Wisdom (circa 1999)
Obsessions
The Battle of Good versus Evil in the PC Age
Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on his computer. They had been going at it for days. Finally they agreed to set up a test that would run two hours and then judge who does the better job."So down Satan and Jesus sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They sent faxes. They sent e-mail. They sent out e-mail with attachments. They downloaded. They did some genealogy reports. They made cards. They did every known job.
About ten minutes before their time was up, lightning flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, the rain poured, and, of course, the electricity went off. Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed.
The electricity finally flickered back on, and each of them rebooted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming "It's gone! It's all gone! I lost everything when the power went out!"
Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours.
Satan observed this and became very irate: "Wait! You must have cheated! How did you do that?"
Jesus smiled and said: "Jesus saves."
Haiku
A crash reduces your expensive computer to a simple stone.
First snow, then silence. This thousand dollar screen dies so beautifully.
The Tao that is seen is not the true Tao, until You bring fresh toner
A file that big? It might be very useful. But now it is gone.
With searching comes loss and the presence of absence: "My novel" not found.
Rather than a beep, A stillness over all things, Only these words: "File not found."
Having been erased, The document you're seeking Must now be retyped.
You step in the stream, but the water has moved on. This page is not here.
Yesterday it worked. Today it is not working. Windows is like that.
Seeing my great fault Through darkening blue windows I begin again.
Aborted effort. Close all that you have. You ask far too much.
Serious error. All shortcuts have disappeared. Screen. Mind. Both are blank
Windows NT crashed. I am the Blue Screen of Death. No one hears your screams.
Chaos reigns within Reflect, repent, and reboot. Order shall return.
The ten thousand things How long do any persist? Netscape, too, has gone.
Stay the patient course. Of little worth is your ire. The network is down.
Errors have occurred. We won't tell you where or why. Lazy programmers.
The Web site you seek cannot be located. But endless others exist.
To have no errors Would be life without meaning No struggle, no joy
Out of memory. We wish to hold the whole sky, But we never will.
Cartoon Physics
It has been argued that most of the great strides in theoretical physics had already been made as the twentieth century comes to a close. Yet, a neglected area of study are the physics governing behavior in cartoon land. Below is a codification of some of the physical regularities governing that universe.
Cartoon Law I
Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.Example: Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second squared takes over.
Cartoon Law II
Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly.Comment: Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsize boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination of motion the stooge's surcease.
Cartoon Law III
Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter.Comment: Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the specialty of victims of directed-pressure explosions and of reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout-perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction
Cartoon Law IV
The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken.Comment: Such an object is inevitably priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful.
Cartoon Law V
Gravity is negated by fear.Comment: Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the earth's surface. A spooky noise or an adversary's signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a character who is running or the wheels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, especially when in flight.
Cartoon Law VI
The number of locations an object can occupy at any point in time is increasing in that object's velocity.Discussion: This is particularly true of tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character's head may be glimpsed emerging from the cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies that are spinning or being throttled. A `wacky' character has the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required.
Unexplained Stylized Fact
Certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot.Discussion: This trompe l'oeil inconsistency has baffled generations. A corollary to this fact is that whoever paints an entrance on a wall's surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. I
Cartoon Law VII
A cat will assume the shape of its container.Cartoon Law VIII
Everything falls faster than an anvil.Cartoon Law IX
A sharp object will always propel a character upward.Discussion: When poked (usually in the buttocks) with a sharp object (usually a pin), a character will defy gravity by shooting straight up, with great velocity.
Cartoon Law X
The laws of object permanence are nullified for "cool" characters.Discussion: Dynamite is spontaneously generated in "C-spaces" (spaces in which cartoon laws hold). The process is analogous to steady-state theories of the universe which postulated that the tensions involved in maintaining a space would cause the creation of hydrogen from nothing. Dynamite quanta are quite large (stick sized) and unstable (lit). Such quanta are attracted to psychic forces generated by feelings of distress in "cool" characters
Example: The Road Runner can materialize signs to express himself without speaking.
Cartoon Law XI
Explosive weapons cannot cause fatal injuries. They merely turn characters temporarily black and smoky.Cartoon Law XI
Gravity is transmitted by slow-moving waves of large wavelengths.Discussion: This operation can be witnessed by observing the behavior of a canine suspended over a large vertical drop. Its feet will begin to fall first causing its legs to stretch. As the wave reaches its torso, that part will begin to fall, causing the neck to stretch. As the head begins to fall, tension is released and the canine will resume its regular proportions until such time as it strikes the ground.
Proverbs
Traditional proverbs made relevant for modern living. All written by first-graders.