Freebsd Fortunes 2

        Moving along a dimly light street, a man I know was suddenly
approached by a stranger who had slipped from the shadows nearby.
        "Please, sir," pleaded the stranger, "would you be so kind as
to help a poor unfortunate fellow who is hungry and can't find work?
All I have in the world is this gun."

        Mr. Jones related an incident from "some time back" when IBM Canada
Ltd. of Markham, Ont., ordered some parts from a new supplier in Japan.  The
company noted in its order that acceptable quality allowed for 1.5 per cent
defects (a fairly high standard in North America at the time).
        The Japanese sent the order, with a few parts packaged separately in
plastic. The accompanying letter said: "We don't know why you want 1.5 per
cent defective parts, but for your convenience, we've packed them separately."
                -- Excerpted from an article in The (Toronto) Globe and Mail

        Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile.
Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures.  One day,
without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation.  In
an instant, armed troops surround Murray and Esther and hustle them off to
prison.
        They can't prove who they are because they've left their passports
in their hotel room.  For three weeks they're tortured day and night to get
them to name their contacts in the liberation movement...  Finally they're
hauled in front of a military court, charged with espionage, and sentenced
to death.
        The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where they'll
be shot.  The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them if they have
any last requests.  Esther wants to know if she can call her daughter in
Chicago.  The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not possible, and turns to
Murray.
        "This is crazy!" Murray shouts.  "We're not spies!"  And he
spits in the sergeants face.
        "Murray!" Esther cries.  "Please!  Don't make trouble."
                -- Arthur Naiman

        My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as
Africa.  Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31.
We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in
Africa.  Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule:  Up at
6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00.  Pretty soon we were back in bed by
6:30.  Now Africa is full of big game.  The first day I shot two bucks.  That
was the biggest game we had.  Africa is primarily inhabited by Elks, Moose
and Knights of Pithiests.
        The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their
annual conventions.  And you should see them gathered around the water hole,
which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water.  They
weren't looking for a water hole.  They were looking for an alck hole.
        One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my
pajamas, I don't know.  Then we tried to remove the tusks.  That's a tough
word to say, tusks.  As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were
imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out.  But in Alabama the Tusks are
looser, but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying.
        We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.
So we're going back in a few years...
                -- Julius H. Marx

        My message is not that biological determinists were bad scientists or
even that they were always wrong.  Rather, I believe that science must be
understood as a social phenomenon, a gutsy, human enterprise, not the work of
robots programmed to collect pure information.  I also present this view as
an upbeat for science, not as a gloomy epitaph for a noble hope sacrificed on
the alter of human limitations.
        I believe that a factual reality exists and that science, though often
in an obtuse and erratic manner, can learn about it.  Galileo was not shown
the instruments of torture in an abstract debate about lunar motion.  He had
threatened the Church's conventional argument for social and doctrinal
stability:  the static world order with planets circling about a central
earth, priests subordinate to the Pope and serfs to their lord.  But the
Church soon made its peace with Galileo's cosmology.  They had no choice; the
earth really does revolve about the sun.
                -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man"

        "My mother," said the sweet young steno, "says there are some things
a girl should not do before twenty."
        "Your mother is right," said the executive, "I don't like a large
audience, either."

        n = ((n >>  1) & 0x55555555) | ((n <<  1) & 0xaaaaaaaa);
        n = ((n >>  2) & 0x33333333) | ((n <<  2) & 0xcccccccc);
        n = ((n >>  4) & 0x0f0f0f0f) | ((n <<  4) & 0xf0f0f0f0);
        n = ((n >>  8) & 0x00ff00ff) | ((n <<  8) & 0xff00ff00);
        n = ((n >> 16) & 0x0000ffff) | ((n << 16) & 0xffff0000);

-- Reverse the bits in a word.

        n = (n & 0x55555555) + ((n & 0xaaaaaaaa) >> 1);
        n = (n & 0x33333333) + ((n & 0xcccccccc) >> 2);
        n = (n & 0x0f0f0f0f) + ((n & 0xf0f0f0f0) >> 4);
        n = (n & 0x00ff00ff) + ((n & 0xff00ff00) >> 8);
        n = (n & 0x0000ffff) + ((n & 0xffff0000) >> 16);

-- Count the bits in a word.

        Never ask your lover if he'd dive in front of an oncoming train for
you.  He doesn't know.  Never ask your lover if she'd dive in front of an
oncoming band of Hell's Angels for you.  She doesn't know.  Never ask how many
cigarettes your lover has smoked today.  Cancer is a personal commitment.
        Never ask to see pictures of your lover's former lovers -- especially
the ones who dived in front of trains.  If you look like one of them, you are
repeating history's mistakes.  If you don't, you'll wonder what he or she saw
in the others.
        While we are on the subject of pictures: You may admire the picture
of your lover cavorting naked in a tidal pool on Maui.  Don't ask who took
it.  The answer is obvious.  A Japanese tourist took the picture.
        Never ask if your lover has had therapy.  Only people who have had
therapy ask if people have had therapy.
        Don't ask about plaster casts of male sex organs marked JIMI, JIM, etc.
Assume that she bought them at a flea  market.
                -- James Peterson and Kate Nolan

        NEW YORK-- Kraft Foods, Inc. announced today that its board of
directors unanimously rejected the $11 billion takeover bid by Philip
Morris and Co. A Kraft spokesman stated in a press conference that the
offer was rejected because the $90-per-share bid did not reflect the
true value of the company.
        Wall Street insiders, however, tell quite a different story.
Apparently, the Kraft board of directors had all but signed the takeover
agreement when they learned of Philip Morris' marketing plans for one of
their major Middle East subsidiaries.  To a person, the board voted to
reject the bid when they discovered that the tobacco giant intended to
reorganize Israeli Cheddar, Ltd., and name the new company Cheeses of
Nazareth.