Some explanations: The posts are presented with a ``header line'' at the top of each post, e.g.:
19-Mar-85 05:20 Olin Shivers@CMU-CS-H Racism, the South and TwainIt gives the date of the post, the name and home computer of the person who made the post, and the subject of the post. Private electronic mail has a multi-line header giving similar information, e.g.:
From: kazar#@andrew.cmu.edu (Mike Kazar)
Date: Thu, 28 May 87 17:12:43 edt
To: shivers@h.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: posting
The convention for quoting someone else's post in your post is to indent their
text by four columns, including their header line, so everyone will know who
you're quoting. Asterisks are sometimes used as balanced pairs to indicate an
*italicised* word. I still persist in using pretentious British spellings on
some of my words.
Prof. Jon Webb has a habit of publicly suggesting -- via bboard -- that people seek psychiatric help after they've made a post indicating extreme mental imbalance. Which is frequently.
Michael Witbrock is an outspoken gay rights activist. And gay, too.
Both of these people are very liberal.
The participants of the Opinion Bboard are split into two groups: the members of the CMU Computer Science Department community, and the researchers of the SEI. The SEI is the Software Engineering Institute, an organisation affiliated with CMU in the same way SRI is affiliated with Stanford. Their charter is to spread the benefits of software engineering to the four corners of the Dept. of Defense. The need for new levels of sophisticated software in Star Wars was instrumental in the creation of the SEI. The SEI is therefore a bit rightward leaning. Alice Sun and Dr. Richard D'Ippolito work there. Alice is some kind of strange. D'Ippolito, due to an early gaffe, has been nicknamed Dick Dip, or DDD. CS people slightly resent the presence of the SEI people on our bboard.
At one point, Alice posted a description of her four main suitors, and requested advice on the selection thereof. I once described Alice in a letter as follows:
Alice, in particular, is really fascinating. Particularly to someone who's been on the borderline of AI and cognitive psychology, like me. It's clear, even through her probablistic English, that she is mostly successful in mapping the actual semantic structures in her head into sequences of English text. But what those semantic structures are is a complete bafflement to me. I've never encountered a person whose cognitive processes seemed to defy comprehension like that. Too weird. I'm sure, for instance, that if I could do a *Human Problem Solving* type explication of her anti-pornography posts from last summer, it would be worth a thesis to my advisor. And I know it's not a cultural or linguistic phenomenon: I've known my share of strange Chinese folks. It's not a Chinese thing; it's an Alice thing.I do not always save people's posts directed at me, since the relevant portions are frequently quoted inside my responses.
There was once much discussion of whether or not a passage in Huckleberry Finn wherein a steamship boiler accident is related is racist or not. It was coincident with Lawrence Butcher's post giving scenarios of various social encounters in the Computer Science Dept, discussing why women might find them sexist.
The alert reader may note that I have a tendency to file the serial numbers off passages of text from works by other authors, and incorporate said passages into my own stuff. F. King's fine sociological treatise, Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, leaps to mind. These occurrences are uniformly unattributed. I'm not proud; if I write better than others, it is because I stand on the toes of giants.
Finally, it is in the nature of the Opinion Bboard's definition that from time to time its contents can get pretty rough and fairly gamy. You see references to world-famous (as in, National Academy, Turing Award) professors masturbating onto their CRT screens, and their students licking it off. The extremists of the liberal and conservative camps can descend to hair-curling invective. In the summer of 1986, Dr. Sun publicly objected to pornographic bboard posts on Opinion, in particular, the fiction posted by Jim Muller. Mr. Muller responded with a pornographic post custom-written for Dr. Sun, featuring Dr. Sun. And her German shepherd. And her food processor. What is particularly interesting is that in the flurry of posts that ensued, public sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor of Muller's right to post. This was perhaps biased by the sheer inability of anyone in the Computer Science department to comprehend even the slightest bit of Alice's 500 line studies in logical obfuscation and marginal English.
My posts aren't quite that gamy, but don't say I didn't warn you. It's the nature of the medium. To set context, the following quotes are a scattered selection taken from postings made by people other than myself during 1987.
``I think I would be much happier if the underlying structure of the universe were significantly different.''
``I believe that within our lifetimes it will be common to see people not just hopping but hovering and flying down the street to the store.''
``Some where in its machinations, the library computer, or some other administration machine, has got the idea that I am the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. Me. Really! What is worse is that these bastards, with whom I am confused, owe the library $750.00.''
``For about the past year (give or take a factor of two) I've been having a fair amount of fantasies about doing it with women who are very facially ugly, but have large, firm tits.''
``I was booted from the girl scouts for `not being the right kind of girl for scouting.'''
``Sometimes I want to kill everyone that doesn't think like me +/- some percentage of error.''
``So tell me, how is using a sheep condom different than fucking one? Nope, sorry you can't screw a sheep, but if you kill it, and remove everything but the large intestine, that's ok. Riiight.''
``The most gross food I ever ate was raw human flesh.''
``I don't have an ice cube's chance in hell of finding lifelong happiness unless I can find a man as ugly as myself.''
``Most people who don't use drugs are assholes''
``I'd like my chance to pound you into a greasy pile of shit more closely resembling your personality''
``I think $1 million is a lot for the life of a child!''
``I think reading/posting on opinion is excellent foreplay, it kind of randomizes things: you can end up with a Muller story and get really turned on and end up screwing on top of the refrigerator, or you can read a Dippolitto or Sun post and feel like you're getting raped in a turkish prison by someone whose friendliest sex-toy is a cattle prod coated with vaseline.''
``I decided some time ago that when I finally go over the edge I am going to start by killing as many insurance people as possible before the state police can put enough bullets in me to stop me.''
``Given that justices of the Supreme Court receive lifetime appointments, I am completely against Bork's appointment. It seems like a big mistake to me to have someone so ugly making such important decisions.''
``Having tried it both ways, I've found that it's a lot easier to bring it off on a big Steinway.''
``Often when I hear someone flaming about English usage peeves, I get the definite feeling that this someone is massaging his balls and stroking his big, hard penis all the while thinking: `Hah, hah, that stupid asshole could be as big as me if he'd just use the fucking English language correctly.'''Posts follow:
19-Mar-85 05:20 Olin Shivers@CMU-CS-H Buckaroo Banthai
Of course Buckaroo is bi. New Age men are supposed to be unhindered by the
petty restrictions and neuroses that bedevil our generation. The guy is a
neurosurgeon, physicist, rock-n-roller, and martial artist. Doesn't he strike
you as the sort that keeps his options open?
If he's straight, how come there aren't *any* women in the Hong Kong Cavaliers?
Who knows what happens on that bus when the lights go out?
On the other hand, how can anyone suggest that the Lectroids are one way or the
other when we don't even know how they reproduce? What if that queen lectroid
is the only female in the race, sort of like a queen bee? Suppose Lectroids
make little Lectroids by fissioning like bacteria? Then homo- or heterosexual
doesn't mean anything (although narcissism does, I guess).
The opinions expressed herein are those of the Office of Naval Research,
and not necessarily those of the author. This flame was supported by
DARPA grant 979853562951413.
Date: 13 Dec 84 18:10:46 EST
From: Lee.Brownston@CMU-CS-A
Subject: Re: Buckaroo Banthai
To: Olin.Shivers@CMU-CS-H
I'm glad you pointed out that the sexuality of Penny's tormentors was unknown.
I couldn't find a convenient way to work it into any of my replies. Your
posts are hilarious. Keep 'em coming.
-- Lee
19-Mar-85 05:20 Olin Shivers@CMU-CS-H Racism, the South and Twain
If you think Twain was a racist, I suggest you read *Pudd'nhead Wilson*,
which is a *really* blatant anti-racism book. In any event, I think it's
pretty clear that Twain didn't just write *about* a racist society, he
wrote *against* a racist society.
On the other hand, I sure didn't get the bitter commentary on religious
hypocrisy, racism, class, etc. in *Huckleberry Finn* when I read it as
a child. There is this bogus, sacharine image of *Huckleberry Finn* that
floats around in some adults' heads: a friendly, innocuous drift down the
river; an American *Swiss Family Robinson*. Just the thing for a kid. They
forget the really painful parts. The section involving the two feuding
families that shoot each other up is pretty wrenching, for instance. I
remember reading all this frightening, upsetting stuff when I was a child, and
when I'd tell some Grownup I was reading *Huckleberry Finn*, their eyes would
glaze, their brain would trap out, and they'd say "Oh, that wonderful book.
Isn't that nice." Phoo. Grownups are stupid. *Huckleberry Finn* is a great
work, but it wasn't until high school that I understood the vicious satire in
it.
By the way, I get tired of people putting down the South for racism. I grew
up in the South; my family has been living in the South for generations -- as
least as far back as the War Between the States. ("War Between the States" is
the way I was taught to say it, when I learned my history in fifth grade from
*Lee's Lieutenants*.) My family identifies with the South pretty strongly. My
great-grandfather would not tolerate Northerners in his house; when he was too
old to have any say in the matter, he'd retire to his room upstairs, and stay
there until the barbarian had left. My mother once put me out of the car for
making a negative remark about the War; I got to walk home.
So, a pretty Southern upbringing. Nevertheless, I grew up with people that
are non-racist. It never seemed odd to me that Southerners would be
non-racist until I went up North where (1) people tended to assume, upon
discovering I was from Georgia, that I owned a white sheet and one of those
funny pointed hats, and (2) people tended to be about as racist as I'd
encountered down South.
"About as racist" means not-very-much. The people I hang out with -- like the
CMU CS community, for instance -- don't tend to racism. Every now and then --
up North, down South -- I run into somebody who complains about renting
apartments to "you know, Blacks," or talks about doing "nigger-work for my dad
this summer." But *very rarely*. I guess the point I'd like to make is that
my Southern friends, the ones I grew up with, use "nigger" and act racist
about as much as the people in this department do. Never.
OK. Having flamed, I'll qualify my claims. First, when you grow up in the
South, you have to get used to racist grandparents. It can be disorienting to
realise that someone you might love and respect holds opinions or says things
that make your skin crawl. Sigh. Even nice people can be racist, which is
an odd statement.
Second, Georgia's the biggest state east of the Mississipi; it has only one
large city, Atlanta. So there's a lot of boonies. Conditions outside
Atlanta, where I grew up, are considerably more medieval. It was in
Carrollton, Georgia, a fairly small southern town, that I was introduced to
the phrase "nigger work," a synonym for "grunt work." I'm not saying there is
no racism in the South. I just got the impression that Edward Smith was
claiming Southerners are basically, routinely racist. I wanted to present
another point in the space.
The War Between the States is a tragic period of American history, to be sure.
But from the remarks Northerners sometimes make, it is clear to me that they
labor under some severe misapprehensions regarding the causes and underlying
forces behind the war. I assume this is an artifact of the Northern school
system. The War Between the States is an example of a cycle that has repeated
itself throughout the history of western civilisation.
Here's the cycle: In the south, you have learning, culture, a lifestyle of
grace. Principles such as honor, courage, duty, and state's rights are
considered important. In short, you have civilisation. In the north, you
have teeming masses of barbarians, undeducated, violent, hardy, and brutal.
What happens? Inevitably, the northern barbarians come sweeping through the
south, destroying civilisation as they go. You can see this happen to one
focal point of western civilisation after another. The Huns and Visigoths did
it to Rome. The Spartans did it to Athens. And the 'yankees did it to
Richmond.
To understand the War Between the States, you need a little historical
perspective, thass all.
-Olin
19-Mar-85 10:04 Edward Smith@CMU-CS-SPICE Southern "Civilization"
All Olin's flame about the the South is Old Hat to me and it's all total
nonsense. Or let me qualify that: it is what this generation chooses to make
of the memories of the previous generations. I mean, come on now:
In the South, you have learning, culture, a lifestyle of grace.
Principles such as honor, courage, duty, and state's rights are
considered important. In short, you have civilization.
What nonsense. And all Yankees are barbarians and their war "against" the
South was barbaric. Also nonsense. The foolish idea that a life of ease and
grace, based on a massive system of legal apartheid and outright slavery, was
*legitimate* in the eyes of the world (and should be legally extended to the
newer states being let into the US at the time), the ridiculous notions that
Southerners were "honorable" (excepting when it came to demeaning a quarter
of their population), "courageous" (excepting in matters of morality),
"dutiful" (especially when it came to fighting for a lily white version of
history) and STATE'S RIGHTS (?? what's THAT doing there? no one in their
right mind talks about that anymore, except Southern politicians taking
advantage of the popular romantic image of the Confederacy as a nation on
it's own, and it certainly doesn't have any place in a general definition of
"civilization"), the revolting idea (I'm quoting here, mind you) that you
could not expect civilized behavior out of a people "only three hundred
years out of the jungle", that they "were better off under white masters",
that "they were never treated cruelly", all of these ideas fail to change
the inherent illegitimacy of the Southern Way of Life, they fail to define
"civilization", and they fail to convince any intelligent person that the
beliefs and practices of Southern whites are laudable, moral and just.
I have heard other people claim Atlanta is some kind of Oasis in the midst
of a few "boonies", but need I point out that those boonies extend across
two time zones to the west with a width of about 600 miles. I hardly see the
existence of one city with various claims to cultural or civilized behavior
as evidence that an entire society is honorable.
19-Mar-85 10:56 Steve Lammert@CMU-CS-A Olin and Ed...
Gee, Ed. I read Olin's final two paragraphs as a pretty nice piece
of satire. The rest of his post doesn't seem to reflect the sort of
attitude that you're so upset about.
Sadly, the sort of stratified society that existed (exists?) in the
South was/is not confined to that area of the country. My father's
brother is a brilliant surgeon, educated at Allegheny College and the
Western Reserve Medical School; he was chief of Obstetrics at the
Cleveland Clinic for fifteen years. He lives, not in Cleveland, but
in Shaker Heights, and "nigger" is the only term he knows for "those"
people. Sadly, his son, who is my age and is now a resident at the
Clinic, holds exactly the same opinions on this subject.
I'm not sure why race hatred seems so much more evident in Cleveland
than in Pittsburgh. Fortunately, Bob Frederking and Gregg Podnar,
two good friends of mine from that city (well, Euclid actually), did
not pick up this trait at all; perhaps they can throw their two
cents' worth in on how such a situation develops in a Northern city.
I grew up in Mount Lebanon, a lily-white suburb of Pittsburgh;
I only remember one black fellow in my high school, and we
elected him President of the student government.
Date: 20 Mar 1985 08:11:04-EST
From: Olin.Shivers@CMU-CS-H
To: marko.petkovsek@a
Subject: Greek geography
Cc: kjl@g, shivers@h
Well, ok. Guilty. But if you don't buy that Attica is south of the
Peloponnesus, consider the following:
- The Aryan decimation of the Indus Valley civilisation in 2400 BC.
- The Roman decimation of Carthage in the Punic Wars.
- The way the Mongols moved in on the Han empire in 1200 AD.
I should know better than to use non-obscure examples when I warp history.
-Olin
20-Mar-85 Olin.Shivers@CMU-CS-H State's rights
I read with interest Mr. Smith's rabid attack on the values of the True
South. I have a few points to make in rebuttal.
STATE'S RIGHTS (?? what's THAT doing there? no one in their right mind
talks about that anymore, except Southern politicians taking advantage of
the popular romantic image of the Confederacy as a nation on it's own, and
it certainly doesn't have any place in a general definition of
"civilization")
My stars. Didn't you study any history in college? What happened to the
classic liberal arts curriculum, that equipped a person with an education
instead of vocational training? The concept of state's rights is critical to
any real understanding of western civilisation. Consider the Peloponnesian
War, to choose an example from my previous post. One of the first sparks that
led to the tragic, 27 year war was the Corcyran debate. Corcyra was a state
(well, city-state) that desired autonomy from the oppressive control of
Corinth. It wanted to take its place in the Peloponnesian League as an equal
among states. When Corinth denied this laudable goal, Corcyra appealed to the
freedom-loving peoples of Athens for aid. The ensuing military conflict
contributed to the start of the war. State's rights.
To take an example from a little later in the war, consider the Mytilenean
rebellion. What were all these angry Lesbians so upset about? They rightly
felt that the Delian League was a rigid empire binding its member states into
domination by a superior power. Since membership in the Delian League was a
"privilege" one was not allowed to refuse, they were pushed -- in extremity --
to secede by force. I think the parallels to the South are clear.
So much for state's rights in antiquity. What about today? If you think
state's rights has been forgotten, then you have never heard a Southerner
refer to the Civil War as "The First War Between the States." A friend of
mine, as a boy, was given a large sum of Confederate money by his grandfather.
"Granddaddy, is this worth anything?" he inquired, holding the handful of
worthless paper. "Just wait, son. Just wait."
Now Mr. Smith is certainly entitled to his opinions -- even though they're
wrong -- but their relevance is perhaps questionable. I don't really consider
Mr. Smith's home state, Texas, part of the South. "The South" and "The North"
are political, not geographical, designations. They are used to answer the
question, "What side did this state fight on during The War?" Hence Florida is
considered more an exburb of New York than a part of the South, even though it
certainly lies in a southerly region of the country. Similarly, Texas is not
part of the South, although it lies in the south. Besides, Texas is not
exactly the sort of state that the South would be eager to crush to its bosom.
You know what FDR said about Texas: a Texan is a man who'll never give a
nickel change when he can give you five pennies instead. Of course, that was
back in the days when a nickel was worth something, but I think the principle
remains valid.
And as for Mr. Smith himself, well, he's the sort of person who gives racism a
bad name. Mr. Smith is the sort of amoral, conscienceless person who can vote
a democrat into office, and explain with a blithe shrug of the shoulders and a
bland "I was only following orders." I don't want to descend to the personal,
but he's the kind of guy who sucks blueberries through a straw, if you know
what I mean.
Let's get the theses clear. The tenor of Mr. Smith's remarks seem to be that
racism is bad. What, is he looking for an argument? I'm not claiming that
racism is non-evil, I'm claiming that the South is God's Chosen Land.
...the ridiculous notions that Southerners were "honorable", "courageous"
(excepting in matters of morality), "dutiful", all of these ideas fail to
change the inherent illegitimacy of the Southern Way of Life, they fail to
define "civilization", and they fail to convince any intelligent person
that the beliefs and practices of Southern whites are laudable, moral and
just.
Even a gentleman has limits, sir. Enough is enough. Name your seconds and
choose your weapons. I shall meet you on Schenley at dawn. Pistols for two;
coffee for one.
-Olin Shivers
20-Mar-85 Olin.Shivers@CMU-CS-H Social encounters in CSD
Butcher-
I read your scenarios of possible sexism with much interest. Yet, I think
the general consensus is that they were too complex and bizarre to reflect
real life occurences. I should like your opinion on an encounter I think is a
little more typical among the Opinion BB readers:
A young gentleman, dashing, erudite, and cultured espies a comely lady in the
hall. She has been prominent in his thoughts of late. He approaches her.
He: Miss, for some time now, I have been admiring you from afar. I enjoy
your mind, the way you move, even your cute little mustache. I am, even
as we speak, returning to my apartment, there to prepare the evening's
repast. Would you like to come for dinner?
She: You are very kind, but I'm afraid this is a poor evening for me. On
this day two years ago, my parents were killed in a steamship accident.
The boiler exploded.
He: Were they niggers?
She: What! Racist pig.
He: Thank goodness. You know, sometimes people do get hurt.
She responds with a front snap kick to the solar plexus, a spinning wheel
kick to the jaw, and a well-executed reverse punch which undoes, in the
space of a few milliseconds, all the thousands of dollars that His parents
spent on orthodonture. She bursts into tears, whirls around, and stalks off
sobbing.
As our pain-wracked and formerly dashing hero slowly crumples to the floor, he
thinks: did I say something sexist?
What do you say, Butcher?
-Olin
02-Nov-85 05:59 Olin.Shivers@H.CS.CMU.EDU Some opinions
I'm glad to see we have left silly, irrelevant bogosity like
homosexuality and the SEI behind. All I can say is: better latent
than never, huh, Leonard?
Perhaps now we can grapple with some tough issues that could stand a hard
look. I have two that have been on my mind as of late.
1) Does it worry you when you see toothpaste pumps displacing the older
toothpaste sqeeze tubes in the supermarkets? The new technology is truely
wretched. The old technology worked well, and displayed the simple
elegance of brilliant design. The new pumps give you less control, making
it harder to apply a controlled dose of toothpaste to the toothbrush, and
they always leave a little bit of excess goo on the nozzle, which then
sticks to the inside of the cover when you screw it on. Of course, since
the cover *rotates* as you screw it on, the inside spins past the icky
nozzle, smearing the goo all over the inside of the damn thing. Hitech
smegma. Thanks a lot, Colgate. That's not to mention that the new pump is
bulkier for less functionality than the sqeeze tube. It enrages me to see
this sort of brain-damaged misfeaturism hit the market place just to have
the sexy claim of "New! Improved! Hitech!," particularly when it's a
giant step backwards.
2) Do you ever worry about growing old? (Those of you who actually *are*
old, well, my sympathies, but this section is not really addressed to
you). Frankly, I can't fathom people who grow old. It sounds like a
total lose to me.
I mean, do you ever worry that someday you will address your
lover and/or spouse as "Darling" or "Honey"? Try it. Really. Just... try it.
Next time you see your lover and/or spouse, say "Honey, would you pass me the
salt" or "Would you like to see a movie tonight, Darling?" or something like
that. See how awkward and foolish and schmaltzy and insincere that sounds?
Feel like you have just stepped out of a real, rewarding emotional
relationship, and into a poorly written TV show? That means -- you're young.
What a relief. Now look around. See all these old people -- your parent's
age and up -- who call their spouse "Sugar" or "Dear?" Wow. Someday you, too,
maybe. Pretty unsettling, huh?
And do you ever notice, sitting there in your carefully reasoned, happy,
secure agnosticism, the famous intellectuals who start off as atheists or
agnostics and end up converting to Christianity in their old age? Thus
abandoning all the intellectual rigor and moral courage they'd displayed in
their younger days? T.S. Eliot and W.S. Auden leap to mind. Frightening,
huh? Might happen to you. You might grow old, and sell out too.
And shortly thereafter, of course, you'll die, which I've always considered a
fate worse than taxes, even the flat-rate kind, and Amtrak, even during the
Daylight Savings switchover.
Old age. It's a bitch.
-Olin
------
The opinions reported herein are supported and backed to the hilt by the
Office of Naval Research, the John Birch Society, and the Trilateral
Commission, and are not those of their creator, me.
13-Nov-85 15:21 Richard.Wallace the world is fucked up
From: Richard.Wallace@ROVER.RI.CMU.EDU
I am sick and tired of the 99% of people in this world
When I was a student of philosophy, the problem that bothered me the
most was the impossiility of building a system of morals from first
principles. I think most people realize this, or at least realize that
they themselves are not clever enough to devise moral principles.
But rather than think about it, they tend to fall into one or another
dispicable mental states: religious fanatacism, or apathy and cynicism.
You religious fanatics know who you are. You are too feeble minded
to conceive that there might be another reality besides that pack of
lies you swallow. Sure, I believe in freedom of religion. I believe that
you have the right to believe anything you want about the nature of being.
It's too bad that most of you, even in a country where you can
question the validity of your beliefs, don't. Given the opportunity
to think for yourselves, you choose to accept the beliefs of
Pat Robertson or the Pope. But I'm not going to convince you otherwise.
Go for it, if it makes you happy.
You apathetics and cynics are even worse. You who have brains and
can use them get themselves into a happy-go-lucky state of mind and
respond to the lack of moral fiber with indifference and humor.
As long as moral choice is somebody else's problem, you laugh off
or ignore the difficulties involved. In tough situations, you will
let other people make choices for you. You are spineless. You
lack courage and you are fools for not thinking.
A few rare individuals (I am not one -- it's too easy for me to be
apathetic and cynical) have given serious thought, the kind they
might give to a scientific or mathematical question, to the problem
of morality. They have probably learned things the hard way, because
left without reference to an imaginary deity or set of moral axioms,
they have only themselves and their experience. I admire anyone who
can tell me how he was unsure about a moral choice to be made, but
found the courage to take one path or the other. If it worked, he can
tell me what he learned from it. If it didn't, what he tells me
is even more valuable. Experience is a damned good teacher.
01-Aug-86 21:38 Olin.Shivers@h Karl doesn't understand sodomy
01-Aug-86 04:16 Karl.Kluge@g Re: BAGSbiters (or "You must be joking!")
I have NEVER screwed another BAGS user. Although there are one or two that
I wouldn't kick out of bed. And I refuse to be forced to use "separate but
equal" computing facilities simply because of my choice of mail program.You
can only get away with that sort of thing in Georgia.
This is the sort of crap I've had to put up with ever since Faulkner
started associating incest with Southern families. Now, Karl is a good guy,
and I think we are in agreement about BAGS users, but he fundamentally
doesn't understand the Southern concept of Law.
Allow me to explain.
The fact that the Supreme Court has upheld anti-sodomy laws in Georgia
has nothing at all to do with sodomy in Georgia. I assure you that your
average Georgian thinks sodomy is more fun than watching Dolly Parton
jump rope. A real E ride. If you know what I mean.
In the North, the Law is the mechanism society uses for making your life
miserable, a sort of abstracted parent figure, to slap your wrist when
you do the sort of things you *really* want to do. A means of enforcement.
I find this sad, and puzzling, but then, Northerners have always seemed
to have this strange talent for making themselves miserable.
For instance, a Northerner would probably make bizaare claims like, "We
have rent-control laws to keep indigent tenants from being thrown out
onto the street."
Whereas, in the South, we all know that the Law is just a fun kind of game
that keeps the lawyers happy, occupied, and gainfully employed. Kind of
like Monopoly, or sodomy. A Southerner, i.e. someone who truely understands
Law, would more realistically claim that "We have laws because without laws my
uncle Doug, the lawyer, would be out of a job. Fuck the indigents; rent-control
laws keep my uncle Doug from being thrown out onto the street." Now, my uncle
Doug is a pretty cool guy. My whole family likes him. So you have to agree
that rent-control laws serve a useful end.
But beyond the purpose of keeping my lawyer buddies solvent,
the concept of Law is completely vacuous. Southerners just go on and do
exactly as they please. And if you don't like it, they'll bust your head.
Or secede. Or something. Faulkner knew about this trait when he described
the attitude of Southern men in court in *The Hamlet* as being "not so much
'What would you have me do,' but 'What would you have me do if you thought
you could make me do as you pleased.'" Legislating laws to a horde of crazed
rugged individualists is hard enough; Southern lawmakers know better than
to try to enforce them as well. Besides, in the South, there have always
existed alternative techniques for seeking redress than simply legal appeals.
If you know what I mean.
Let me illustrate with a few examples. The moonshine tax some Southern
counties passed leaps to mind. If you need revenue money for your county,
and the only major industry is illegal hooch, well, that's what you tax.
Sure. And I always admired the strange politics behind the wet/dry county
decisions. Who has an interest in outlawing legal liquor? The Baptist
ministers, and the moonshiners, of course. So these two groups with allied
interest formed lobbying coalitions, and...
And in the meantime, everyone who wasn't a minister, or a moonshiner, or both,
laughed heartily, and went on drinking whatever they were used to drinking.
It's very Southern.
But all of this is just a simple example of a general Southern principle:
The essence of Southern morality lies in appearance. Passing an anti-sodomy
law makes it OK to commit sodomy. Right. It doesn't matter so much what you
do on Saturday night as long as you're in church on Sunday morning. The
Sweet Young Thing can do as she likes after the big Bal de Salut, as long
as she wears a formal evening gown, and remembers to write her thank-you
letters. If the panties she pulls down in the back seat of her date's
Cutlass are of organdy and lace, can virtue be far behind? Briefly put,
"sin" is not an important concept in the South. "Faux pas" is.
I hope this clears up all this sodomy nonsense. Passing the law provides
a sense of virtue. Sodomy provides the good times. Where else but the South
can you have your, uh, cake, and eat it too?
Right.
-Olin
02-Aug-86 21:37 Olin.Shivers@h Unix & C
Sorry, Carlos. I disagree with you. Unix and C suck. C is little more than
structured assembler. Ever wonder why "bus error core dump" is the standard
C program crap out? Because C freely hands out random pointers to anyone
that asks. Slut.
That's not to mention how sleazy the damn compiler is. CC is really bogus.
Derek Beatty has this program that automatically generates C code as part
of a circuit simulator. It generated the following code fragment:
register int c1;
c1 = c1; c1 = c1; c1 = c1; .... ; c1 = c1;
Which the idiot compiler faithfully rendered as:
mov r1, r1
mov r1, r1
.
.
.
(Tcc did what you might hope for, by the way).
Of course, in C you don't *need* an optimising compiler, because you can
do all the low level transformations and code munging yourself. C allows
you to drop down to that level: Please put this quantity in a reg. Please
change this doubly-nested array-indexing operation into a simple pointer
incrementation. Pull this loop invariant out of the loop.
But the thing is, I don't like doing that sort of bullshit, because I
know that a real compiler -- like Wulf's Bliss, DEC WRL's Modula-2,
Cocke's PL.8 or the T groups's Orbit -- does all that for me. I object to
doing things that computers can do. Particularly when it makes my programs
harder to understand, harder to write, and easier to screw up. I like to be
able to write elegant code, knowing that the compiler will sweep up for me.
Can't do that with CC.
And Unix. Try to write a compiler sometime. Look at the a.out format.
Or the paging. Dynamic linking? Interrupt structure? Forget it. And the
file structure. Version numbers? Real filename extensions? Sure. Count on it.
I think Termcap is a great example of just why Berklix 4.2bfd is so random.
The database has this horrible, gross syntax. I've seen other termcap type
systems, so I know it doesn't have to be that bad. Anytime you want to
read or mung an entry, you have to whip out the whole damn manual entry and
pore over it. Great.
Or how about franz lisp. What a crock. It's incredibly slow. Dynamically
scoped. Has bizarre features imported from -- believe it or not -- Harvard
PDP-11 Lisp (the one written in the non-Unix assembler). It's compiler is so
half-assed that the system kernel has to be written in C, instead of Lisp.
Unix things just have this tendency to come out cheesy.
Unix has a nicer user level interface than VMS, granted. (Although there are
those that think otherwise) But VMS has more powerful innards, in just about
all of the ways I complained about above. And it's a lot more efficient, from
what I hear.
Unix was great stuff, on a PDP-11. But the Berklix people failed to grow
it up to Vax size very well. It seems incredible to me that these guys
just ignored all the lessons they could have learned from other successful
operating systems, like Tops20 or Multics. They've managed to fix up some
of the more blatant screwups in 4.2, but it's way too late. Euthanasia would
be kinder.
Mach sounds like much better stuff. And if you insist on an OS that really
exists right now, I much prefer Apollo's Aegis. Too bad everyone is terrified
of not being Unix compatible. Unix is doing to OS's what Fortran did for
languages: holding them back.
-Olin
03-Aug-86 19:37 Olin.Shivers@h Apology & retraction
Ever since I made that recent post, people have been jumping up and
down on me via the net. No one seems to mind the rather dry and factual
sociological analysis of actual post, but people are really upset by the
subject line:
01-Aug-86 21:38 Olin.Shivers@h Karl doesn't understand sodomy
Apparently, au contraire. From the mail I've been getting, it seems that Karl
wrote the book on sodomy. Someone who really knows the ins and outs of the
subject. Some of the mail I received positively waxed lyrical, claiming that
Karl brought "not only enthusiasm and dedicated application to his sodomising,
but such imaginative flair and tasteful creativity that the whole process was
transformed from simply exercising a sweaty animal drive to an elegant,
elaborately choreographed ritual of lust." Wow.
Still another wrote that "Karl has made sodomy a legitemate [sic] art form."
And at least one professor said, "I'd rather get sodomised by Karl Kluge than
get published in *The Journal of AI*." Although I was inclined to dismiss the
person who claimed it was "a rivetting experience" that "kept me on the edge
of my seat" as just some wiseass who reads to many Rex Reed reviews, in the
end, I got the point.
It's just amazing to me that the guy could have generated such an impressive
reputation is the 10 short months he's been here, but there it is. I hope
that people didn't take my lighthearted jest too seriously, as I never meant
to seriously imply that Karl was anything less than, as many claim, a total
pro when it comes to sodomy.
I'd like to formally retract my claim, and apologise to Karl. I hope he can
now step forward, out of the shadows -- or the closet -- and accept the
acclaim that is his rightful due. Sorry about that, Karl.
-Olin
05-Aug-86 19:00 Olin.Shivers@h The gentle art of making enemies
05-Aug-86 04:15 Karl.Kluge@g Re: R.S.D'I's post
Yeah? Well, at least no one has accused you of butt-fucking/going-down-on
the entire department/Robotics Institute/ITC/CGI recently. I should be so
lucky.
Oh, c'mon, Karl. I never said anything about CGI.
Actually, folks, I was picking on Karl because I figured he's in a good
position to take the abuse. The real, no-foolin word on Kluge is that
the mild-mannered exterior conceals a fairly successful ladies man. I've
heard more than one person comment on the foxy women Karl tends to be seen
in the company of.
I haven't the faintest idea what Karl's real attitude on sodomy is.
So all you Op-bboard voyeurs who want the real poop will have to ask his
girlfriend(s).
I know I shouldn't go around making random fictitious assertions about people.
But... what the fuck. Random assertions are what computer science is all about.
The joke was just lying there. I couldn't resist.
-Olin
21-Sep-86 21:52 Lee Brownston@A Road Runner
"Road Runner" cartoons are allegories of the antinomies inherent in
technology. Wile E. Coyote is constantly relying on advanced ("Acme")
technological solutions toward achieving his goal of capturing the Road
Runner. The stratagems and devices never work as intended, in the way
that formal systems such flush out weaknesses in axiomatization. The
discovery of these flaws is repeatedly dramatized in bold visual
objective correlatives.
In addition, these films use Zen-like paradoxes to expand our awareness.
For example, Coyote paints an expansive vista on a rock, hoping that the
Road Runner will run into it, but the Road Runner runs through it instead;
when Coyote tries to follow, he smashes into the rock. This metaphor
nicely contrasts the often startling mechanisms of nature with the crude
inflexibility of human attempts to overcome it; it also comments tellingly
on Einstein's famous aphorism "Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boeshaft
ist er nicht." Other paradoxes include the violation of laws of kinetics,
in which Coyote runs off a cliff in a straight line until he realizes that
he is unsupported, at which point he falls straight down. This of course
symbolizes the technocrat's blindness to the harmful side-effects of his
"solutions" until it is too late. Finally, there is Coyote's seeming
immortality, regaining his vigor after each fall, explosion, or crushing.
Needless to say, this is a comment on the indomitable spirit of technological
enterprise, however chastening the experience.
The structure of a "Road Runner" cartoon is one of theme-and-variation
familiar from music; each film consists of a sequence of three or more
episodes in which the theme of pursuit by means of cleverness is thwarted
by a surprising turnaround. The makers of the "Road Runner" cartoons have
been exploring this theme at length over the years, with the result that
no more extensive exploration of frustration can be found in the history of
western narrative fiction. The films have even become self-referential, in
that the audience can be assumed to know the outcome, and the tension is in
anticipating how Coyote is to be thwarted, as inevitably he must be. The
dramatic irony is that the audience knows that Coyote's attempts are doomed
to failure, but Coyote is under an inner compulsion to keep trying new
futile schemes; this is a very sophisticated reference to Camus's "Myth of
Sisyphus."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The moral: critical jargon can make anything sound deeper than it is.
31-Oct-86 19:10 Andi.Swimmer@h pals
sit on a potato pan, otis.
do good? i? no! evil anon i deliver: i maim nine more hero-men in saginaw;
sanitary sword a-tuck, carol i (lo!) rack; cut a drowsy rat in aswan; i gas
nine more hero-men in miami -- reviled, i, nona, live on, i do, o god!
Piel's lager on red rum did murder no regal sleep.
A slut nixes sex in Tulsa.
Naomi, sex at noon taxes, I moan.
I moan, 'live on, o evil Naomi!'
Now Ned, I am a maiden nun; Ned, I am a maiden won.
Dennis and Edna sinned.
Niagara, O roar again.
Lew, Otto has a hot towel.
Norma is as selfless as I am, Ron.
Draw pupil's lip upward.
Straw? No, too stupid a fad. I put soot on warts.
Doc, note, I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.
I, man am regal; a German am I.
Snug & raw was I ere I saw war & guns.
Si nummi immunis. [If you pay, you will go free]
Ablata at alba. [Out of sight, but still white]
In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.
[We go into the circle at night and we are consumed by fire]
Never odd or even.
A man, a plan, a canal - Panama.
Able was I ere I saw Elba.
Anna: "Did Otto peep?" Otto: "Did Anna?"
Dogma I won, now I am God.
He goddam mad dog, eh?
Lewd did I live & evil I did dwel.
Madam, I'm Adam.
May a moody baby doom a yam?
Rise, sir lapdog! Revolt, lover! God, pal, rise, sir!
Step on no pets.
05-Nov-86 17:55 Andi.Swimmer@h one more palindrome
A man, a plan, a caret, a ban, a myriad, a sum, a lac, a liar, a hoop, a
pint, a catalpa, a gas, an oil, a bird, a yell, a vat, a caw, a pax, a wag,
a tax, a nay, a ram, a cap, a yam, a gay, a tsar, a wall, a car, a luger, a
ward, a bin, a woman, a vassal, a wolf, a tuna, a nit, a pall, a fret, a
watt, a bay, a daub, a tan, a cab, a datum, a gall, a hat, a fag, a zap, a
say, a jaw, a lay, a wet, a gallop, a tug, a trot, a trap, a tram, a torr, a
caper, a top, a tonk, a toll, a ball, a fair, a sax, a minim, a tenor, a
bass, a passer, a capital, a rut, an amen, a ted, a cabal, a tang, a sun, an
ass, a maw, a sag, a jam, a dam, a sub, a salt, an axon, a sail, an ad, a
wadi, a radian, a room, a rood, a rip, a tad, a pariah, a revel, a reel, a
reed, a pool, a plug, a pin, a peek, a parabola, a dog, a pat, a cud, a nu,
a fan, a pal, a rum, a nod, an eta, a lag, an eel, a batik, a mug, a mot, a
nap, a maxim, a mood, a leek, a grub, a gob, a gel, a drab, a citadel, a
total, a cedar, a tap, a gag, a rat, a manor, a bar, a gal, a cola, a pap, a
yaw, a tab, a raj, a gab, a nag, a pagan, a bag, a jar, a bat, a way, a
papa, a local, a gar, a baron, a mat, a rag, a gap, a tar, a decal, a tot, a
led, a tic, a bard, a leg, a bog, a burg, a keel, a doom, a mix, a map, an
atom, a gum, a kit, a baleen, a gala, a ten, a don, a mural, a pan, a faun,
a ducat, a pagoda, a lob, a rap, a keep, a nip, a gulp, a loop, a deer, a
leer, a lever, a hair, a pad, a tapir, a door, a moor, an aid, a raid, a
wad, an alias, an ox, an atlas, a bus, a madam, a jag, a saw, a mass, an
anus, a gnat, a lab, a cadet, an em, a natural, a tip, a caress, a pass, a
baronet, a minimax, a sari, a fall, a ballot, a knot, a pot, a rep, a
carrot, a mart, a part, a tort, a gut, a poll, a gateway, a law, a jay, a
sap, a zag, a fat, a hall, a gamut, a dab, a can, a tabu, a day, a batt, a
waterfall, a patina, a nut, a flow, a lass, a van, a mow, a nib, a draw, a
regular, a call, a war, a stay, a gam, a yap, a cam, a ray, an ax, a tag, a
wax, a paw, a cat, a valley, a drib, a lion, a saga, a plat, a catnip, a
pooh, a rail, a calamus, a dairyman, a bater, a canal--Panama.
--Dan Hoey
07-Nov-86 13:05 Richard.S.D'Ippolito Moonlight Sonata by...
From: Richard.S.D'Ippolito@sei.cmu.edu
...Mozart?? Watch out for Ludwig's flying piano!
In the old (very old) days, music was a participation, not spectator sport,
and was essentially classless.
Nowadays, the musically illiterate chemical-culturist yoyos know only how
to shake their scabrous pudenda roughly in time to the ear-assaulting
artificial electronic noises of 3-chord 10-thumb string pluckers and
pouting nasal whiners of misologia, all gratefully deadened by the
boom-boom metronomic skin beaters until the senses gradually acquiesce
into total nerve-deafness except for the reflexive autonomous jerking...
Ever look at the volume slider on an R&Rer's system? It's bent to the
right from being forced repeatedly against the stop. Ever notice the blown
speaker cones littering the floor? The penny in the fuse box? Notice how
the scratches and dirt on the record only improve the sound with the variety?
21-Nov-86 01:29 Olin.Shivers@h Character assasination goes international
20-Nov-86 14:11 Richard.S.D'Ippolito EVERYONE??
Israel never (except for a short time) stopped selling arms to Iran beacuse
() They considered Iraq a bigger threat,
() They wanted to protect the several thousand Jews there, and
() They made MONEY!
And France *gave* away $300 million to 'normalize' relations.
C'mon, Rich. France? Gimme a break. Now, look. I'm a known francophile;
my friends can all confirm that. But seriously. I thought it was just taken
for granted the French government was synonymous with incompetence, craven
opportunism, and a total lack of scruples or moral restraint. Remember
Exocets? The Rainbow Warrior? The "Force Frappe?" Their policy of radical
accomodation, that just about got Paris blown off the map this summer?
As Joe Bob Briggs sez, the Eiffel Tower would be a fast food joint joint
called "Kraut-in-a-Box" if it hadn't been for Our Boys in WWII, and the silly
twits wouldn't even let us use the air space we fought for to go and bomb
some Middle Eastern asshole who can't even decide how to spell his own name.
Well, that's what Joe Bob said.
The point is: we are in bad shape if our actions are comparable to those
of the French government.
-Olin
21-Nov-86 01:29 Olin.Shivers@h An immodest proposal
Alice, may I propose the following useful filter: Invite each of them over for
an all-night bout of wild sex. Same night. Same time. See what happens.
Now, the way I see it, one of a couple of things could transpire, all of them
good:
1. They all go for it.
You simply retire from the dating rat-race, with a fully stocked male
harem of rich lovers. Quit your job; your menage-a-n is going to keep
you very busy, and they're all rich, anyway. Screw marriage; just tell
your son to refer to them all as "shu-shu."
2. Some of them freak out.
Well, you've filtered your list of applicants, haven't you? It's
guaranteed that you won't be bored by whoever's left.
[3] They go for it, but in the process discover they like each other better
than they like you.
Introduce them to Michael.
4. All of them freak out.
Marion was right; they're losers. You're better off without them.
Now, of course I've never done anything like this myself, but a friend of
mine -- grad student -- says it works wonders with the undergraduates in his
classes. Well, that's what he said. So give it a shot; you have nothing to
lose but your ennui.
-Olin
26-Nov-86 11:29 Purvis.Jackson@sei.cmu.edu Racism
On racism South and North, Eswaran's and Marion's observations parallel
mine. In South Carolina, there used to be separate beaches for Blacks
when I was a child, i.e., < 13. However, there were also separate beaches
for Carolinians and foreigners, i.e., yankees. For years, tourists flocked
to Myrtle Beach and residents stayed away, preferring to avoid the taint
of crude yankee behavior: the women with too much makeup, the whining
underweight men in plaid shorts, and the loud-mouthed ill-mannered children.
The tourists inevitably interacted with local rednecks and came away thinking
them to be representative of Carolinians in general. The proper Carolinians,
however, looked upon yankees as rather trashy vagabonds unworthy of proper
company. Thus, it was difficult for yankees to forge friendships with
Carolinians; but once forged, the friendships were long lived.
One of the better essays I have read on segregation in the South is included
in a collection by William Styron titled _Writings in the Dust_ I believe.
Styron, following evidence suggested by the noted historian C. Vann
Woodward, argues that the role of segregation laws in the South was not to
prevent Blacks from entering White establishments, etc., but to put an end
to a growing trend toward biracial relations. Black and White children grew
up together in the South, played together, and often became best of friends.
The White fathers were so psychologically disturbed by the notion that their
daughters might lie down with the children of slaves that they affected laws
to make such acts punishable. In so doing, they added the flavor of moral
wrongdoing to such behavior.
Following Styron's starting points, I want to suggest that racism is largely
the product of male insecurity. I say largely because I realize that there
are female racists, but the principles I believe are derived from the
underlying male fear that sexual preference is more than a remark about the
individuals involved. The point here is that when a male sees a female of
his race with a male of another race, the male is immediately occupied with
the notion of sex between those two people. The argument then becomes
something like:
1) Woman is White
2) White women can have White men
3) Man is non-White
4) Woman prefers non-White to White
5) Non-White is superior to White
6) Cognitive dissonance
Before people start railing on me about how stupid this argument is, consider
this for a moment: Do you know any biracial couples? If so, how many? Now,
which member of each couple is White? By the way, one of my nieces married
a Black man about seven years ago. Her father has denied her existence since
she married.
********************
Among evening mists and moss-draped oaks we drifted like ancient ghosts
about the lawn's edge near the great house in which lived the golden girl.
Upon the night shade cast by lamp her features floated like
wind in the leaves fallen from the magnolias by the iron gate.
On mornings we watched to see her foot step ever so softly into her
handsome cab for school while we filed into the wagon for the fields.
One time the golden girl stopped by her carriage and stared at me as if
thinking "Do you like that dress? It was my favorite once." She did not
speak and stopped there but a moment before lifting her hem.
Us nevuh drimp de golden gull would won'ttuh be our frin, till huh
come to wheh us at, hoin weeds in de vegatibble patch and say,
"Will you be my friend?" and us says back us would but she
bettuh don' be toll nobody cause us git in trubbuh, but she say it wohn
nobody bidniss no way.
05-Dec-86 03:01 Olin.Shivers@h Beth & child abuse
A few comments on Miss Byers' recent post:
C'est la guare
Close enough for war, Beth.
America, she eez eezy, no?
Ahem. Glass houses, Beth.
Olin, the stories of Paris I've heard from other travelers suggest to me
that Parisians are members of an exclusive mutual admiration society.
Allow me to defend Parisians.
I have multiple Parisian friends that are as friendly as can be. The first
time I visited some of my wilder friends in Paris, they discovered that I
wanted to see Versailles. This discovery was made at 1:30 AM. I forgot to
mention to them that by saying "I want to go see Versailles" I really meant
"...during the daytime, when it's open." So there we were, 2:00 AM, not very
sober, climbing the castle walls. I didn't know which consequence of getting
caught I was more frightened of -- having to explain it all to the American
Embassy, or having to explain it all to my mother.
The only problems I had with my friends in Paris -- not including the time
they stole my Glenlivet -- were (1) trying to beat them to the check at
restaurants and cafes and (2) trying to convince them that I really did like
the food/wine/ scotch/vodka/... but I was way too full/bombed to eat/drink
any more. The latter was particularly difficult. "More Veau Normand?" they'd
say. "Oh, God. Please, no. It was great, but I can eat no more." They'd
look hurt. "How about some fresh strawberries from the garden?" I could feel
the pressure in my stomach from all the strawberries I'd just finished. "Uh,
no, thank you very much." "Ah, you don't like strawberries. Wait, I'll go get
the raspberries we picked yesterday." "No, wait. I love strawberries.
Raspberries, too. But I just ate more in the last two hours than I eat in
three days back in the US," I'd hastily say. They were wounded; I could tell
they thought I was just being polite. "Well, how about finishing off this
bottle of Bordeaux?" "Uh, you go ahead; I think I've had enough." "No wine?
Well, let's drink some Scotch!" "Uh, actually, I don't feel like drinking
anything more right now," I'd mumble. What an understatement. By that point,
I wasn't able to lie on the floor without holding on. However, the refusal
had no effect on my host's efforts to get me intoxicated to the point of total
paralyis. After I turned down the scotch, I then had to turn down, in series,
the vodka we hadn't killed off before dinner, calvados, Vat 69, gin, .... I
just could never get through to these people that I liked what they were
offering; I just had a finite capacity for ingesting food and liquor.
I also fondly recall Paris because that's where I learned to debug Zetalisp
while drunk. But that's another story.
I must confess that I sort of admire the French, particularly Parisians, for
the enthusiasm with which they embrace every new vice that comes along.
Smoking, drinking, eating, adultery, drugs, argyle socks, you name it. If
suicide were suddenly to become chic, Paris would be decimated overnight.
Hunter Thompson said there's no place in the world of serious drug abuse for
amateurs. The Parisians, I believe, have generalised this concept.
I think I identify with them, too, because I'm from the South. Each culture
-- Parisian and the American South -- has made insanity not just socially
acceptable, but a fundamental element of its sociological fabric.
Anyway, the point is, I found the Parisians to be friendly, generous,
hospitable to a fault, frequently exhausting, and never boring.
----------
A few comments for those of you whose copy of *Lolita* has lots of pages with
the corners turned down:
So Richard has a 17 year-old daughter, the kind whose moral values could be
dangerously warped by Rock lyrics. Hmmm. I'd be more than happy to read her
the lyrics of my favorite Rolling Stones' songs: "When the Whip Comes Down,"
"Black and Blue," "Slave," "Let it Bleed," and "Some Girls". I'm not too
threatened by Richard himself; I got over my fear of right-wing papas 8 years
ago, when I dated a girl whose father:
1. Got two deer every year with his 30-06
2. Went back, and got another with bow and arrow.
3. Made knives for a hobby.
4. Was a teacher at my high school.
5. Was cleaning his guns on the porch the first night I arrived to take his
daughter out.
-Olin
22-Jan-87 10:51 Robert.Firth@bd.sei.cmu.edu Giant Eagle
Well, I don't think my faith in Giant Eagle is
irrational or unjustified. Look at the texts
and the historical record...
(1) Giant Eagle offers 'Absolute Minimum Pricing'.
No other religion makes this claim. Moreover,
it is a claim that can be scientifically tested.
(2) Giant Eagle imposes no weird restrictions on
ones lifestyle. You can buy pork anytime, meat
on Fridays, cookies during Lent, leavened bread
during Passover, and so on. You can shop alone,
with a spouse, with any other partner of any sex,
in groups (unless you are disorderly), with small
stuffed animals...
(3) Giant Eagle is always open and ready to serve you.
You don't have to go through a ceremony to visit
for the first time; if you stay away for years you
can go back without doing penance; you're always
welcome.
(4) The manager of Giant Eagle is accessible in person
or by telephone. No lengthy spiritual preparation
is needed to perceive him or her. You don't even
have to die. Other religions make this claim, but
somehow it doesn't work that way.
(5) Giant Eagle does not require its senior staff to be
celibate, does not exclude women from parts of the
hierarchy, does not restrict what its employees may
teach or publish, does not require you to teach your
children to shop at Giant Eagle.
"Verily I say unto you, except ye shop at Giant Eagle,
ye shall not save!"
28-Jan-87 12:28 Hans.Tallis@ml Mission Impossible
I almost had to walk out of the Mission partly because of ennui and partly
because of irritation.
Who hasn't seen this film several times already? Leaving out surface
characteristics like plot and setting (already short on the former, overly
long on the latter) we've seen this film as many times as there were Planet
of the Apes remakes. Who could sit through a day of The Mission, Emerald
Forest, Out of Africa, Mosquito Coast, Gallipoli, etc., etc.? The generic
title for these films is "Civilization and Cinematography Come To Beautiful
Undeveloped Country" or "Passion, Feeling, Conflict Need Not Apply." It's
entertainment by grandeur, lushness, and American Express Travel Services,
Ltd.
But what makes The Mission actually irritate instead of just lulling to
sleep is its smugness (a quality often found in these CCCTBUC movies).
It's filmmaking for those with an artistic eye and quick wit and keen grasp
of the subtle, moviemaking that loves to soar over the head of the
less-than-filmgoing-elite. It quickly becomes a self-parody, leaving in its
wake nothing of entertainment value. Snoozer. Just ask yourself why The
Gods Must Be Crazy will be long remembered after The Mission fades into a
collage of green and blue hues, and you'll get the idea.
A sampling:
DeNiro, in a less-than-surprising move, renounces his vow. Irons,
delivering a line with all the weight and pomposity normally attributed to
Vatican pronouncements, shakes his head and says "you cannot." The anguish
carves rivers across DeNiro's deeply tanned face.
MacNally labors under the great weight of white man's burden with his edict
from the church to firebomb the Garden of Eden. We soar as his eyes soak in
the wonder of this simple continent and its simple, peaceful, hard-working,
exploited, undereducated, disease-free, xenophilic people, and we sigh as he
sighs his tortured indications of the inner torment. It turns out his
profuse sweating is only an analog of the tedium the audience is forced to
endure.
DeNiro, one of the more ruthless characters we have met (at least during the
first five minutes of the film) all of a sudden becomes a man tormented over
the slaying of a brother he obviously didn't care much for anyway. So he
immediately begins sinking into an existential quagmire, declaring himself
unfit for life (not a dry eye in the audience, I assure you.) Irons, in a
flurry of metaphor and innuendo, parry's DeNiro's suicidal tonguelashing
with an offering for repentence which takes quite a while to deliver,
considering how many bushes he needs to beat around. DeNiro, in yet another
in-character line, asks Irons if the priest could stand to fail. No doubt
Irons' death march into a salvo of flaming 6-foot arrows was borne out of
his sense of failure to convert this poor louse.
Who needs this? I can get a nightly fix on WQED's Adventures in Great
Listening, anchored by Charles Emerson Winchester III.
Joe Bob says 'check it out, but return unopened'
07-Mar-87 10:55 Rick.Busdiecker@h Modern Times (from The Atlantic)>From the February 1987 issue of the Atlantic comes a plaint by James
Fallows on the electronic age in Malaysia:
... In the old, colonial days the expatriate's lifeline from Malaya was
the Singapore packet ship, bringing tinned biscuits and the weekly
mail. In the "old" pre-computer days it was the Telex machine,
expensive but quick. On arrival in Malaysia I initially relied on the
Telex, scrawling dispatches in big block letters and taking my sheaf
of papers to a downtown office, where I could chat with the Telex
girls. Now I have "advanced" to a more stylish and direct connection.
My new lifeline is MCI Mail, the computer network that in theory
provides a cheap and immediate link to anyone with a computer and a
modem, anywhere in the world. In the U.S. using it was quick and
painless; here the gap between theory and reality threatens to swallow
me up.
Malaysia has a brand-new "public data network," called Maypac, which
in principle allows me to call a number in Kuala Lumpur to be
connected with MCI Mail. But for obscure reasons MCI and Maypac
couldn't make connections during my first two months of trying. My
fallback plan was to attach my modem, brought from America, to my home
phone and, on the days the phone was working, to call MCI's number in
the U.S. But the connection, via satellite, was too fuzzy. To make
matters worse, on my second try the modem blew up when my
240-to-110-volt transformer failed. I tried another modem, bought in
Japan, which ran on batteries and did not explode. This one clamped
onto the rounded telephone handsets that are standard in the U.S. and
Japan. But residential phones in Malaysia are squared off, and the
modem won't fit.
I refused to be denied the convenience of a modern computerized link.
I learned that Singapore has a data network -- and no disagreements
with MCI. From pay phones in Malaysia you can reach Singapore, and
the pay phones have rounded handsets onto which the modem, with some
shoving, will fit. I signed up with the Singapore network. My
preparations were complete.
This is how I now use advanced technology to keep in touch: I leave
home in the morning dragging a big blue canvas sack. In the sack are
the clamp-on modem, a small Radio Shack computer, a modem-to-computer
cable, and eighteen to twenty pounds of Malaysian coins. The coins
are each worth twenty sen, or about eight American cents, and they're
thick and heavy. One of them is good for seven seconds of connection
to Singapore, so I need them in bulk. When my supply gets low, I stop
at Bank Bumiputra Malaysia ("Bank of the Original Sons of the Soil of
Malaysia"), where i can walk in with a 100-ringgit ($40) bill and walk
out an hour later with my coins.
I go to one of Kuala Lumpur's busiest streets and set up shop under
the sign that says TELEFON ... The modem goes on top of the phone; the
coins get piled in big mounds wherever I can find a flat surface. The
ones left over sag in my pants pockets, making me list. I raise my
right knee and brace it against the bottom of the phone, rest the
computer on my now-horizontal right thigh, and connect the cable. I'm
ready to begin. I dial the number in Singapore, wait to hear the
computer tone, and slam the handset down into the modem before the
tone cuts off and my first twenty sen's worth of time expires. Then
comes the hard part: shoveling twenty-sen pieces into the phone every
seven seconds, and digging spares out of my pockets when the mounds
dwindle down, while trying to type the commands necessary to make
contact. "NQJFXPM03106004759" is only the first part of the elaborate
sign-on code. Every four or five minutes the phone's coin box fills
up and I have to break contact, disassemble my equipement, and move to
the next phone in line. I've chosen this location because I don't
know any other with so many phones in a row.
There is a bus stop right by my telephones, and a hangout favored by
off-duty police. To the regulars I have become an institution, a
major spectacle, a dependably hilarious diversion to replace the rock
concerts that Malaysia recently outlawed. As I fumble to keep the
money going into the slot, coins inevitably fall to the ground.
Little children with backpacks, waiting for the bus to school, dart
between my feet, filching twenty-sen pieces and skipping away in glee.
Women in beautiful saris, sober Muslims going to work in the nearby
Tabung Haji ("Fund for Pilgrimages to Mecca"), young toughs on their
loud motorbikes, all laugh openly at the sweaty, red-faced foreigner
doing his Modern Times routine at the phones. The humiliation of the
West is complete. Then the daily inch-a-minute downpour begins, nd I
try to hold an umbrella with my chin.
When I have finished, I carefully repack my equipement, sweep the
remaining coins into the bag, and walk off looking straight ahead,
with as much dignity as I can muster. Tomorrow I will do it all
again.
On my way home I pass the Telex office. Through the window I see my
friends the Telex girls, in their smart tan uniforms, smiling as they
sit at their machines. I am too modern to need the likes of them.
- James Fallows
09-Mar-87 00:50 Olin.Shivers@h Lethal Weapon (slight spoiler)
I'll try to limit my spoilers to points Jon's earlier post already mentioned.
08-Mar-87 18:28 Jon.Webb@ius2 Lethal Weapon
You have to give credit to a guy who can pass through a bar, shoot
one of the patrons at the bar apparently for turning quickly in his
direction, give the bouncer four quick shots in the chest for trying to
throw him out, and then later indiscriminately spray a freeway with a
machine gun without making you feel sick.
I can't let this go by unchallenged. Mel is a *good* guy; he doesn't do things
like that. Here is what actually happens: Mel is escaping from the back
rooms of a disco owned by the bad guy. He enters the disco from the back, and
sees one of the mercenaries the bad guy has for guards. As the guard is going
for his gun (clearly visible in its holster), Mel shoots him. Very quickly.
The disco is enemy territory; the people in it aren't bouncers, they are
killers. And they've made multiple attempts on Mel's life. Mel is with a
wounded man and a young girl. He is way outnumbered. It's not as if he
opened up fire on the bouncer because the guy wouldn't let him in without a
tie.
I'll admit you only see the mercenary Mel shoots very briefly; Jon probably
didn't recognise him as one of the Bad Guys. But that's only to say that
while Jon is working on real time vision algorithms, Mel already has them.
When he (Mel, not Jon) opens up fire on the freeway, he doesn't spray it
indiscriminately. He is firing at a specific car.
I didn't feel sick; I felt great. I really enjoyed *Lethal Weapon*. There is
this spectrum of movies, delimited on the left by porn movies, so I'm told,
that describes just how much cheapness and bogosity you can get away with
and still turn out a saleable product. Action flicks are to the left of center;
script writers can turn out pieces of junk as long as the F/X crew has lots
of gasoline explosions on hand. Consider the last N James Bond movies. The
plots are unreal to the point of laughability. It's impossible to willingly
suspend your disbelief. Note that wild or far-out plots are not antithetical
to suspension of disbelief: it's much easier to accept the reality of a
good science fiction story than a James Bond movie.
So action movies like *Lethal Weapon* and *Terminator* are welcome. The
plots are basically convincing -- the bad guys are good shots, and reasonably
motivated. The characters are basically believable. The good and bad guys'
superhuman abilities are credibly established. That kind of thing. I get so
tired of movies that have neat car chases and explosions, but where all during
the movie you keep breaking out of the fictional universe to tell yourself,
"Wow. That is so bogus. How come 50 bad guys, with automatic weapons, keep
missing our hero, who is standing up out in the open?"
Further, *Lethal Weapon* had some fine images. The opening credit sequence
is pretty classy. There are two slow motion bits, one at the very end,
that are terrific. I wouldn't say the images are as good as *Terminator*
or *Risky Business* or *Clockwork Orange*, but still, very nice.
Cool and/or funny bits. There are two scenes, one involving a Christmas
tree farm, and one involving a jumper, that are fabulous.
And finally, Mel Gibson's character is a totally cool character. The script
does a very good job of establishing this, and Mel does a very good job
of portraying it. One intense dude. Right up there with the coolest --
Schwarzenegger's Terminator, Eastwood's Man with No Name. I don't know about
soi-disant "men" like Jon, but one of the reasons I go see movies like *Lethal
Weapon* is to see guys like Mel Gibson, so I can tell myself, "If I were him,
I wouldn't have to take shit from anybody." But I'm not, so I do, and that's
why I like movies like *Lethal Weapon*.
So, in sum, *Lethal Weapon* is well made, tightly scripted, well acted.
Good, clean all-American violence by everybody's favorite Australian.
-Olin
Date: 9 Mar 1987 10:56-EST
From: Jon.Webb@ius2.cs.cmu.edu
To: Olin.Shivers@h.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Lethal Weapon (slight spoiler)
hey, I'm not soi-disant. I've got 'em, two big ones. Just ask yo' mama.
Jon
30-Apr-87 09:05 Kathryn.Swedlow@h something relevant
from the weekly world news:
vampire attacks have reached an all-time low as AIDS terror sweeps eastern
europe, a leading researcher reports.
dr. josef sperl told a medical conference in graz, austria that incidences
of vampirism have fallen from a high of 75 per month three years ago to less
than five a month today.
he flatly blamed the fear of the AIDS virus for the dramatic decline in
bloodsucking. he further predicted that the practice might soon die out
completely if the disease continues to be spread at current levels.
"vampires are facing the most serious threat in the historyof their breed,"
said the vienna-based virologist.
"there is every indication that several of them have already been infected
with the AIDS virus and the rest of them are terrified they'll be next. to
a vampire, AIDS is worse than a stake through the heart. At least with a
stake death comes quickly. When AIDS kills, it kills slow."
in a frightening footnote, dr. sperl noted that vampires are doubly apt to
catch AIDS because most of them are flaming homosexuals.
"their sexual preference alone puts thm at great risk of getting AIDS," he
said. "to make matters worse, they have a taste for blood. and everybody
knows that the exchange of blood is one of the ways that AIDS virus is
transmitted."
other experts contacted by the austrian press confirmed that vampire attacks
were down but they were reluctant to blame AIDS alone.
"AIDS has certainly played a role but there are other factors as well," said
psychologist hans moser of graz. "for one thing we have more and better
mental health facilities that we had just three years ago. it's safe to say
that some vampires have learned to control their urges with therapy."
30-Apr-87 19:39 Olin.Shivers@h DDD & France
30-Apr-87 10:12 Richard.S.D'Ippolito Where you bin, Calvin?
...And what do you think I do with my fishing rods?...
Wow. You could go a long time without being handed a straight line like that.
By the way, let me add that I support the proposition put forth by Michael and
Kurt that we should invade France. Socialist government or no, I think it's
an idea whose time has come. The last time we did it, we managed to overcome
the German army. This time we only have to contend with the French army, which
suggests that we could probably get by with just subcontracting the invasion
out to New Zealand.
Since France is basically about the size of Texas, it'd make a dandy 51st
state. Among the numerous advantages of such a move, two that immediately
leap to mind are the resultant dramatic improvement in domestic wine quality,
and of course the convenient military air access to Libya we would gain. And
that's not to mention the positive effects towards countering nuclear
proliferation: the number of world powers with nuclear capability would be
reduced by one.
Now, people might contend that although the invasion might be trivial,
the occupation would be horrendous. I disagree. The French are not exactly
enchanted with their current administration. They'd go for an American
annexation if only for the Walt Disney reruns. Besides, the French are
notoriously trendy. If we simply retained a good public relations firm to
run a media blitz depicting an American invasion as hip, chic, the latest
thing, then France could be taken without firing a shot. Remember that
today's generation of French were raised in a time that has not seen an
invasion of France; they'd be intrigued by the sheer novelty of it all.
As far as international sentiment goes, well, it's not as if Germany or
Britain are in a position to point fingers.
I really think Michael and Kurt are on to something here. Perhaps we should
organise a write-in campaign to our respective senators and congressmen.
-Olin
Date: 30 Apr 1987 22:51-EDT
From: Jeffrey.Stout@g.cs.cmu.edu
To: Olin.Shivers@h.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: DDD & France
In-Reply-To: Olin.Shivers's bboard message of 30-Apr-87 19:39
I laughed, I cried, I fluffed my sofa.
--jeff
04-May-87 13:37 Kathryn.Swedlow@h man bashing
i don't know the source. but it's true...
what is masculinism:
masculinists are particularly men who engage in a dialogue aimed at
understanding the sources and mechanisms of their oppression.
first of all, adult people really don't care about men's
personal affairs. second, most of men's problems are brought
on by behavior to reward people who rape men. third, men have a
very short time-constant associated with their endocrine system;
their bodies have no sense of the rhythm and harmony of a monthly
cycle, they can just "go off" suddenly at any time. although it's
important for employers to make special allowances for these special
problems that men have, it is important to realize the limitations
inherent in this lack of a regular cycle. the settling in to a
endocrine cycle is characteristic of maturity, and since men
are not able to have a cycle, it is quite possible that many
boys' lagging behind in their physical and emotional maturity
have a physiological component. the other problem with men is
that they never bear children; therefore they never really settle
down. wheras most people can be relied upon to create some social
and financial stability for the sake of the children they have
given birth to, it is nearly impossible to expect the same level of
dedication from a man who, by definition, does not even have
the ability to bear children. face it. lacking the ability
to carry life within them, men have no real understanding of
life. since most of our social and political institutions
are aimed at fostering life, it is difficult to understand
why a man, who is unable to bring forth life of his own,
would be so interested in playing a more prominent role
in our society. of course, there are those men who are so
undesirable that they cannot find anybody to support them,
so they must work. and of course, it's impossible for the
country to do without the labor of men in times of Peace.
during WPII, many women were away from their normal jobs for
years at a time, when increased production was necessary to aid
the Peace effort. at this time, the governess established
a large propaganda effort to....
but, despite these very real difficulties that exist in
establishing social and economic equality for men, real
gains have been made...
05-May-87 14:35 Olin.Shivers@h Reading between the lines
04-May-87 13:37 Kathryn.Swedlow@h man bashing
[Men] can just "go off" suddenly at any time.
Poor Kathy. Obviously she hasn't had much luck at choosing boyfriends.
I suspect this explains why she seems so tense all the time.
-Olin
06-May-87 21:26 Olin.Shivers@h Correction
06-May-87 00:48 Doug.Philips@theory BB Bashing!
In response to: Olin.Shivers
Poor Olin. He obviously hasn't had much luck finding any girlfriends.
I suspect this explains why he is trying to be-little [sic] Kathy.
Mr. Philips. You suffer from premature expostulation. I am not criticising
or belittling Kathy; I am sympathising with her. Let me tell you -- it's
incredibly frustrating when you go to bed with someone, and 30 or 40 seconds
later she's ready to "go off" -- moaning, panting, screaming, thrashing
uncontrollably -- and you're just left hanging. Drives me up the wall when
it happens.
-Olin
10-May-87 12:41 Sean.Engelson@nl Hey, hackers!
I'M JUST A TWO-BIT PROGRAMMER ON A SIXTEEN-BIT MACHINE
Well, I sit at my computer, staring at the screen
Like a chloroformed iguana. My brain has got gangrene.
And while my mind is rotting, I feel like such a jerk:
I caused a disk crash wiping out my last two decades' work.
Oh, Mama, who could have foreseen
I'd be a two-bit programmer on a sixteen bit machine?
I go on dates with women, and I talk of bits and bytes,
So is it any wonder that I sleep alone at nights?
To think, I could be human, instead of the nerd I am!
But then again, let's face it: who really gives a damn?
Oh, Mama, it's just too obscene.
I'm just a two-bit programmer on a sixteen-bit machine.
by David S. Platt, reprinted without permission
Copyright (c) 1987
17-May-87 03:38 Olin.Shivers@h Gun control considered harmful
12-May-87 11:11 Michael.Witbrock Boy, 10 Shoots Parents.
12-May-87 12:49 Michael.Alex@henry Boy, 15 Shoots Father
It's exactly this sort of thing that shows what a terrible idea gun control
legislation is. If my child opened up on *me* with a .38, I'd sure want
to be in a position to return fire.
-Olin
Date: Sun, 17 May 87 13:55:51 EDT
From: Doug.Tygar@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
To: shivers@h
Subject: Other good uses for guns
``First came the case of 31-year-old Gerald Stano, arrested in 1980.
He stabbed, strangled, beat or shot to death at least 27 and possibly
as many as 39 young women across central Florida because, as he put it,
`I can't stand a bitchy chick.' ''
>From Boston Globe, May 7, 1987: ``Is Florida Becoming America's Most
Bizarre Killing Ground?''
19-May-87 18:07 Alice.Sun@sei.cmu.edu final words on modeling
It seems that I always read the opbb posts a week late for some reason.
Please excuse my belated post. This may be the only chance you guys can
learn something from an ex-professional model.
During the summer right after my high school graduation(this was many,many
years ago), I was at New York city looking for summer jobs to cover my college
expenses. I was picked right in a Manhattan restaurant by an agent who
was looking for an oriental model who could model some summer clothes and
early fall fashion for an incoming fashion show. Since I was not experienced,
he sent me for a three weeks training in order to get me started.
Needless to say, I was a quick learner.I worked two summers full time at NYC,
made about $3000-4000 in each summer, which covered all my 2-semester
school expenses and even had more left for luxuries. (I remembered the
housing was $45 a month, and grocery was $5 a full bag.) Because this
was my only means of making a living, supporting myself through
the first 2 years of college at WVU, I considered myself professional
in that sense.
Rich was right, a model does not need to have a look or body beyond normal
range. But it has to be above the median. As long as you don't have some
kind of unchangeable facial feature, just about any blemish can be covered by
make-up or some way of making over. But it is obvious that the better look
you have, the higher the chance is for success.
I don't have anything to say against Barbazon, since I don't know
anything about them. The only thing I want to say about modeling
schools in general is that they prepare you how to model(how to walk,
how to move, how to apply make-up, how to hide your physical weakness,
etc) they do not prepare you how to deal in the fashion world once you
are in. It was not an easy world to be in. If you wanted to make money
(get work, not just sitting around waiting),you had to learn how to play
games well, how to manipulate people who could "help"you, how to meet/impress
new "important" men, how to sleep around to your best advantage. Rich's
picture of innocent modeling job using mediocre looking people did not
exist in the New York City fashion world, certainly not the high fashion
world which I was never a part of it. Developing your portfolio is another
important key element in getting jobs, which I am not sure it is discussed
in a modeling school today. Who shots the pictures, who actually owns them,
who presents them to whom, who promotes you, all have a part on whether
you get the job. Modeling was not just let someone take pictures like
Barbara described. It sometimes required long hours of working under
HOT spot lights. You constantly worried about your make-up ruined by
your sweat, your shiny nose, etc. Especially pictures with many girls,
they arranged your postures and positions by the color you wore and
your size, etc. Sometimes it took forever to get them right. Then
in a fashion show, you could have clothes ripped at the last minute,
having "accident" on the stage, forget some necessary things. Even bruise
under your neck, pimples on your face took extra effort on you to get
them right(assuming they still allow you to work with your bruise on).
The party after the fashion show where you mingled with
potential clients(whether they were export/import traders or retail clothes
buyers) were also like work. You didn't just wear clothes, you also need
to know the textile, style trend, answers to some related questions.
On top of these, you took verbal abuses and sometimes physical,
from all men you were working with for whatever the reason. You also
treated every move you made, every word you spoke as a game so that you
would continue getting jobs. No need to mention you also fought with other
girls for everything(from underwears, to dates, a chance to meet some
agent, etc).
I would not say there were less screwed up people in the fashion world
than people in the showbiz. Certainly many were around when I was there.
Although it was a short part of my life, it was an important one. It taught
me:
(1) As long as you do things that allow men to exploit your
body(including your face), you can forget about that you have a brain,
cause they won't notice.
(2) Modeling was a short-lived career choice, there was no security.
This may explain when models are insecure. The chance to make something
big was very slim(even with the best look/body), yet there was a jungle
you had to survive day to day.
If I have to invest my time and energy into a career, I rather want to
invest into something that is foreseeable, secure and high return.
(3) It was very sad to be an"old"model who couldn't make enough to live,
most of them got married soon, some turned into high-priced prostitutes, a
lot of them just disappeared. I would never want to be in their shoes.
To this day, my parents and my sisters don't know what I was doing at
New York city these two summers, they thought I was a waitress. My parents
were very conservative,and both were college professors. They could never
understand or allow me to take this type of job. I was rebellous, so I
just decided I would not let them find out. One day in July, they flew in the
city to visit me. The plane arrived about ten in the morning, and I just
got out of all-night long partying about eight oclock. I took a taxi
back to my apt and got cleaned up, then I went to the airport to greet them.
I remembered I was so very shameful that I was very quiet. This made my
mother very concerned because she thought I was tired from working too
hard. They trusted me very much and respected my will for wanting to
finish my college without their assistance. But the way I made money
just wasn't honest enough to face up to their expectations. I partially
agree that modeling money and all this business are just not all that honest.
Modeling looks like a glamorous job, but it is not. I rather think
being a software engineer is glamorous. Right? folks.
Date: Fri 22 May 87 09:35:00-EDT
From: David Nason <David.Nason@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Subject: Re: One more question...
To: Olin.Shivers@H.CS.CMU.EDU
In-Reply-To: Message from "Olin.Shivers@H.CS.CMU.EDU" of Fri 22 May 87 02:09:23-EDT
Actually, they used four weapons more than any other:
PK-6 (pistol),
AK-47C (shinese manufacture)
SKS (carbine, semi-auto)
AK-47 (russian)
D.
-------
21-May-87 17:05 Olin.Shivers@h pederasty and the media
The strangest line I've heard in a radio advertisement in quite a while:
"Young Joey took the gleaming silver nozzle from the masked man."
My advice: tell your children to stay away from Amoco service stations.
-Olin
22-May-87 03:38 Olin.Shivers@h The gentle art of character assasination: part V
I was intrigued with Alice's writeup of her college summers spent in
the "modelling" biz. The thing that caught my eye was the extreme shame
she recalls with respect to her parents discovering just exactly how she'd
spent her summers. Didn't that strike you as odd, too? Sort of stuck out.
Hmm.
Now... you all know I'm not the sort of guy who goes around dragging
innocent people's good names through the mud... and I surely hate to cast
aspersions... but... it seems pretty clear to me that there aren't that many
high paying jobs that could cause a young college girl that much shame and
embarassment. If it makes Alice feel better to call what she was doing until
8:00 AM that morning her family rolled into town "modelling" or "partying,"
well, she's certainly not the first.
I mean, it certainly isn't my intention to suggest that Alice is "fast," but
there's got to be *some* reason why she got the nickname Alice "Sublinear"
Sun. If you know what I mean.
Lest anyone foolishly think I'm criticising Alice, let me point out that
I firmly believe Alice's summer jobs have given her a perspective
that will carry her far in a career of DOD contracted research.
"Needless to say, I was a quick learner."
-A. Sun
I believe you, Alice.
-Olin
22-May-87 10:47 Greg.Hansen@sei.cmu.edu Can anyone tell me why Olin...
shivers? Maybe it is the thought of young Joey. Maybe the thought of a
silver gleaming nozzle in his hands. Maybe it is the thought of Alice.
Maybe it is because you can have so much fun with his name, like by adding a
letter:
c-Olin
h-Olin (one?)
m-Olin (young boys?)
r-Olin (drunks)
I suggest you change your name to, something like Olin Trembles, or Olin
Shakes, or Olin Quakes.
22-May-87 18:33 Olin.Shivers@h Greg & Alice
22-May-87 10:47 Greg.Hansen@sei.cmu.edu Can anyone tell me why Olin
shivers? ... Maybe it is the thought of Alice.
Not unless she were gagged. Is there an operation that corresponds to an
inverse lobotomy?
C'mon, Greg. Making jokes on peoples names is an even lower form of humor
than making puns. Not even Jon Webb makes jokes about my name; like the
gentleman that he is, he limits himself to making remarks about my mother.
It's not so awful, just incredibly unoriginal. Like making jokes about
Cyrano's nose. I'd heard just about every single joke you made before I was
three. And I have clear memories of how I reacted to them when I was three:
"Jesus. Same stupid joke. Another self-appointed wit who thinks he's
original." Except I didn't have a vocabulary that good when I was three.
I've heard only one actually funny joke on my name since I was three:
Olin Shivers, but he don't fall down.
If you can't do better than that, stay off the bboard.
22-May-87 15:50 Alice.Sun@sei.cmu.edu Re: character assasination
Oh, Alice. Come, now. Calm down. I said you'd go far in a career of DOD
contracted research, didn't I?
Maybe I am struggling for my degree, but at least I'm not following *your*
career path. Just because I'm actively contributing to the next generation of
the US government's technology of death doesn't mean I'm an intellectual
prostitute: it isn't prostitution when you do it for fun.
Maybe in the process of getting your Ph.D. (assuming you work hard) you
will learn "the gentle art of self-discipline"....
Well, I like discipline as much as the next guy, but I'm not much for
self-discipline. I know which side of the riding crop I like to be on.
-Olin
22-May-87 19:24 Olin.Shivers@h Presentation announcement
It's common knowledge that whenever you get two or more CS grad students
together, the conversation will inevitably drift to the same topic:
automatic weapons. Lately, we've noticed that whenever we attend a CS party,
picnic, or bullsession, we always hear the same questions and discussions,
usually from the younger grad students:
"When I switched from guncotton to standard ball powder on my .223 loads,
the gas ports on my M16 would clog like you wouldn't believe. Steer clear
of that stuff."
"You haven't cleared an ejection port jam until you've cleared one in
the Hill district at 4:00 AM on a Saturday morning."
"I want to mount an M60 in front of the sun roof of my Tercel, but
the mounting bracket wasn't drilled for import cars. How did Josh
Bloch do his?"
"What exactly are those special 'conference rounds' that Newell hand loads
before AAAI every year?"
"Some of my friends at the MIT AI Lab don't like M203's because the
grenade launcher adds too much weight, but I wouldn't have gotten
out of IJCAI-85 in one piece if it hadn't been for those 40mm flechette
rounds. What do you think?"
"Do you have to be a god-damned tenured professor to get teflon rounds
at this place?"
"Does the 'reasonable person principle' cover hosing down a member
of the Soar project after he's used the phrase 'cognitively plausible'
for the fifteenth time in a 20 minute conference talk?"
"Where *did* Prof. Vrsalovic get that Kalashnikov AK-47?"
"I used to use Dri-Slide to lube my M16. How come my advisor says
Dri-Slide is for momma's boys and Stanford profs?"
"Does the way Jon Webb keeps flicking the safety of his Mac-10 on
and off at thesis defenses make you nervous, too?"
In short, there is a lot of concern in this department for the proper care,
handling and etiquette of automatic weapons. So as a service to the
department, we are starting a two week daily series on "The Care and Handling
of Your M16A1." Every day for the next two weeks, we will post on the wall
outside our office the day's helpful hint on care and maintenance of that good
old departmental standby: the M16A1. Our thanks to the US Army, whose
training manuals we have shamelessly cribbed for material.
We would like to encourage other knowledgeable members of the CS community to
share their expertise in a similar fashion. There is a real need for this
kind of dialogue in the department. The new students come in here every fall,
and are totally unequipped to handle the realities of graduate student life at
CMU. Computability theory and lexical scoping are fine things to know about,
but they just don't cut the mustard when somebody from the Psych department
opens up on you with an Ingram set to full auto.
-the friendly automatic weapons enthusiasts of SkyCave1,
Olin, Derek, and Allan
23-May-87 23:41 Olin.Shivers@h Sensitivity
23-May-87 00:16 Mike.Blackwell@rover Rambolin
I dunno, maybe it was just me, but I sure thought that Billy in Beverly
Hills Cops [sic] II struck an uncanny resemblance to Olin ... They both
unsuccessfully strive to put on this air of the caring and sensitive
types, but secretly would much rather be mercinaries [sic], 'cuz they have
so much neater toys...
No, Mike, no. A foul canard. You have me all wrong. Can't you see that I'm
actually a deeply, deeply sensitive, caring human being? I'm so painfully
shy I hide all this behind a facade of macho bravado; I would probably blossom
forth into the kind of self-actualised man who reads Adrienne Rich, and isn't
at all ashamed about crying in public -- a sort of combination of the best
features of Alan Alda and Benjamin Pierce rolled into one -- if I could only
find emotional support and spiritual commitment from the right woman.
Preferably one with large breasts.
I think it must've been the switchblade, and the larger than life
Terminator poster...
Let me go on record here as not owning a switchblade. I think they are in
poor taste. I'm aware that de gustibus non disputandum; nevertheless,
pulling a switchblade on me is a surefire way to get yourself removed from my
dinner party invitation list.
Oh, well, good flick for a hot summer night...
I thought Beverly Hills Cop II was pretty bad. Like flat beer. A dull,
uninspired rehash of the original. The T&A were introduced with all the
subtlety of a commercial break: "We'll return to our plot in 60 seconds after
this strip tease number brought to you by..." Bleh. Brigitte Nielsen bores me
to tears. And her death in the movie is yet another wretched instance of "if
you're going to shoot somebody -- shoot, don't talk." Murphy must think he can
take any random piece of self-serving, half-baked script and magically
transform it by virtue of his supreme talent. Nope.
Further discussion of Beverly Hills Cop II probably belongs on the Film
bboard.
-Olin
23-May-87 09:48 Greg.Hansen@sei.cmu.edu c-Olin-ectomy
I fooled with your name to pass the time while I did a psychological
profile. Do you know that two of your last three posts deal with young
children, and, worse, contain references to phallic symbols. C,mon,
everyone knows that a pistol is a phallic symbol, especially to impotent
insecure males. Then there is the famous post in which you claim to know
what to do with a fishing pool. I suggest that you tell us. I am willing
to bet that reeling up the line is what makes you shiver.
In fact most of your posts reveal that you are sexually insecure,lonely and
impotent. With this in mind, I will attempt to overlook your attempts at
macho via bboard attacks.
Have a nice day.
24-May-87 00:52 Olin.Shivers@h Insensitivity
23-May-87 09:48 Greg.Hansen@sei.cmu.edu c-Olin-ectomy
I fooled with your name to pass the time while I did a psychological
profile.
So now we're into Freud? I suppose I could counter by pointing out the
rather obvious fascination Greg's displayed in his posts for anal medical
procedures, but really, gang: pop-Freudian analysis is the last refuge of the
insecure. Not to mention kind of dated. It is perhaps noble or idealistic to
be stuck in the '60s, but to remain mired in the '70s is pathetic at best.
Do you know that two of your last three posts deal with young children...
Ok. Ok. I know that I'm not exactly ...normal... with respect to my attitudes
about children and sex. It's a problem I've had for a long time. When I was
eight I was gang-raped by the members of the Emory chapter of Tri-delta.
I don't remember it all that clearly. I lost count of the number of times
I was forced into sex; I was really stoned at the time. Two years after that,
my piano teacher ran away from her husband. With me. I didn't know what was
going on; she told me we were taking a "field trip." It didn't help matters
that her husband succeeded in tracking us down, and she refused to go back.
Well, alright. It happened; I was emotionally scarred. I've just tried to
pick up the pieces and get on with my life as best I could. But I must say
that I think it's pretty damned insensitive of Greg to bring it up in a public
bboard post. I try to avoid mentioning that phase of transvestitism he went
through last year, and I've never asked him why the pages of his copy of *Mein
Kampf* are stuck together; it seems to me he could show a little tact and
discretion himself.
Actually, I don't mind talking about those childhood traumas I suffered;
my therapist says it's good for me. But I guess those early experiences did
affect my development. I have a problem, and I faced it a long time ago: my
sex life peaked at age 12, and it's been all downhill ever since. Threesomes
with bisexual twins from the Ford agency, outdoor group sex with UC Santa Cruz
sorority girls, wild all-night bondage sessions with off-duty Chinese call
girls and software engineers -- that type of thing happens to me only rarely
these days.
As I mentioned above, I do see a psychoanalyst about it -- I'm grateful to
Jon Webb for getting me to seek out professional help in the first place --
and I suppose I've made a lot of progress in the last couple of years. My
therapist has been very helpful, even though it makes me sort of nervous the
way she insists on sharing the patient's couch with me. She says it's a new
psychoanalytic technique to improve patient/doctor rapport; I just wish she'd
keep her hands to herself.
I'd like to close this post with a plea: if any of you know of a child who
is being repeatedly sexually molested by foxy nineteen year-old sorority
girls, don't just stand by and let it happen. I've been there. It's not
an experience I'd wish on my worst enemy.
-Olin
Date: Tue, 26 May 87 03:02:25 EDT
From: Olin.Shivers@H.CS.CMU.EDU
To: daniel.klein@SEI.CMU.EDU
Subject: Your post
I agree. I noticed there's a qualitative difference between Greg's brand of
abuse and mine: I try to keep the content and tone of my stuff so far out in
left field that it could not possibly be construed as an actual comment on the
victim.
I can't really get a good feel for Greg's approach. Either he's just trying
to be playful, but is exercising poor control over his heavyhanded barbs --
satirical humor can be hard to rein in -- or he's just an asshole. Since I've
never met any of you, Greg, Richard, or Alice in the flesh, it's fairly hard
to do a real analysis.
Alice, in particular, is really fascinating. Particularly to someone who's
been on the borderline of AI and cognitive psychology, like me. It's clear,
even through her probablistic English, that she is mostly successful in
mapping the actual semantic structures in her head into sequences of English
text. But what those semantic structures are is a complete bafflement to me.
I've never encountered a person whose cognitive processes seemed to defy
comprehension like that. Too weird. I'm sure, for instance, that if I could
do a *Human Problem Solving* type explication of her anti-pornography posts
from last summer, it would be worth a thesis to my advisor. And I know it's
not a cultural or linguistic phenomenon: I've known my share of strange
Chinese folks. It's not a Chinese thing; it's an Alice thing.
I haven't mentioned Greg's style on the bboard because that would violate my
one real rule wrt the Opinion bboard: never say anything I seriously believe.
-Olin
Received: from ROVER.RI.CMU.EDU by H.CS.CMU.EDU; 28 May 87 11:31:34 EDT
Date: Thu, 28 May 87 11:27:35 EDT
From: Kevin.Dowling@ROVER.RI.CMU.EDU
To: shivers@h
Subject: Opi-onions
Just read your missives on the op-bb. Great stuff. It's clear that you
want to get Ms. Sun in bed. C'mon Olin! The stuff your fantasies are made of!
An oriental model working in computer related field. Whew! You must be panting
at the thought.
Perhaps a few suggestive posts by others (namely myself) will help form and
mold this possiblity into reality. What d'ya think? Lemme know.
nivek
PS. did you unshar the rdp stuff?
26-May-87 05:10 Olin.Shivers@h In defense of Alice
There's been a nasty rumour going around that I'd like to squelch. People
think that line in my last post about a sexual encounter I had:
wild all-night bondage sessions with off-duty Chinese call girls and
software engineers
is a reference to Alice Sun. This is apparently due to a wholly
unsubtantiated claim in a previous post of mine to the effect that she'd spent
her collegiate summers doing play-for-pay in the Big Apple. Well, I think
Alice has suffered a lot more than she deserves as a result of my
well-intentioned jest, and so I'd like to deny this. I actually have no idea
whether or not it was Alice. Heck, it was 14 years ago. I do remember being
really freaked out by the idea of a software engineer whose idea of "dress for
success" was a red silk ch'ip-hao slit up the side roughly to the upper
lumbar. And it was certainly the first time I'd ever encountered a woman who
routinely kept a pair of handcuffs in her purse. Mink lined. But whether or
not it was Alice, I really couldn't say. It all boils down to this: if Alice
has got "wen hua da ge ming wan sui" neatly tattooed in a column of chinese
characters down her left buttock, with "shou yong xin yong ka" next to it,
she's the one. But I'm too shy to ask her.
-Olin
26-May-87 22:59 Bennet.Yee@f.gp.cs.cmu.edu translation
As a "public service"...
Olin writes:
> not it was Alice, I really couldn't say. It all boils down to this: if
> Alice has got "wen hua da ge ming wan sui" neatly tattooed in a column of
> chinese characters down her left buttock, with "shou yong xin yong ka" next
> to it, she's the one. But I'm too shy to ask her.
the phrases translate roughly to
"long live the glorious Cultural Revolution"
and
"all major credit cards accepted"
-Bsy
27-May-87 01:14 Olin.Shivers@h Keep those cards and letters coming
From defrocked psychoanalysts to Californian gun nuts, my posts really seem
to bring the fringe element out of the woodwork. Can't imagine why.
I received the following in the mail today. I thought it might amuse you all,
so I'm posting it here. My reply to Mr. Hubbard's mail is in a following post,
entitled "Automatic weapons, part III," for those of you who might wish to
skip it.
Let me take this opportunity to announce that Allan, Derek, and I posted the
third installment of our "Care and Maintenance of Your M16A1" series today,
which finishes off the section on disassembly. We urge interested parties to
drop by and peruse the posts; we feel it's pretty important.
Thank you.
-Olin
----- message follows -----
Date: Tue, 26 May 87 09:55:15 PDT
From: jkh%violet.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU (Jordan K. Hubbard)
To: Olin.Shivers@h.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Supporting one's opinion with sustained fully automatic weapons fire.
I had recent occasion to view your Presentation Announcement on care
and feeding of automatic weapons during lecture hall. I found it most
amusing. I would very much like to see and/or contribute future material.
We have similar problems here at Berkeley, though it has been difficult
to wean our students away from more the more mundane assortment of
Browning Hi-Power's, Beretta 92SBF's and Sig-Sauer P226's. The 9mm clique
is pretty strong here, and the young grad students fairly parsimonious.
They tend to balk at the idea of spending enough money on ammo to make
full auto firefights practical. Lately, they've taken to sniping at each other
from the Campanile tower and engaging in loose hit-and-run guerrilla tactics
during finals. This is obviously not the American Way and needs to be changed.
While I've been able to slowly wean them into more progressive arms (such
as the Beretta 93R and an occasional mini-uzi), I still can't seem to get
past the supply problem. My questions are:
"Do you buy your ammo in bulk, or do appointed individuals
do shifts on a progressive reloader?"
"Does the school pay for this?"
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Jordan Hubbard
U.C. Berkeley
moderator of rec.guns
27-May-87 02:22 Olin.Shivers@h Automatic Weapons, part III
My reply to Mr. Hubbard of UC Berkeley:
-----
Mr. Hubbard-
Thank you for your letter. It was certainly interesting to hear of conditions
out on the West Coast. What can I tell you about the situation here at CMU?
I'm really glad I came to CMU. The faculty is absolutely first rate, and
they all take pride in their weapons skills. We are admittedly a pretty
opinionated bunch, which provides for many interesting interchanges within the
community. I, for instance, think the long barrel .44 Automag is more of a
fashion statement than a weapon, though you won't catch me saying that within
earshot of Prof. Fahlman. If you catch my drift.
Yes, I am aware of the West Coast predilection for 9mm pistolry. When I was
an undergraduate, I spent one summer doing AI hacking at the MIT AI Lab. We'd
hired this west coast guy to do Lisp hacking, and I can clearly remember being
a little stranged out by his attitudes. He just wouldn't shut up about
Interlisp and Browning Hi-Power's. Every time I tried to explain to him the
way our project did things, he'd interrupt with "the right way," i.e. the West
Coast Way, to do it. He just couldn't get it through his head that I didn't
want to hear about Interlisp, and I damn sure didn't want to hear about
9-fucking-millimeter automatics; we were a Zetalisp/.223 project. I finally
gave up on him; that was the first time I'd ever personally encountered the
east coast/west coast split in Lisp style and weapons choice.
I'm not quite as adamant about that sort of thing as I used to be. I guess
these days I tend to have a "whatever gets the job done" attitude -- even if
it's franz or a .22 Woodsman. But I've always thought that the west coast was
really missing out on a good thing. I mean, on the east coast, public comment
sometimes requires you to tuck a Beretta discreetly away in a shoulder
holster. But when you are in Berkeley, it being the sort of place that it is,
you can stroll down the street toting your automatic rifle of choice without
so much as raising an eyebrow.
I am very fond of Berkeley. I think that while LA represents the dark,
twisted climb-the-water-tower-and-start-shooting-until-the-Marines-settle-it
side of California weirdness, Berkeley represents the very best of the pure,
innocent-killer side of it all. The first weekend I ever spent in Berkeley
was in the summer of 1983. I was sitting down at one of those really
delightful cafes you have out there. To my left some old man was drinking
cappuccino and practicing Chinese calligraphy; down the street some
undergraduates were engaged in a running firefight. I was taking it all in,
thinking that Berkeleians have remembered something about living well that the
rest of America seems to have forgotten, when this kid's stray .223 slug
shattered my glass of pomegranate soda. "Crazy undergraduates" I remember
chuckling to myself as I put the safety back on my Hi-Power and returned it
to its holster.
It seems a shame that ammunition is so hard to come by out there, though. We
are quite spoiled here at CMU. The departmental attitude towards logistical
support really crystallised for me in September of my first year. One of the
incoming first-year hot-shots had taken out Prof. Felton with a head shot
from 500 yards. We were all really impressed, and I think it was generally
agreed that Felton couldn't have asked for a more painless, appropriate end.
It was a beautiful, almost poetic way to cap what had been a textbook career
of brilliant, original mathematical insights punctuated with outbursts of
random, deeply unhinged violence. Many were the stories of Felton told that
week -- we were particularly touched that, in a very real sense, he'd died
with his boots on. He may have been all of 65, but his .357 Magnum had been
in his hand when he hit the ground, a reflexive feat of almost mystical
proportions, considering that by the time he'd become aware of the danger to
himself, most of his processing hardware had become so much organic garbage
heading west at Mach 1.
You've probably heard of Felton (National Academy of Science, IEEE Past
President, NRA sustaining member). My advisor told me later that Felton's
academic peak had come at that now-infamous 1982 Symposium on Data Encryption,
when he presented the plaintext of the encrypted challenge message that Rob
Merkin had published earlier that year using his "phonebooth packing"
trap-door algorithm. According to my advisor, Felton wordlessly walked up to
the chalkboard, wrote down the plaintext, cranked out the multiplies and
modulus operations by hand, and wrote down the result, which was obviously
identical to the encrypted text Merkin had published in CACM. Then, still
without saying a word, he tossed the chalk over his shoulder, spun around,
drew and put a 158grain semi-wadcutter right between Merkin's eyes. As the
echoes from the shot reverberated through the room, he stood there, smoke
drifting from the muzzle of his .357 Magnum, and uttered the first words of
the entire presentation: "Any questions?" There was a moment of stunned
silence, then the entire conference hall erupted in wild applause. God, I
wish I'd been there.
But I digress. At Felton's funeral, our departmental chairman delivered the
eulogy. I'll never forget his summation: "Poor Felton. Published, and
published, and perished just the same." And that's the attitude that the
professors take here. As my advisor said: "The tragedy of Galois is that he
could have contributed so much more to mathematics if he'd only spent more
time on his marksmanship." The professors at CMU aren't in the business of
turning out effete researchers, aimed at the big industrial labs. They are
interested in training *real* academicians, suitably prepared for life in the
jungle of university-level computer science. And that means time spent
practicing our teaching skills and weapons handling *as well as* making
fundamental research contributions to the field. The department does not care
to just crank out PhD's, half of whom aren't going going to make it through
their first semester as a junior professor without winding up in a body bag.
They are committed to a solid grounding in small arms fire, and if that means
spending some grant money for the necessary resources, they are ready to stand
up to the line.
So the short answer is, the department supplies us with all the ammunition
we can use, and then some. Any caliber; any load configuration. They even
keep those crazy Czechs supplied, who come in here every year with the
absolutely strangest knock-off versions of other countries' guns that you have
ever laid eyes on. The free ammunition has some nice side effects, too: the
campus police never, ever give CS grad students parking tickets. And you just
wouldn't believe how attentive the students are in the courses we TA.
-Olin
27-May-87 Olin.Shivers@h Alice not the one
"It all boils down to this: if Alice has got "wen hua da ge ming wan
sui" tattooed neatly in a column of chinese characters down her left
buttock, with "shou young xin yong ka" next to it, she's the one."
Nope. It wasn't Alice. But what does "Hua ch'in bang de tsai chan"
mean?
-Olin
[Note: "Hua ch'in bang de tsai chan" translates as "Property of the
Hua Ch'in gang." The Hua Ch'in Bang is one of the larger and
more widely-known Chinese underground criminal organisations operating
in the US. --OGS]
28-May-87 13:05 Olin.Shivers@h And on the re-post: refrain
It is a very sober and chastened individual who pens these words. I realise
that I've appeared impervious to the accusations of Alice and Greg lately.
Don't let appearances fool you. All the time I've been consing up these weird
posts, I've been mulling over their comments. The truth of the matter is,
Greg's analysis hit me with all the impact of a punch to the chest. He forced
me to take a hard look at myself, and I didn't like what I saw. The obsession
with weapons, hatred of women, the recurring themes of prostitution and child
molestation -- it all sprang into focus for me.
This isn't anything that's happened overnight. I wish I knew what to do.
Thinking it over, I guess my attitudes started to change when my grandfather
died. I blamed his death on my mother, which I know is pretty irrational.
But she was the one who insisted he use the VW; how come she didn't know
the brakes were bad? I never really challenged Mother about it; my college
acceptance letters had come in just the week before, and it was pretty clear
that without the inheritance from my grandfather's estate, there was no way my
parents could have afforded to send me to a prestigious Ivy League university.
So I kept my mouth shut, and went off to Yale, and felt worse about it than
ever. Of course, it's always easier to blame someone else for your own
problems and weaknesses, and I suppose that's when my relationship with Mother
started to deteriorate. I've never really had a successful romantic
involvement with a woman since then, either, just these miserable "hit and
run" one-night encounters.
Last semester, my advisor was puttting a lot of pressure on me to complete
some research he needed for his distinguished lecture series. I started
taking uppers to deal with the workload. I should have known I wasn't doing
good things for my mental health when I noticed that I was going two, three
weeks at a pop without sleeping at all. But I didn't know what else to do.
I used to spend entire working days with uncontrollable shakes. I got the
research done, though. I got the damn research done.
Things just kept getting worse and worse. The least thing my officemates said
would send me into tears, or into screaming bouts of incoherent rage. And
through it all, Allan and Derek just pretended it wasn't happening.
Sometimes, I feel like there's a flywheel inside my head, and it's just
spinning faster, and faster, and faster, and faster.... I can't sleep;
I can't concentrate on my work. I know deep down inside that when it
gets up to a certain speed, it's going to blow. I don't know what to do.
Have you ever noticed there are always more voices at night? I spent the
whole day today sitting at my desk, squeezing my head between my hands,
trying to make the spinning stop. Allan and Derek, as usual, said nothing.
So, anyway, when Alice came along and made that post about modelling,
I just latched onto her as an emotional punching bag; someone to vent
all my pent-up rage and frustration on. Alice is a generation older than
I am, and a woman, and, and it doesn't take a genius to see what's going on
here. I really miss my grandfather.
But Alice is nobody's doormat, and she's certainly done nothing to deserve
being visited with the demons that prowl around on the loose inside my mind.
I feel pretty bad about that. It's an ill wind that blows no good, though,
and it's been this whole interchange on the net that's lanced the boil. Greg
made those posts analysing me, then Alice made hers, and, well, they really
had something to say. Greg's got an understanding of what makes people tick
that is unique -- it's the world's loss that he chose software engineering
for a profession. And not many people have Alice's level of empathy and
perception. I don't know how they managed to be as insightful as they were,
particularly with someone that they knew only as a sequence of ASCII bytes on
a computer network, but the two of them did just an unbelievable piece of
analysis there. If my own knowledge of psychology had been equal to theirs,
well, who knows...
I had a long talk with my advisor today. I showed him the posts I've been
making for the last two weeks, and he agreed something had to be done. I'm
leaving CMU for a while. I've got to get away from the department: the other
grad students here are so mentally unstable that it makes me nervous just
being around them. I'm thinking of maybe looking for work in the private
sector, or DOD contracted research; I'm going to talk to Sara Moss about it.
I won't be reading the bboard after this post; I feel pretty shaky about
myself these days, and the Opinion flamage just makes it worse. I've tried
to distract myself from my despair by lashing out randomly at others, thinly
veiling my attacks as "humor," but I wasn't fooling anyone except myself.
I no longer have any desire to emulate Pagliacci; it's time to take some
positive steps.
I want to thank Greg and Alice for bringing me to my senses. When everyone
else had turned their backs, they spoke out, and forced me to face a problem
that I had ignored for far too long. I'm aware that they'll probably always
be hostile towards me, and I accept that -- they certainly have a right to
hostility, after all the abuse I've heaped on their heads in the past weeks.
I want them to know that in spite of that, I respect them for what they've
done, and I'll always consider them friends.
-Olin
28-May-87 16:48 ckk+ Re: And on the re-post: refrain
From: ckk+@andrew.cmu.edu (Chris Koenigsberg)
Is he serious or is this a joke?
28-May-87 17:00 Sara.Moss@sei.cmu.edu Olin
Poor Olin. He sure has had it rough. He just came to see me, although I
warned him not to come to the SEI. It is bad enough what he has been
through in the last few months, especially the last week, but coming here
was just too much. But he said he couldn't wait, so he came here and had me
meet him at the back door to avoid running into Alice or Greg. Luckily my
office is not near either of theirs. Even so, he insisted that I sit by my
door to keep watch while we talked. Every time someone walked by or the
phone rang, he twitched nervously. The first time my office mate came in
Olin reacted in such a strange way, I started to really wonder whether I
should have let him come by. I finally convinced Olin that my office mate
was not a spy for Alice, that he really is my officemate, and he just wanted
to sit down and do some work. At last Olin released his rear choke hold and
put his automatic weapon away. (Don't tell Olin, but I am convinced it was
really one of those authentic looking, plastic, high powered water guns.)
You may wonder why Olin wanted to talk to me. It turns out that Olin's old
girlfriend, the one who was a model, is the sister of an old college
roommate of mine. Olin was surely a mixed up guy back then, definitely more
sane at least on the surface than he is now, but screwed up nontheless. His
relationship with Sylvia's sister was Always on the line. It was a very
strange situation, one which I had better not discuss, just in case Olin
goes back on his word and reads this bboard again.
Sylvia and I only saw her sister and Olin occasionally, but when we did, it
was alot of fun. Olin told us that we were about the only two women he knew
who he was really comfortable with. When Sylvia's sister (I promised Olin
that whatever I did, I would not reveal her name) left him for her
photographer, and a good friend of Olin's, he was understandably crushed.
At seven weeks, that was the longest relationship he had. And once again, a
woman in his life eliminated an important male friend. Olin couldn't face
the photographer after that.
So now I hope you all have a better feel for the sad story which is Olin's
life. I hope I was some help to him. I suggested a few job possibilities
in the private sector. He seemed to perk up a bit at the thought of hacking
graphics for Disney Productions. And if that failed, he agreed that working
as Pluto or Mickey for a summer wouldn't be all bad. So, please try to be
nice to Olin, and make a true effort to be mentally stable around him. He
is nervous enough as it is.
28-May-87 20:56 Derek.Beatty@unh bboard fighting
So far as I can tell, this bboard exists for amusement, and, more importantly,
so that the General bboard will not become cluttered with items of little
or no interest.
Some people like to play with English on this bboard. I enjoy reading
their posts. Surely I'm not alone. On the other hand, there's no lack
of trash here. (But I can choose between "MacNeil/Lehrer" and
"Entertainment Tonite" without Rudy's help.)
I thought Olin's first character assasination post was funny. And I'm
predisposed to like Olin, as I share an office with him. But, obviously,
those who know only his OpBB persona might react differently.
It's easy to understand how Alice could misconstrue Olin's intention.
Particularly, since English is obviously Alice's second (or third, fourth,
or fifth...) language, she might miss subtle connotations, or, more likely,
construe them, or their mere presence, as insulting her command of English.
Indeed, how else is she to interpret them? Since proficiency in English
is one social measure of academic prowess, Olin's post was extremely
insulting to Alice. She reacted naturally, as Olin would have, were
this bboard conducted in Chinese. When Alice replied, it was obvious
what was happening. She tried to respond in kind to Olin. My guess is
that Alice has seldom practiced insulting people. She was no match
for a native speaker who has practiced invective for many years.
Olin continued beating his dead horse. Alice became flustered.
The fight seems to have arisen because subtleties are difficult to communicate.
When speaking, on can always gesture or inflect, but in writing, clarity
of denotation is important. I think that's part of what Olin was trying
to demonstrate in his original post: by being ambiguous, he said nothing.
This brings me to complain about the ambiguity of Rudy's post. Did
Rudy intend to threaten that he might dismantle the Opinion bboard? Is
this his private feeling or the official opinion of the facilities
staff? (Weak, passive-voiced insinuation is a poor way to express policy.)
Andi's post was better, as it was clearly personal and clearly sarcastic.
(Of course, if Rudy didn't actually make that post, I needn't elaborate
on the poor taste of whoever faked Rudy's return address.)
Perhaps it is time for a reminder:
Writing cannot convey the subtleties of speech .
Finally, I'd like to mention that Olin's posts follow a strong literary
tradition, perhaps the oldest English literary tradition. Writing in
the fourteenth century, Geoffrey Chaucer played with invective and double
meanings, drew on his contemporaries for models, and all the while
protested his innocence.
Let's not forget that written English was virtually unheard-of in Chaucer's
time, and similarly, that our bboards are still young. I don't like
what Olin's posts degenerated into. But six hundred years from now,
they might be great literature. Consider my favorite passage, from
the prologue to the Miller's Tale
(_Canterbury Tales_ [I,3166-3186] Ellesmere/Fisher):
What sholde I moore seyn, but this Millere
He nolde his wordes for no man forbere,
But tolde his cherles tale in his manere.
M'athynketh that I shal reherce it heere.
And therfore every gentil wight I preye,
For Goddes love, demeth nat that I seye
Of yvel entente, but that I moot reherce
Hir tales alle, be they bettre or werse,
Or elles falsen som of my mateere.
And therfore, whoso list it nat yheere,
Turne over the leef and chese another tale;
For he shal fynde ynowe, grete and smale,
Of storial thyng that toucheth gentillesse,
And eek moralitee and hoolynesse.
Blameth nat me if that ye chese amys.
The Millere is a cherl, ye knowe wel this,
So was the Reve and other manye mo,
And harlotrie they tolden bothe two.
Avyseth yow, and put me out of blame;
And eek men shal not maken ernest of game.
28-May-87 21:23 Alice.Sun@sei.cmu.edu Olin, the nervious wreck
Your most recent post about the re-post truly touched a female heart. I shed
my tears so much that my eyelines were all ruined. Oh, my God, when I
think of all of those abuses, tragedies of life, death of loved ones,
gang rapes and heart-broken relationships, my feminie instinct tells me
that I should take you into my arms like my 4-year-old son when he gets
hurt....I am sorry I called you "behind" (althought you truly acted like
one), I am sooooo sorry I added more turmoil and frustration to your
already high-pressured graduate life so that you couldn't take it no
more, you had to quit. I know how you wanted that degree, being called
Dr. Shivers without feeling shivers, because you have earned it and
you have worked hard for it. Now this dream has been shattered because
of Greg and me. I am truly sorry.
Hey, on the other hand, it isn't too bad. Since you haven't got "self-
discipline" you won't get your degree anyway. why keep wasting your time to
obtain the unattainable? I'd say leaving CMU is a smart move. Since
Greg is partially responsible for your downhill, he will make sure
you get employed. Don't you worry a bit!
As for what I can do for you, I would certainly like to adopt you as my son
if it is not because my age. My problem is that ..I am only a few years
older than you and you know..people will talk. Well, I am financially a
little better off than you. What the heck, I will pay for all of the
cost for psychological sessions (if it's with Greg,he is very best), group
therapy,... anything that will save your deteriorating mental state.
And also, please consider Greg and me as your friends. Do drop by when
you visit the SEI again.
29-May-87 09:31 Jon.Webb@ius2 OP BB Authors
I really like the comparison of Olin Shivers with Chaucer. I've now got a
third analogy to add to this list:
Purvis Jackson = William Faulkner
Jim Muller = Henry Miller
Now,
Olin Shivers = Geoffery Chaucer
Wow. But I don't remember Chaucer discussing automatic weapons.
I've really enjoyed the Olin Shivers-Alice Sun flames. The problem is,
Alice knocks her opponents off the bboard -- remember the great
Muller/Sun/Porno controversy? What happened? Muller stopped posting
pornography! And he claims she didn't beat up on him! Now, Olin's stopped
posting. What's happening here? Alice, if you aren't careful, pretty soon
there will be no one left, and Rudy will change the name of this bboard to
"Sun", which would confuse everyone, since we already have the "cs-sun"
bboard. Be careful!
Jon
29-May-87 11:39 Todd Simonds@C Olin
Olin, don't blame your mother for your grandfather's death. If my
grandson were going to Yale, I'd probably take the VW out to the freeway
and swing it into the on-coming lane, too.
Date: 28 May 1987 13:51-EDT
From: Jon.Webb@ius2.cs.cmu.edu
To: Olin.Shivers@h.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: And on the re-post: refrain
You know, Olin, you might consider therapy. Feelings such as you
expressed in your latest post aren't exactly signs of mental health. --
J
From: kazar#@andrew.cmu.edu (Mike Kazar)
Date: Thu, 28 May 87 17:12:43 edt
To: shivers@h.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: posting
Your mea-culpa post was perhaps the best piece of satire I've ever read on
opinion.
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 87 02:31:21 edt
From: zs01+@andrew.cmu.edu (Zalman Stern)
To: Olin.Shivers@h.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Presentation announcement
I was wondering if the presentations referenced in your postings on the CS
opinion bboard exist in electronic form. I am looking for something to make
myself better understood at ITC staff and user interface meetings and
automatic weapons seem like the right tool for the job. I would appreciate it
if you could either send them to me or give me a pointer to them. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Zalman Stern
20-Oct-87 01:43 "Scott E. Fahlman"@C Stock Market
Late-breaking news: Federal investigators have revealed that yesterday's
record drop in the stock market was apparently triggered by two
high-school students operating out of a basement somewhere in Western
Pennsylvania. The names of the suspects, both minors, have not been
released. Arrest warrants have allegedly been issued, but the student
hackers apparently have not yet been apprehended. A spokesman for the
FBI refused to comment on the rumor that the two had managed to leave
the country carrying millions of dollars in cash and gold.
Just after the close of stock trading on Monday, the Washington Post
received a call from two individuals who claimed to be the stock market
"hackers." The callers explained that they have been breaking into the
computer systems of major brokerage houses for several months,
"adjusting" the price of various stocks. This was done by telephone,
using a Macintosh personal computer and, later, a Perq workstation that
the pair had retrieved from a dumpster at CMU. The callers claim that
they finally "cracked" security on the New York Stock Exchange's new
supercomputer about two weeks ago.
"It was ridiculously easy," said one of the hackers, who identified
himself only as "Captain Weenie". "The password was `Scrooge'. What
turkeys! After we bounced a few stocks, they got suspicious and changed
the password, but it was too late. We had Trojan horses planted all
over that system by the time they got wind of us. We were just playing
around, trying to keep ahead of them, and making some pocket money on
the side. We had a big pile of gold hidden in this hollow tree. We
joked about buying a Cray with it, but we didn't have enough yet. You
can't just buy the machine and put it in the basement, and my mother
would have been pretty suspicious if we put up a big air-conditioned
building in the back yard. The projection TV was bad enough -- we told
her we did some programming for the guy who owned the store. Anyway,
today the (expletive deleted) Perq went crazy and we decided that we had
better go underground in a hurry."
The two went on to explain that the record-breaking plunge in stock
prices was triggered unintentionally when faulty floating-point
microcode on the Perq put the machine into an infinite loop in the
middle of a routine that selected a stock at random and issued bogus
"sell" orders. By the time the machine's plug was pulled, nervous
investors had noticed the dramatic downward trend and had begun to sell
off their own holdings. "The market was probably going to crash
anyway," one of the callers claimed, "but I wish they had debugged that
microcode."
Professor Douglas Tygar of Carnegie-Mellon University, an expert on
computer security, has been summoned to the White House for urgent
consultation on how such break-ins can be prevented in the future. As
he was boarding the private jet at Greater Pittsburgh Airport, Tygar was
heard to comment that the root password for the stock exchange's main
computer should have been at least eight characters long, and probably
should not have been the name of a comic book character. Tygar denied
rumors that he had accepted the post of Secretary of the Treasury,
claiming that he would rather be director of the National Security
Agency.
16-Jun-88 12:26 lmschneider @ a.psy.cmu.edu Fat Girls in Des Moines, Bill Bryson
Iowa women are almost always sensationally overweight--you see the
at Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines on Saturdays, clammy and meaty in
their shorts and halter-tops, looking a little like elephants dressed
in children's clothes, yelling at their kids, calling names like
Dwayne and Shauna. Jack Kerouac, of all people, thought that Iowa
women were the prettiest in the country, but I don't think he ever
went to Merle Hay Mall on a Saturday. I will say this, however--and
it's a strange, strange thing--the teenaged daughters of these fat
women are always utterly delectable, as soft and gloriously rounded
and naturally fresh-smelling as a basket of fruit. I don't know
what it is that happens to them, but it must be awful to marry one
of these nubile cuties knowing that there is a time bomb ticking
away in her that at some unknown date will make her bloat out into
something huge and grotesque, presumably all of a sudden and without
much notice, like a self-inflating raft from which the stopper has
been abruptly jerked.
___________________________
Anyone interested in reading the rest of this thoroughly acidic essay,
including a delightful account of bucolic Iowa motels with communal TVs
and characters that could only be all too real, let me know. It's also
in the last issue of Granta.
16-Jan-89 14:28 Doug.Tygar@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU CMU Donations
School of Computer Science, CMU
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
16 January 1988
Department of Annual Giving
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Gentlemen:
I am writing this letter to you from the severly malodorous halls
of Wean Hall -- where once again sanitation has failed due to a
water shut-off. As you know, you regularly ask me to donate money to
support Carnegie Mellon's educational programs. I am happy to give
to worthy charities such as CMU. But for CMU, I would like to offer you
a bonus ``challenge program.'' Here is the scoop: I will set up
an escrow account and will donate a sum of money to it monthly. All
CMU has to do to get the money is maintain certain basic services to
Wean Hall for a continuous 30 day period:
(1) maintain power;
(2) maintain air-conditioning and heating;
(3) have no water leaks;
(4) maintain water and sewage service;
(5) maintain the emergency alarm system properly;
(6) prevent any landslides of Wean or the road surrounding it;
(7) maintain the structural integrity of the building; and
(8) maintain the ventilation system.
If at the end of the year, no 30 day period has passed with all the
basic services provided, I will donate the money to another educational
institution. (Note that in the last two years, no 30-day period has
passed without one of the above failing.)
Yours,
Doug Tygar
PS: If you fix the clocks in Wean Hall I'll throw in an extra bonus.
PPS: If you fix the clocks and the elevators in Wean Hall I'll throw in
a double extra bonus.
PPPS: If you fix the clocks, elevators, and vending machines on the
second floor, I'll throw in a triple extra bonus.
30-Jan-89 04:47 Olin.Shivers Jimmy & Steve & Harry
From: Olin.Shivers@CENTRO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU
If you lack context for the following, recall that 1/16 was the Monday that
WMYG, as part of their stupid "ratings revolution" promotion/hoax, allegedly
sacked their usual morning DJs, replacing them with this incredible no-hoper
named "Dell Franklin," a complete buffoon who had obviously been rung in at
the last minute to fill in the suddenly vacated morning-time slot. It was all
an act: Jimmy & Steve reappeared the next day broadcasting from a bogus
"pirate station," holding their inane "ratings revolution."
I suppose the following comes in more under the "venting one's spleen"
category than the true "character assasination" category. Ah, well...
it's the thought that counts.
-Olin
----------
5000 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh, Penn. 15213
January 16, 1989
WMYG
Suite 400 Trimont Plaza
1301 Grandview Ave
Pittsburgh, Penn. 15211
Dear Sirs:
I am writing in regard to your recent shuffling of morning time radio
personnel. I would like to congratulate you on your decision to sack
Messrs. Roach and Hansen of the "Jimmy and Steve Show" --- I am sure it must
mean the end of a long nightmare at your station.
I am delighted with your replacement, Mr. Franklin, who I have been listening
to this morning. It is very pleasant to finally listen to a DJ with some
talent and ability, as opposed to brain-damaged, unfunny losers like Roach and
Hansen. Their desperate brand of forced humor is as tiresome as it is
pathetic. It is also all too familiar --- every high school class has someone
like Jimmy or Steve: the acned, ill-socialized geek who vainly seeks peer
recognition by loudly regaling everyone within earshot with his lame attempts
at humor. These self-appointed clowns could always be spotted at any
high-school party, standing in the corner --- usually by themselves ---
reciting old Monty Python routines from memory, typically right before they
would end up barfing onto your parents' sofa.
Everyone knows someone like Jimmy or Steve, but few choose to employ them
in public media positions, as your station has had the misfortune to do.
You apparently did not realize that radio broadcasting technology can
be a dangerous weapon in the hands of half-witted loudmouths like Roach
and Hansen.
I generally believe that if the good Lord had intended us to listen to
irritating morning-time hi-energy laff-riot DJs, He would not have inspired the
Japanese to build cheap car cassette decks. However, I must say that
Mr. Franklin, of the "Dell Franklin Go-Round," is a welcome exception to your
usual wretched programming. He is competent, has a pleasant voice, identifies
every song, is polite to the others on the show, and tends to actually play
some seriously ass-kicking rock 'n roll --- instead of boring me with inane,
half-baked, contrived and unhumorous skits.
Congratulations on picking a real winner! The "Dell Franklin Go-Round" is the
freshest, most exciting thing to happen to WMYG in a long, long while. I hope
you will keep him on in the morning slot (as well as your newscaster,
Ms. Colette Manse). If the rest of your staff is at his level of ability, then
I think your station will see some dramatic changes in its standing in the
ratings!
Sincerely,
H. Q. Bovik
HB/ekh
From rf1n+@andrew.cmu.edu Tue Jan 31 05:41:42 1989
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 89 05:24:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Randolph James Finder <rf1n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: Olin.Shivers@centro.soar.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Re: Jimmy & Steve & Harry
If I may ask where did you find this letter. I ask because as far as I
know Harry Q. Bovik is a creation of Alpha Phi Omega on the CMU
campus. I would be very interested in finding out more information on this.
Randolph Finder
rf1n+@andrew.cmu.edu
From Olin.Shivers@CENTRO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU Tue Jan 31 05:41:55 1989
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 89 05:29:43 EST
From: Olin.Shivers@CENTRO.SOAR.CS.CMU.EDU
To: rf1n+@andrew.cmu.edu
In-reply-to: Randolph James Finder's message of Mon, 30 Jan 89 05:24:57 -0500 (EST) <kXt3Tty00Ws9E29lpF@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Bovik
H.Q. Bovik is a professor in the School of Computer Science. You might
want to consult the Computer Science faculty guide to research, or
check the lounge photos if you want to know more.
I don't really know that much about him. I think he's on a leave of
absence this semester.
-Olin
[Opinion File note: in fact, Bovik is a fictitious persona, whose existence as
a professor in the School of Computer Science is perpetrated by the grad
students through various bits of electronic book-cooking. But why tell an
undergrad that? "As wanton boys to flies, so we abuse you for our sport."]
17-May-89 12:18 Hans.Tallis@ML metabolic fascism
Article 106 of ics.whimsey:
>From: David A Honig <honig@BONNIE.ICS.UCI.EDU>
Subject: Metabolic Fascism
Lines: 144
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Metabolic Fascism
=================
by Basil Hosmer
Every programmer has some experience with bodily abuse. Sooner or
later, all of us do things to ourselves we wouldn't admit to Mom. Most
of the time we say we're provoked by circumstances: whether it's the
representative from your client's company -- a not pleasant man who
looks a lot like Herman Munster, breathing heavily on your neck -- or
some towering, unstoppable endorphin rush that threatens to rip your
medulla out of its socket if you don't code up that monstro algorithm
RIGHT NOW and forget about your wedding. We generally attribute our
protracted binges to some external force.
This attitude bespeaks a hideous wrong-headedness among programmers. We
seem to get some masochistic pleasure out of responding to pressure by
sitting in front of our machines until our fingernails are too long to
type. Our eyes get varicose veins. We run fingers through our hair
until we get split ends. We drool. Why?
Because, the deluded among us would answer, we have to. Some specter is
chaining us to our chairs, making strangers of our families, removing us
from the throb of humanity. It's not a pretty job, we sigh nobly, but
someone has to do it. This is, as my sister used to say, pompous fudge-
cakes. We do it because we like it.
In view of this, I submit a philosophy of life which has served me well
for the past couple of years. I call it Metabolic Fascism.
There are several basic tenets to this philosophy, but one provides the
foundation for the rest: You Are At War With Your Body.
Picture a table. A lobbyist for your brain sits on one side, a lobbyist
for your body on the other. They are pushing their respective interests
as you go through your life. In a democratic regime, one might overhear
something like this during a normal day:
BODY: Nothing like a good, hearty breakfast to kick-start the day.
BRAIN: Yeah...I feel some serious creativity coming on. It's gonna be a
banner day for original thought. Can we arrange a little rush
from a relevant gland to start things off?
BODY: Why, sure. (Drains a mug of java...) There we go.
BRAIN: Thanks.
(Some eight hours later.)
BODY: Okay, it's about time to wind things down.
BRAIN: But...
BODY: C'mon, it'll be better in the morning if we quit now.
BRAIN: Aw, okay.
(After some interval, sleep, then repeat cycle.)
Now, this has its obvious advantages. Brain and body maintain a working
camaraderie, the cycle of ups and downs is never too extreme or debili-
tating, and the productivity of the two working in tandem is fairly
consistent and predictable.
On the other hand, come the day when Herman Munster is breathing down
your neck, you might HAVE to trash that comfy little system for some-
thing a little more, well, authoritarian. My solution is simple:
metabolic fascism. Not when you have to crank it out, but ALL the time.
To wit:
BODY: Not coffee AGAIN.
BRAIN: You don't want it, throw it up. But don't bother me. Have some
dessert.
BODY: Lucky Strikes a la carte. Delectable. My lungs look like Fire-
stones.
BRAIN: Listen. I'm on the verge of a universe-tilting breakthrough. I
don't need your sniveling.
BODY: Are we gonna get some sleep this week?
BRAIN: Yeah, yeah.
(Some 14 hours later.)
BODY: Look, man, I'm gonna die here. I wanna go to bed.
BRAIN: SILENCE!
(Rains vicious blows upon the Body Lobbyist until he sinks beneath the
table, a simpering lump of protoplasm.)
Philistine.
(Some 10 hours later, the Body Lobbyist has risen from beneath the
table, wearing full body armor and a catcher's mask.)
BODY: Sleep. Now.
(The Brain lobbyist produces a dreadnought Louisville Slugger, festooned
with nails, and clubs the Body Lobbyist senseless.)
BRAIN: Where was I?
(Some eight hours later, the Body Lobbyist rises and leaves the room.
The Brain Lobbyist, deep in some amphetamine-induced trance, fails to
notice. Several minutes later the Body Lobbyist re-enters, carrying a
bazooka. He liberally distributes the Brain Lobbyist about the room.)
BODY: Sleep. Now.
(Perhaps 20 hours later, another Brain Lobbyist enters the room. Repeat
cycle.)
There are tradeoffs to this methodology, sure. But the advantages are
overwhelming.
First, it's more honest. After all, the first time a deadline or a good
idea rolls around, you're gonna shaft your body anyway, right? Why not
accustom yourself to those inevitable caffeine fests BEFORE they descend
on your unsuspecting, pampered physiognomy?
Second, there is no better way to accumulate a comprehensive, detailed
knowledge of one's body than by abusing it regularly. Whereas most
humans can only recognize vague, ambiguous bodily states and apply
almost meaningless words like "good," "bad," "tired" and "rested" to the
way they feel, a metabolic fascist becomes sensitive to the most subtle
changes in his system. He learns to check his pulse by noting the fre-
quency of the shaking in his hands. He learns to check his blood
pressure by gauging the accuracy with which he hits the reboot switch.
To a metabolic fascist, the body is a finely-tuned machine operating
somewhere past the ragged edge. One pays much more attention to an
engine about to explode than to one that is idling, and a metabolic fas-
cist knows his body to a degree of detail that, among other humans, only
long-distance runners and new mothers achieve.
(Not to mention the fact that this mode of living produces a certain
manic look about the eyes that is useful for everything from terrifying
muggers to staring down that fossilized waitress who never, EVER, takes
back a cheeseburger because it's too well- done.)
The peripheral benefits are legion. When was the last time you really
wondered what day it was? A genuine scratch-your-head-and-call-up-
Sidekick kind of puzzlement? When was the last time you were truly
surprised that the sun decided to rise? When was the last time you
stared, entranced, as the sort routine you just wrote turned into little
green soldiers that danced across your screen? To the metabolic fascist,
life once more becomes that fascinating, unpredictable thing most humans
never see after they graduate from diapers.
17-May-89 21:15 Guy.Jacobson A cautionary tale
From: Guy.Jacobson@SHERLOCK.PC.CS.CMU.EDU
For the enlightenment of anyone who doesn't believe that the sexual
orientation of small children can be ``turned'' by role models such as
teachers, let me present a personal anecdote that should set you straight.
I was a perfectly happy heterosexual homo sapiens until I entered the third
grade. My teacher, a Mr. McCracken, was gay. He never (to my knowledge)
made improper overtures to any of his young pupils, but his sexual
orientation was obvious. I mean, let's not kid ourselves--you can always
tell one, can't you? I was but a callow lad of nine, and he exerted a stong
influence on all aspects of my development. It wasn't long before I knew
that I too was member of the ``third sex,'' bound to forever shun those who
lacked the Y chromasome as sexual partners.
As luck would have it, our teacher was a Mormon, and midway through the year
he was called upon to do his missionary work. Phil left his job as our
third-grade teacher, and Mr. Furdle, (previously the gym teacher) assumed
the position. Mr. Furdle was (to the relief of my parents) a
red-blooded he-man type heterosexual male, and under his influence, I too
reverted to being ``normal.'' However, (to the chagrin of my parents)
although Mr. Furdle was a heterosexual, he was also black. I was still
quite young and impressionable, and fell under his spell. Within weeks, I
``turned'' and became black like him. It was kind of fun at first, being
able to call the other black kids ``nigger'' without being accussed of
racism. Anyway, since I was Jewish, I felt a little like Sammy David Jr.
(but probably with better depth perception).
Well, all that was many years ago. I haven't had a black teacher since
then, so my skin tone has faded considerably. But if you look really close,
you can still see the residual swarthiness. And anyone that knows me will
tell you that I am lazy, wear loose shoes, and still love to eat ribs.
04-Nov-87 17:30 Andi.Swimmer The Elders of Zion
From: Andi.Swimmer@VEGA.FAC.CS.CMU.EDU
An Elder of Zion held the doors for me today in Kaufmanns. I haven't seen
one of them for years -- it reminded me of the story of Elder Hiam and
Christine.
First, Elders of Zion: these are 17-18 year old Mormon gentlemen, who will
next year be college freshmen, but must first do a year of "service" -- that
is; a year away from home, preaching door to door, trying to convert heathen
unbelievers to the true faith.
Christine was my roommate, a fragile, beautiful, willowy girl from
Philadelphia, who usually dressed in lacy flower-prints. She was the kind
of woman who always left a scent of violets in her wake... the kind of woman
men send roses to. She was working in a shop selling beautiful imported
gifts, and on the side was modelling nude for art classes.
Elder Hiam was typical of the Elders of Zion -- fresh-faced, with babyfat.
He had dark hair cut short, dressed always in black slacks, white shirt and
black tie, and his name tag which pronounced him, "Elder Hiam". The first
time he came to our door, he was with Elder Steve, a somewhat more savvy
young man who was leaving soon for UCLA. Christine, who'd been smoking hash
all afternoon, greeted them at the door in a silk kimono, and invited them
in for tea.
She served them an exotic herb tea, which Elder Steve politely drank half
of, then excused himself and left Elder Hiam to his fate. Elder Hiam
became, I think, intoxicated by the rarified atmosphere, and by Christine's
grace and charm. It was the beginning of a beautiful summer for him.
All that summer he came once a week to see Christine. All that summer she
dutifully read the passages he prescribed in the Book of Mormon. All that
summer I saw them together in the kitchen, drinking exotic tea, him in his
tie, looking like the assistant manager of a Safeway, she always in her
silk kimono, which she would put on just for him.
I don't think they ever came any closer to each other than that -- somehow
I can't believe they ever even shook hands. But I know that after he left,
his eager, boyish face stayed with her, and she kept the Book of Mormon,
and uses it to press flowers. I wonder what he kept from that summer,
whether her delicate figure haunts his dreams in the Utah nights.
_________________________________________________________
14-Feb-89 20:51 Bennet.Yee logic, hackery, etc
From: Bennet.Yee@PLAY.MACH.CS.CMU.EDU
> 14-Feb-89 12:21 John.Hagerman@maxwell Consistent Slopes
> 13-Feb-89 22:38 Nykolai Bilaniuk ethical => logical
>
> -Even if it were possible to construct a logical algebra
> capable of treating all problems, it couldn't be
> consistent also - have you not heard of Kurt Goedel?
>
> Is that an accurate description? I thought it was that systems can be
> consistent but not complete, not the other way around.
>
(1) if a logic system is consistent, then it is incomplete.
(2) if a logic system is complete, then it is inconsistent.
Looks like contrapositives to me. And I thought I actually had to dredge up
some theory core material :-)
Actually, it is possible to have a complete and consistent system -- it's
just that the expressive power of the system must be minimal.
For once, I think I actually, um, somewhat agree with pab. While hacking
(and its enjoyment thereof) and CS research are not completely orthogonal,
it is certainly not a requisite skill either. There are certainly many
researchers whose work I respect who either prefer not to write any code,
let alone writing inspired code.
Hacking isn't just writing code. It is understanding a complex system
thoroughly (be it an operating system, machine level coding, kernel
internals, whatever) and getting it to do what you want. It is cracking a
puzzle and seeing everything fall into place. It is the gestalt
understanding of a program's internals (design, algorithms, etc) that is
much like that of seeing an elegant proof of a theorem. It is the creation
of something elegant, the building of something worthwhile. It is control
and mastery, and a seduction all at once -- the hacker is enthralled by the
system as much as the machine is under his control.
A hacker is a person that enjoys this.
This working definition can easily be extended into other domains such as
mathematics -- or any of the other sciences. I think it should be. Hackery
is as much being in love with what you do as it is working with complex
computer systems.
Well, enough for now.
-bsy
25-Sep-89 11:38 William.Welch Re: Nettles on Feminism
From: William.Welch@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Well gee, Scott, if I had known how hot you were to lick the
cruft out from between some bimbo's toes, I'd have set you
up with this law student I know. Jaysus H. Christ, you people just
go on and on and on, don't you? I mean, as far as I'm concerned,
the only reason there are so many homes for battered wives is
that there are so many women who won't fucking listen.
Oh, sure, I know you're a sensitive guy and all that, but give
me a fucking break. Yeah, like on Friday night at the Pitt party
I'm sure I *didn't* here you say, "Wow, check the gazoombas on
that little Mama. That swing's so wide I could put it on my
back-porch." This kind of sexist bullshit just makes me sick.
I mean, I've paid my dues, I've read the feminist literature, I've
consulted with HRX members to try and become a more sensitive and
caring human being, I even tried to cry once; so how come I can't get laid?
And here you go posting this kind of rot to opinion, it just makes
me want to puke my guts up, seal it in a Ball-jar, and heave it
through your front window. Get a life! Try to show some consistency,
man. You should seriously consider seeking professional help for
your little problem.
Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: That's not funny!
26-Sep-89 23:26 Scott.Nettles Re: Welch on Nettles on FeminismFrom: Scott.Nettles@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
It's clear that Will did not understand my earlier post. Of course, that's
no surprise from a man educated in a state in which the Dick and Jane books
are required reading for college freshmen. As for the gazoombas comment, as
I remember it, it was Will who made it. That didn't surprise me, but that
he said it to *her* was a bit of a shock. With respect to Wills vast
knowledge of feminist literature, I'd like to know what makes him think
"Young Nurses in Bondage" and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is
literature, much less feminist literature? As for his inability to get
laid, I had thought it was because he hadn't yet learned that bathing once a
week just didn't cut it here in the north, but according to one of my women
friends it's just that "He's basically unattractive." Made sense to me.
I quote from Dave Plaut's perceptive post "Mississippians: Men or Apes"
where Dave say's "I've been extremely impressed by the people I've meet from
Alabama, especially their wit and intelligence. But these folks from
Mississippi, are just total loser's. Mental midgets at best."
Q: How many Mississippian's does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: I don't know, but as soon as they get electricity, we'll find out.
27-Sep-89 14:51 William.Welch Re: Nettles on Welch
From: William.Welch@A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Well, Mr. Nettles, this comes as a bit of a surprise. Perhaps
I should have expected such from man whose family tree cannot
be represented as a directed acyclic graph.
Actually I guess I should be more respectful. What Mr. Nettles hasn't
told any of you (though one could deduce it from the fact that he
hails from Alabama) is that he comes from a line of preeminent
mathematicians. I'm surprised that Mandelbrot is showered with such
accalim, because it was centuries ago that the Nettles clan began
their serious research into what happens when you feed the output of
an equation back into its input. They have produced many interesting
fractal patterns as a result.
So you see, whereas many of us have to struggle mightily to get a
handle on this kind of thing (Gusciora being a notable exception), Scott
was, after a manner of speaking, born to it. Just the other day
I heard he was out behind the toolshed with Marjeana Sue Nettles,
his cousin on his father's side (or one of those Nettles boys,
anyway), doing a little research (she's the good-looking one, right
Scott? The one who still has most of her teeth?). To think that such
a powerhouse of a scientist is in our midst; my knees quake.
I think we should all show a little more awe when in Scott's presence
in the future. I know I'm going to keep a respectful distance...
(BTW, I was mistaken when I claimed that Scott said something about a
certain young lady's gazoombas. He actually referred to them as
"Winnebagos")
12-Nov-89 02:20 Skef.Wholey@SPICE To do
Now it's time for Skef and Jeff's:
List of Twenty Things to do in the Next Five Years
--------------------------------------------------
-- Canoeing in Alaska
-- Biking in the fall in Vermont
-- Making love in an elevator at Rockefeller Center
-- Climbing Mt. Kilamanjaro
-- Getting a piece of the Berlin Wall
-- Drinking damn good red wine in Bordeaux
-- 4 day weekend at the lake palace hotel in Udaipur, India
(A maharajah's palace in the middle of a lake that has been turned
into a hotel)
-- Trekking in Nepal
-- Sailing in the Carribean
-- Having sex with Scandinavians on the beach of a Greek island at dawn
-- Having sex with Scandinavians in Hong Kong at dusk
-- Listening to Dizzie Gellespie in New Orleans
-- Mardi Gras in Rio
-- Selling bluejeans in Red Square
-- Weekend workshop on standup comedy at Second City
-- Getting a short story published in the Paris Review
-- Crashing a party thrown by Wynton Marsallis
-- Candelight dinner with Michelle Pfieffer
-- Playing jazz bass at the Bay Wolf bar in Denver
And last, but not least:
-- Getting a PhD from CMU
02-May-89 12:07 Michael Witbrock Re: Inuit Eskimo
From: Michael Witbrock <mjw@cs.cmu.edu>
Since Eskimo may not be favoured, may I suggest 'Pakeha'.
It means non-maaori, which, here, is almost certain to
be true. It's an English word (it's in an OED). And
the administration won't know what the hell it's supposed
to mean.
tena koe, michael
12-May-89 11:31 Scott.Fahlman Why love God?
From: Scott.Fahlman@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
People don't love God because the universe is totally good. People love
God because, if you buy any of the standard forms of Judaism, Christianity,
or Islam, you had damned well better love God. He demands it, just like
Stalin in the old days or Pinochet in Chile today. If you don't love El
Supremo, you're likely to disappear in the night or come down with a plague
of boils or something. Except God, the ultimate secret policeman, can see
into your head, so it's not good enough just to pretend to love Him while
secretly grumbling or plotting the overthrow; you've really got to overcome
your doubts and buy the story wholeheartedly. If you manage this, you get
to spend eternity in the dictator's palace, hanging out with El Supremo and
loving Him some more -- maybe even being loved in return. If you don't,
it's off to the torture chambers for a very long time.
This creates a problem for semi-believers: as some people have pointed out,
it's hard to choose what to believe -- REALLY believe -- but if you work on
it and you're not too much of a rationalist at heart, you can massage your
surface beliefs into something that might get by with the cosmic thought
police. Technique A is to question nothing that your parents/culture tells
you is true -- OK for most of the populace, but hard for scientists and
other intellectuals. Technique B is to ponder all the neat stuff in the
universe and think about how creative and clever the entity must be who
designed it all. Ignore or attempt to refute any suggestion that the good
stuff could have come about by chance. Sure, there's bad stuff around --
earthquakes, mosquitos, Alzheimer's disease -- but just say that this is
all part of some wonderful plan that we're too stupid to comprehend. Or
make up some story about why Alzheimer's must exist in order to make free
will meaningful. And even though the universe does not seem perfect to us,
the alternative is (literally) unthinkable, so maybe it is the best of all
POSSIBLE universes. Who are we to judge?
This belief system is a very well-designed virus: once it is operative, it
causes the host to believe that the belief system is something to love and
protect. Any attempt to root it out is unloving, ungrateful and downright
dangerous. And most people are happier, by their own assessment, once the
virus has taken over, so maybe it's not such a bad thing. Of course, the
same is true for certain drugs -- you think you're happy, and it's pretty
hard for anyone else to refute that, even though you end up spending your
life in service to this drug. Unlike most opiates, the religions that
survive for a long time, at least in the West, don't actually kill off your
ability to accomplish something worthwhile in the world -- some religions
even seem to enhance it by putting a clear-cut set of goals in place, where
there may have been only confusion before.
It's interesting that people who would risk their lives to avoid living in
a dictatorial police state turn around and invent/embrace a religion that
introduces just such a police state on a cosmic scale. I think that there
may be a general human craving for external authority, as long as there is
some way to view it as fairly benign authority. Free will is a heavy
responsibility and canned answers are easy. As long as the dictator
doesn't torture too many of us too horribly, and as long as he makes the
flowers bloom on time, we can still find a way to love him. And even in
times of terrible misery (when religious belief tends to increase, not
decrease), we have the promise that everything will be wonderful when the
nasty experiment is over and the rats are returned to their cages. No
lasting damage, and everlasting reward.
We're all born into a police state -- our parents are all-powerful for a
while, and seemingly omniscient -- and I think most of us miss that when we
grow up and discover that our parents were bluffing all along. So most of
us invent or accept a benign and all-powerful God, and then try to love
him.
-- Scott
15-May-89 22:11 Barak.Pearlmutter Re: Re: Daniel Klein
From: Barak.Pearlmutter@F.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
George, as I see it your argument is that in certain situations
society has an overriding interest in discouraging homosexuality, and
that these interests override the principles of freedom and liberty
that would normally be applied to individual differences of this sort.
In particular, although you feel that gays are entitled to their own
preferences, society must take measures to protect children and
soldiers from gays who might ``turn'' them.
Such an argument is sound only if overriding interests can be shown,
so lets look at these societal interests you claim can be protected
only by curtailing the freedom and personal liberty of millions of
people, including some you know personally, such as Michael Witbrock.
Well, on to specifics. You argue (implicitly) that society has an
overriding interest in having children not grow up to be homosexuals.
Lets grant that. You then argue that gay teachers and/or rights
(you're a little unclear here) somehow run counter to that interest.
Is this the case? We protect the rights of the mentally retarded --
does this encourage kids to wear plastic bags or sniff glue? And a
teacher's sexual orientation should not arise in the course of their
duties; if it does, they should be discharged regardless of their
sexual orientation. But even if in some way it is obvious to the
children that some teacher is gay, which there is no a-priori reason
to think, it is far from clear that this will effect their ultimate
sexual orientation. In fact, studies indicate the contrary.
Perhaps it would be helpful here to draw an analogy. Let us suppose
that you enjoy tying women up and spanking them, as I do. It can be
argued that society has an interest in discouraging this sort of
thing, but even granting that, your little kink shouldn't prevent you
from being a teacher. That is, unless you start treating your charges
in a sexual way, in which case you should be discharged. (Or perhaps
charged. Nice pun eh?)
So there is no evidence that there would be any detrimental effect on
children if gay rights legislation were passed and if gay elementary
school teachers were hired, and this is granting that a higher
proportion of kids growing up gay is a detrimental effect.
You also make some kind of weird navy argument that's so silly its
hard to approach. You see, there's a long tradition of buggery on the
high seas, and a much more cogent argument could be made that gays are
more rather than less suited to life without women in the close
confines of a battleship.
It seems to me that the real deal is that gays make you uncomfortable,
and you wouldn't want them around your kids or wholesome American
soldiers. Well that's bigotry, plain and simple.
12-Jun-89 17:22 Scott.Fahlman Fahlman on Hacks
From: Scott.Fahlman@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
By "collection of hacks" I meant that the immune system seems to be a bunch
of different mechanisms cooked up and added to the system as needed to get
the job done. Looking at the overall system, it seems to be a bunch of hacks,
kludges, and "growies" -- not much sign of careful design done in advance
of implementation. Some of the subsystems seem to be tightly-integrated
modules, but the immune system as a whole definitely looks like evolution
has been patching it for a long time.
The term "collection of hacks" is not meant to be perjorative. Some of my
best friends are collections of hacks, along with most of the software I've
ever written.
-- Scott