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Extreme Utility Of Caffeine, The (SemiReal)Caffeine And Coffee, The Driving Forces Of History
Date: 1998/09/17 Agree? Disagree? : Have Your Say Buy Books About This Topic At: Amazon UK Amazon US Send This Article To A Friend: Email It Use Telepathy There is a story that is both human and enlightening (two terms which usually don't go together) that was related to me by the most incompetent man I ever knew. This man has, with the regularity of a grandfather clock, failed at everything he ever did. It is my personal opinion that, since he was so incompetent at everything, he couldn't possibly have forged it [1]. It took place at an unknown university, where students toil hard and party loudly. One day, in an old computer lab (at the time when there were punched cards, and a lot more punch at programmer parties), there was a problem. The problem was this: the lab helpers were overworked. It turned out that there were four times more people asking for help than two weeks before! A lot of these new demands were for beginner problems ("Can I punch a card with this screwdriver?", "How come the holes on my cards always make the number 42?", "Who is this General Failure and why is he reading my program?", and such). So the administrators, always eager to fiddle with some problem or another, decided to find out what was the problem. After blaming it on solar flares (co-excuse of the week with "static interference from rulers"), they gave up on trying to understand the whole mess and made a lot of nice simulations, statistical derivation analysis reports, and structural redesign comparative modules, to see whenever it would be more efficient to get another helper. After having concluded that, all and all, a new helper would cost more than $600,000, they decided instead to spend it all on nice new furniture made out of deer skin. What they failed to take in consideration is the human factor. Most of us, especially directors who prefer to concentrate on nice furniture or on drinking heavily than on real problems, consider humans as beings acting in a somewhat random and thus negligible manner [2]. This is, as most assumptions are, absolutely false. So why did they have so many people asking for help, you wonder? Actually, the problem was simple, so simple that no one could see it. The coffee maker wasn't there anymore. "What?!" you cry out. "What does a coffee maker has to do with all this?" The precise situation is: imagine that you are a programmer who enters the room to get your print-outs. Also imagine that they have not arrived. The employee tells you your program will finish executing "any second now". What do you do? Take a good coffee, of course. Now imagine a newbie comes in and reads his print-out, and screams out of agony because his program is utter crap. What would a good, generous person like you do? Why, help him, of course. Which means that he wouldn't have to go ask the helper about it (you already found the bug and the way to patch it up), and you straightened out his marriage, gave him three hours of advice on his mutual funds, and a great, fresh, new outlook on life. With no more coffee machine, no one stays around to wait for print-outs, hence no one helps anyone anymore! In two weeks, you get a major problem on your hands. All of this because one obtuse, completely unknown department head, in his infinite wisdom, decides to circumvent natural coffee machine migration patterns, and moves them all somewhere else. The moral of this anecdotal, completely meaningless event is twofold. First of all, bureaucracy always prevails. Secondly, and most importantly, caffeine is the driving force of civilization. How is that, you ask me? All of recent human history was sustained by coffee. Incredible but true. Consider the evidence. The Caffeine ConnectionBy the seventeenth century, coffee was widespread in Europe. Coffee houses sprung up everywhere (they did take some time coming back down, but no one minded). They would play a tremendous role in the gathering of poets, artists, and philosophers of the Age of Reason. Where was coffee most popular? In England, of course, where the industrial revolution later started. Coincidence? I think not. Furthermore, coffee had an early strong influence on the United States. It was in coffee houses that the Revolutionaries met and planned the Boston Tea Party. In these was given the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. After meetings in coffee houses, the first Continental Congress was born. In short, coffee has been the omnipresent American symbol of freedom and justice. Coincidence ? I really think not. Mark Cohen's great book, The progression from Barbarism to Cultural Heights (As Exemplified In Porky 1 to 5), also correctly identifies the driving force of civilization as coffee and other caffeine products. Some scientists have also briefly theorized that coffee could prevent suicides. It is not certain exactly how they could say that, since they immediately afterwards decided to attempt their next scientific experiment, which had something to do with defenestration and the statistical probability of catching a robot with a towel in mid-air. Of course, our modern world could not stay afloat without coffee. Coffee, as a world commodity, is second only to oil. We all know how our organisms have adapted to it and gained new levels of efficiency. We all know great geniuses and explorers who drink coffee to sustain their energy levels [3]. In the future, new sources of energy will permit us to make more and better coffee. Nebulas can be harnessed to dispense some more hmm-hmm caffeine goodness. Futurists have also theorized that our blood will gradually be replaced by caffeine, thus circumventing all the long making-drinking-assimilating processes. Of course these same guys also said that males will grow a beer thumb, so it is not advised to listen too hard to futurists.
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