Mračni blog

Misao dana:
Who is Keyser Soze? He is supposed to be Turkish. Some say his father was German. Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

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Jack planted the magic beans and in one night a giant beanstalk grew all the way from the earth up to the clouds--which sounds like a lie, but it can be done with genetic engineering, and although a few people are against eating gene-engineered foods like those beans it's a high-paying career to think about for when you grow up.

Original Bboard Thread in which :-) was proposed

Here is the original message posted by Scott Fahlman on 19 September, 1982:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)

From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:



:-)


Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark

things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use


:-(

The entire thread is reproduced below. We didn’t have formal newsgroup threads in those days, but these are all the messages that mention the need for a joke marker or that use the :-) symbol.

This was retrieved from the spice vax oct-82 backup tape by Jeff Baird on September 10, 2002. The period covered is 16 September 1982 through 21 October 1982.

Credits: Here is the account by Mike Jones describing how this ancient post was retrieved. It’s an impressive piece of digital archeology, with many contributors. I am grateful to Mike, to Jeff Baird, and to all the others who played a role in this effort. It is great that we can view this bit of Internet history once again.

Many people were involved in this computing archaeology success story. I (Mike Jones) kicked off the effort in February 2002 by looking through some old bboard program (Bags) sources, figuring out the filename that the post would likely be found under (/usr/cmu/lib/bb/general.bb), and asking Howard Wactlar, the former CMU SCS facilities director, whether the file could still be restored. Scott Fahlman provided data narrowing the probable span of time during which the post was made. Howard and Bob Cosgrove, the current director, determined that backup tapes from that period (1981-1983) still existed and asked Jeff Baird of the facilities staff to try to find and restore the post. Dave Livingston of facilities located a working 9- track tape drive and a machine to use it on. Kirk Berthold and Michael Riley in CS operations managed retrieving tapes from off-site archival storage. Grad student Dan Pelleg's FreeBSD machine was used to read the 4.1BSD dump format tapes using a compatibility mode in the restore program. (Later in the effort a NetBSD machine was used to do the same thing.) Dale Moore looked for the post on Tops-20 backup tapes from CMU-20C. But by all accounts, Jeff Baird should get most of the credit for doing the hard work of locating and retrieving the data. He kept asking for more tapes, reading those that could still be read, narrowing the date range, and sticking with it until the post was found. Thanks all for your efforts to restore this part of computing history, and especially, thanks Jeff!

Note: There apparently were a few posts prior to 16 September (not on the tape that was retrieved) that posed various physics questions about what would happen to various objects in an elevator if you cut the cable. Given the quality of the elevators in Wean Hall (then and now), this was more than idle speculation.



Apparently someone had posed the problem of what would happen to a helium balloon in free-fall, someone else had asked about pigeons flying around in the falling elevator, and someone had then asked what would happen if the birds were breathing the helium…

Misao dana:
If knowledge is power, and power corrupts, and corruption is crime, and crime does not pay... Does knowledge, in the end, leave you broke?

Misao dana:
The Japanese navy is a different story - they know what they are doing. They have Yamamoto. They have torpedoes that actually explode when they strike their targets, in stark contrast to the American models which do nothing but scratch the paint of the Japanese ships and then sink apologetically.

Misao dana:
There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting.

History controls everything we do, so there is no point in observing individual actions. Let's examine the individual actions of over 500 characters at great length.

Misao dana:
Called a blind date to set up a meeting at a restaurant. I said, "I'll be the one in the leather jacket." She said, "I'll be the one drinking sake." Turned out it was one of those biker-sushi places. We never met.

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Like mothers, taxes are often misunderstood, but seldom forgotten.'

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Jerry: David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, Richard Speck...
Alice: What about them?
Jerry: Serial killers. Serial killers only have two names. You ever notice that? But lone gunmen assassins, they always have three names. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mark David Chapman...
Alice: John Hinckley. He shot Reagan. He only has two names.
Jerry: Yeah, but he only just shot Reagan. Reagan didn't die. If Reagan had died, I'm pretty sure we probably would all know what John Hinckley's middle name was.

Misao dana:
First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.

Misao dana:
The term reboot comes from the middle age (before computers). Horses who stopped in mid-stride required a boot to the rear to start again. Thus the term to rear-boot, later abbreviated into reboot.

Misao dana:
After escaping the clutches of that crazy cult, it was going to take more money than that to start a new life, but still, for one day's work, 30 pieces of silver wasn't bad.

Misao dana:
Tvrtka Idea Perfekta predstavila je novi Internetski portal, na kojem će objavljivati osmrtnice i posljednje pozdrave umrlima. Oglas stoji 125 kuni i prikazivat će se sedam dana, a potom će biti arhiviran. Obavijesti će se moći pregledavati na adresi www.umrli.com.(VL,3)

Misao dana:
I think it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly.

Misao dana:
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.

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The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away.

Russia is the land of small gifts. Gifts are given not just to friends but also to people and groups one does business with. A Russian government official may feel insulted if he is not remembered in some way, even if business has been done with him several times. A secretary can obstruct or facilitate access to a business executive depending on whether or not one has built a good relationship with him or her. Even the little people should be regarded as humans, not just as small gears in a big machine. A big machine might stop if a tiny but important gear is not well oiled.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE DESIRE FOR A BRIBE

The first clue that an office employee or government official desires a bribe is a delay in getting things done. Questions are not met with concrete answers. Everything is “being looked into.” Those who have worked extensively with government officials say that the desire for a bribe can be seen in the eyes.

An official who expects a bribe will lead the conversation down certain paths and give obvious hints. However, the foreigner unused to bribery procedures will not necessarily understand key phrases, such as the following:

You understand, of course, I would be very glad to. But it’s troublesome . . .
This could be taken care of, if you help me with one thing . . .
I could, on certain conditions . . .
We could discuss this in a different way . . .
I could facilitate a faster solution . . .
Gestures are also used; for example, rubbing the thumb against the index finger.

WHAT TO GIVE AS A BRIBE

There are no universally applicable instructions about what should be given as a bribe. Bribes range from packs of cigarettes and boxes of chocolate to “not so terribly small” sums to be transferred to Swiss bank accounts. An authority dealing with various licenses and inspections can point to small machines and gadgets and mention meaningfully that he or she too would have a use for them. The easiest bribery situation is when a government official asks for office supplies. The request might be for regular copy paper, which an office with a limited budget can’t afford. The largest bribes are given in those sectors where Russia’s big money lies. Requested service fees might include package tours to sunny climates or trips to Lapland.

Estimating the amount of the bribe is easier when the bribe recipient states his needs, as he often will do. He might request a certain sum of money, paid into a specific account. The charge even may be fixed, so that the amount can be learned in advance from other businessmen.

HOW TO GIVE THE BRIBE

There is a certain amount of know-how involved in giving a bribe. The situation is usually such that one doesn’t have an appropriate gift in one’s suitcase right then and there. The procedure for handing over the bribe must then be agreed upon beforehand. If money is to be paid into an account, it should be agreed how it will be paid. If the recipient of the bribe asks for material goods, they can be delivered by a courier at a predetermined time—for example, the next day. If a situation arises on the street—for example, with policemen—the bribe should be given right away.

There is always the risk in giving a bribe that competitors or the mafia will find out about it and use this knowledge to their advantage. One should give a bribe delicately, absolutely without witnesses, preferably using a Russian go-between. Whatever the situation, it must never be done with a grimace, however annoying or morally repulsive you find it. You can’t offend the recipient if you want the bribe to be effective. In some situations it may even be appropriate to give the bribe in an overdramatic manner, with speeches, as a gift to a “dear friend.”

Misao dana:
In Japan, you have no idea what they are saying, and they can't help you either. Nothing makes any sense. They're very polite, but you feel like a joke is being played on you the entire time you're there.

Misao dana:
I didn't get a toy train like the other kids, I got a toy subway instead; you couldn't see anything but every now and then you'd hear this rumbling noise go by.

Misao dana:
Somewhere around the place I've got an unfinished short story about Schrodinger's Dog; it was mostly moaning about all the attention the cat was getting.

Misao dana:
Blinky lights are the essence of technology. Everything else is fluff.

Misao dana:
You know how it is when you're walking up the stairs, and you get to the top, and you think there's one more step? I'm like that all the time.

Misao dana:
Umjesto misli dana danas imam copy&paste naslova kojima su razni ljudi počastili Kim Jong - II (tek toliko da našeg pokojnog Franju stavite u perspektivu):

* Supreme Commander at the Forefront of the Struggle Against Imperialism and the United States
* Greatest Saint Who Rules with Extensive Magnanimity
* Lode Star of the Twenty-First Century
* Best Leader Who Realized Human Wisdom
* Leader with Extraordinary Personality
* Perfect Picture of Wisdom and Boldness
* Eternal Bosom of Hot Love
* Master of Literature, Arts, and Architecture
* World’s Best Ideal Leader with Versatile Talents
* Humankind’s Greatest Musical Genius
* Master of the Computer Who Surprised the World
* Man with Encyclopedic Knowledge
* Guardian Deity of the Planet
* Heaven-Sent Hero
* Power Incarnate with Endless Creativity
* Greatest Man Who Ever Lived
* Present-day God
* World’s Greatest Writer

Misao dana:
Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.