Mon, 15 Sep 2003

idea for a "group iv"...

The other evening I was talking to a friend who will be attending a function at the French Embassy in Washington DC this week. He was commenting that the people who planned the event told him how much easier it was to deal with the Germans than with the French in working out all the details for such an event. I quoted him the old French saying, "Un Français, ça fait un homme intelligent. Deux Français, ça fait une bonne conversation. Trois Français, ça fait une révolution!" (One Frenchmen, you've got a smart man. Two Frenchmen and you've got a good conversation. Three Frenchmen and you've got a revolution!) He said that just recently a friend quoted another saying to him, in reference to their combined total of three sons doing some lawn work together, "One boy is a half a man. Two boys is half a boy. Three boys is no boy." We were wondering if there are other 1-2-3 sayings along that line, and if so, it might make a good iv. If you know any 1-2-3 sayings (or if you'd like to make one up!), please send them to me by replying to any iv - replies always come directly to me only.

Thanks too to the many who wrote to say let me know who they are. I heard from someone in South Africa whose address ends in .com (no way I could know that that one's in South Africa!) and from a former student I didn't know was receiving my iv's. I'd enjoy hearing from other subscribers too.

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today's instant vacation...

Today (Monday) is the opening of bow hunting season here in South Carolina. A friend who is a hunter asked me for some hunting iv (is that an "iv" with blood in it?).  Since he's dutifully working today instead of hunting, I'll send a special iv for all the hunters out there. This is an old classic about elephant hunters.

 =^..^=  =^..^=  =^..^=   
Rob Loach in Greenville SC

Sign in a taxidermist's shop: We know our stuff.
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Telling a Person's Profession by the Way He Hunts an Elephant...

MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.

EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise.

PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students

COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A:
1. Go to Africa.
2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west.
4. During each traverse pass,
a. Catch each animal seen.
b. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant.
c. Stop when a match is detected.

EXPERIENCED COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.

ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees.

ENGINEERS hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant.

ECONOMISTS don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.

STATISTICIANS hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant.

CONSULTANTS don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do.

OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants.

LAWYERS don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing about who owns the droppings.

SOFTWARE LAWYERS will claim that they own an entire herd based on the look and feel of one dropping.

POLITICIANS don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.

VICE PRESIDENTS OF ENGINEERING, RESEARCH, AND DEVELOPMENT try hard to hunt elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent it. When the vice president does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are completely prehunted before the vice president sees them. If the vice president does see a nonprehunted elephant, the staff will (1) compliment the vice president's keen eyesight and (2) enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence.

SENIOR MANAGERS set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices.

QUALITY ASSURANCE INSPECTORS ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.

SALES PEOPLE don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.

SOFTWARE SALES PEOPLE ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant.

HARDWARE SALES PEOPLE catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them as desktop elephants.