bed at the speed of light.

16. Law of Random Comfort Seeking

A cat will always seek, and usually take over, the most comfortable spot in any given room.

17. Law of Bag / Box Occupancy

All bags and boxes in a given room must contain a cat within the earliest possible nanosecond.

18. Law of Cat Embarrassment

A cat's irritation rises in direct proportion to her embarrassment times the amount of human laughter.

19. Law of Milk Consumption

A cat will drink his weight in milk, squared, just to show you he can.

20. Law of Furniture Replacement

A cats desire to scratch furniture is directly proportional to the cost of the furniture.

21. Law of Cat Landing

A cat will always land in the softest place possible.

22. Law of Fluid Displacement

A cat immersed in milk will displace her own volume, minus the amount of milk consumed.

23. Law of Cat Disinterest

A cat's interest level will vary in inverse proportion to the amount of effort a human expends in trying to interest him.

24. Law of Pill Rejection

Any pill given to a cat has the potential energy to reach escape velocity.

25. Law of Cat Composition

A cat is composed of Matter + Anti-Matter + It Doesn't Matter.

26. Law of Selective Listening

Although a cat can hear a can of tuna being opened a mile away, she can't hear a simple command three feet away.

27. Law of Equidistant Separation

All cats in a given room will locate at points equidistant from each other, and equidistant from the center of the room.

28. Law of Cat Invisibility

Cats think that if they can't see you, then you can't see them.

29. Law of Space-Time Continuum

Given enough time, a cat will land in just about any space.

30. Law of Concentration of Mass

A cat's mass increases in direct proportion to the comfort of the lap she occupies.

31. Law of Cat Probability (Uncertainty Principle)

It is not possible to predict where a cat actually is, only the probability of where she "might" be.

32. Law of Cat Obedience

As yet undiscovered.

Sun, 25 Aug 2002 23:49:20 GMT

I have a new theory for how come my Radio Weblog had a major melt down this weekend.

People have been inventorying which Congress Critters:
- Seem to be in favor of the Hollywood hacker virus legislation;
- Have accepted campaign contributions from Hollywood lobbyists;
- Are coming up for re-election;
- Have opposing candidates who are pro-Internet.
- Tara Grubb is getting support because of this.
  - Her weblog is getting a lot of hits by pro-Internet people.
  - I had link to her weblog on mine but that was one of the things lost in the melt down.
- Hmm, I wonder if Hollywood had anything to do with that.
  - They probably did not like my remark about Horse and Buggy Entertainment Industry.
- From now on, when my PC has problems, Hollywood is added to the list of suspects.

Wed, 21 Aug 2002 06:04:11 GMT

Timothy Leary. "Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." [Quotes of the Day] [dws.]

I have seen variations on that before. One of my favorite 'dumb men' jokes (that is not off-color):

How many men does it take to change roll of toilet paper? We not know, it has not happened yet.

Or computer technician humor.

How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb? None - that's a hardware problem.

Wed, 21 Aug 2002 05:55:37 GMT

I got this from an e-mail contact, Martin Spencer in New Zealand

"Hello, and welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.

"If you are codependent, please ask someone to press 2.

"If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5 and 6.

"If you are paranoid-schizophrenic, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.

"If you are psychotic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.

"If you are manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer.

"If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the thing you are holding on the side of your head is alive and about to bite off your ear.

"If you are suicidal, please hold for the next available operator. Your call will be answered in the order it was received. Please do not hang up and re-dial, as this will only delay the processing of your call. Currently, you are number 381; estimated wait time is three hours, twenty minutes. If you prefer to change your psychiatric affliction, press zero at any time to return to the main menu ..."

Wed, 21 Aug 2002 05:41:18 GMT

If you are easily offended by humor, do not read this installment.

This was passed along from [Krzysztof Kowalczyk's Weblog] to [dws.] but I have previously seen variations of this in my e-mail. If you like this kind of stuff (I love it), check out

http://www.wullamette.edu/~tjones/language-Page.html = Human Languages Page = an archive of Web sites about (and in) foreign languages - including dialects & fictional languages such as Klingon.

http://www.mmania.com/ = humor in French ie. you need to be familiar with the language of France to digest this stuff

http://www.best.com/~imagine/jokes/ = humor in very bad taste, in four different languages

http://www.nine.org/notw/notw.html = news of the weird news stories from around the world

Americonics = standard American English

Chiconics = a language unique to Chicagoans, that Mike Royko used to talk about in his column

Ebonics = African-American language with its roots in tribal languages such as Ebu Ubu Abu Abadabado

Hebonics = language of many of America's Jews. I have shared this with several Jewish friends who have informed me that this is hilarious, and they wish they dreamed it up first. If anyone is offended, that persion does not know and love Jews.

Here are some descriptions of the characteristics of the language, and samples of phrases in standard English and Hebonics.

Samples of Pronunciation Characteristics

Jewish English or "Hebonics" hardens consonants at the ends of words.

Thus, "hand" becomes "handt."

The letter "W" is always pronounced as if it were a "V".

Thus "walking" becomes "valking."

"R" sounds are transformed to a guttural utterance that is virtually impossible to spell in English. It is "ghraining" "algheady."

Samples of Idiomatic Characteristics

Questions are always answered with questions:

Question: "How do you feel?"

Hebonics response: "How should I feel?"

The subject is often placed at the end of a sentence after a pronoun has been used at the beginning:

"She dances beautifully, that girl."

The sarcastic repetition of words by adding "sh" to the front is used for emphasis:

mountains becomes "shmountains

turtle becomes "shmurtle."

Sample Usage Comparisons:

Standard English Phrase Hebonics Phrase

"He walks slow" "Like a fly in the ointment he walks"

"Sorry, I do not know the time" "What do I look like, a clock?"

"I hope things turn out okay" "You should BE so lucky"

"You're sexy" (unknown concept)

"Anything can happen" "It is never so bad, it can't get worse"

Good writing is the basis for weblogging. Good books about how to write are "On writing well" and "Style: toward clarity and grace". If you don't feel like reading books, this list might help as well:

Avoid alliteration.
Prepositions dangle awkwardly if you use them to end sentences with.
Avoid clichés and colloquialisms like the plague, or you will seem old hat.
Employ the vernacular, while eschewing arcane and obfuscatory verbiage.
Avoid ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
Take it easy with parenthetical remarks (however relevant), to avoid chopping up sentences (unnecessarily (we might add)).
To ever, however artfully, split an infinitive, marks you as grammatically challenged.
Skip the foreign words and phrases you know, n[base ']est-ce pas?
Never generalize.
[base "]I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.[per thou] [^]Ralph Waldo Emerson
Comparisons can clog up writing as badly as alliterations and cliches.
Avoid redundancy and verbosity, or readers will think you are repeating yourself and using too many words as well besides.
We really get @*&%$**)!! when you use vulgarities.
Clear, specific writing beats vagueness, we suppose. Whatever.
Overstatement totally destroys any credibility you ever had forever.
Understatement can, at times, perhaps shade a point to the point of its fading away.
One word sentences? Eliminate.
Analogies work about as well as fur on a flounder.
[base "]Is[per thou] just sits there. Pick verbs that do something.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, you should derail it.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
Its distrakting too punctuat, an spel rong.

Good writing is surprisingly hard. [Krzysztof Kowalczyk's Weblog] [dws.]

Sun, 18 Aug 2002 10:16:15 GMT

Arrested for needing to go to the bathroom at the airport. Another reason why I don't fly no more, I need to go too often.

Sun, 18 Aug 2002 03:11:59 GMT

procrastination: Dictionary.com Word of the Day. This is also Al's middle name, unfortunately.

Mon, 12 Aug 2002 20:07:18 GMT

Thanks to Dave Winer [Scripting News] QUOTE Thanks to genehack for the link to The Time Travel Fund. Well worth a read, if not a deposit. Give them $10 now, and in 500 years, they pay to transport you to the future from your deathbed. Think about it. UNQUOTE [Scripting News]

No guarantees.
Time Travel might not be invented.
Once Time Travel is generally known to have been invented, the government will have to regulate how it is used.
The religions of the world will not want non-believers going back to the times of their saviors and miracle workers to contaminate anything.
Evolutionists will not want non-believers going back to rescue the Dinosaurs and undo the evolution of mankind.
The political systems of the world will not want non-believers going back and undoing the invention of Democracy, and other forms of government.
The list of reasons to hire a lawyer to sue the inventor of Time Travel are endless.
The temptation to keep it secret and use the money for other purposes seems overwhelming.

Fri, 09 Aug 2002 05:55:53 GMT

Today's Topic focus = Appreciating History Perspectives.

Forwarded to Al by an e-mail e-friend - original source unknown to Al - veracity also unknown.

130 Years Ago

Rules For Teachers - 1872 - these were the actual rules

Teachers each day shall fill lamps, trim the wicks and clean chimneys.
Each morning teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.
Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they attend church regularly.
After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the bible or any other good books.
Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty.
The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

Fri, 09 Aug 2002 03:05:10 GMT

Forwarded to Al by an e-mail e-friend - original source unknown to Al - veracity also unknown.

Al does know that Canada inside US statistics means original compiler not know much Geography,

100 Years Ago

Subject: 1902

The year is 1902, one hundred years ago ... what a difference a century makes. Here are the U.S. statistics for 1902.

1. The average life expectancy in the US was forty-seven (47).

2. Only 14 Percent of the homes in the US had a bathtub.

3. Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.

4. There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.

5. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

6. Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.

With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.

7. The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.

8. The average wage in the US was 22 cents an hour.

9. The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.

10. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,

a dentist $2,500 per year,

a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year,

and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

11. More than 95 percent of all births in the US took place at home.

12. Ninety percent of all US physicians had no college education.

Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."

13. Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.

14. Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

15. Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.

16. The five leading causes of death in the US were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza

2. Tuberculosis

3. Diarrhea

4. Heart disease

5. Stroke

17. The American flag had 45 stars.

Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.

18. The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.

19. Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.

20. There were no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

21. One in ten US adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

22. Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores.

According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,

regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."

23. Eighteen percent of households in the US had at least one full-time servant or domestic.

24. There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire US