We need a little humor. I originally posted the following to the comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html newsgroup years ago. Why? because like I said in another thread that newsgroup is run by a bunch of up tight losers that pretent to be "expert" at HTML authoring. I conied the phrase "purist" to describe them. It stuck and they hated me for it. LOL!
One day the discussion was getting heavy on their favorite topic, demanding all web authors confirm to strict standards and specs so no matter how cheesy a browser you use anyone would be able to see the web page.
I and others took exception to that narrow thinking and what follows was the following satire I authored.
Enjoy.
It was a rough week. Mr. Purist got harpooned repeatedly in his favorite newsgroup. Being in a particularly bad mood from the beating he took, he started yelling at his wife, who obviously wears the pants in the family and didn't take that kind of crap for a second and promptly directed Mr. Purist to go sleep on the cot in the den.
After a restless night dreaming of W3C standards and waking up in a cold sweat because of the same recurring nightmere were Billy G. kept saying "Where do you want to go today?" Falling on the floor with a loud thud he decided he may as well get up in spite of the fact it was
only 6 AM on Saturday morning. To get out of the dog house, he decided to do the grocery shopping. This would be a new adventure since he hadn't seen the inside of a supermarket for well over a decade, since of course he's much too
important to bother with such everyday things.
Pulling into the parking lot of the supermarket, he noticed right away that if they would redo the parking stripes, more cars could fit in the 500 car lot. He pulled out his notepad that's always present and noted the non-standard distance of the parking spaces. Width too wide by half inch he wrote. Mumbling too himself about such inefficiency
he failed to notice his right side of his car was extending several inches into the next parking place. A rather plump lady pulled in alongside, and in getting out, her door lightly touched Mr. Purist's car. He squealed, watch what you're doing. She said, sir, you're way over the line and this was the last spot! Mr. Purist retorted the parking stripes are off. I parked according to where they should have been, instead of where they are, so I parked correctly, you didn't.
Hurrying into the store, Mr. Purist heard music. It wasn't music he liked. In fact, Mr. Purist doesn't like any music. He demanded they turn it off. Grabbing a shopping cart, he headed down the first isle. Spotting a large display of apples he saw the two he wanted near the bottom of
the pyramid display. All the apples were about the same, but a couple had a yellow blush. Mr. Purist liked apples with that trait. Most of the other two hundred apples fell on the floor and rolled down the isle. Mr. Purist protested that the apples were displayed in a non-standard way and not according to specs. So, just because he reached at the bottom of the pile it wasn't his fault the rest of the
apples got bruised. Mr. Purist looked at the bananas. They were mostly green. That bothered Mr. Purist because he liked very ripe bananas, never mind hardly anyone else does. Mr. Purist wants what he wants, because it suits him. What the rest of the world likes and accepts as standard means nothing to Mr. Purist, if he likes something different even if he's a tiny minority he thinks that's the
way things should be.
After managing to put a few items in his cart without further problems, Mr. Purist stopped at the delicatessen counter and took a number. He got double zero. Mr. Purist said there is no such number and made another note reminding himself to fire offer a letter protesting to the store's headquarters. While waiting for his number to be called, he picked out a loaf of bread. Finally his number came up and he ordered half a pound of ham. Mr. Purist said make it 1/64th of an inch per slice. The clerk said, what? You can have your ham thin, regular or thick, that's it. Hearing audible laughter, he took it regular. Inspecting the package, he protested, this ham is rectangular in shape and I'm having it on this round bread so it's not up to specs, you need to cut off the excess and then weigh it again. The delicatessen clerk threw the ham hitting Mr. Purist on the right side of his head. He got the message and moved to the hot dog section.
Having his ever present tape measure in his pocket he quickly noted every hot dog he measured was at least an inch shorter then the buns. Not wanting to cause another scene, he decided to try hamburgers. He found the beef patties were square and looked too big for the round
buns, but he took them anyway.
Mr. Purist had several more misadventures stumbling his way through the rest of the store and two hours later did manage to put 20 items in his cart. Already running very late, he headed for the 10 item or less checkout. The store was busy, the line long. The couple in front were loudly talking about installing version 4 of Netscape that
afternoon. Mr. Purist tapped the man on the shoulder and said Netscape is crap demanding they instead use Opera. The man said, what makes you think you get to tell me not to use Netscape? Where I work they have hundreds of copies of Netscape, I like it, why can't I use it at home?
Mr. Purist said nothing further, since Mr. Purist is a puny little runt and way out of shape and the other guy looked like a double to Hunk Hogan. The woman behind Mr. Purist expressed her displeasure for him horning in on the wrong line and forcing her to wait. Mr. Purist babbled something about his items really just adding up to less than 10 because he grouped them according to food groups which of course is the correct way to count. While waiting he pulled out his notepad which was now was full with things that were non-standard and not up to specs in the store. The lady shoved her cart into Mr. Purist's heels as she yelled you odd ball! Causing his fifth commotion, the store
manager had enough, threw Mr. Purist's items in a bag, grabbed him by the shoulders pushing him out the door and loudly saying don't come back.
Walking to the parking lot, he noticed a cop writing a ticket as the tow truck was just backing up to Mr. Purist's car. Of course Mr. Purist protested, but the cop didn't buy the parking stripes to wide excuse for parking in a handicap only parking space.
It was a long walk home and after four miles the ice cream was mostly melted which caused the bag to break which caused some of the ground beef to fall out the bag which did not go unnoticed to the big hungry dog who had been following Mr. Purist for the last couple blocks. After running for a mile, being badly out of breath from spending way too much time sitting in front of his computer, Mr. Purist decided the dog could have what was left of the ground beef...in fact he let the dog have all the groceries. Two blocks later, Mr. Purist was turning
the corner where he found Mrs. Purist waiting in the doorway with her arms folded, tapping her foot, since she was already thirty minutes late for her weekly beauty parlor visit. What happened to you and where's the car she asked? Mr. Purist started to explain, but didn't get very far. Well, that cot isn't that lumpy and it's in the same room as Mr. Purist's home PC, so about now he's probably almost ready to logon and dispense some more "expert" advice I guess. That is after he emails the grocery store, attaching his strongly worded demand for bringing the store up to specs and standards. I mean come on, rectangular ham, round bread, short hot dogs and such, what kind of a grocery store was it? Certainly not one that matched Mr. Purist's idea of how a grocery store should be which
probably explains why he thinks we don't get his distorted view of how HTML should be to please him.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: speedy on 2002-01-09 21:10:41 ]</font>
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: speedy on 2002-01-09 21:13:24 ]</font>
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LOL
Nice narrative!
I always did wonder where the 'car parking spaces' fitted into it all.
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Of course there had to be a follow up... how purists change a light blub. So back in 1997 I also wrote:
Question: How many Purists does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Way too many.
Ladder:
One to get it.
One to check that the wood has no splinters.
One to see that the fastners are tight.
One to measure the ladder to see if it's within specs.
One to see if it is really a six foot ladder.
One to see if the steps are really a foot apart.
One to moan the ladder is two millimeters too long.
One to moan the first two steps are three millimeters too close.
One to moan one fastner was loose.
One to moan the wood had paint splattered on it.
Light Bulb:
One to check the standards to see which end is up.
One to moan the bulb should not have burned out yet.
One to moan the bulb produced 102 watts. Non standard.
One to moan the bulb broke when he dropped it.
One to moan light bulbs shouldn't break.
General:
Purists are incapable of making a decision by themselves. They do everything by committee, read one stuffy document after the other or engage in their favorite pastime, arguing in CIWAH. So it's not surprising no light bulb could be changed without detailed instructions. They were simply clueless. As a first step, Alan, Ben, and Abigail were assigned to do research.
The battle raged on. While many posted suggestions simply saying climb up on the ladder and screw the damn thing in, that wasn't good enough for our purists. Many felt that was much too risky. For that required that you twist your wrist, and since purists spend so much time banging away on their keyboards "helping" everyone with their witty replies,
they were afraid that twisting their wrist would make their carpal tunnel syndrome worse, so they had to find another way.
After much "is too" "is not" a 45 page document called Light Bulb Changing Draft One was produced in record time: Nine months, 2 weeks,six days.
What followed was two weeks of bickering back and forth who would have the honor of hosting the light bulb how-to instructions on their site. Others hotly debated what
to do in the meantime. There was much discussion on the merits of using flashlights, candles or starting a fire. Not getting a consensus, which is typical, they decided to stay in the dark.
Finally the great day came. The decision was made. Draft Two of the light bulb how-to instructions was approved and the purists knew the correct way to install a light bulb. The now 62 pages of instructions specified the only way to
do it correctly was with four purists.
Here's how it went:
The first purist wearing a safety harness carefully climbed the ladder as the other three held it steady. Firmly holding the light bulb in his right hand, his heart pounding, the first purist broke out in a cold sweat. The old bulb was still in the socket! Rifling through Draft Two of the light bulb how-to instructions he felt dizzy. Try has he might, there were no instructions for removing the old bulb and he was stumped.
Six weeks later, Draft 3 of the light bulb how-to instructions now a 100 page document was ready.
Our four purists beaming with pride tried again. The first purist climbed up high. In thirty minutes time the old bulb was removed.
Now the moment of truth. The other three slowly turned the ladder in a clockwise direction as purist one stiffly held out a new bulb. After several clumsy attempts and many broken bulbs, success! Purist one had to remind the other three purists that they could stop turning the ladder. After first checking the light bulb how-to instructions and only two hours of debate to see if that was proper, they agreed it was probably the best thing to do.
Purist two flipped the switch. Nothing happened. Purist three always a little suspect of the other purists abilities, had enough, and with the light bulb how-to instructions in hand, he climbed the ladder. After standing there, thinking he spotted something on page 88, he concluded that indeed purist one had not installed the light bulb correctly.
After only ten minutes of intense trying, he did manage to almost free it from it's socket. However purist three didn't know there was a typo on page 92 of the light bulb how-to instructions that said to remove light bulb, turn clockwise instead of the correct counterclockwise. Purist three of course being a uptight stickler for ffollowing the light bulb how-to instructions religiously as all good purists do everywhere, he never questioned the accuracry of the instructions and stubbornly kept twisting the bulb clockwise in his effort to remove it until he broke the bulb and left half the bulb in the socket. Dejected, he climbed down the ladder mumbling to himself.
Several says later someone in the newsgroup suggested they use a potato to safely remove the broken bulb. That advice was rejected immediately and many yelled at those offering the advice and pointed out time and time again that potatoes had nothing to do with light bulbs and there was no such specs in their light bulb how-to instructions.
Meanwhile purist two went back on his own and remembering reading something about pliers, he figured he could interface with the bulb. He could not find the already checked out wooden ladder so he found a aluminum ladder instead. He climbed up and as soon as the pliers touched
the socket, (nothing in the how-to to first turn off the electricity, purist two felt a tingling go through his body as he yanked his arm in a jerk he pulled on the extension cord which was badly frayed and since such things were not covered in the light bulb how-to instructions either it was tragic that he also pulled the exposed bare wire into the puddle of water that one leg of the ladder was standing in. He shook and shook and after what seemed for minutes he grabbed for the only thing he could, his copy of
the light bulb how-to instructions. Sadly in doing so he lost his balance and fell head first
landing on the cement floor.
Sorry, this tale has a sad ending. Purist two has gone to that great newsgroup in the great beyond. The battle is still raging if or not it would be proper to add pages to the light bulb how-to instructions warning about electrical shock and some think maybe a footnote should be included about potatoes. Some things never change and our purist friends are still in the dark.
Geez I hope I don't have to explain this story! ;o)
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LMAO. I bet you went down a treat with the self appointed HTML guru's on that newsgroup.
I remember reading one guy's reply about the parking spaces analogy, he said he would just drive his monster truck over the other cars or something didnt he?
Some people at CIWAH do sound a bit hard assed, probably uber W3C zealots I would guess. As I do a bit of web authoring myself, you dont need to explain any of these analogies. In fact, lets hear some more war stories from CIWAH, LOL.
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Hey speedy,
do you ever grace Slashdot?
I bet they would love your views of Microsoft!
LOL
I know it is a "nerd" site, but you are a nerd really - they have a place to discuss GIMP!
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: d4n13l on 2002-01-10 14:47:13 ]</font> -
Never been to Slashdot either. I haven't really shared my views on Microsoft. I just tend to defend them when some loud mouth wannabe no nothing types bash them because they're too stupid to know any better.
I wonder if a certain Jewish 'CPT' even knows who guys like Captain Crunch, Morris, Mitnick or the 'Woz" were or what a blue box is or why you call someone a phreaker.
Recent TV show brought back memories to see Bill Gates in a suit with shoulder length hair. Did you know originally he used to spell Microsoft as micro-soft? I had forgot in the very early days, long before anyone ever head of Bill Gates he was hated by what became a famous "hacker" club in California that included one of the co founders of Apple and PET and also why most losers, oops hackers today still despise Microsoft and Microsoft's success in only part of the reason.
The 70's were fun. What would in time become to be known as computer nerds were just groping their way aound the inner working of the AT&T phone networks and one of the first stories about this sub culture was exposed in of all places the October 1971 issue of Esquire Magazine. Weird. Not exactly what you would call a technical journal.
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Hehe, I am browsing slashdot.org now, I recommend that *you* do NOT decide to visit them. They are a bunch of hard assed Linuxers thats for sure, LOL. Clue as to how hard lined they are - A subtle topic title of "Kernel 2.4.17" gets 350 replies. The site is also rife with trolls.
I know all about blue (red, beige and the rest) boxes AND what phreakers are. I presume by "morris" you mean the "programmer" Robert Tappen Morris? The guy who set free the "morris worm"? But that was like in 1987 (or 88... whatever) - Same morris as you meant?
I would have been a nerd too if I lived 'back in the day', I just stick to plain old hacking nowadays (sorry, 'losing' as you call it - ROTF...) - phreaking days were too early for me, but I know my nerd history. I would have loved to been a nerd in the 70's, loads going on for nerds then.
PS
I also read Esquire, hehe, uncanny...
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: d4n13l on 2002-01-10 17:02:17 ]</font> -
...and just for the record I am not an all out M$ basher.
True I may have said some, well, stupid things M$ related, but that was in the interests of lively banter as I am sure you know. Despise is too strong a word for what I think of M$ - My views probably fall in line with your average online Joe (But I still say 9x stinks!!! LOL). I could go on for pages about the good that M$ has done ( :-O ), but I fear I would get shot down in flames. Besides, explaining COM, OS integration and the like, doesnt interest people.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: d4n13l on 2002-01-10 17:06:07 ]</font> -
Duh...d4n13l, I didn't say YOU were a Microsoft basher. You know to whom I was referring. ROTFLMAO!!!
Linux loosers (I'm not saying you're one of those either) tend to be even more passionate than Mac maniacs in defense of their favorite operating system. Once I made a less than flatering comment about one of the shortcomings of LINUX in CIWAH and for weeks I was getting hate mail from all over the planet trying to "educate" me on the wonders of Linux.
Yep, that Morris. -
"Duh...d4n13l, I didn't say YOU were a Microsoft basher. You know to whom I was referring. ROTFLMAO!!! "
Duh...speedy, I know full well who you were referring to! I was just setting the record straight, you know, just in case: That XP thread didnt do my views justice LOL.
You can always spot a zealot, as they will ALWAYS compare the advantages of what they prefer to the disadvantages of what they dont.
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Geez... I am browsing slashdot's Linux section and it seems not even Linux users themselves are safe from the Linux zealots! I cannot believe this - Mandrake and Red Hat users even get ripped to pieces by some ranting hard-liner's. It seems with no Windozers to flame, they begin to fight amongst themselves. Hilarious.
To quote,
<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
Red Hat and the like are killing Linux.
i can't use distros like Red Hat or Mandrake these days. they've added so much bloat in the last couple of years that they've removed many of the reasons i fell in love with UNIX in the first place. simplicity has given way to making a desperate attempt at jumping into the desktop market (which is currently estimated at 1%... way to go).
if i wanted 2.6G of eye candy on my hard drive, infesting my core memory and gobbling up CPU time, i'd just install Windows XP. i'm glad there are still distros which value a small footprint.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
NB
*I guess this Linux "guru" has yet to learn how not to do a full install, LOL.*
Here is one reply to that post. (Some squabbling went on for a while between the two. The original guy said he liked a striped-down debian)
<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
First you talk about how "bloated" Red Hat and Mandrake is, and then you talk about a "stripped-down Debian"?! Huh? If RH/Mandrake is bloated with its 2 discs, Debian is the king of walruses with its 4 discs! You can easily do the same thing with Mandrake (strip it down, I mean), and you don't have to wade through 10,000 packages for 4 hours.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
I would quote one of the other guys that replied, he ripped the dude a new ******* (like a few others that replied), but his post was too long.
Anyways, this guy had something short but to the point.
<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
Huh? If you don't want package X, then don't install it. I don't use Mandrake, but I doubt it forces you to install much of anything. I do use RH, and it certainly doesn't. UNIX was never about simplicity -- it was about flexibility and power.
Any distro that I know of can have a small footprint. Yes, the default four presets on RH install quite a lot of stuff -- but if you're the type that likes using a stripped down install, then you know exactly what you want, and you shouldn't be afraid of telling the installer which packages you want.
Finally, what the hell is "infesting my core memory" supposed to mean?
There are people out there that use Slackware for legitimate reasons, but there are a bunch who do so solely so that they can come on Slashdot and say "I'm badass, I use Slackware". To the rest of us, they come off as idiots who totally lack decent package management and who can't do a single thing more than we can.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
I couldnt have put it better myself.
I have been reading articles on this site for most of the night, they are so addictive and funny. I have been here in a while and now I cant leave the damn place, nerd heaven.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: d4n13l on 2002-01-10 19:00:51 ]</font> -
Here's a funny experience I had with Linux about a year ago. I picked up a copy of SuSE because looking on the box it seemed to have the best collecton of software. So I get it home, and as soon as I open the box out pops this little yellow piece of paper that says basically 'warning, we discovered a bug in our new install program.'
Right away I'm pissed because one of the reasons I bought SuSE was it claimed to have the "best" Linux install program. I had had just tried RedHad and hated their DOS like install program.
So, OK, I install with their older install program which had a clumsy DOS like interface, no fancy GUI. Now keep in mind I bought the deluxe version... the one with 7, 8, 9, 11 CD's of goodies. I forget how many, lots. So I'm playing the insert this CD, then the next, go back put this one in again and so on, but making progress or so I thought selecting which programs to install from what seemed like an endless list as a early step. So about an hour into loading all this crap I get to the point where I pop in the next CD and guess what... it was all in German! So about 85% into installing and this stupid software it won't tell me a thing in English anymore. The kicker is I AM OF GERMAN DESCENT but I and my parents were born in the USA and only speak English so I can only guess at half the words. Anyhow, never did get it installed. -
ROTFLMAO.
Tell me about it. First install I did, Redhat.
First thoughts were OK, I didnt mind a DOS like install, I could get my head around the partitioning etc... all fine until configuring my video card. It would try to probe for my card, then a semi GUI would appear that just hung! LOL. After a quick visit to Red Hat's site and then XFree86's site I discovered my AGP card wasnt supported. Great.
I ended up hacking my way through the install and finally managing to have myself a fully functional Linux system up and running... with no GUI, just a command line. I got Linux in it's pure and unadulterated form from the outset, *yippee*. Stuck with a multiboot system that half worked, I just played around in the shell learning command line stuff and that was about it. I managed to get some C programming done, but nothing much else. It wasnt all bad, I learned quite a lot about Linux before I even installed a GUI for it. I am actually quite glad I didnt get a GUI from day 1 as it forced me to learn the basics right away (as opposed to installing the full system and just playing games). A few months later I got lucky with a free copy of Mandrake that I got off a magazine, Xfree86 finally supported my graphics chipset! Since then it has mostly been GUI stuff. I just could believe the difference between Mandrake's install process and Red Hat's (Red Hat was only a few months older), Mandrake to me was as easy as windows.
And as for those distro's which give you upwards of 2 CDs, LOL. What I now think is easier, is to download the latest kernel and X windows etc, basically the bare minimum for a GUI system, I just add what I need from there. I mean how many text editors do you really need installed at once, on the same system? To tell you the truth, I havent ever even looked on what is on the vast majority of the Linux CDs that I have that say anything other than CD1 or Install CD. CD2 and the rest can be used as coffee coasters as far as I am concerned.
Oh, and if you think Linux is hard to install from a DOS like interface, try installing a flavour of BSD. Now that must be the hardest thing that I have ever installed in my life. Not for the faint hearted.
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