"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
- Douglas Adams
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry midterm. The answer was so profound that the professor shared it with colleagues, which is why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law, (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
"First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing with time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell andthe rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions, and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell. Because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:
If we accept the postulate given to me by Ms. Teresa Banyan during my Freshman year-- "...that it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you."-- and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then #2 cannot be true; and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze.
THE STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A" GIVEN
The Washington Post recently published a contest for readers in which they were asked to supply alternate meanings for various words. The following were some of the winning entries:
Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.
Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.
Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.
Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
Semantics (n.), pranks conducted by young men studying for the priesthood, including such things as glueing the pages of the priest's prayer book together just before vespers.
Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.
Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.
Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts.
Frisbatarianism (n.), the belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.
The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some recent winners:
Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the reader who doesn't get it.
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very high.
Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of obtaining sex.
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like a serious bummer........?
Glibido: All talk and no action.
Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a refund from the IRS, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
Two nuns went out of the convent to sell cookies.
One of them was known as Sister Mathematical (SM) and the other one is known as Sister Logical (SL).
It was getting dark and they were still far away from the convent...just then Sister Logical said....
SL: Have you noticed that a man has been following >us for the past half an hour?
SM: Yes, I wonder what he wants.
SL: It's logical. He wants to have his way with us.
SM: Oh, no! At this rate he will reach us in 10 >minutes at the most. What can we do?
SL: The only logical thing to do of course is that we have to start walking faster.
SM: It is not working.
SL: Of course it is not working. The man did the only obvious thing to do. He started to walk even more faster.
SM: So, what shall we do? At this rate he will reach us in one minute.
SL: The only logical thing we can do is split. You go that way and I'll go this way. He cannot follow both of us at the same time.
So the man decided to go after Sister Logical. Sister Mathematical arrives at the convent and is worried because Sister Logical has not yet arrived. Finally, Sister Logical arrives.
SM: Sister Logical! Thank God you are here! Tell us what happened!
SL: The only logical thing happened. The man could ot follow both of us, so he followed me.
SM: So, what happened? Please tell us.
SL: The only logical thing to happen. I started to run as fast as I could.
SM: So what happened
SL: The only logical thing to happen. The man also started to run as fast as he could behind me.
SM: And then?
SL: The only logical thing to happen. He reached me.
SM: Oh, no! What did you do then?
SL: The only logical thing to do. I lifted my dress up.
SM: Oh, Sister. What did the man do?
SL: The only logical thing to do. He pulled down his pants.
SM: Oh, no! What happened then?
SL: Isn't it logical, Sister?
" A nun with her dress up can run faster than a man with his pants down!"
The United States standard railroad gauge (the distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.
That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used?
Because English expatriates built U.S. railroads, and that's the way they built them in England.
So why did the English build them that way?
Because the first rail lines in England were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge used for the tramways.
Why did they use that gauge?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons with that wheel spacing.
Why did they use that odd wheel spacing for the wagons?
Because if they used any other spacing, the wagon axles would break when driven on heavily rutted long distance roads. The wagon wheel spacing was the spacing of the road ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads?
The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Roman legions, and have been in use ever since.
The ruts, which everyone had to match lest they destroy their wagons, were made initially by Roman war chariots. All the chariots made for or by Imperial Rome were alike in wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer to the original question.
The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
The next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right.
The Imperial Roman war chariots were just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
Now the twist. There's an interesting extension of this tale relating railroad gauge to horses' behinds.
When a Space Shuttle is sitting on its launch pad, we can see two big rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.
These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.
Thiokol makes the SRBs at a factory in Utah.
The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a little fatter, but the SRBs have to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.
The railroad line from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains, which is only is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the SRBs must be hauled through that tunnel.
Remember, U.S. railroad tracks are only as wide as two Roman war horse behinds.
This means a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a horse's ass!
"IT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN"... I didn't look up the original reference.
"A DEFINITE TREND IS EVIDENT"... These data are practically meaningless.
"WHILE IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DEFINITE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS"... An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published.
"THREE OF THE SAMPLES WERE CHOSEN FOR DETAILED STUDY"... The other results didn't make any sense.
"TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN"... This is the prettiest graph.
"THESE RESULTS WILL BE IN A SUBSEQUENT REPORT"... I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded.
"IN MY EXPERIENCE"... Once
"IN A SERIES OF CASES"... Thrice
"IT IS BELIEVED THAT"... I think.
"IT IS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT"... A couple of others think so, too.
"CORRECT WITHIN AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE"... Wrong.
"ACCORDING TO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS"... Rumor has it.
"A STATISTICALLY-ORIENTED PROJECTION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE FINDINGS"... A wild guess.
"A CAREFUL ANALYSIS OF OBTAINABLE DATA"... Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of beer.
"IT IS CLEAR THAT MUCH ADDITIONAL WORK WILL BE REQUIRED BEFORE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THIS PHENOMENON OCCURS"... I don't understand it
"AFTER ADDITIONAL STUDY BY MY COLLEAGUES"... They don't understand it either.
"THANKS ARE DUE TO JOE BLOTZ FOR ASSISTANCE WITH THE EXPERIMENT AND TO CINDY ADAMS FOR VALUABLE DISCUSSIONS"... Mr. Blotz did the work and Ms. Adams explained to me what it meant.
"A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT AREA FOR EXPLORATORY STUDY"... A totally useless topic selected by my committee.
"IT IS HOPED THAT THIS STUDY WILL STIMULATE FURTHER INVESTIGATION IN THIS FIELD"... I quit.
The reuse of some object-oriented code has caused tactical headaches for Australia's armed forces. As virtual reality simulators assume larger roles in helicopter combat training, programmers have gone to great lengths to increase the realism of their scenarios, including detailed landscapes and, in the case of the Northern Territory's Operation Phoenix, herds of kangaroos (since disturbed animals might well give away a helicopter's position).
The head of the Defense Science & Technology Organization's Land Operations/Simulation division reportedly instructed developers to model the local marsupials' movements and reactions to helicopters.
Being efficient programmers, they just re-appropriated some code originally used to model infantry detachment reactions under the same stimuli, changed the mapped icon from a soldier to a kangaroo, and increased the figures' speed of movement.
Eager to demonstrate their flying skills for some visiting American pilots, the hotshot Aussies "buzzed" the virtual kangaroos in low flight during a simulation. The kangaroos scattered, as predicted, and the visiting Americans nodded appreciatively... then did a double-take as the kangaroos reappeared from behind a hill and launched a barrage of Stinger missiles at the hapless helicopter. (Apparently the programmers had forgotten to remove that part of the infantry coding.)
The lesson? Objects are defined with certain attributes, and any new object defined in terms of an old one inherits all the attributes. The embarrassed programmers had learned to be careful when reusing object-oriented code, and the Yanks left with a newfound respect for Australian wildlife.
Simulator supervisors report that pilots from that point onward have strictly avoided kangaroos, just as they were meant to.
From June 15, 1999 Defense Science and Technology Organization Lecture Series, Melbourne, Australia, and staff reports
In the beginning, God created the bit. And the bit was a zero; nothing.
On the first day, He toggled the 0 to a 1, and the Universe was. (In those days, bootstrap loaders were simple, and "active low" signals didn't yet exist.)
On the second day, God's boss wanted a demo, and tried to read the bit. This being volatile memory, the bit reverted to a 0. And the universe wasn't. God learned the importance of backups and memory refresh, and spent the rest of the day (and his first all-nighter) reconstructing the universe.
On the third day, the bit cried "Oh, Lord! If you exist, give me a sign!" And God created rev 2.0 of the bit, even better than the original prototype. Those in Universe Marketing immediately realized that "new and improved" wouldn't do justice to such a grand and glorious creation. And so it was dubbed the Most Significant Bit, or the Sign bit. Many bits followed, but only one was so honored.
On the fourth day, God created a simple ALU with 'add' and 'logical shift' instructions. And the original bit discovered that by performing a single shift instruction, it could become the Most Significant Bit. And God realized the importance of computer security.
On the fifth day, God created the first mid-life kicker, rev 2.0 of the ALU, with wonderful new features, and said "Screw that add and shift stuff. Go forth and multiply." And God saw that it was good.
On the sixth day, God got a bit overconfident, and invented pipelines, register hazards, optimizing compilers, crosstalk, restartable instructions, microinterrupts, race conditions, and propagation delays. Historians have used this to convincingly argue that the sixth day must have been a Monday.
On the seventh day, an engineering change introduced DOS into
the Universe, and it hasn't worked right since.
and it hasn't worked right since.
Ratio of an igloo's circumference to its diameter: Eskimo Pi
2000 pounds of Chinese soup: Won ton
1 millionth of a mouthwash: 1 microscope
Time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement: 1 bananosecond
Weight an evangelist carries with God: 1 billigram
Time it takes to sail 220 yards at 1 nautical mile per hour: Knot-furlong
365.25 days of drinking low-calorie beer because it's less filling: 1 lite year
16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone: 1 Rod Serling
Half of a large intestine: 1 semicolon
1000 aches: 1 kilohurtz
Basic unit of laryngitis: 1 hoarsepower
Shortest distance between two jokes: A straight line. (think about it for a moment)
453.6 graham crackers: 1 pound cake
1 million microphones: 1 megaphone
1 million bicycles: 2 megacycles
2000 mockingbirds: two kilomockingbirds (work on it....)
10 cards: 1 decacards
1 kilogram of falling figs: 1 Fig Newton
1000 cubic centimeters of wet socks: 1 literhosen
1 millionth of a fish: 1 microfiche
1 trillion pins: 1 terrapin
10 rations: 1 decoration
100 rations: 1 C-ration
2 monograms: 1 diagram
8 nickels: 2 paradigms
3 statute miles of intravenous surgical tubing at Yale University Hospital: 1 I.V. League
IN PHARMACOLOGY, ALL DRUGS HAVE A GENERIC NAME TYLENOL IS ACETAMINOPHEN, ADVIL IS IBUPROFEN AND SO ON. THE FDA HAS BEEN LOOKING FOR A GENERIC NAME FOR VIAGRA & ANNOUNCED TODAY THAT THEY HAVE SETTLED ON MYCOXAFAILIN. ALSO CONSIDERED WERE: MYCOXAFLOPPIN, MYDIXADRUPIN & MYDIXARIZIN.
.. choosing to buy flowers for your girlfriend or upgrading your RAM is a moral dilemma.
.. you take a cruise so you can go on a personal tour of the engine room.
.. the sales people at the local computer store can't answer any of your questions.
.. you bought your wife a new CD-ROM drive for her birthday.
.. you can quote scenes from any Monty Python movie.
.. you can type 70 words per minute but can't read your own handwriting.
.. you comment to your wife that her straight hair is nice and parallel.
.. you have saved every power cord from all your broken appliances.
.. you have more friends on the Internet than in real life.
.. you know what http:// stands for.
.. you look forward to Christmas so you can put the kids' toys together.
.. you see a good design and still have to change it.
.. you window shop at Radio Shack.
.. your laptop computer costs more than your car.
.. your wife hasn't the foggiest idea of what you do at work.
.. you've already calculated how much you make per second.
.. you've tried to repair a $5 radio.
This was actually posted very briefly on the McDonnell Douglas website by an employee there who obviously has a sense of humor. The company,of course, does not (have a sense of humor) - and made the web department take it down immediately. (In case you don't know: McDonnell Douglas is one of the world's chief suppliers of military aircraft).
Thank you for purchasing a McDonnell Douglas military aircraft. In
order to protect your new investment, please take a few moments to fill
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new products that best meet your needs and desires.
1. [_] Mr. [_] Mrs. [_] Ms. [_] Miss [_] Lt. [_] Gen.
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[_] Heard loud noise, looked up
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[_] Style / appearance
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[_] Communist / Socialist
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[_] Deficit spending
[_] Cash
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12. Your occupation:
[_] Homemaker
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[_] Golf
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[_] Household pets
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[_] Fashion clothing
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[_] Mutually Assured Destruction
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