D             <<< SPCVXA::$1$DUA2:[NOTES$LIBRARY]X-NUTWORKS.NOTE;2 >>>0                                 -< X-NUTWORKS >-P ================================================================================P Note 24.0                           Issue 23                          No repliesP SPCVXA::BEN "Ben Cohen"                             456 lines   6-MAR-1990 19:54P --------------------------------------------------------------------------------I -------------------------------------------------------------------------    C        @@@    @@@@             @@@          @@@@                @@@ B       @@@@    @@           @@   @@          @@                  @@I      @@ @@   @@  @@  @@ @@@@@@  @@    @    @@   @@@@  @@ @@    @@ @@  @@@ G     @@  @@  @@  @@  @@   @@     @@   @@   @@  @@  @@  @@  @@  @@@@   @@ I    @@   @@ @@  @@  @@   @@ @@   @@ @@ @@ @@  @@  @@  @@      @@ @@     @@ G   @@    @@@@   @@@@ @@  @@@     @@@   @@@@   @@@@   @@     @@@  @@  @@@ ) @@@@    @@@                    @@@    @@@    1                        Electronic Humor Magazine.    ;              Issue023, (Volume VI, Number III).  May, 1988.    8                NutWorks is published semi-monthly-ish by8                 Brent C.J. Britton, <Brent@Maine.BITNET>I -------------------------------------------------------------------------    I "In the schoolroom more than any other place, does the difference of sex, C       (if there is any), need to be forgotten." -- Susan B. Anthony    F "On the college campus more than any other place, does the act of sex,F    (especially if there isn't any), need to be promoted." -- AnonymousI ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (                                 Contents(                                 ========A               NewsWorks ...................... Points of Interest 9               Nuts & Bolts ................... Commentary 5               The AI Notebook ................ Report 4               Karl Takes a Fall .............. Story5               Classified ..................... Advert                The Amazing 4                 Adventures of Herbert ........ Story9               Philosophers and Food .......... Discussion 9               Three Squaws ................... Shaggy Dog    I -------------------------------------------------------------------------    (                                NewsWorks(                                =========   D     For subscription information, contact LISTSERV@TCSVM.BITNET withH the words "GET NUTWORKS INFO" as the contents of a mail file or message.   A     Submissions for NutWorks may be sent to Brent@Maine.BITNET by   whatever means seem appropriate.   H     Corrections: The nonsense-French poem appearing in NutWorks Issue021G was credited to Ian Murphy.  Ian was in fact the submitter of the poem; G the author is unknown.  Also in Issue021 (hey, it was a bad week, ok?), H the article entitled "The Amazing Adventures of Herbert" was credited toH "Ishtar", who submitted the article.  The author is anonymous.  The art-@ icle entitled "Mixology" in NutWorks Issue022 was written by JoeH <CJM6327@RITVAX> whose name was mistakenly omitted.  The NutWorks Staff,# like, totally regrets these errors. I -------------------------------------------------------------------------    *                               Nuts & Bolts+                              ============== .                          by Brent C.J. Britton   F     I fully intended to write a column for this issue of NutWorks, butB lately I haven't even had enough time to worry about the fact thatF between-meal snacks are degrading this nation's youth, let alone writeG columns.  It amazes me how some people always seem to have gobs of free C time on their hands, yet I have to plan bathroom breaks two days in < advance.  Chalk it up to the fact that people are different.H     Take toothbrushing for example.  Did you ever notice how some peopleE don't drool when they brush their teeth?  The particularly gifted can D stick a loaded toothbrush in their mouths and then proceed to strollC casually about the house, change clothes, do some aerobics, phone a C friend or two, take a nap, bathe, and maybe do some shopping before G returning -- sans drool -- to rinse.  The more, um, frothy among us are G slaves to our own hygene, destined to remain stationary at the bathroom H sink wallowing from our noses to our elbows in freely flowing toothpaste3 suds.  Just one of life's little oddities, I guess. G     Of course, the differences between people aren't nearly as puzzling @ as the veritable plethora of inconsistencies that are observablyH demonstrated by any given individual person.  Take, for example, the guyI (and most of us know at least one of this ilk) who daily spends hour upon I painstaking hour washing, drying, waxing, buffing, and vacuuming his car. H Yet this same guy, who by the light of the moon meticulously removes theF dead bugs from his grille using Palmolive and Q-tips, somehow fails toF completely towel off his entire face after shaving in the morning, andE thus can regularly be seen walking around with small residual gobs of H drying white foam caked behind his ears.  Some people just have odd setsG of priorities I suppose, or are the tiniest bit absent minded, which is F certainly fine by me as long as they aren't handling toxic wastes, for< example, or tactical nuclear weapons in my general vicinity.A     And speaking of priorities, according to my schedule I have a F bathroom break coming up in a few minutes, so I'd better wrap this up,C seeing how it seems to have turned into a column after all.  Here's H wishing you a summer free of sunburn and sand fleas, and filled with allD the fun and excitement you can endure.  And watch those between-meal snacks! I -------------------------------------------------------------------------    ,                              The AI Notebook,                              ===============<              by Johnathan R. Partington <JRP1@UK.AC.CAM.PHX>   8                 More Triumphs in Artificial Intelligence8                 -----------------------------------------                            by Charles Cabbage    I I related once how I managed to investigate the fundamental question "How G many beans make five?" by building intelligence into a tin of beans and 0 then asking it. But progress did not stop there.E    A.I. people talk of the "Fifth Generation" -- intelligent machines F that will be able to reason for themselves, leaving Man's mind free toI relax and listen to Bach without having to worry about things like Mathe- I matics, The Weather Forecast and Why the Drinks Machine is Always Broken. I    However most A.I. programs are in fact very stupid. If you ask them to H count sheep, 50% will produce an integer overflow in less than a minute,G 25% of them will fall asleep, and 25% will involve themselves so deeply E on the problem that they will begin to think that they themselves are H sheep, and print the message "BAA". Clearly modern A.I. research is pro- ceeding on the wrong lines. ?    Being totally unprejudiced in these matters, I tried two new  approaches. H    The first was to develop a program that would infallibly give irrele-I vant answers to questions. (This is the basis of Lateral Thinking.) Thus, G when asked "Do you like blancmange?" my program replied "I think Mozart H shows a surer grasp of symphonic techniques." Likewise, when asked "WhatI is wrong with the job scheduler on this computer?" it replied "It doesn't I smell as nice as dead mackerel." Unfortunately, owing to a bug in my pro- I gramming, the program would occasionally act in an intelligent manner: in C particular it told me that A.I. was a waste of time and that it had D decided to retire to Sussex and keep bees. It still sends me pots of honey occasionally. I    My second approach was to aim for Artificial Wisdom rather than Intel- I ligence. With the Japanese market in mind, I decided that using Zen might A be the easiest way of doing this.  A sample conversation follows.    3 Q: Oh computer, are you able to demonstrate Wisdom?    E A: <Displays a picture of a plastic cup being eaten by an alligator.>O  2% Q: Er, yes. How many beans make five?<  NE A: If you say that five beans make five, you deny their reality.  But=- nobody would say that six potatoes make five.    4 Q: Right on. Tell me, is Fermat's Last Theorem true?  AI A: If you answer Yes or No you lose your own Buddha-nature. So how do you  answer?-  -( Q: What is the sound of one cat napping?  - A: Mu.  -' Q: I see, I see. Will it rain tomorrow?-  -I However from then on my program refused to talk to me on the grounds that@? I had not yet attained Enlightenment. I reluctantly deleted it.@I -------------------------------------------------------------------------    I Did you hear about the guy who managed to write a CAD program that stored  each line in two bytes or less?   @' He managed to fit an edge in word-wise.@  @& -- Mike Burden <MWBURDEN@MTUS5.bitnet>I -------------------------------------------------------------------------    -                             Karl Takes A Fall -                             ================= >           (or Why People Have Two Of Everything Except Brains)&                                   by Q    PART ONE: Radish HeadnH    Karl was a nice young man with a radish for a head. This often causedH a problem for Karl, especially since he liked to frequent bars... "Why,"I cried the poor man, "why did Yerxa leave me for Ed Asner?"; this he would 3 say over and over aloud, although he knew no Yerxa.o  g PART TWO: The SabotageH    The two terrorists swam through the jell-o, each holding their knivesI between their teeth. Gigi, the quiet one, looked to Marybelle to see what-G he would do next... Marybelle, feeling Gigi's intense stare, turned and I cut her companion's head off. With a meaningful tone, he told the corpse:.* "In jell-o, No one can hear you scream..."   I PART TWO (I Didn't like the last one, so I'm gonna do another): Argentina I    Light dawned on Karl and his guide, a frisky little ferret named Phan-oH tasmagoric O'Malley.  Both squinting into the sun, they squinted.  PhantI had noticed that his companion had a radish head, but said nothing, since H Karl hadn't brought up his ferretness. "Looks like rain," said Karl, andG promptly vanished. Phantasmagoric squinted a little more, then ate some- acorns in an unconcerned way.-  - THE END: HadesD    Hades, the Greek god of death and indoor plumbing, waved his handG fiercely in front of his face. Karl stood meekly in front of him, real-TE izing that farting was not proper etiquette when in the presence of ao" higher power, and he felt ashamed.B    When the smell cleared, Hades looked down. "NO MORE FLATULENCE,H VEGGIEHEAD!" he sang out in a robust voice reminiscent of a cow in June.E "NOW- HOW'D YOU LIKE A JOB?".  Karl looked up and squinted. "As what,i your Plutoness?". H    "AS THE BOATMAN ON THE RIVER STYX!!!!", yelled the god, while staringI at a nearby cat. "KITTY! HERE KITTY!". The cat, who was named Rooooooooo,I5 glanced at the Underlord and then calmly walked away.m6    "Ummmm..", began Karl. "Ummmmm...", continued Karl.I "Uhhhhhhhhhhh...umm...  Uhhhhhhhhhhhh....", said Karl, who was on a roll.d "Isn't Charon the boatman?".G    Hades thought for a moment. "Ooops, my mistake!", he said, and waved-I his hand, causing Karl to vanish once more.  "SILLY POOFTA", he bellowed,B" then went back to playing Othello.  =: PART FOUR (so I lied, and that wasn't the end): The SaloonH    With a grimace, the old man zipped up his fly and jumped. When he hitB the sidewalk he tried to yell "Free Apples!", but he misjudged hisE velocity and made the attempt much too late. His remains sprayed out-eI wards, covering onlookers for hundreds of yards... none of them hit Karl, B though, because he isn't even in Part 4: The Saloon.  One of thoseF onlookers was Trenton D'Retrograde, famous pop star and South AmericanA dictator. Trenton felt the remains of the man hit him. "Osh kosh,o< b'gosh!" he yelled, and went off in search of Margot Kidder.  a' PART SIX: Hit Me With Your Rhythm StickuI    Karl carefully examined the egg. Yes, he was in Idaho all right...  nooI doubt about it. With a characteristic shrug, he approached the girl.  "HimG Honey," he said with a grin. She looked at him, smiled, and belched outrI the entire Greek alphabet. "But can you cook a damn fine casserole?" Karl G asked. "Are you kidding?", the girl replied. "I'm the best left fielderlI on the island!"  Noticing that she lived in the mud, Karl wondered if she " liked cheese as much as he did....  l PROLOGUE: CrackersF    Esmarillia stared at the baby. "It's got a tatoo!", she said to theI coat rack. The rack stood dead still, seemingly ignoring her.  EsmarilliayG glanced at the rack and frowned. "I said, It's got a tatoo." Still, theoF rack stood there, arms outstretched, motionless.  "It's of a blender,"E she said; still, no reaction whatsoever from the object.  "Why do youmG always ignore me???!?!?!", she screamed. "You never respond to a word Ia) say," she exclaimed, bursting into tears.eE    "Well maybe if you weren't such a silly bitch I'd pay attention toa you!"  said the coat rack.  o! PART SEVEN: The Truth About MabelhH    Karl thought. He thought some more. Then he turned on the dryer. With- some satisfaction, he noted that it worked...i    PART EIGHT: Rubles or Dollars?E    "Grendo moxie, haverstad nookums!", cried Comet, as he slid to theyF floor; from his back protruded Marybelle's knife.  The assassin staredG silently at the body, then bent down and removed two tickets to Blott'swE Phantasmagoric Circus out of Comet's wetsuit pocket.  With a grin, hel threw up in anticipation.u  r PROLOGUE: Happy!I    The wedding was a joyous one; George McGovern was best man. Karl gazed H adoringly at his new bride, Rooooooooo the cat; then night fell, and the world was at peace.-  -@         WATCH FOR STORY2:  The Return of the Two-Dollar HangoverI -------------------------------------------------------------------------P  i+                              Classified Ads +                              ============== F SWF, promiscuous, seeks part-time lover for short relationship to make  old boyfriend jealous.  Box 429.8                 ----------------------------------------G SWM, promiscuous, seeks part-time lover to make old girlfriend jealous.a Box 182.8                 ----------------------------------------L 91 Python files, very funny, 99.9% accurate, seek home with any python   verH lover who's got the disk space.  For a list of available files, write to/ The Virtual Python, c/o CLARINET@YALEVM.BITNET.tI -------------------------------------------------------------------------   A5                     The Amazing Adventures of Herbertc5                     =================================l*                               by Anonymous:               Submitted by Ishtar <23480853@WSUVM1.bitnet>  e*                                Episode II:2                        Another Victory for Herbert2                        ---------------------------  eE O great Lore Masters of the West, let me tell thee of a fateful tale.eI This tale begins many long years ago, when the trees were still young andeI the Republicans still had control of the Senate.  Once there was a Golden.G Racquet ball, and whomsoever possessed this thing had great powers over H beast and man.  This orb was kept in the great capital of Gloob, and itsG master's name was Herbert.  The people who dwelt in this fair land werecI happy and did not wont for any material things.  But there also did existaH a fearsome tribe that dwelt far to the East, in the dark land of Shmuck.F And the Shmucks did lust for the power of the Racquet ball, and so did= they contrive to take it away from the wise hands of Herbert.rG    Unfortunately, it was known to the Shmucks that Herbert had left thelI fair land of Gloob for a quest in the beer-laden town of Moscow.  And lo,tF during this time the Shmucks did scale the walls of the hallowed placeC the held the Racquet ball, and they did overwhelm the guards of thelF sacred order of the Racquet ball with a 3x5 glossy of Cal Worthington,% and they did make off with the booty.eF    And lo!  The land of Gloob turned to desolate wasteland and the fatG cattle did wither and die. It was a desperate scene indeed when HerbertuH returned with glory from Moscow.  But when Herbert did discover that theE Golden Racquet ball was pilfered, an army was raised immediately, andlF they did sail off towards the dark capitol of the Shmucks in the East.F    Seven months, fifteen days, four hours, ten minutes and thirty-nineE seconds was their voyage until they did set foot on the soil of their G enemy.  And when the ships were unloaded and the armies did armor them- D selves, Herbert did cry with a loud voice:  'Attack the Shmucks, andG bringeth back the women and the Golden Racquet ball to me!'  And so the G armies of the Gloobs did issue forth and they did lay siege on the cap-dB ital of the Shmucks, which has the foul name, K-Mart.  But lo, theI Shmucks did have control of the Racquet ball, and the Gloobs were slaugh--E tered by the thousands on the battle plain....  and they did wage war H upon each other for nine years.  And in the tenth year, Herbert did haveE a strange dream, and upon awakening, the Gloobish captain did plot toA outwit the Shmucks. H    Far away from the high towers of K-Mart did they labour to bring Her-C bert's plan to reality.  For weeks they did choppeth and saweth andyI maketh a general uproar.  And finally, the deed was done.  In a mist con-lH jured up by Herbert's magician, the Gloobs wheeled their construction upD to the very front gates of K-Mart, and they did leave it there unat-I tended.  And when the mist cleared, the Shmucks saw the great wonder, andlH they did think it was a gift from the great maker of the Blue-light Spe-E cials:  A great can of SPAM.  The Shmucks did take the can within theeF walls of their city, hoping for a feast in the morning, but during theG dead of night, the can of SPAM did open!  And lo!  Out came Herbert and D twenty other great Gloobish warriors! And they did slice throats andF cause a general disorder and wreak havoc.  And so the Racquet ball wasE reclaimed by Herbert, and once again did the Gloobs enjoy prosperity.g Here endeth the tale.rI -------------------------------------------------------------------------e  P;              Philosophers and Food: A Gustatorial Dialectici;              ==============================================eB        by Dan Pryor <89DAP@Williams> & Kyle Berman <TCKB000@TCSVM>  fH Scenario: Dan and Kyle are discussing the implications of Wittgenstein'sD little known addendum to his equally minor work "Poultry:  Being andG Knowledge," and more importantly, where to go for lunch.  Their reknownF@ in the philosophical world is surpassed only by their appetites.   G Dan: ...and moreover a peice of evidence that Nietzsche used to justifydG his belief in the non-existence of God was the fact that one can rarely!I find a quality taco counter outside certain towns in Southern California.e  tI Kyle: Your argument has merit, but I must disagree with you on the lattereE point.  If, as Nietzsche points out, God's existence is linked to thehH availability of a good taco, then one should be able to extrapolate fromG this that God's forgiveness of the People of Israel occured not in 1948kI with the founding of the Jewish State, but in the early seventies contig-LE uous with the widespread acceptence of the Taco Bell* chain, which isFE obviously not true.  It is a well documented fact that few Taco Bell*, patrons are divinely inspired.  jG Dan:  Ah, you are falling into the fallacy of excessive generalization.mH Nietzsche also emphasized the necessity of considering the opposite in aI duality.  Here I would posit that the dichotomy is Mexican versus Chinese 0 food, equating the latter with the underworld...  TI Kyle:  Are you saying then that this applies to all Chinese food, or justa the joint around the corner?  rE Dan:  Well, mostly to the FINE RESTAURANT in that location.  As I waslH saying, however, Sartre once declared that "Hell is other people."  Par-I aphrasing this, I believe that one could more clearly state that "Hell isaH Chinese food that has been left on a radiator for over a week, particur-I ally moo goo gai pan and sweet and sour chicken."  Although the heartburn D I got after eating at Nietzsche's favorite taco counter, Uber-tacos,! wasn't all that pleasant, either.    G Kyle:  When one attempts to follow this argument to any sort of conclu- B sion, however, one can easily see that the logic of this so-calledE "Taco-God" proposition is circular in nature, and thus unprovable anddI worthless (as is Nietzsche following his periodic taco binges).  One mustoD turn to another source to learn anything useful, for instance, whereC should one have lunch, Cooter Brown's, Mama Rosa's, or one of thosee& cheesy Greek places on Decatur Street?  fI Dan:  Ah, but when discussing the merit of Greek cuisine, one cannot neg-yH lect Aristotle's famous treatise, Gustatoria.  In this work can be foundI his famous claim that all food is composed of the four essences, baklava, H ouzo, feta cheese, and olive oil, as well as lots of cheap red wine, the
 quintessence.V   G Kyle:  Aristotle was very primitive in this respect. This mixture wouldrH unfortunately, although very obviously, turn out to be quite watery (notF unlike the food served at the Akroplis restaurant), thus necessitatingI the cristalline hemispheres that he spoke of.  These hemispheres were, ofsI course, the ancient Greek equivalent of modern Tupperware*.  Now Plato onvG the other hand,  advocated the use of the tri-partite chef, the "Short-p/ Order-," the  "Prep-," and the "Master-Chef..."n   I Dan:  But did he not also specify that one of these "parts" must be namedb Luigi, and another, Francois?   hG Kyle:  Yes, but ONLY when the restaurant name appears in cursive Greek;pH otherwise the trio may call themselves anything beginning with the GreekG letters Rho or Beta.  Plato, in fact, first got his name for advocating-B the use of flat communal plates.  It was originally "Plate," laterH changed to "Plato," after he introduced the extremely successful "Plate-. O-Goat" at his small suburban Athenian bistro.  uD Dan:  Your argument does not, however, include Plato's notion of theH "Ideal Food."  Unimaginable, this "Ideal Food" (which his friends famil-H iarly shortened to I.F.) would underly everthing cooked, at least in theH Pelopenesus and some of the shabbier areas of Crete.  This, to me, seemsI to parallel very closely the "Beef Wellington," although this latter foodhD was very difficult to find in the fancier Athenian restaurants.  TheG "Beef Wellington" is, even after numerous explanations and a friend who F choked on a serving of it, impossible for me to visualize corporeally.  =G Kyle:  I concur most heartily, and apologise for the oversight.  Yet, I I feel as though I once had a more complete view of Plato's I.F.  (although F his family has guarded the recipe closely for many centuries); his ownE theories, however, state that the rigors of the flesh make one forgetMH such important matters.  In my case I have had ample such rigors, mostlyH Steak Tartar at Arnaud's, a fine establishment if I may say so, one that. is more than adequate for our noontime repast.  aI Dan:  In his book "Le Etranger Gros," Camus wrote several lines which aresH appropriate to the subject at hand:  "Je veux manger.  Donne moi quelqueG chose a manger ou je te tuerai," which translates roughly as "I want tod3 eat.  Give me something to eat or I will kill you."s  BG Kyle:  Of course, this was meant in a purely complimentary manner.  Our I present predicament, then, can be summarized as "how shall we get to someqH food" or let Mohammed go wherever he pleases.  I have read in the Qu'ranF that he was particularly fond of pepperoni and onion pizza.  Shall we,' then, make Godfather's our destination?e  iG Dan:  As Hobbes once said in a fit of despondency, "hmm, sounds good tod me."  tE Our erstwhile philosophers have departed, with great relish, and some H mustard on the side.  They are later arrested for quoting Marx in a vain, attempt to avoid payment of the $9.35 check.I -------------------------------------------------------------------------e  d*                               Three Squaws*                               ============  uI Three squaws were each preparing for the birth of their first child.  ThenH first squaw placed a large bear hide by a river, the second squaw placed> an elk hide by a tree by a river, and the third squaw placed aD hippopotamus hide by a path, near the river and the tree so that the three formed a triangle.F    It just so happens that all three women gave birth on the same day.H The first squaw on the bear hide had a 5-lb son, the second squaw on theI elk hide had a 6-lb son, and the third squaw on the hippopotamus hide hadh
 an 11-lb son.tF    To this day, mathematicians credit these three women with the first! proof of the Pythagorean Theorem:o  hA    "The son of the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sonsi-     of the squaws of the two adjacent hides."oI -------------------------------------------------------------------------d. Issue023, (Volume VI, Number III).  May, 1988.